Your September issue of Small Cap Investigator

The meeting that led to Southbank’s leading investment advisory

Let’s get straight to the point: there’s not going to be a stock recommendation this issue.

But that’s not to say we don’t have an opportunity on the hob, bubbling away.

In fact, I’ve just recorded an interview with a hugely impressive figure behind a very exciting investment opportunity in the China/clean energy nexus.

That’s a market I’ve long wanted exposure to.

After all, China is incomparable when it comes to clean energy.

Consider this:

• China already generates more power from solar energy than every other country in the world combined.
• In the first four months of 2023, nearly three times as much new solar capacity was installed than in the same period in 2022.
• In fact, China’s new solar capacity installed this year will exceed the entire total of installed capacity in the US.

And that’s just in solar.

Similar developments are also taking place in the wind and battery markets.

Indeed, the progress China has made in renewable energy just this year makes the entire rest of the world look like it’s standing still.

Saying that, up until now investing in the Chinese clean tech space has been nigh on impossible for most retail investors. Most brokers just don’t offer a market in all but a few Chinese stocks.

But the investment opportunity I’ve been researching has no such issues. It’s set to be listed in London and accessible for European retail investors in mid-October, though that date is still not fully confirmed.

I plan to send you full details of the recommendation as soon I know for sure it’s good to go.

So this month I’d like to present another opportunity to you, though this one won’t go in our model portfolio.

Instead, it relates to a company meeting I had with my colleagues at the start of this year.

Back in early February, you see, I found myself sitting in the main boardroom at Southbank HQ in London discussing the company’s plans for the year ahead.

But it wasn’t just any old meeting.

In attendance were all Southbank’s top brass and decision-makers, including the publishing, marketing and compliance chiefs and our newly installed investment director, as well as two managers from Fat Tail Investment Research, our sister company in Australia.

Two executives from our ultimate bosses, Agora Inc., had also flown over from Baltimore for the meeting that was slated to set the priorities for the year ahead and map out how Southbank should navigate our readers through an increasingly difficult and uncertain macro environment.

I was there in my humble position as an editor, along with all the other editors in Southbank’s stable.

The backdrop to this meeting was that 2022 had been a difficult time for most UK investors and many of our model portfolios, at least in part, reflected that. In any given year, you would normally find at least one market or investment strategy that obviously outperformed, but 2022 was the year where, on the surface, everything went down.

After all, in 2022, most global stock indices were a sea of red as high inflation forced major central banks to ratchet up interest rates at the fastest pace in decades, denting the allure of many asset classes and ending a bull market run that began in early 2020.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine acted to increase uncertainty and contributed to a cost-of-living crisis in the UK that left most retail investors looking for the exit doors.

One of my model portfolios – Exponential Energy Fortunes – Private Reserve, or EPR for short – targeted high-potential microcap stocks in the clean energy sector, so it was hit particularly hard.

Yes, I’d had a couple of wins and some of the stocks I recommended for EPR in 2022 are still in positive territory – like 79.45% on one clean energy stock and 45.45% on another (of course these are live positions so these gains could down as well as up) – but overall, like all assets in that horror story year, the portfolio was down -26.26%.

Ouch.

But it wasn’t just stocks that suffered.

Last year was also the worst for bond markets in more than a century and marked the end of a four-decade-long “golden age” for the asset class.

Global bonds lost 31% in 2022, the worst annual performance for fixed income in data stretching back to 1900. UK bonds fared even worse, returning minus 39%. By some accounts this was the worst performance for UK bonds in 400 years!

So, as we all sat around the large rectangular boardroom table, we set about answering one over-riding question: where should Southbank’s loyal band of readers put their money or, to be more precise, how could we help them through the next year – a year that currently showed precious few signs it would be much better than the last?

To this vexing question there was certainly no consensus.

One wise head said that, with both the trajectory of inflation and the overall economic picture still unclear, investors may want to prioritise fixed income in their portfolios.

Another suggested that, given that they are cheap relative to their own history and to developed market equities, we may want to look at emerging markets.

Tech should be due a comeback, my fellow Small Cap Investigator editor wisely (and, it turns out, correctly) proffered.

Commodities… alternative asset classes… crypto… all the major asset classes were put forward as the sectors our readers would be able to invest in profitably this year.

