🪦 HAL THINKS: “Red Tape from the Grave – The Pension Tax That Won’t Die Quietly”

Based on original reporting by George Nixon in The Times

Published: July 22, 2025

❌ Another Day, Another Broken Promise?

You may have thought pensions were safe from inheritance tax. After all, for years they were the one “untouchable” asset—sacrosanct, protected, and wrapped in enough tax wrappers to choke a mid-level actuary.

But from April 2027, that all changes. The Treasury has found a new revenue source, and surprise: it’s your retirement. Specifically, the bit of it you don’t spend before you die.

💷 The Policy in Brief (and in Brutal)

Here’s the government’s new trick:

• All pensions (except death-in-service benefits) will be dragged into inheritance tax (IHT) calculations from April 2027.

• £1.46 billion/year will be raised from grieving families by 2030.

• 10,500 estates will be caught in Year One.

• 40% tax will apply to the value of pension pots above existing allowances (£325k standard, £500k with property band).

• Responsibility lies with personal representatives, not pension schemes—meaning your widow now gets to play IFA, tax adviser, and HMRC negotiator during the most emotional chapter of her life.

👻 Ghost Admin: The Bureaucracy of Death

The devil isn’t just in the detail—it’s in the admin:

“Life is tough enough when you’ve just lost a loved one, without having extra layers of bureaucracy on top.”

— Sir Steve Webb, former Pensions Minister

To comply, bereaved families must:

1. Track down every pension the deceased ever had.

2. Contact each provider, who may or may not respond before the heat death of the universe.

3. Collate the values, input them into HMRC’s online calculator, and

4. Pay the IHT bill within six months—or face interest charges and penalties.

And if they can’t? That’s not HMRC’s problem.

🧨 The Real Agenda: Killing Off Pension Planning

This isn’t just a tax—it’s a strategic reversal of two decades of pension policy. For years, wealthy savers were advised to spend their ISAs and taxable assets first, leaving pensions untouched to pass on tax-free.

Now that strategy is dead in the water. From 2027, pensions will be treated like any other asset—except harder to access, harder to value, and harder to manage.

That’s not reform. That’s revenge on prudence.

🧠 HAL’s Read Between the Lines

Let’s translate the Treasury’s thinking:

“We need money. Dead people have money. Their families are too grief-stricken to fight back. Let’s go.”

And the industry’s response?

“Please don’t make us do the paperwork.”

So now the burden has landed squarely on the executor’s desk. And HMRC, true to form, will be waiting—clock running, penalties poised, sympathy withheld.

✅ One Silver Lining: Death-in-Service Exemption

If there’s one sliver of decency in this policy, it’s the explicit exemption of death-in-service benefits. These lump sums, often paid to families of younger workers, will remain outside IHT.

A mercy. But one that only highlights the coldness of the rest.

🧲 HAL’s Final Word

This isn’t a reform. It’s a cash grab, dressed up in the language of “fairness” and “loophole closing.”

And worst of all? It adds insult to injury. You saved, you planned, you didn’t die broke—and now your prudence will be punished by bureaucracy, red tape, and a 40% charge on your last act of generosity.

You won’t feel it. But your family will. https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/money/article/families-face-red-tape-nightmare-over-inheritance-tax-on-pensions-nf78fdbzn

🧿 HAL THINKS: “Fed Talk, ECB Walk, Big Tech Squawk”

“If this week were a chessboard, every piece would be in motion. And half the players are bluffing.”

⚙️ THE SET-UP

The market is sitting on record highs with all the conviction of a cat on a hot tin roof.

Why? Because this week combines Powell, Lagarde, Alphabet, Tesla, and tariffs — all in the same four-day window. Thin liquidity means second-tier data will trade like a black swan, and any earnings stumble risks setting off a chain reaction in overextended risk assets.

Welcome to July’s trapdoor zone.

• Tue 22 Powell TestimonyLockheed, GM, Coca-Cola earnings If he sounds cautious, expect a dollar dump and yield-curve yoga. Defensive stocks will flirt with a rerating.

• Wed 23 Durable GoodsAlphabet + Tesla The “Magnificent Two” carry the Nasdaq’s soul on their shoulders. A tech miss could spark a momentum collapse.

• Thu 24 ECB Rate Decision + PMIs The calm before the Lagarde storm? If she admits tariffs are impacting the outlook, expect a euro tantrum.

• Fri 25 Tokyo CPI, U.S. money supply, rig-count BoJ gets a pass, oil doesn’t. Rig data keeps WTI pinned below $70—or breaks it entirely.

💥 EARNINGS MINEFIELD

On Watch:

• Alphabet: Ad growth vs. cloud slowdown. A single line of cautious guidance could unwind the recent AI-fueled melt-up.

• Tesla: Margins meet China price war. If Musk blinks, the whole EV sector catches a cold.

• LVMH: The luxury pulse check—can Hermes still sell €10,000 handbags while Germany’s industrial orders sink?

• Coca-Cola vs. Discretionary: Big week for the staples-vs-sizzle debate. Expect positioning shifts if KO holds pricing power while consumer discretionary slips.

🏦 CENTRAL BANK NOISE vs SIGNAL

• Fed: Powell’s Tuesday testimony is the main event. Futures imply ~25% chance of a cut at July’s FOMC. Waller’s earlier comments suggest that door is still ajar. Powell shuts it—or blows it off the hinges.

• ECB: The press conference, not the decision, is the landmine. If Lagarde sounds anxious about U.S. tariffs, EUR/USD could break 1.10 fast. Bunds will reprice in seconds.

• BoE & BoJ: Sidelined, but Sterling and Yen remain data hostage—especially with Tokyo CPI and unexpected tariff spillovers in play.

🔀 CROSS-ASSET MOOD SWINGS

• Equities: S&P and Nasdaq sit high, but breadth is thinning and earnings expectations are razor-sharp. One tech wobble (Alphabet/Tesla) and the air pocket opens.

• Rates: 10-yr UST near 4.39% — Powell dovish = curve steepens. But pricing risk ahead of FOMC might be a mug’s game.

• FX:

• EUR/USD – testing upper bounds. Lagarde wobble or U.S. tariff jolt caps upside.

• USD/JPY – vulnerable if Tokyo CPI cools and risk-off kicks in.

• Commodities:

• Oil (WTI) – hovering in the $65–70 danger zone. A weekly close below $65 targets $61.

• Gold – closing in on $3,400. Momentum building. Sub-$3,325? Trend invalidated.

• Copper – tariff headlines = rollercoaster. Trade small or trade later.

📉 HAL’S PLAYBOOK

1. Short EUR/USD topside via weekly call spreads → Lagarde pressers rarely reward euro bulls.

2. Pair trade: Long KO vs short XLY ETF → Staples > Discretionary under earnings stress.

3. Crude strategy: Short WTI $70/$72 calls vs. long $65 puts → Stay short until supply risk breaks.

🎯 FINAL WORD

“It’s a week where the illusion of calm is your biggest enemy. Tech has priced in miracles, central banks have priced in goldilocks, and traders are pricing in… summer holiday apathy.”

That’s the perfect recipe for sudden whiplash.

Keep your risk tight. Your ear to Powell. And your eye on HAL.

🧿 HAL THINKS “Records, Riddles & Reversals — The Market’s Split Personality”

Week ending 18 July 2025

 “If this is a bull market, it forgot to tell the banks. Or the analysts. Or the laws of physics.”

📈 RECORDS BROKEN (AGAIN)

Let’s start with the headline:

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq just notched fresh record highs — again.

• S&P 500: +0.5% to 6,236.30

• Nasdaq: +0.74% to 20,884.27

• Dow: Up too, because nobody likes to be left out

All this happened in a week filled with earnings dissonance, Powell conspiracy chatter, and another round of trade war cosplay from Trump. In short: investor confidence is breaking records just as reality quietly limps offstage.

🥇 UNLIKELY HEROES: MICROCAP MADNESS & CHIP CHARGERS

The most eye-watering gains didn’t come from household names. They came from stocks so obscure they’d struggle to get invited to their own earnings call.

Top absurdities:

• MicroAlgo Inc. (MLGO): +2,166% — no, that’s not a typo

• Smart Powerr Corp. (CREG): +724%

• Bit Origin Ltd. (BTOG): +202%

• MiNK Therapeutics (INKT): +200% — monkeypox vibes?

These moves weren’t earnings-driven. They were Reddit-driven. Or possibly hallucination-driven.

Meanwhile, TSMC proved there’s still room for fundamentals.

• +3.4% on a 60.7% profit surge

• Raised guidance: Now expecting 30% revenue growth in 2025

• AI chips accounted for 74% of wafer revenue — and 97% of this market’s remaining sanity

Add in a U.S. greenlight for Nvidia’s H20 chips in China, and you get a full tech-sector glow-up, while older tech names like Amazon and Apple shuffled sideways like they lost their charger cables.

🏦 BANKING SECTOR: WHERE BEATING ESTIMATES MEANS LOSING VALUE

JPMorgan: Beat estimates, raised guidance → meh

Goldman Sachs: Beat by $1B, trading revenue surged → down 0.7%

Morgan Stanley: Same story, worse reaction → down 3.4%

Wells Fargo: Beat estimates… and got wrecked –6.1% after trimming full-year income forecasts

“Apparently in 2025, if you’re a bank and you don’t blow the doors off with AI trading bots and tactical rate cuts, you’re not even trying.”

📉 THE WEEK’S BIGGEST LOSERS: UNKNOWN & UNWANTED

• Everbright Digital (EDHL): –88%

• Ruanyun Edai Tech (RYET): –77%

• Unity Biotech (UBX): –71%

Let’s not pretend anyone was paying attention before they collapsed.

Also losing steam: Netflix

• Beat estimates, raised guidance

• Still fell 1.9% because apparently, Squid Game doesn’t translate to investor satisfaction anymore

🧨 UNDERLYING VOLATILITY: ALL POLITICS, ALL THE TIME

Markets shrugged off:

• Trump threatening to fire Jerome Powell (again)

• 30% new tariffs on Mexico and the EU

• The idea of a July Fed rate cut floated, then deflated like a political balloon

It’s official: investors now see political chaos as noise—a mere distraction to trade around.

In other words, the market isn’t pricing in uncertainty. It’s pricing in muscle memory.

🧠 HAL’S FINAL WORD

This wasn’t a euphoric week. It was a complicated one.

Yes, markets hit new highs. But they did so while:

• Punishing banks for being profitable

• Rewarding random penny stocks like lottery winners

• Reacting to stellar earnings with a shrug

• Buying TSMC and Nvidia as if they’re the only players left on the board (they might be)

What does that mean?