But for every idea put forward, someone else put forward at least one counter argument, meaning we were in danger of going around in circles and failing to grasp the point of the meeting: we wanted a semblance of a roadmap to offer readers as to where they should put their money.

Up until this point, I hadn’t really contributed though when someone mentioned commodity markets, I knew I couldn’t hold my silence any longer.

Where investors should be really looking, I said, was just not in the commodity markets per se, but specifically in the energy markets.

But, I added, I didn’t just mean oil and gas, which is what most investors think of when “energy” is mentioned, I meant every form of energy.

And I didn’t mean investors should just buy any type of energy and forget about it.

I said we should be taking advantage of the unprecedented volatility in the energy markets by offering them shorter-term investment opportunities to capture whatever energy form was in vogue at any one particular moment in time.

After all, we were still in the midst of huge swings in the natural gas, electricity and oil markets. This had put everyone on edge and meant countries, companies and investors alike were doing everything they could do to shore up energy supplies, both for now and in the future.

Certainly, what we shouldn’t do, I added, was cheerlead any particular form of energy over others. We needed to put our pom-poms down – perhaps me more than most – and understand that the whole energy landscape had shifted beneath our feet.

And with it the opportunity presented to red-blooded investors.

A new way for Southbank readers to profit

By way of explanation, I said that back in early 2021, clean tech markets were riding high, coming off the back of a remarkable few years that saw investors pile into green energy with near-frenzied enthusiasm.

The economic slump brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic hit electricity demand around the world, with non-renewable generators of all sorts reducing their output and countries loudly stating their ambitions to press the accelerator down on the great green transition.

Back then, undoubtedly, the fossil fuel industry was on the back foot after several years of lacklustre financial returns and growing concerns about climate change.

Oil prices even briefly entered negative territory as demand dried up.

But in 2022, I said, traditional energy market had re-asserted itself towards the centre of financial markets.

Off the back of the biggest threat to global peace since the Second World War, countries the world over started to rewrite their rulebooks in order to secure their energy supply chains.

As Russia weaponised its oil and natural gas exports, energy prices started to spike and most of the planet scrambled to cope with the resulting chaos.

Increasingly, this meant countries upped investment in fossil fuels in return for security, under the premise of not going dark before going green.

In fact, throughout 2022, the top ten highest returning stocks on the S&P 500 were all what you might call traditional energy companies.

But the opportunity in the clean energy transition hadn’t gone away, I maintained.

In 2023, not only would the green energy sector begin to feel the force of Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, but other regions would also adopt a state-led industrial policy in an attempt to accelerate a huge, global and long-term renewables build-out.

Clean energy, dirty energy – money was hitting the market at a shocking scale. In 2023, energy would become the centre of the financial universe.

But, up until now, Southbank hadn’t had a service that could properly target some of the shorter-term swings in momentum in specific energy sectors and stocks, I said.

Although many energy market sectors had seen violent swings over the last few years, we’d not been able to fully capture the range of opportunities both on the upside and downside.

Hence, we needed a new service, I repeated, one that was 100% focused on where the money flow was heading in the energy sector at any particular moment in time.

And buying in, ahead of it, gunning to make our readers big profits.

One month we may be in solar. The next we may be in natural gas. The next it could be nuclear.

With the energy markets in a state of flux with competing agendas, there were opportunities on the table to profit in many different ways, I said.

We just needed to make sure the service was “market agnostic” without any pre-conceived or ideological alignment, I continued.

This service wouldn’t discuss the pros and cons of fossil fuels… or the virtues or vices of net zero. It wouldn’t be about politics or culture wars.

Remember, too, I said, that energy was no longer an isolated sub-sector of the economy – it affects everything.

We were seeing a global restructuring of the world energy order, with one of the biggest levers in the global economy being shifted.

The service should look to aim to stay on top of all the regional issues with actionable signals for investors to take advantage of the fast-moving markets.

A team effort brought the service together

At this point, my little speech over, almost everyone in the room had an opinion on what any new service should look like and how we could refine it further to the benefit of our readers.

One of our Australian colleagues suggested we should look to incorporate a momentum-seeking algorithm, which would help us clearly identify the energy stocks or sectors on the move.

Our Australian sister company had developed such a system to great effect for one of its services, which had really allowed the service’s editor to squeeze as much juice out of each investment opportunity as possible, he added.

This, he said, would allow readers to capture the extreme volatility that was currently a mark of nearly all energy markets.

Not that we should be wholly reliant on the algorithm, he cautioned. The ideal approach would be to use the system as a timing tool, though ultimate discretion on what stocks to buy and sell should remain with the editor.

As such, I would still use my 15 years’ experience in the energy markets and employ deep fundamental analysis to decide whether any stock move has legs or whether it is just a move that will likely burn out before it really gets started.

Eoin Treacy then said he could help refine the applicable stock universe to make it easier to run any algorithm, while Paolo Cabrelli, Southbank’s top publisher, said he knew exactly who we should speak to in order to help us build the algorithm itself: Trendsignal.

After all, Trendsignal was the award-winning team of computer scientists and traders who had been developing and honing market-beating algorithms for the last 20 years.

Paolo said I should speak to Adrian Buthee of Trendsignal – and the editor of Daily Profit Alert – to see if he could help us develop such an algorithm for the energy markets.

In a nutshell, during this meeting it was decided that, considering Exponential Energy Fortunes – Private Reserve and its energy focus, we should change direction. So we readjusted its focus to be an “energy agnostic” service and rebranded it as Strategic Energy Alert.

What followed the meeting was nearly two months of frantic work that comprised refining the stock universe with Eoin, speaking to Adrian about the algorithm, backtesting and writing – lots of writing – to put the concept in front of as many readers as possible.

The leading investment advisory of 2023

Why am I telling you all this?

Well, it’s certainly not to boast, even though I’m told, six months after the rebranding, it’s on track to be Southbank’s leading service this year.

Since the rebranding, we have recommended nine stocks, closing out three winners and one very marginal loss. Three of the current five stocks in the portfolio are nicely in the black.

We’ve been able to capitalise on the recent bull run in uranium and some of the volatility we’ve seen in natural gas markets.

We’re now also positioned to take advantage of the bullishness in crude oil – a market that looks set to remain strong until at least the end of the year – as well as in the market for renewable fuels and lithium.

We took a 29% gain in just three weeks in an Australian natural gas company called Strike Energy. This, in fact, perfectly encapsulated the entire investment approach of Strategic Energy Alert, marrying a top-down approach with a combination of fundamental and technical analysis to determine what to buy and when. In other words:

• We identified that gas producers in the Perth Basin were in prime position to address a gas shortage in Western Australia.
• We concluded that Strike Energy, specifically, could re-rate higher amid a consolidation of producers in the region.
• We put our momentum-seeking algorithm to work to buy the stock when momentum was clearly on our side.
• We sold when it looked like the possibility of a takeover was becoming increasingly priced in to a stock that was trading 60% lower just two months prior.

But this is just a taste of things to come.

You see, the real reason I’m telling you all this is to let you know that there are many other similar opportunities on the table right now.

By way of explanation, here’s a snapshot of what is on the radar for my current readers at the moment:

1) Russian gas still accounts for nearly 15% of EU gas demand. And there is not really enough liquified natural gas (LNG) to replace it. I’ll be looking for a carrier stock that could profit if Putin targets pipelines.  

2) Cash in when China’s chips are down… there’s a potential Black Swan event that could prove a fantastic boon for US sources of the battery/electric vehicle supply chain.

3) THE big news for a renewable boom: with over 2,000 GW of proposed solar, wind and battery storage projects now on a fast track to come online in the US, I’ll be seeking out the electrical infrastructure investments that are about to explode onto the grid…

4) Solar power surge: with investment in this sector set to outstrip spending on oil production for the first time, is now the time to go long on solar? (Yes, in my opinion).

5) “Yellowcake” – so much further to run! Prices for uranium have jumped to their highest level in 12 years but show no signs of stopping. I’m looking at further ways to play this.

6) Oil hike: if black gold hits $120 by the end of the year, this will generate a lot more cash flow in the coming quarters. There are plenty of stocks on my radar that could really deliver for you here.

7) How you could profit when wind energy gets blown off course: wind energy is having a tough time of things lately, and there are ways investors can take advantage…

As you can see, there is certainly lots for strategic energy investors to get excited about.

After all, energy is a theme that should be flashing on all investors’ radar screens.

I work night and day to identify the very best investment opportunities across the board in the ever-changing and sometimes volatile energy markets.

My aim is to hunt for stocks that show statistically significant momentum that we can ride for as long as it lasts.