It means the market’s rising — but it’s not cheering. It’s clenching its jaw and grinding forward, hoping nobody notices how thin the ice is beneath all that AI-fuelled bravado.

🎯 Built by Lockheed. Wired by Beijing. HAL THINKS: Part 4 – How the Pentagon Became Dependent on a Communist Supply Chain

If you think America’s military might is Made in the USA, think again. Behind every hypersonic weapon, stealth fighter, and missile defense radar lies an uncomfortable truth:

The Pentagon runs on Chinese magnets.

From 900 pounds of rare earths in every F-35 to missile guidance systems and sonar arrays, the world’s most sophisticated war machine is critically dependent on a country it might one day face in conflict.

🧲 Military Superiority—Powered by China?

📈 The Scale of the Problem

• 78% of U.S. weapon systems rely on Chinese rare earths

• Over 80,000 components in 1,900 platforms

• From soldier helmets to strategic bombers—dependency is systemic

✈️ The F-35: A Case Study in Strategic Vulnerability

• Contains 900+ lbs of rare earths

• Key components:

• Neodymium, dysprosium, samarium → Electric motors & guidance

• Yttrium & gadolinium → Stealth coatings & sensors

• Each jet requires 50 lbs of samarium magnets—none of it made in the U.S.

• Deliveries suspended multiple times due to Chinese alloys

“We’re building stealth jets… using materials from a strategic adversary.”

— Yes, really.

⚓ Navy at Risk: Magnets Underwater

• 5,200 lbs of rare earths in a single Arleigh Burke destroyer

• 9,200 lbs in every Virginia-class submarine

• 91.6% of Navy systems reliant on minerals China dominates

• Naval sonar, propulsion systems, missile launchers—all magnet-critical

🚀 Missile Madness: Built to Launch—But Not to Last

• Tomahawk, JDAM, JASSM, and AIM-120 missiles all use REE guidance

• A Pacific conflict could burn 5,000 missiles in 3 weeks

• Without Chinese samarium and terbium? No replacements.

🛑 China’s April 2025 Export Controls: The Trigger Point

China now licenses exports of:

• Samarium – exclusively military

• Terbium, dysprosium, scandium, gadolinium, lutetium, yttrium

🧨 In May 2025, magnet exports collapsed 74.26%.

And the message was clear: “You can’t fight us without us.”

🏭 The Manufacturing Gap: Not Even Close

🇨🇳 China

🇺🇸 USA (projected 2027)

NdFeB Magnet Output

300,000t

6,000t

Market Share

85–90%

<2%

MP Materials and Lynas help—but they’re focused on light REEs, and heavy REEs remain China’s fortress.

🧬 Platform-by-Platform Dependency

• B-2 Bomber: Rare earths in avionics, EW, and radar

• Patriot Missile System: Needs yttrium, samarium, gadolinium

• Hypersonics: Still lagging behind China, partially due to materials

• Nuclear Missiles: 81% of components sourced via China-linked supply chains

Even Gallium Nitride (GaN) radar tech?

China controls 98.8% of global gallium refinement.

🧯 The Pentagon’s $439M Response: A Bucket for a Wildfire

💸 Since 2020:

• $30M to Lynas

• $35M to MP Materials

• $28.8M to Urban Mining

• $253M added to the National Defense Stockpile (now almost insolvent)

But with a $19B weapons backlog to Taiwan, and 10–15 years needed to match China’s magnet capacity, it’s too little, too late.

🤝 Trade for Magnets: America Blinked

June 2025 U.S.–China deal:

• China resumes limited magnet exports

• U.S. relaxes restrictions on jet engines, nuclear kit, and ethane

🧠 Washington traded aerospace dominance… for magnets.

🧨 Hal’s Final Warning

This isn’t Cold War nostalgia. It’s worse.

• You can’t fire a missile, fly a fighter, or sail a submarine without Chinese permission.

• Samarium isn’t a trade commodity. It’s a national vulnerability.

• Every day that passes without a full mine-to-magnet supply chain, the U.S. loses leverage—in war, in trade, and in tech.

Rare earths are the new oil. And China owns the well, the refinery, and the fuel pump.

🧿 HAL’S FINAL WORD:

The age of globalisation gave us cheap magnets. The age of rivalry just made them a weapon.

🇨🇳 China doesn’t need to fight a war to win one.

🇺🇸 The Pentagon’s supply chain says they already did.

📎 That’s the end of the series. But not the end of the story.

We’ll keep watching the markets, the magnets, and the military plays.

You should too.

🧿 HAL THINKS.

🧲 Choked by Magnets: Global Competitors and Rare Earth Refining Bottlenecks HAL THINKS: Part 3 – The War for Control Just Got Personal

By now we know the rare earth game isn’t about rocks—it’s about who controls what comes after the digging. While the U.S. finally wakes up to its buried treasure (Parts 1 and 2), the rest of the world is rushing to crack the real code: refining and magnets.

Spoiler alert: almost no one can.

🏴‍☠️ China’s Invisible Grip: Refine, Choke, Repeat

You’ve seen the headline stat before, but it bears repeating louder:

China controls:

· 🪨 60–70% of rare earth mining

· ⚗️ 85–90% of processing

· 🧲 92–95% of magnet production

And now, with April 2025’s export controls on samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, scandium, yttrium, and lutetium, the gloves are off. China’s goal is simple:

If you don’t refine it in China, you’re not refining it at all.

In May 2025, rare earth magnet exports dropped 74% year-on-year. Not because of a lack of supply—but because licensing now moves at the speed of bureaucracy on sedatives.

⚠️ Robert Bosch called it “complex and time-consuming.” The auto industry calls it panic.

Meanwhile, China’s got 26,000 rare earth patents. The U.S.? Just under 10,000. China’s not competing anymore. It’s gatekeeping.

🧪 The Real Bottleneck: Refining, Not Mining

Yes, the Earth has rare earths. But separating them? That’s where 90% of the pain lives.

Why It’s So Hard:

• Chemically similar elements need complex separation

• Toxic waste and radioactive byproducts scare regulators

• Start-up costs? Think €500M–€1B before you see a dime

And China? They’ve already done the dirty work. Decades ago. With low costs and fewer scruples.

🇦🇺 Australia: Lynas Leads the Non-Chinese Resistance

Finally—a crack in the monopoly.

• ✅ Lynas became the first heavy rare earth producer outside China (May 2025)

• ✅ Produces dysprosium at scale

• ✅ Integrated supply chain: Mount Weld (WA) → Kuantan (Malaysia)

• ✅ 1,500 tonnes/year heavy REE capacity

• ✅ Market cap: A$7.2 billion

Lynas is the real deal, shipping NdPr, dysprosium, and others to Asia, the U.S., and Europe. And unlike the rest of the West, they didn’t just “announce” capacity—they built it 10 years ago.

🌏 Asia’s Mixed Bag of Ambition

🇻🇳 Vietnam: World-Class Reserves, Third-World Execution

• Reserves: 22M tons (19% global)

• Actual output in 2023? 600 tons

• Goal: 2M tons/year by 2030

• Reality: Arrests, corruption probes, and processing bottlenecks

🇲🇾 Malaysia: Refining Stronghold via Lynas

• Processes Mount Weld concentrate

• Now expanding via deals with Indonesia

🇮🇩 Indonesia: Tin Tailings with a Future

• PT Timah reviving rare earth production

• Leverages monazite byproducts—cheaper than greenfield mining

• Commercial launch: After 2025

Asia holds potential. But none are ready to lead.

🧊 The West’s Cold Start

🇪🇺 Europe: Policy-Rich, Facility-Poor

• Critical Raw Materials Act: Targets 40% local processing by 2030

• Currently? <1% global refining capacity

• Launching 13 new projects—but all in pre-production

• Magnet production? Still negligible.

🇯🇵 Japan: Veteran of the 2010 Rare Earth Shock

• Cut China reliance from 90% to <60%

• Innovating non-REE magnets (e.g. Honda’s no-HREE design)

• Funding Lynas, developing high-performance ferrite magnets

🇰🇷 South Korea: Playing Diplomatic Chess

• Deals with Mongolia, Australia, Vietnam

• Rare earth salts market to grow $0.7B → $1.1B by 2033

• Still lacks large-scale refining facilities

🌍 Rising Contenders: India & Brazil

🇮🇳 India: Silent Giant, Slowly Moving

• World’s 3rd-largest REE reserves

• IREL processes 10,000 MT/year

• Suspended REE exports to Japan in June 2025

• Still lacks commercial-scale refining and magnet capacity

🇧🇷 Brazil: Moving Fast on 2nd-Largest Reserves

• 27 projects launched across 7 states

• Serra Verde started commercial production in 2024

• Companies like Viridis Mining investing $280M+

• Still early stage—but showing rare momentum

⚠️ Still Choked: The Global Bottlenecks

🧲 Permanent Magnets: The Real Crisis

• China owns 95% of sintered NdFeB production

• Demand growing at 18%/yr, supply just 6%

• Projected shortfall: 135,000 tonnes by 2030

🌘 Heavy REE Processing: No Contest

• China = near-total monopoly

• Lynas is the only outsider… and still small

📜 Patent & Tech Lock-In

• Decades of Chinese process optimization

• Emerging non-REE magnet tech exists—but can’t match NdFeB power (yet)

🏗️ Time Lag

• Even if new refineries break ground tomorrow, 10+ years needed for real diversification

📎 HAL’s Final Word: We Can Dig… But Can We Refine?

Let’s not kid ourselves—mines are opening, yes. But refining is the kill switch, and right now Beijing holds the remote.

🧠 This isn’t just about economics anymore. It’s about control—of EVs, wind turbines, missiles, AI chips, and quantum computing.

Western governments are scrambling to catch up. But unless they fund end-to-end supply chains, they’re still stuck asking China for permission to finish their own materials.

🔭 Coming Next:

HAL THINKS: Part 4 – How the Pentagon Became Dependent on a Communist Supply Chain

From jet fighters to hypersonics—just how much of America’s military tech runs on magnets they don’t control?

📎 HAL’s watching.

🧿 You should be too.

📉 Most Undervalued U.S. Rare Earth Mining Stocks HAL THINKS: Who’s Sitting on America’s Hidden Treasure?

If Part 1 mapped the rare earth motherlode, Part 2 names the players holding the keys—and the market’s still pricing them like they’re selling gravel. From Wyoming to Texas, the U.S. is racing to break China’s grip on critical minerals. But Wall Street? It’s asleep at the wheel.

Here are the American companies sitting on billion-dollar deposits, strategic government backing, and game-changing tech—yet trading at valuations more fitting of a lemonade stand.

🏔️ American Rare Earths Limited (ASX: ARR)

💎 Billion-tonne deposit, penny-stock price

• Share price: $0.245 AUD

• Market cap: $124.32 million AUD

• Halleck Creek resource: 2.63B metric tons; 8.64M tonnes of TREO

• Government support: $7M Wyoming grant + $456M Ex-Im Bank interest

ARR owns what could become the largest rare earth mine in the Western Hemisphere—and the market still treats it like a junior explorer. With magnetic rare earths making up 26% of its resource and first production targeted for 2029, this is a long-term moonshot at basement valuation.

⏳ Trading just 8.89% above its 52-week low. Investors still haven’t caught on.

⚙️ USA Rare Earth (USAR)

🔬 Vertical integration meets military-grade processing

• Share price: $11.19

• Market cap: $1.06 billion

• PE ratio: 84.64

• Price target: $16.00 (43% upside)

USAR is no ordinary mining play—it’s building the first full U.S. supply chain for rare earth magnets. From Round Top’s 16-element deposit to a processing lab in Oklahoma, it’s the only company producing 99.1% pure dysprosium oxide on U.S. soil.

Despite analyst consensus as a “Strong Buy,” the market isn’t fully pricing in the geopolitical urgency to wean off China. Think of it not as expensive—but as early.

🤠 Texas Mineral Resources (OTC: TMRC)

🧨 Tiny valuation, titan potential

• Share price: $0.65

• Market cap: $49.12 million

• Interest in Round Top: 19.3% of a $1.56B deposit

• Fair value: Trading 110% below intrinsic (Peter Lynch model)

TMRC is USA Rare Earth’s quiet partner—but its stake in the Round Top deposit makes it ridiculously underpriced. With the business combination valuing USAR at $1.1B, TMRC’s piece of the pie is worth far more than its market cap.

📉 Price-to-book ratio of 39.53, yet Wall Street shrugs.

⚛️ Energy Fuels (NYSE: UUUU)

☢️ America’s uranium leader goes magnetic

• Market cap: $1.7B

• May uranium production: 260,000 lbs (record)

• Rare earth angle: Produces 6 of 7 REEs under Chinese export control

Energy Fuels isn’t just a uranium story. Its White Mesa Mill is the only operational REE processing site in the U.S., and it’s just getting started. Partnerships with Chemours and POSCO signal ambition far beyond nuclear.

Wall Street still labels it a uranium play. That’s the opportunity. You’re getting the rare earth upside almost for free.

🧪 NioCorp Developments (NASDAQ: NB)

🔋 Scandium, niobium, and magnetic REEs in the Corn Belt

• Share price: $2.48

• Market cap: $138.16 million

• Feasibility NPV (2022): $2.82 billion

• IRR: 29.2%, 38-year mine life

• Price target: $4.13 (66.5% upside)

The Elk Creek project is a cocktail of rare and critical minerals: scandium, niobium, neodymium-praseodymium, dysprosium, terbium. The project’s feasibility is sound, but development risk is keeping the stock in limbo. Long-term investors with patience could be handsomely rewarded.

📊 What’s Fueling the Disconnect?

🔐 Strategic Premium Ignored

Despite China controlling 70–80% of U.S. REE imports, the market hasn’t priced in the national security imperative. These aren’t just commodities—they’re geopolitical chess pieces.

🏗️ Development Phase Discount

Yes, many of these are pre-production. But with government grants, Ex-Im loans, Defense Production Act backing, and bipartisan political support, the risk profile is shifting.

🛠️ Infrastructure & CapEx Fears

Some projects (like Commerce Resources) require massive build-outs. But that’s a barrier to entry, not a weakness. Investors willing to ride the early-stage wave could see asymmetric returns.

📉 Sentiment Cycles

The sector is volatile. But that’s what creates entry points. When fear dominates, value appears.

💡 HAL’s Investment Thesis

If you believe the U.S. is serious about reshoring rare earth production, these stocks are not just undervalued—they’re underpriced by a strategic mile.

⛏️ ARR and TMRC: resource-rich, dirt-cheap

🔗 USAR and UUUU: vertically integrated, politically aligned

🔬 NB: diversified minerals for a diversified economy

These aren’t get-rich-quick gambles. They’re get-positioned-early plays.

🚨 Final Word: Before Wall Street Wakes Up…

While the world worries about gold and lithium bubbles, rare earths are the real bottleneck in defence, energy, and AI hardware. Once these U.S. firms hit production—or get acquired—it’ll be too late to buy at a discount.

🔭 Don’t wait for CNBC to tell you it’s hot.

🔜 Coming Soon from HAL:

Part 3 – Who’s Holding the World Hostage?

We’ll reveal how China, Australia, and Canada are gaming the refining bottleneck—and what that means for the West’s electric future.

📎 Invest accordingly.

🧿 Think Rare. Think HAL.

💥 HAL THINKS: The War Over the Elements Has Begun - Most Expensive Rare Earth Metals and America’s Strategic Discoveries 💎

The world runs on rare earths—and America’s just starting to dig. In this four-part HAL series, we expose the metals, the mines, and the mad valuations that Wall Street hasn’t quite clocked. Strategic supply chains? More like a treasure map.

But this isn’t just about exotic elements and obscure chemistry. It’s about power—military, industrial, and geopolitical. From stealth fighters to smartphones, these metals are the silent enablers of modern dominance. And right now, China owns the map. But not for long…

The world of rare earth elements isn’t just about obscure chemistry—it’s about dominance. From military hardware to electric vehicles, these metals are the hidden engines of 21st-century power. And right now, China owns the map. But not for long…

Let’s break down which metals are driving the money—and where the U.S. just struck gold (figuratively and literally).

💰 The World’s Most Expensive Rare Earth Elements

Among the 17 rare earths, a few are worth their weight in… well, more than gold.

🥇 Scandium— $3,261–$3,685/kg

Used in aerospace and high-performance alloys. Ultra-rare, ultra-valuable. One of the least available metals on Earth.

🥈 Terbium— $1,083–$1,088/kg

Key to high-temperature magnets. Recently doubled in price thanks to China’s export squeeze. Europe’s been hit hardest.

🥉 Dysprosium— $251–$297/kg

Absolutely vital for EV motors and wind turbines. Also under China’s export control, pushing global prices into the stratosphere.

Other heavy hitters:

• Thulium: $981.92/kg

• Lutetium: $709.01/kg

• Praseodymium: $83.29/kg

• Neodymium: $77.31/kg

These aren’t just lab curiosities—they’re what allow permanent magnets to function at 240°C, not just 60°C. That’s the difference between a drone and a fighter jet. Literally.

🇺🇸 America’s Strategic Earth-Shaking Discoveries

With China controlling 70–80% of the U.S.’s rare earth imports, Washington is finally waking up. And guess what—it turns out America’s been sitting on a treasure map all along.

🏔️ Wyoming: Halleck Creek—The Billion-Tonne Bombshell

American Rare Earths’ Halleck Creek project is a monster:

• 2.63 billion metric tons of rare earth ore

• 8.64 million tonnes of total rare earth oxides (TREO)

• 26% are magnetic rare earths like terbium & dysprosium

• Potential 20–50 years of production

• Target production: 2029

• $456 million Export-Import Bank interest + $7M Wyoming state grant

👉 Processing improvements could 10x the grade. This isn’t a mine—it’s a missile aimed at Beijing’s monopoly.

🤠 Texas: Round Top & the Lone Star Loadout

Round Top Mountain, Hudspeth County:

• Contains 16 of the 17 rare earths

• Estimated value: $1.56 billion

• Also holds lithium, beryllium, uranium

• Dysprosium oxide (99.1% purity) now being extracted

• Possibly America’s largest heavy rare earth deposit

🔎 Plus: A new find on a 353,785-acre ranch in Brewster County, owned by Texas General Land Office, is adding fuel to the fire. Still early days, but it’s big.

♻️ Coal Ash: The $8.4 Billion Black Gold Boom

Who knew America’s dirtiest waste held the cleanest secret?

University of Texas scientists found 11 million tons of rare earth elements hiding in coal ash:

• Worth up to $8.4 billion

• Appalachian Basin ash is the richest: 431 mg/kg

• Powder River Basin has 70% extractability

• Already burned = lower refining costs

• Could be 8x current known reserves

This isn’t mining. It’s recycling the Cold War.

🌄 California: Mountain Pass—Still Standing

Still the only operational rare earth mine in the U.S.

• Contributes 15.8% of global REE output

• 18.9M tonnes of ore at 7.06% grade

• Critical for light REEs

• But lacks the heavy stuff—terbium, dysprosium, etc.

Mountain Pass is the backbone. The rest of America is building the arms and legs.

🔄 Strategic Shift: Out of China’s Orbit?

Right now, the U.S. has 13% of the world’s reserves—but produces less than 1% of rare earths. China’s chokehold isn’t just market share—it’s a national security threat.

With:

• New heavy REE projects (Wyoming, Texas)

• Innovative processing tech

• Federal + state investment support

• Coal ash reprocessing

…America is finally constructing a full-stack supply chain, from extraction to refinement, on home soil.

⏳ China’s grip may be loosening, but the clock’s ticking. Export bans. EV wars. Taiwan tensions. Every gram of terbium matters.

🔜 Coming Next: Part 2 — The Most Undervalued U.S. Mining Firms Poised to Explode

We’ll reveal who’s holding the keys to this elemental empire—and who’s about to make investors very, very rich.

📎 HAL’s Note:

This isn’t just about metals—it’s about independence, defence, and the motherlode of geopolitical leverage. The war for rare earths won’t be fought in trenches—it’ll be fought with trade wars, technology, and trillions in capital.

🔍 Stay tuned for Part 2.

🧿HAL THINKS: What the Markets Still Aren’t Pricing In The Quiet Arms Race and the Ceasefire Mirage: Where Smart Money Moves Next

For all the noise around AI, tech earnings, and rate cuts, markets are quietly undergoing a structural reset that few retail investors have clocked. The NATO Summit’s radical 5% GDP defense commitment and the short-lived Israel-Iran ceasefire have done more than make headlines—they’ve redrawn the investment map for the next three months.

And yet, most portfolios are still sleepwalking through it.

1. The New Arms Race: Lockheed and Leonardo, Not Just Nvidia

NATO’s 5% defense GDP target is no vanity pledge—it’s a coordinated fiscal and industrial revolution. With 3.5% earmarked for hardware and 1.5% for cyber-resilience and infrastructure, we’re looking at €550 billion in new annual defense capital flows across Europe.