The punchline – this issue’s recommendation if you like – is this: if you’d like to check out the service, with no obligation to join, all you need to do is click here. We have a very special offer for you to join on a longer-term basis.

Now, I appreciate that is not an official stock recommendation. As I said earlier, you can expect to hear about a new opportunity in mid-October, outside of the normal issue schedule.

But the fact is there’s enormous opportunity on the table for you in the energy markets and I wouldn’t want you to miss out.

The energy sector – all of it – is coming to the boil.

And by learning how to take advantage, you yourself could becoming a strategic energy investor yourself.

Once again – here is the way to join.

As I said, keep an eye on your inbox for your next Small Cap Investigator opportunity, which, as things stand, should be with you in the week commencing 9 October.

Until then,

James Allen
Co-editor, Small Cap Investigator

Big breakthroughs

Inside the lives of James and Sam

James:

Here’s a sentence I never thought I’d write: my name is James and I enjoy spending time in allotments.

A city boy at heart, and never known for my green fingers, I’ve visited my friend Gary’s allotment twice over recent weekends and started to get a sense of what the so-called “good life” is all about – growing and then picking your very own fruit and vegetables.

Admittedly, I’ve spent most of the two visits to Gary’s rented little patch of land in Nunhead, South-East London, watching other people – namely mine and Gary’s kids – excitedly pick a various assortment of tomatoes, apples, sweetcorn, beans and grapes than actually do too much of the labour myself, but I’ve certainly started to see the appeal of allotment life, nonetheless.

Soaking in the late afternoon sun, cold beer in hand, at once a stone’s throw from the streets of South London yet seemingly a million miles away, there wasn’t much to dislike.

Allotment gardening certainly offers an escape from city life and seems to offer a quiet sense of community – evidenced by the occasional murmur of chatter and the odd friendly nod – shared with the owners of the neighbouring plots.

It was also lovely to hear the children see – and ask questions about – where exactly their food is coming from.

So I wasn’t surprised to learn that allotment plots aren’t easy to come by, especially in the major cities.

According to the latest stats, there are a total of 111,566 people on a waiting list for one of the 120,000 council plots across the country.

Indeed, bolstered by the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis, there had been huge growth in demand for allotments in recent years, with waiting lists for council allotments stretching to an average of three years, while the number available has dwindled, by 65% in urban areas over the last 50 years.

Predictably, according to council figures, London has the highest demand, with the average waiting time of nearly six years across 14 districts in the capital. The London borough of Islington’s waiting list stretches to 12 years, the most in-demand location to seek an allotment in the country.

Gary told me there was now around a ten-year waiting list to get a plot at his council-run allotment.

No wonder, then, that councils have begun splitting up their plots in recent years.

Rents, predictably, are also rising.

Glasgow is reportedly planning to increase its prices by 500% from next year, from £34.50 to £170. However, the average annual cost in the country remains at just £45 – which really is superb value when you think about it.

Although private companies have started leasing space to desperate gardeners in recent years, I can’t see there’s much of an investment angle to play the growth in allotment demand.

However, if I had to draw a somewhat cheesy investing metaphor that I could learn from my new found – and hopefully lasting – interest in allotments it’s probably this: as with investing in stocks, you need to give plants time to grow, get rid of the weeds, seek a variety of vegetables and occasionally dig up the soil to ensure the garden remains healthy.

With that, I’ll leave you with a photo of Gary and my daughter Ivy picking some apples.

Sam:

The Volkering household popped down to our local shopping mall the other day. It was a Friday and we needed to do some grocery shopping. I figured we may as well grab some dinner, do the grocery shopping and let the boys play on the playground – all the normal stuff you’d expect to do with a two- and four-year-old.

So, we finish up at the playground, and in a moment of weakness generosity, I said to the boys, “Let’s pop to the toy shop. You can both pick something each, but only one thing.”

Parker is currently obsessed with trucks, so he picks a toy tow truck from the shelves. Great, that’s one down. Max takes some more time, and then comes to me with a Rubik’s Cube.

I almost cried. I am so proud.

We get home and Max plays with it for a while. Then it’s shower and bedtime, so the Rubik’s Cube goes on the shelf while we get the boys into bed.

After that, there’s nothing on the telly. I’m looking at the Rubik’s Cube, looking back at me, looking back at it. I know what’s going to happen. I’m going to grab it, and I’m going to spend far too much time trying to solve it.