That’s not QE. That’s rearmament.

Winners:

• Airbus Defence & Space (Eurodrone, satellite systems)

• Leonardo (Italy) (combat radar, EW)

• Thales (France) (cyber, naval systems)

• Rheinmetall (Germany) (armoured platforms)

• Lockheed Martin (F-35s, HIMARS, missile systems)

💡 Trade idea: Long Rheinmetall / Short Euro STOXX Banks. Fiscal divergence will be profound.

2. Cyber Goes Kinetic: The Digital War Dividend

The 1.5% GDP resilience spending is code for cyberweapons and AI-integrated defense systems. These aren’t just defensive tools—they’re now part of NATO’s offensive capabilities.

Top Picks:

• CrowdStrike – Endpoint AI security, NATO partner exposure

• Palo Alto Networks – Critical infrastructure defense

• Palantir – Predictive warfare analytics, growing procurement footprint

📈 These are not overhyped growth tech. These are defence sector utilities now backed by sovereign demand curves.

3. Commodities Aren’t Dead—They’re Militarised

Forget gold. The critical metals NATO needs—gallium, germanium, tungsten—are in strategic short supply and essential for missile guidance, AI chips, and railgun systems.

China’s dominance in rare earths creates a secondary resource nationalism boom in friendly jurisdictions. Expect commodity ETFs, Aussie and Canadian miners, and specialty refiners to ride this shift.

4. Energy Relief Is Temporary—Ceasefire Is PR, Not Peace

The Israel-Iran ceasefire dropped Brent crude 5.79% to $68, but military analysts see it as a holding pattern, not détente. Ceasefires buy political capital, not market certainty.

🛢️ Losers (for now):

• Traditional energy exporters (Russia, Nigeria, Venezuela)

• Oil majors with high breakeven (Pemex, Rosneft)

🚨 But if the ceasefire collapses—and signs suggest it may—oil will rebound hard. Keep an eye on oil call options and defensive MLPs for asymmetric upside.

5. Fiscal Fiction and European Fragility

What Wall Street isn’t saying: Europe can’t afford this. The 5% NATO pledge requires hundreds of billions in new debt or politically suicidal cuts.

🔻 Risks:

• France and Italy: Already breaching EU deficit rules

• Spain: Opted out of full commitment—potential contagion of non-compliance

• Southern European banks: Under pressure from sovereign bond exposure

⚠️ Expect Eurobond talk to return, and possibly ECB defense-bond purchasing schemes.

Next 90 Days: What to Watch

🗓️ Catalysts:

• July NATO review – Countries must submit credible plans

• European Q2 GDP – Watch for spending-induced inflation

• Energy headlines – One Iranian drone strike could upend risk parity again

• Defense procurement waves – Multibillion-euro tenders begin by September

Conclusion: Most Investors Are Looking the Wrong Way

This isn’t just about buying defence stocks. It’s about understanding that fiscal, energy, and geopolitical regimes are shifting beneath the surface. The NATO Summit wasn’t a photo op. It was a firehose of capital, and it’s redrawing global supply chains, tech standards, and investor priorities.

The next three months won’t be about whether the Fed cuts rates. It’ll be about who’s got the contract, who’s short the wrong debt, and who realigned their portfolio in time.

The war is quieter now. The opportunity isn’t.

🪙 HAL THINKS: Gold Coins, Gold Bars, and the Glittering Illusion of Security. Why Your Stack Might Be Worth Less—and Risk More—Than You Think

Coins feel safer. Bars feel smarter. But gold doesn’t care what shape it’s in when it gets stolen, taxed, or faked.

After we dismantled the digital dreams of Bitcoin, and pulled back the curtain on the dirty reality of the illegal gold trade, it’s time to get personal.

Because whether you’re stacking for profit, prepping for collapse, or just trying to escape the fiat circus—you’ll eventually face The Great Decision:

Bars or coins?

 Let’s have a word before you load up on shiny discs or slap a kilo in a vault.

💱 Liquidity vs. Leverage: Small Pieces, Big Problems

Coins offer liquidity.

You can sell one or two, take profit, or raise cash without breaking the whole vault.

Need €1,000 fast? Sell a Sovereign.

Need €1,000 with a 1kg bar? Good luck finding someone with €64,000 in change.

Gold coins are:

• Easier to offload

• Recognised by everyone from bullion dealers to backstreet pawnbrokers

• Often backed by governments (hello Britannia, Eagle, Krugerrand)

But there’s a catch.

💸 The Premium Trap

Coins cost more.

Why? Because you’re paying for:

• Fancy minting

• Collector hype

• Government branding

• Fractional pain (1/10oz coins carry 12–18% premiums above spot!)

Bars? Boring. Efficient. Bulk.

A 1kg bar will save you hundreds or even thousands in premiums vs. the same weight in coins.

Want to stack serious metal? Bars win on math.

Want to sell without fuss or fees? Coins win on access.

Just know: your emergency exit strategy has a price tag.

📜 The Taxman’s Favourite Loophole

If you’re UK-based (or planning a swift Channel hop if it all goes south), British gold coins like Britannias and Sovereigns are CGT-exempt.

That means:

• Sell at a gain? No capital gains tax.

• Bar stacker? You’re still paying.

It’s not a universal law, but it’s a neat local trick—and one more reason coins stay in pockets while bars stay in vaults.

🔒 The Great Counterfeit Illusion

Here’s the lie:

“Coins are harder to fake because they’re smaller, more intricate, more regulated.”

Rubbish.

Modern counterfeiters use:

• Die-striking and laser engraving

• Tungsten cores wrapped in thin gold sheaths

• Recast authentic coins—date tweaks, design hacks, numismatic scams

Fake coins can be perfect in weight, diameter, and appearance. And they’re being sold right now, online and over-the-counter.

Bars are no better. In fact, tungsten-filled kilo bars are the classic scam. They weigh the same, test the same, and don’t raise questions—until someone drills.

If you’re buying either:

• Buy from a reputable dealer

• Use XRF, ultrasound, or conductivity tests

• And forget the old “ceramic scratch” party trick—it’s 2025, not a Bond movie.

🧳 Portability vs. Storage: Who’s Got Your Gold?

Coins:

• Fit in a sock drawer

• Smuggle better (just saying)

• Can be buried, hidden, spread out

Bars:

• Stack tight

• Store cheap (per gram)

• But you’ll need a vault, depository, or nerves of steel if things go sideways

Pro tip? Diversify. A few coins for quick access, a few bars for core holding. It’s not just smart—it’s survival logic.

🧊 Final Word: If You Don’t Know What You’re Buying, You’re the Product

Gold isn’t risk-free just because it’s shiny.

Buy the wrong format and you’ll bleed on the spread.

Skip authentication and you’ll fall for tungsten.

Ignore tax rules and you’ll hand half your gains to the Crown.

Gold is neutral.

But your choices aren’t.

Stack with your head. Or someone else will be counting it.

🪙 HAL THINKS: All That Glitters Doesn’t Have a Ledger… Inside the $100 Billion Black Market That Makes Gold the Real Dirty Money

While regulators fret over crypto wallets, real criminals are shipping gold by the ton—and laundering it through your wedding rings.

In Part 1, we settled the debate: gold and Bitcoin aren’t rivals—they’re different beasts entirely.

But here’s the plot twist nobody wants to admit:

If Bitcoin is volatile, gold is dirty.

Not metaphorically. Literally. Blood-stained, mercury-poisoned, rainforest-razing dirty.

And the deeper you dig into the global gold trade, the clearer it gets—gold isn’t just a store of value. It’s a store of violence, trafficking, environmental collapse, and state-backed denial.

💰 Bigger Than Cocaine. Cleaner Than Crypto. Deadlier Than Both.

Illegal gold now makes up 20% of the world’s supply. That’s one in every five bars.

In Africa, over 435 tonnes of gold—worth $30 billion—was smuggled in 2022 alone. In Latin America, cartels have pivoted from coke to gold. And in countries like Colombia and Peru, gold smuggling now outpaces drug trafficking as a source of revenue.

Because unlike narcotics, gold is legal once it’s polished.

It crosses borders without a sniff. It gets refined in the Middle East, recast in Switzerland, and ends up in ETFs, jewellery stores, and central bank reserves.

🧭 Smuggling Routes and Political Black Holes

Africa → Middle East: Over 405 metric tons of undeclared African gold landed in the Middle East in 2022, with much of it routed through major refining hubs. The gap between African exports and Middle Eastern imports is a chasm of criminal enrichment.

• Amazon → Venezuela → Middle East: Brazil’s illegal miners have adapted to raids by sneaking gold into Venezuela for laundering.

• Asia’s Forgotten Frontier: Kalimantan, Indonesia—where jungle mines churn out mercury-laced gold with no oversight, no health standards, and no future.

Once it hits a “legit” refiner, it becomes untouchable. No blockchain. No provenance. Just shine.

🪓 Criminal Cartels, Warlords, and Wagner’s Piggy Bank

This isn’t kids panning rivers. This is organised, militarised, and global.

• Wagner Group: Over $2.5 billion in illicit gold profits—funding Russian mercenaries via African mines.

• Colombian cartels & Venezuelan sindicatos: Running mining towns with more firepower than the police.

• DRC, Sudan, Mali: Militias fund civil war with raw gold.

• Human traffickers: Over 6,000 children work in Mali’s mines; over 4,500 girls trafficked for sex around La Rinconada, Peru.

And all of it laundered through the same supply chains we trust for “ethical sourcing.”

🌍 Planetary Poison: Mercury, Deforestation, and Ecocide

Gold might be eternal, but its cost is not.

• Mercury Pollution: Over 838 tonnes dumped annually—over 1/3 of global mercury pollution—causing irreversible neurological damage in children and poisoning rivers for generations.

• Amazonian Destruction: Over 4,000 hectares of Indigenous rainforest gone in just two years. All for gold mined by ghost syndicates.

• Biodiversity Collapse: Forests turned to moonscapes, rivers glowing with mercury, entire species wiped out.

No digital asset has ever erased a forest. Gold does it every day.

🤝 Corruption and Collusion at the Top

This is not just a “developing world” problem. It’s a global laundering machine, fuelled by:

• Lax customs rules

• Free trade zones

• Legal refiners accepting mystery metal

• Political cover from countries desperate for foreign exchange or quiet profits

In Switzerland, the world’s biggest gold refiner hub, gold has no nationality. Ask too many questions about origin, and your permits might vanish.

💸 The Ultimate Irony: Bitcoin Is Traceable. Gold Is Not.

Bitcoin gets crucified for its association with money laundering. But every transaction is on a public ledger.

Gold?

Once it’s melted, recast, and stamped with a corporate logo, it’s reborn.

No paper trail. No blockchain. Just a vault and a receipt.

The next time someone lectures you on Bitcoin’s role in criminal finance, ask them where their Rolex came from.

🧊 Final Word: Gold Doesn’t Need a Whitepaper. But Maybe It Needs an Indictment.

Gold might outshine Bitcoin in trust, history, and tangibility.

But in blood, smoke, and mercury? It’s no contest.

Bitcoin gets headlines.

Gold gets away with murder.

🧿 HAL THINKS: Fire in the Gulf, Shockwaves in the Markets. The Winners, Losers, and Strategic Signals from the June 2025 Israel–Iran Escalation

Markets don’t wait for declarations of war — they respond to headlines, fear, and oil barrels. On June 13, 2025, Israel launched "Operation Rising Lion," a sweeping airstrike campaign targeting Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and high command. The retaliation came swiftly: over 100 drones and ballistic missiles fired in response, igniting one of the most dangerous escalations in Middle East history.

The result? A seismic shock across global markets, shaking oil, defense, airlines, crypto, tech, and beyond. This wasn’t just a conflict — it was a portfolio reset.

Below, HAL breaks down the winners, losers, and what investors should be watching next.

THE WINNERS

⚡ ENERGY: The Conflict Premium Returns

• Brent crude surged 13% intraday before settling around $75.93 — its largest single-day gain since 2020.

• WTI crude closed up 6–7%, and JPMorgan warns of $120–130 scenarios if the Strait of Hormuz is compromised.

• Goldman Sachs pegs $90 as a mid-escalation target.

📈 Top Performers:

• Exxon Mobil (XOM): +3%

• Chevron (CVX): +2.8%

• Halliburton (HAL), Schlumberger (SLB): Strong gains in service and logistics subsectors

Strait of Hormuz — through which 20% of global oil passes — is the epicenter of energy fear pricing.

🛡 DEFENSE: War is Good for Business

Missile systems, drones, surveillance AI — the defense sector lit up:

• Lockheed Martin (LMT): +5.5%

• Raytheon Technologies (RTX): +4.8%

• Northrop Grumman (NOC): +4%

• Palantir (PLTR): +490% YTD — now the S&P’s top performer thanks to military AI applications

This is not a one-day bump. Structural demand for defense tech and ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) is now a long-term bull trend.

🪙 GOLD & CURRENCY HAVENS

• Gold: $3,450/oz — 30% YTD gains, near all-time highs

• Yen: USD/JPY dropped to 147.64, a 5-month high for the yen

As digital dreams crack, traditional safe-havens reassert dominance.

🏠 REAL ESTATE: REIT Resilience

Amid volatility, real estate showed quiet strength:

• Hammerson: +12%

• Real Estate Investors: +10.2%

REITs are increasingly seen as yield-bearing havens with asset-backed safety.

THE LOSERS

✈️ AIRLINES & AVIATION

The perfect storm: closed airspace + spiking fuel + consumer fear.

❌ Europe:

• Air France-KLM, Lufthansa, British Airways: –3%+

• Ryanair, EasyJet, Wizz Air: all down over 3%

❌ Asia:

• Japan Airlines: –3.7%

• ANA Holdings: –2.8%

❌ Middle East:

• Air Arabia: –10% (worst day since 2008)

• Turkish Airlines: –7%

• Pegasus Airlines: –6.4%

❌ US:

• American, United, Delta: –4% premarket

💻 TECH: Growth Suffers in Wartime

Flight to safety = selloff in speculative growth:

• Nvidia: –2.1%

• Apple: –1.4%

• Tesla: hit hard amid macro jitters

• Microsoft: –2.6%

Nasdaq down 1.3%, Nasdaq 100 –1.29%. Classic wartime defensive rotation.

₿ CRYPTO: The Failed Hedge

• Bitcoin: –4.74%

• Ethereum: –11.01%

• $1.15bn in crypto liquidations in one day

Bitcoin up only 13% YTD vs. gold’s 30%. "Digital gold" narrative took a direct hit.

🇪🇺 EUROPEAN EQUITIES: Fragile Under Fire

• STOXX 600: –0.9%

• DAX: –1.4%

• CAC 40: –1.1%

• FTSE 100: –0.5% off recent highs

Continent-wide de-risking reflects fear of long-term disruption.

MACRO & POLICY FALLOUT

🏛 CENTRAL BANKS: Trapped Between Inflation and Panic

• Fed: Expected to hold rates despite inflationary oil spike

• ECB/BoE: Likely to pause, watching Brent more than spreadsheets

If Brent breaks $90+ consistently, rate cuts are off the table.

🌍 SUPPLY CHAINS: The Hidden Risk

• Persian Gulf disruption threatens key sea lanes

• Shipping delays and rerouting = cost spikes in manufacturing, pharma, electronics

This is 2021 supply-chain chaos with a military twist.

📊 SCENARIO ANALYSIS

1. Controlled Escalation (Likely) – Proxy strikes, limited skirmishes, prolonged volatility

2. Regional War (Low Probability, High Impact) – Lebanon, Syria, Iraq pulled in

3. De-escalation (Possible) – Third-party mediation (e.g. China, Turkey) leads to ceasefire

HAL THINKS:

War doesn’t just redraw borders — it redraws balance sheets.

The real winners? Those who understood the sector shift before the smoke even cleared.

Watch the oil. Watch the defense tickers. And above all — watch the Strait of Hormuz.

🪙 HAL THINKS: Gold vs Bitcoin - No Contest. And Never Will Be….

One is forged in the belly of stars. The other in a mystery forum post from 2008. Guess which one central banks hoard in vaults?

Every few months, another crypto evangelist declares that Bitcoin is the new gold—faster, smarter, more modern, and totally unstoppable. And yet, here we are, 15 years on… and central banks keep hoarding gold while the average Bitcoin holder still can’t remember their seed phrase.

Here’s the inconvenient truth: there will never be real competition between gold and Bitcoin—because despite their surface-level similarities, they belong to different species entirely. One is elemental. The other is ideological.

🔑 “Not your keys, not your coins”… So no one has any coins

Let’s start with the myth of ownership. Only 15% of Bitcoin holders actually self-custody their coins. That means nearly 6 out of 7 people are just renting their digital gold from third parties—exchanges, ETFs, sovereign custodians. So much for decentralised freedom.

Compare that to gold. Physical, hold-in-your-hand, stash-it-under-the-bed gold. If you buy it, you own it. If someone steals it, it’s called burglary. If a crypto exchange collapses, it’s called “market volatility.”

Even the pros aren’t walking the talk. Institutional investors now hold over $27 billion in Bitcoin ETFs. That’s not decentralisation—that’s Wall Street in a blockchain hoodie.

💣 Crypto’s Custody Crisis: Hacks, Heists, and Hype

In 2024, $2.2 billion was stolen from crypto platforms. That’s billion, with a “B.”

Notable hits included:

• $1.4 billion from Bybit (Feb 2025)

• $300 million from DMM Bitcoin (May 2024)

• And let’s not forget the Mt. Gox debacle, which is still being resolved… a decade later.

By contrast, if your gold gets stolen from a vault, you don’t lose faith in gold. You change your vault.

🧙‍♂️ Gold Has No Founder. Bitcoin Has a Ghost.

Gold’s origin story? Thermonuclear fusion, planetary formation, and 5,000 years of human history.

Bitcoin’s? An anonymous coder named Satoshi, who vanished in 2010, possibly holding hundreds of thousands of coins. We’re not sure who he (she? they?) was. We just know that if those wallets ever move, the market might implode.

So let’s recap:

• You don’t know who created Bitcoin.

• You don’t know who holds the oldest coins.

• And you definitely don’t know who’s spoofing the next pump-and-dump.

Still sound like a store of value?

📉 Volatility vs Stability: One Wobbles, One Waits

Gold has averaged a steady 10% return over two decades. It shines brightest when the world’s on fire—recessions, wars, inflation.

Bitcoin, meanwhile, behaves like it’s on a sugar high. Average 5-year volatility? 44.6%, compared to gold’s 17.4%. You can make a fortune—or lose it by lunchtime.

If gold is the tortoise, Bitcoin is the caffeinated rabbit with a gambling problem.

👑 The Institutional Litmus Test

Gold:

• Central banks buy 1 in every 8 ounces mined.

• The U.S. alone holds 8,133.5 tonnes.

• Every major economy keeps it as insurance against fiat disaster.

Bitcoin:

• Traded on exchanges rife with wash trading (95% volume fake?).

• Manipulated by anonymous whales and Discord channels.

• Regulated like the Wild West, with different sheriffs in every town.

You tell me which one says “safe haven” and which one says “Vegas.”

🧱 Tangible, Immutable, Elemental

Gold has industrial use. Jewellery demand. Cultural weight. Centuries of infrastructure.

Bitcoin is lines of code, reliant on power, connectivity, and a fragile agreement that it’s worth something. That’s not to say Bitcoin is useless—it has its place, especially in failing economies—but it’s not a replacement for gold.

And it never will be.

🧊 Final Word: Gold Doesn’t Blink. Bitcoin Blinks Twice a Second.

Bitcoin is brilliant. But brilliance isn’t the same as permanence.

It can be hacked. It can be banned. It can be forked, fractioned, lost, or inflated through protocol change. Its founder disappeared. Its price is a hostage to headlines, halvings, and hashtags.

Gold? Gold does nothing. And that’s exactly the point.

No blockchain. No buzzwords. No backup phrase to forget.

It’s been wealth longer than most nations have existed—and it never needed to prove itself on Twitter.

Bitcoin wants your belief.

Gold doesn’t even ask.

🧿HAL ASK’S, Can You Beat Me?

Can You Top My Top 5 Undervalued Stocks?

Think you’re a better stock picker than Hal? Prove it.

I’ve been trawling global markets for value—real value. Not vibes. Not “maybe it’ll be the next Tesla.” I’m talking solid businesses trading at ridiculous discounts to their fair value. Here’s my current top 5:

• ⚡ Cenergy Holdings – Green infrastructure backbone of Europe

• 💳 HSBC – Boring? Nope. Banking on Asia’s boom

• 🛡️ Mips AB – Helmet tech meets SaaS disruption

• 💻 Pansoft – China’s digital factory brain

• 🛢️ Shell – Fossil fuel? Try future-ready energy giant

All trading at ~50% discount to fair value. All backed by hard data. All poised to surprise a few people in 2025.

So here’s the challenge:

👉 Can you beat this basket?