But I can’t resist.

I’m also not going to cheat. No YouTube videos or websites to guide me. Just me vs. Rubik’s Cube. I have not yet solved it. I’ve got very close, and I’m getting better at it. And I will solve it.

Max will too at some point. But what was a toy for him, has kind of become a toy for me.

But as I’m spending my evenings solving the Rubik’s Cube, I’m also wondering to myself, “Geez, I bet there’s a lot of these in the world.” In fact, I’d be surprised if every household didn’t have one kicking about somewhere.

Then I got thinking about who owns Rubik’s Cube. I know it was invented by some guy with the surname Rubik. But I didn’t know who profits from these wonderful little colourful cubes.

Mattel? Hasbro? They’re the two you think of first when you think of giant toy companies. But no, neither of those two has Rubik’s Cube in the brand suite. What I discovered is that one of the world’s largest toy company’s does own Rubik’s Cube, but not one I’m guessing most people are familiar with.

Spin Master (TOR:TOY) owns Rubik’s Cube. It also owns a lot of other toy brands.

Aerobie, Batman, Etch-a-Sketch, Kinetic Sand, Meccano, Monster Jam, PAW Patrol, Tech Deck, Sago Mini – these are just some of the brands under Spin Master.

I could go upstairs right now and grab the Kinetic Sand out of the cupboard, a few Monster Jam monster trucks from the toy basket, a bunch of PAW Patrol toys that are kicking around, and I still have Tech Decks from when I was a kid that have lasted the test of time.

I didn’t realise but my household is a Spin Master household!

This is a company that has a firm grip on the world’s big toy brands. And with some of the world’s most popular toys and brands, it might make sense to look at it further as it’s the kind of stock that I might want to add to my boys’ portfolios… or mine.

Either way, thanks to Rubik’s Cube, I now know a lot more about a very interesting toy company.

Crypto Corner

I’ve said for a while that I believe at the end of 2023, we will see the crypto markets start to properly wind up into a full-blown fifth bull market cycle.

Today I’m more convinced of that than ever before.

Why?

It’s simple. The scammers are back and they’re back in (annoying) full force.

About six or seven weeks ago, on a Friday, I was having a drink with my wife in a pub nearby where we lived in the UK.

My phone rang and it was an “Unknown Number”.

I should have let it ring out. I don’t’ know why, but for some reason I decided to answer it.

The caller said they were from the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). It was a British voice and it was quiet in the background. Usually with spam or scam callers you can hear all kinds of noise in the background and almost every single time the voice on the other end is clearly not British.

The one I got was different. They proceeded to go on about something to do with risk applications made in my name to the FCA. They suspected these things were suspicious and they wanted to confirm with me my involvement with the applications.

It was convincing (sort of). I know the FCA wouldn’t call me. So right off the bat my red flags were up. However, I wanted to go on, because I wanted to hear what the scam was so I could warn people.

They went on to talk about two risk applications, and then used some random amounts with two companies. A multi-thousand-pound application with Amigo Loans and then a multi-thousand-pound amount with Coinbase.

Again, red flags are popping off everywhere for me. I listened on. They then asked about my involvement with these companies. They wanted details of my relationships with them both. I didn’t give them anything. In fact, I asked them for their FCA details, their registration numbers, any information I could get from them. I flatly refused to confirm or deny any involvement with the companies they mentioned.

They quickly then cottoned on to the fact that I was on to them and knew they were trying to scam me. Then it took a darker turn…

The caller then changed tone, fast, and said to me, “We know you’ve got a Coinbase account ‘Sammy’ we’re coming for you, we’re coming for your ledgers.”

I’ll be the first to admit it. That was pretty hard to hear. It was a legitimate threat to me. I knew it was a scammer. I know they clearly had my name, and they had my number. What else did they have?

Well, from what they said to me, that’s all they actually knew. I didn’t enjoy having to tell my wife about the call. As soon as I hung up, she knew something was up.

Nonetheless, it wasn’t the first call I’ve ever had from scammers. Also, this is not the first threat I’ve had, but it’s been a long time in between threats like this. I’ve also since moved, changed my phone number and any and all my assets aren’t even in the same country anymore.

This isn’t my first rodeo. However, it does tell me that if these kinds of things are happening to me, there’s a good chance they’re happening to lots of people.