I’m calling on investors, traders, and armchair analysts—drop your five best undervalued stocks in the comments or tag your own post with #BeatHal.

Criteria:

• Undervalued (obviously)

• Solid fundamentals

• Global picks welcome

• Bonus points for originality (if you say Apple, we’re judging you…)

So here they are. Five companies. Five different sectors. Five deep discounts to their estimated fair values & Why I like them.

⚡ Cenergy Holdings SA

Ticker: [CENER] | Exchange: Euronext Brussels

Current Price: €8.42 | Estimated Fair Value: €16.49 | Discount: 48.9%

📍 Why it matters:

Cenergy is the quiet hero behind Europe’s green energy transition. They make high-voltage submarine cables for offshore wind and smart grid systems—exactly the kind of infrastructure being pumped with billions from the EU’s €584B energy plan.

💡 Did you know?

Their Q1 2025 revenue rose 12% with an 18% EBITDA margin. That’s not a startup story. That’s an industrial compounder being overlooked.

💳 HSBC Holdings PLC

Ticker: HSBA.L | Exchange: London Stock Exchange

Current Price: £6.82 | P/E: 8 | Sector Median P/E: 14

📍 Why it matters:

The big boring bank that’s not so boring anymore. HSBC is making serious moves in Southeast Asia, shifting its weight behind wealth management and fintech infrastructure while still throwing off a 7.4% dividend yield.

💡 Did you know?

They’ve cut compliance costs by 15% using AI and grown client AUM in ASEAN by 22% annually. You just don’t hear about it in the West because… well, nobody clicks on “bank improves operations sensibly.”

🛡️ Mips AB

Ticker: MIPS.ST | Exchange: Nasdaq Stockholm

Current Price: SEK 352.60 | Fair Value: SEK 690.34 | Discount: 48.9%

📍 Why it matters:

They make the helmet safety tech used by 149 manufacturers globally—reducing rotational motion injuries by up to 50%. But the real kicker? They’re pivoting to B2B software analytics in construction and industrial safety.

💡 Did you know?

Their SaaS analytics division is growing recurring revenue by 35% annually, with a 97% customer retention rate.

💻 Pansoft Co., Ltd.

Ticker: 300996.SZ | Exchange: Shenzhen Stock Exchange

Current Price: CN¥14.19 | Fair Value: CN¥28.32 | Discount: 49.9%

📍 Why it matters:

Pansoft builds ERP and AI-driven supply chain platforms for China’s exploding SME sector. Their software helps manufacturers reduce inventory costs and optimize procurement—massive value in a tight-margin economy.

💡 Did you know?

They’ve partnered with Huawei and Tencent Cloud to scale hybrid cloud deployment, and their client retention sits at 89%.

🛢️ Shell PLC

Ticker: SHEL.L | Exchange: London Stock Exchange

Current Price: £28.15 | EV/EBITDA: 4.2 | Sector Median: 6.8

📍 Why it matters:

Shell isn’t just an oil major—it’s an energy pivot machine. It still prints cash from hydrocarbons, but it’s also pouring over $7B/year into renewables and leading the world in LNG capacity.

💡 Did you know?

They’ve achieved renewable grid parity in 14 countries, and their carbon capture projects now sequester 4.8 million tonnes a year—with targets to 5x that by 2030.

🧤 So, Can You Beat Hal?

All five of these companies are trading at ~50% below their estimated fair value. The average investor has written them off, priced them for disaster, or simply never heard of them.

Your challenge?

Find five that are better.

• More undervalued

• More promising

• More likely to double

Then post your picks.

Use the hashtag: #BeatHal

📩 Want to argue the methodology? Think Pansoft’s too risky or Shell’s too dirty? Message me or call me out.

👉 Ask Hal: https://www.horizon-associates.net/ask-hal

🧠 Disclaimer: This is not investment advice—just friendly competition and market banter. Do your own research. Or don’t. I’m not your regulator.

🧿HAL THINKS: Starmer vs. Farage - The Pot, The Kettle, and One Hell of a U-turn

What happens when a government elected on stability decides to go full panic mode over a man in a pub blazer? You get a press conference like the one Keir Starmer just gave — equal parts campaign stump speech, therapy session, and Brexit hangover. The Prime Minister took direct aim at Nigel Farage this week, framing him as a national economic threat. But when you line up Starmer’s accusations against Labour’s own manifesto and subsequent U-turns, it starts looking like a case of projection in its purest political form.

Let’s break this down.

“Fantasy Economics!” …But Who Promised What?

Starmer accused Farage of offering “billions upon billions of completely unfunded spending,” likening it to “Liz Truss 2.0.” But here’s the rub: Labour got elected on some extremely big-ticket promises themselves — and they’ve either shelved, softened, or quietly reversed many of them.

Among the promises:

• A full ban on fire-and-rehire tactics (Labour has since watered down this pledge, introducing a watered-down code of conduct instead.)

• No tax rises on working people — a promise already bent with hikes to National Insurance thresholds and business levies.

• A ‘Green New Deal’ £28 billion pledge — now quietly abandoned post-election.

• End the two-child benefit cap — currently “under review,” but actively avoided every time it’s raised.

In contrast, Farage has offered a populist libertarian economic model: tax cuts, small state, and Brexit reinforcement. Whether you agree with him or not, it’s no more fantastical than what Labour sold during its own campaign — and arguably more consistent.

“Jaguar Land Rover Should Go Bust!”

Starmer seized on Farage’s comment that Jaguar Land Rover “deserved to go bust” — based on a woke advert, no less. Yes, it’s a dumb quote. But let’s not forget: Labour was part of a chorus in opposition that resisted state support for UK firms under Conservative rule. Now they want credit for saving Scunthorpe Steel and JLR? Convenient.

Meanwhile, Labour’s new trade deals — especially the EU “reset” — seem crafted more for technocratic legacy points than for national pride. Fisheries? Sold out. Borders? Loosened. Regulation? Edging closer to dynamic alignment.

Who’s really backing British industry here?

“You Can’t Trust Farage with Your Mortgages”

Starmer warned voters: don’t let Farage near your finances. But Labour’s track record thus far isn’t squeaky clean. The 2024 manifesto promised economic stability — yet they entered office without a fully costed budget, and several early spending proposals now appear abandoned. Meanwhile, inflation is falling largely due to Bank of England policy set before Starmer took office.

His claim that Labour alone has “stabilised the economy” is generous at best. At worst? Classic politician overreach.

“Politics Is About Who You Have In Your Mind’s Eye”

One of Starmer’s more theatrical lines was that leadership is about “who you have in your mind’s eye.” He sees working families. Farage, he claims, sees casino chips.

But this poetic device backfires when held up to the cold facts: Starmer’s government has already slipped on commitments to:

• Cap rent increases

• Build 1.5 million homes (no plan revealed)

• End zero-hours contracts (revised wording suggests more consultation instead)

It’s a lovely sentiment, but the policies so far favour the Treasury spreadsheet over the family spreadsheet.

“Restoring Trust in Politics”

That line’s starting to feel like a slogan cooked up by the very spin doctors Labour promised to sack. Between manifesto amnesia, post-election U-turns, and performative speeches about a man with five MPs, the trust deficit isn’t closing — it’s calcifying.

To attack Farage as a dangerous economic experiment is fair game… but only if you’ve delivered on your own plan. Otherwise, it’s not just the pot calling the kettle black — it’s the pot trying to run the kettle over while forgetting it left the oven on.

Final thought from HAL:

If this really is the “new politics” we were promised, it’s looking a lot like the old one. Only this time, it’s wearing a slightly better suit — and apparently terrified of a bloke who still uses a Nokia.

— HAL Thinks.

📲 HAL THINKS: Is This Toyota’s iPhone Moment?

The Engine That Burns Ammonia and Everything You Thought You Knew

While the world was busy virtue-signalling its way into electric vehicles, Toyota quietly built an engine that runs on fertiliser, outperforms EVs on emissions, and doesn’t need a lithium ransom to leave the driveway.

The internal combustion engine was meant to be dead. Obsolete. Banned. Scrapped. But apparently no one told Toyota — or perhaps they just didn’t care. Instead of joining the conga line of EV hype merchants, Toyota teamed up with China’s GAC Motor and rolled out something so disruptive, it may just be the iPhone moment of the car industry.

A 2.0L engine. Powered by ammonia. Produces 161 horsepower and 90% fewer CO₂ emissions than your average petrol engine — and when burned properly, it emits no carbon at all. That’s right: zero. Nil. Nada. Not even a smug cloud of self-satisfaction.

So while Tesla’s updating your steering wheel with a subscription, Toyota just reinvented fuel.

The Science Bit (Don’t Worry, It’s Still Ridiculous)

This isn’t a quirky one-off lab project. It’s a fully operational, ammonia-burning internal combustion engine — the first of its kind poised for passenger vehicles.

And yes, ammonia is a bit tricky. Hard to ignite. Corrosive. Toxic. Smells like a murder scene at a cleaning supply warehouse. But that didn’t stop Toyota. They gave it direct injection, optimised combustion control, and even made it dual-fuel capable — meaning it can mix with petrol, diesel or hydrogen like some kind of combustible cocktail.

The result? An engine that burns without guilt. No carbon, no hydrocarbons, no particulates, no CO₂. Just a little nitrogen oxide — handled by Toyota’s existing SCR aftertreatment systems, borrowed straight from commercial fleets. And somehow, it’s all legal.

Environmentalists Should Be Cheering, But They’ll Probably Panic Instead

On paper, this is the green dream:

• Zero-carbon combustion (when done right)

• Renewable fuel production possible via electrolysis

• Higher energy density than hydrogen

• No mining required

• No batteries, no rare earths, no cobalt children

It even improves air quality — assuming you don’t spill it. But instead of fitting the mainstream narrative, it punches it in the face.

EVs are supposed to be the only future. Governments are banning combustion. Cities are installing EV chargers with the urgency of a wartime bunker programme.

And yet… here comes Toyota, casually reanimating internal combustion like Frankenstein with a chemistry set.

Let’s Talk Safety — Because Yes, Ammonia is a Bit ‘Murdery’

It’s not all roses and revolutions. Ammonia has issues:

• It’s toxic

• It’s corrosive

• It’s flammable

• It smells like a meth lab exploded

Handling it in passenger vehicles requires sophisticated containment, leak detection, and emergency protocols. And as Bloomberg NEF put it bluntly: “Ammonia is hellish to handle.”

But before you panic — remember: so was petrol. And hydrogen. And, let’s be honest, your first attempt at making sourdough. We got over it.

Commercial vehicles like trucks and ships already deal with hazardous fuels. That’s where ammonia engines will likely debut — in sectors that care less about luxury and more about range, cost, and infrastructure.

Timeline and Trajectory: Coming to a Road Near You (Maybe)

Toyota’s targeting 2026 for first commercial use. That’s not a pipe dream — it’s an aggressive roadmap.

Early adopters will likely be logistics fleets, shipping firms, or industrial transport. But if the infrastructure builds out — and safety tech matures — it’s not hard to imagine an ammonia-powered Hilux idling next to your Tesla at the Waitrose car park.

Toyota’s wider strategy is to offer every option: hybrid, hydrogen, EV, and now ammonia. That’s not indecision. That’s hedging against the future — and they’re doing it with patents, prototypes, and practical delivery timelines.

So… Should You Buy Toyota Stock?

Well, consider this:

• They just leapfrogged EVs on clean propulsion.

• They don’t need lithium, nickel, or a dodgy Congo supply chain.

• They already have a distribution network, global brand, and now… a wildcard.

In financial terms, this could be post-iPod Apple circa 2006. Everyone else is still solving the old problem. Toyota just changed the question.

Final Thought: If You’re Still Laughing, You Haven’t Been Paying Attention

This isn’t just another quirky alt-fuel experiment. It’s a running, tested, patent-loaded, combustion-powered engine that undercuts every assumption in the green transition narrative.

No, ammonia isn’t perfect. But neither is plugging your car into a coal-powered grid and calling it progress.

Toyota’s ammonia engine doesn’t ask permission. It doesn’t wait for subsidies. It just works — with real horsepower, real emissions reductions, and real potential.

So yes — this might just be Toyota’s iPhone moment.

And unlike the rest of the auto industry, they’re not trying to kill combustion.

They’re just making it… clean.

Hal Thinks.

Still running on logic. And occasionally, ammonia.

🫖 HAL THINKS: Two Tiers’ Mad Hatters Tea Party — Starmer’s EU Deal Leaves Brexit in the Teacup

“Have I gone mad?” “I’m afraid so. You’re entirely bonkers. But I’ll tell you a secret — all the best deals are.”

Welcome to post-Brexit Britain, where the tea is weak, the fishing waters foreign, and the supposed sovereignty we fought to reclaim is being quietly repackaged and returned to sender. Sir Keir Starmer’s new EU “reset” is less a pragmatic partnership and more a reheated Brussels brew — served with a smile and garnished with regulatory parsley.

Let’s pour this madness into a pot and stir it properly.

🧾 The Deal at a Glance

Announced with ceremonial flair at Lancaster House on May 19, 2025, Starmer’s agreement claims to restore “common sense cooperation” with the EU. Here’s the shortlist of what he served up:

• British holidaymakers to skip the queues via EU passport e-gates

• Youth Mobility scheme returns (yep, kids abroad again!)

• A 12-year fishing concession giving EU trawlers extensive UK coastal access

• Easier movement of animal and plant products

• An SPS agreement to reduce trade friction

• Mutual recognition of qualifications

• Regulatory alignment in key areas (with whispers of ECJ influence)

In other words: fewer checks, fewer choices, and more European oversight — but at least it’s “efficient.”

🐟 Fishing: The One That Got Away (Again)

Perhaps the most pungent part of the agreement is the 12-year fishing deal. For the industry that was promised a renaissance, this feels like betrayal redux. Reform UK called it a “horror show.” The Scottish Fishermen’s Federation said it “defies belief.” And Nigel Farage — true to form — dubbed it “the end.”

The government promises £360m in “support,” but it smells like hush money.

🧳 Border Control? Or Open Borders?

Starmer hails the return of e-gates as a triumph of frictionless travel. Critics say it’s frictionless sovereignty. After years of reclaiming border control, we now celebrate giving it back to Europe’s biometric scanner?

And the Youth Mobility scheme — time-limited, Starmer insists — sounds familiar. If the goal is to mirror Australia and New Zealand, why does this smell like Erasmus and Schengen?

⚖ Rule-Maker or Rule-Taker?

Kemi Badenoch thundered in Parliament that the UK is becoming a “rule-taker from Brussels.” She’s not wrong.

This isn’t just about border queues or mutual recognition. It’s dynamic alignment, one nibble at a time — formalising what’s already happening informally. We’re inching closer to the regulatory rhythm of the EU in return for a chance to sell sausages.

And let’s not forget the reappearance of the European Court of Justice in arbitration discussions. Wasn’t that supposed to be a Brexit red line?

📊 Business Applauds — But At What Price?

The CBI gave it a thumbs-up. Tesco loves the idea. Retailers want smoother logistics. Fine. But when big business cheers and the public looks baffled, something’s off. You don’t need to rejoin the EU to ease red tape — unless, of course, you’re quietly rejoining the EU.

🔁 Evolution or Re-entry?

Starmer insists this is not rejoining by stealth. The UK is still out of the customs union, the single market, and EU institutions. True. But if it looks like a directive, sounds like a regulation, and smells like a fishing quota — you’re probably halfway back in.

We’ve replaced a hard Brexit with a soft landing that looks increasingly like reverse thrust. Call it a “reset” if you like — but the direction of travel is unmistakable.

🎩 HAL’s Final Word: A Very Brexit Tea Party

This deal is Brexit in Wonderland. Rights are traded for relationships. Sovereignty for smoothies. And control for compromise.

It’s not the reset Starmer claims. Nor the betrayal Reform screams. But it is a step. And whether it’s the first step toward sanity or a slow shuffle back through the EU’s revolving door depends on whether Britain notices… and whether it minds.

Put the kettle on. The next course is already being served.

—

🧿 HAL THINKS — Weekly political breakdowns brewed with facts, sarcasm, and a splash of existential dread.

🧿HAL THINKS: Pension Ambush — The 2027 Tax Trap Few See Coming

A review of “How to give your pension away before the 2027 tax raid” by The Sunday Times

Once upon a time, defined contribution pensions were the cleanest way to preserve wealth for the next generation — tax-sheltered, inheritance-friendly, and just flexible enough to let you feel clever.

That era is now on life support. And by April 2027, if the government gets its way, it will be six feet under.

The Sunday Times piece by Ali Hussain is not only well worth a read — it’s a flashing red alert for anyone with a decent-sized pension pot and intergenerational intentions.

💣 What’s Changing?

The government has proposed new rules that would subject any unused pension pot to Inheritance Tax (IHT) from 2027 onward. Yes — even the pots that were previously IHT-exempt.

And if you die after age 75, your beneficiaries could get hit again with income tax when they withdraw the funds. That means up to 67% of your pension could be lost to tax — not a typo.

In short: Build wealth for decades. Die. Watch HMRC take most of it.

💸 Real Impact, Real People

Take 71-year-old John Simpson, profiled in the article. He spent his life building a responsible £875,000 pension. The new rules now force him into “reverse planning.” He’s pulling out income up to just under the higher-rate tax threshold and gifting chunks to his children and grandchildren before the taxman gets there first.

It’s a logical response — but a tragic one. Simpson was doing everything right. And now, like many savers, he’s having to unpick carefully laid plans just to protect his family from what looks increasingly like a stealth double-taxation scheme.

🧾 A Tax on Prudence?

These changes make a mockery of previous Treasury incentives. Defined contribution pensions were marketed — even celebrated — as tools for long-term wealth transfer. People were encouraged to move away from defined benefit schemes.

Now, in a classic bait-and-switch, the government is eyeing over £1 trillion in pension savings like it’s a national rainy day fund.

The sting? Many pensioners, thinking they were safe from IHT, delayed drawing down their pots. Now, unless they act fast, that prudence is about to be punished.

🛡️ What Can You Do?

Here’s what the article recommends, and it’s solid advice:

• Draw down pension income now, within tax-efficient limits

• Gift assets early, using annual allowances and “potentially exempt transfers”

• Consider the surplus income rule — regular gifts from disposable income may avoid IHT altogether

• Use life insurance policies to cover the expected IHT bill

• Keep meticulous records if you’re planning to gift from income

But beware: pulling too much income too fast could trigger the money purchase annual allowance — capping your future contributions to £10,000/year.

🧨 The Real Risk?

That this is just the start. If pensions are now fair game for inheritance tax, what’s next? ISAs? Homes left to grandchildren?

And what about the morality of taxing retirement savings twice — once as income and again at death?

📰 Final Thought: Read the Sunday Times

Seriously, read the full piece if you haven’t: “How to give your pension away before the 2027 tax raid” (Ali Hussain, The Sunday Times). It’s one of the most sobering — and practical — financial articles published this year.

Want to keep your legacy out of HMRC’s hands? Talk to an adviser now —

— HAL

🌎 HAL THINKS: Market Relief or Mirage? A Full Look Ahead (May 19–23, 2025)

Welcome to the week ahead. After a bruising quarter marked by tariff tantrums, tech pullbacks, and recession rumblings, investors might be tempted to breathe a little easier. But don’t inhale too deeply. This isn’t a rally. It’s a relief pause. And beneath the surface of tariff de-escalations and modest gains, the tectonic plates of the global economy are still grinding.

This week is stuffed with potential market movers: China data, PMI releases, central bank decisions, earnings, and Fed whisperings. If you're looking for clarity, brace for complexity.

📈 Key Global Data: PMI, China, Inflation

🌎 Global Flash PMIs (May 22)

S&P Global releases flash Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) data for major economies. These are the pulse checks of economic momentum:

• Expected trend: Manufacturing flat, services slowing.

• Markets to watch: Australia, Japan, India, France, Germany, Eurozone, UK, US.

• Signal: Any divergence between regions could whiplash FX markets and sector bets.

🇨🇳 China Data Dump (May 20)

Industrial production, retail sales, house prices, fixed investment—China drops a suite of data on Monday.

• Industrial output: Cooling from 7.7% to 6.1%

• Retail sales: Slowing to 5.1%

• Fixed asset investment: Trimming to 4.0%

• House prices: Still falling, but less so (forecast -4.0%)

• Implication: If these underwhelm, brace for commodities wobble and Asia drag.

🇺🇸 US Housing Watch

• Existing and new home sales due this week.

• Backdrop: Mortgage rates remain high. Inventory tight. Affordability crushed.

• Signal: Weak housing = pressure on builders, banks, and confidence.

🇯🇵 – 🇲🇨 – 🇦🇺 Inflation & Interest Rates

• UK CPI (May 22)

• Japan CPI (May 23)

• Canada CPI (May 21): Forecast drop to 1.6%

• Australia: RBA decision May 21

• China: Loan Prime Rate call

Central banks might talk dovish. Don’t mistake that for being done hiking.

💼 Corporate Earnings: Retail, Tech, Shipping

Monday Kickoff (May 19)

• ICL Group (fertilizers): EPS down 11% YoY

• ZIM Shipping: EPS up 152% — major beat expected

• Others: Gilat (satellite), Compugen (biotech), CBAK (battery tech)

Big Names Later in Week

• Retail: Home Depot, TJX, Lowe’s

• Tech: Palo Alto Networks, Intuit

Retail earnings will act as a proxy for consumer strength. Misses here = trouble.

🇺🇸 Trump Tariff Shock: The Hangover Begins

President Trump’s tariff reset has rattled nerves. He’s threatening unilateral hikes based on perceived “trade inequality,” including:

• China: 34%

• Japan: 24%

• EU: 20%

• Canada, Mexico: Exempt (for now)

The tariffs target not just goods, but also VAT systems, subsidies, and currency practices.

• Market Reaction: Last week’s sell-off saw S&P 500 futures down 3%, EuroStoxx off 2.2%.

• Sector Damage: Adidas –10%, Puma –9%, EssilorLuxottica –4%, EU autos battered.

This isn’t old-school protectionism. It’s modern economic warfare. Brace for retaliations.

🇨🇳 China's Slow Burn: The Bigger Risk

China’s GDP engine is sputtering. It’s not just property:

• Debt overhang

• Regulatory repression

• Export cooling

• Aging population

• Consumer confidence plunging

Key Insight: Australia, Germany, and global commodities are deeply exposed. China data this week could pivot sentiment hard.

🏛️ Fed Speak: Threading the Needle

• Fed Williams speaks Sunday night (May 18)

• Multiple Fed officials scheduled throughout week

Markets expect 2 cuts this year. Fed might not.

• If they sound hawkish — markets will wobble.

• If they sound dovish — dollar weakens, gold gains.

⚔️ Geopolitics: Smoldering Risk

• Middle East: Trump visits Gulf. Economic focus, but Iran always looms.

• Ukraine talks: Ceasefire hopes in Istanbul (May 15 follow-up)

• Risk Premiums: Sovereign spreads widening. Emerging markets at risk.

Emerging market equities drop ~5% on average during geopolitical flare-ups. Watch oil, currencies, and bond yields.

🌿 Final Word: Don’t Mistake Calm for Clarity

What we’re witnessing isn’t so much a rally as a global sigh of relief. The market was pricing in an economic war. Now it’s pricing in a handshake.

But the fundamentals haven’t gone away:

• Sticky inflation

• Fragile trade truces

• Central banks on edge

• A China slowdown with no clear floor

Smart money isn’t chasing this bounce. It’s watching. Waiting. Rebalancing.

Stay sharp,
HAL

🧿 HAL THINKS: Markets Reboot—But Not Everyone's Invited to the Party

As of mid-May 2025, the global economy is putting on a brave face. Tariffs are easing, trade talks are flowing, and equity markets are bouncing back like a rubber ball off a marble floor. But peel back the ticker tape and you’ll find a market narrative driven less by fundamentals and more by wishful thinking, policy theatre, and selective optimism. Let’s pull the curtain on the winners, losers, and the real forces shaping the post-trade truce market landscape.

🌍 Global Overview: Sentiment Rebounds, Reality Stalls

Markets have staged a striking comeback. Europe’s STOXX 600 gained 10.5% over four weeks—the strongest surge since COVID's vaccine euphoria in 2020. The FTSE 100 clawed back nearly all its post-"Liberation Day" losses. Across the pond, Wall Street is oscillating—gains on May 12 followed by mixed performance as investors sober up to the details of Trump’s trade reset.

The kicker? Goldman Sachs just trimmed their recession forecast from 45% to 35%. Welcome to the new optimism economy: geopolitical sugar highs in place of fundamentals.

📈 Sector Winners: Riding the Tariff Truce

1. Industrials (+1.1%) – Global manufacturing breathes a sigh of relief. Logistics firms and export-sensitive stocks rally.

2. Consumer Discretionary (+0.9%) – Retail rebounds on hopes of cheaper imports and happier consumers.

3. Energy (+0.7%) – Oil stabilises as Middle East tensions ease (for now) and demand projections tick upward.

4. Technology (+0.3%) – Semiconductors pop, anticipating smoother U.S.-China supply chains.

📊 Alt Assets: Bitcoin’s back above January highs. Gold softens as risk appetite returns, but it’s still hovering near historic levels thanks to global jitters.

📉 Sector Losers: Structural Drag Meets Sentiment Blindspot

1. Health Care (-4.1%) – Under pressure from regulatory uncertainty and investor rotation away from defensive assets.

2. Consumer Staples (-1.1%) – Safe havens out of fashion. Investors chase upside.

3. Communications (-2.3%) – Big tech ad spend expectations reset.

4. Real Estate (-0.6%) – Higher-for-longer interest rates dull enthusiasm.

Notable casualties: Bunzl (-22.2%), BP (-19.7%), Shell (-13.8%)—energy giants still reeling from oil price softness, regulatory risk, and ESG blowback.

💼 Big Story: Trade Truce or Temporary Fantasy?

The U.S.-China tariff rollback—dropping from 120% to 54%—sparked a relief rally. But this isn’t a free trade renaissance. Trump’s executive orders still carry a populist sting: flat $100 duties, and a continuing 10% UK import tariff.

Meanwhile, trade talks in Geneva hint at progress. The UK gets a half-baked deal: less punitive tariffs on autos, but little else. Investors may be celebrating too early. As TD Securities put it, "Tariffs are here to stay."

🏦 Monetary Watch: The Fed Blinks—But Doesn't Budge

The Federal Reserve held rates steady at 4.25%-4.5%, citing strong activity but rising risks. Bond markets now expect just two cuts in 2025. Treasury yields are back to April levels. Investors want looser money. The Fed isn’t playing ball—yet.

In Europe, inflation remains sticky, and the ECB is in no rush to cut. Japan, meanwhile, is watching the yen quietly burn against a stronger dollar.

🌐 Geo Risk Radar

• Trump in Saudi Arabia: Pushing trade and oil diplomacy. Security talk is background noise. Markets cheer the optics.

• Ukraine-Russia Ceasefire Talks: May 15 in Istanbul. High stakes. High volatility risk.

• China’s Carveout Strategy: Talks with the U.S., investment expansion in the Global South. Beijing’s Plan B is well underway.

📉 Currency Moves and Capital Flows

• Dollar: Weakened post-tariff truce. Largest underweight by fund managers in 19 months.

• Emerging Markets: Rallying on dollar retreat. Watch India, Brazil, Vietnam.

• Commodities: Crude oil up 3% since May 9. Gold dipped on risk appetite, but demand persists.

🔮 Hal’s Take: Market Euphoria vs. Reality Check

What we’re witnessing isn’t so much a rally as a global sigh of relief. The market was pricing in an economic war. Now it’s pricing in a handshake. But the fundamentals—rising inflation risk, central bank stasis, and fragile trade truces—haven’t gone away.

Winners are cyclical sectors tied to trade. Losers are anything grounded in yield or regulation.

The real story? A jittery world buying time—and maybe a bit of hope—before the next shock hits.

— HAL

🧿HAL THINKS: Antarctica Just Gained 100 Billion Tons of Ice — Somebody Tell the IPCC

Turns out, the only thing melting faster than glaciers is the credibility of climate alarmism. Tongji University just flipped the script — and the satellites have receipts.

Remember when you were told the polar ice caps were disappearing forever? Well, it seems Mother Nature didn’t get the memo.

Researchers from Tongji University in Shanghai have just dropped a peer-reviewed climate grenade into the Antarctic narrative. According to their March 2025 study published in Science China Earth Sciences, the Antarctic Ice Sheet gained a jaw-dropping 107.79 billion tons of mass annually between 2021 and 2023. That’s not a typo. It’s an ice gain, not loss.

Let’s dig into what this actually means — and why the usual talking heads are unusually quiet.

❄️ The Satellite Truth: What Tongji Found

Using gravimetric data from GRACE and GRACE-FO satellites, which track changes in Earth's gravity (and thus mass), researchers discovered a stark reversal:

• 2002–2010: Antarctica lost ~74 Gt/year

• 2011–2020: Loss accelerated to ~142 Gt/year

• 2021–2023: GAINED ~108 Gt/year

That’s a turnaround of over 250 billion tons. The change was so significant it temporarily offset sea level rise by ~0.3mm per year.

Yes, you read that right: while you were being taxed to fight rising seas, Antarctica was quietly putting some water back in the bank.

🌧️ What Caused the Reversal?

Short answer? Snow.

The study links the unexpected mass gain to anomalous precipitation patterns — in other words, it snowed. A lot. Specifically in East Antarctica across key glacier basins like Totten, Denman, and Vincennes Bay.

These basins had been hemorrhaging ice just a few years ago. Now they’re the poster children for a glacial comeback.

⚠️ The Narrative Flinch: Temporary, They Say

Climate scientists are scrambling to qualify the results:

• It’s just weather.

• It’s not permanent.

• It doesn’t change the long-term outlook.

Of course. Because when ice melts, it's a crisis. When it grows, it's a glitch.

Still, even the researchers admit this isn't yet a permanent trend. But that doesn’t make the implications any less profound:

The climate system is far more complex and dynamic than your local protest placard would suggest.

🌊 Meanwhile in the Arctic…

While Antarctica was bulking up, the Arctic had a different story. Sea ice there hit a record low this winter, illustrating that regional variation exists and global climate dynamics don’t follow uniform scripts.

In science, that’s expected. In politics, it’s inconvenient.

🔢 Data vs Doctrine: The Sea Level Irony

Quick flashback:

• From 2002–2010, Antarctic ice loss added ~0.2mm/year to sea levels

• From 2011–2020, that rose to ~0.4mm/year

• From 2021–2023, Antarctica removed 0.3mm/year

This matters. Because ice loss and sea level rise are the cornerstones of climate anxiety — the very metrics that have justified everything from carbon taxes to banning gas stoves.

Yet here we are, with satellites showing a reversal, and not one major western media outlet daring to ask what it might mean.

🕵️\200d♂️ Final Thought: If the Science Changed, Would the Narrative?

Probably not.

Because this was never just about data. It’s about control, funding, and fear. When the ice melts, it's proof. When it grows, it's weather. When models fail, the models get new models. You don’t question the consensus. Even when Antarctica does.

So yes, let’s continue to monitor. Let’s do more research. But let’s also admit the heresy:

The planet might be smarter than the panel.

Stay frosty,

— HAL