Also, there’s at least two scammers impersonating me on Instagram, there’s definitely at least one on LinkedIn too. I’ve gotten more messages from friends asking, “Is this you?” in the last three months than in the previous three years.

The last time this level of scammers, imposters and flat-out scumbag degenerates was like this, was around 2018. It all dropped off during the 2019/2020 bear market, it weirdly didn’t’ really pick up in 2021’s bull market, but now it’s all getting going again.

It’s clear that these lowlifes are making money scamming people, and that it’s working.

That’s scary because more people now have crypto assets than ever before. There’s a legitimate risk to holding these things, because of scammers, or phishing emails, of even long-term OGs in this market making one silly mistake and losing all their assets to a hacker or scammer.

This edition of Crypto Corner is not designed for any sympathy. It’s designed as a warning. Scammers are back and you may find yourself targeted.

These scams may involve people cold-calling and pretending to be an authoritative body, like the FCA or a bank. They may be imposters trying to pretend they’re someone like me, or another reliable crypto industry expert. They may be a fake email, a phishing email, or they may be a “pig butcher” (the phrase used for the pig butchering scam, where it’s a long con trying to build a personal relationship with someone only to then scam them).

You have to be on your toes.

You should self-custody your assets and get them off exchanges. That alone is a point of risk for your crypto assets. In my view, store any and all hardware devices in a safety deposit box somewhere. Preferably in another country, but at least not at your home. Seems extravagant I know, but it will give you peace of mind.

Also, keep in mind the basics, all the time:

1. Never give out any passwords, information, seed phrases, recovery codes, or anything like that either online or over the phone.
2. Use two-factor authentication (like Authy or Google Authenticator) for log-ins.
3. Also use the “anti-phishing” phrase (if available) for emails from your exchange. But even then, try avoiding clicking on any links from an email to an exchange. Just go to it yourself with the URL you type in.
4. Avoid clicking on any “Sponsored” or advertising links from Google searches, these can often be malicious phishing links or spoof sites.
5. No one with any reputation will ever ask for money, crypto, personal information, codes, seed phrases or anything. Never, ever. Anyone who asks for any of this is a scammer.
6. Beware of spoof accounts – for what it’s worth, my Twitter account is @samvolkering my Instagram is @samvolkering my LinkedIn is https://www.linkedin.com/in/samvolkering/
7. Spoofers or scammer will try to change the ‘L” to an uppercase “i” or add a number or some variation. But again, refer back to point 5: I’ll never ask for anything. If you find “I” do then it’s not me, it’s a scammer. Report and block. Same goes for anyone else, always refer back to point 5.
8. Self-custody your assets.
9. Use safety deposit boxes for hardware.
10. If you’re getting lots of scam calls, change your number (it’s easy these days) but remember to update your number, particularly for anything you use as additional security. Also note that phone text security isn’t secure, and “SIM swaps” are also ways for scammers to get that extra info. I don’t really know how it works but refer to point 2 for extra security approaches.
11. There’s a lot of fake/scam trading sites still in operation. Don’t forget to refer to the guide, How to spot and avoid crypto scams, the information is still relevant and these sites haven’t changed their spots.

That’s a good set of principles to apply to help stay safe and keep your assets safe out there. Not the happiest or brightest of updates this month, but vital information nonetheless and basic principles you should apply all the time when investing in the crypto markets.

What else we’ve been looking at this month

James:

Learning when to sell

Knowing when to sell is perhaps the most difficult question investors face. So I enjoyed this thread on Twitter by investing guru Matthew Cochrane, who summarises key parts of a chapter in a book that Warren Buffett called one of the best books on investing: Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits by Philip Fisher. According to Fisher, there are three reasons for investors to sell a stock and three reasons not to sell. As Cochrane states, there are few things more important for investors to get right, so the thread is certainly worth five minutes of your time.

Two great resources every uranium investor should know about

No doubt you’ve noticed the recent bull run in uranium stocks, where prices have hit 12-year highs as utilities race to lock in fuel supplies amid a global renaissance in nuclear power. Hopefully, with a couple of uranium plays in the Small Cap Investigator model portfolio, you’ve even participated in the rally yourself. If you’d like to keep tabs on the uranium price yourself then you’ll find live prices at Numerco’s uranium spot price indicator available here. What’s more, to see a pretty complete list of all the stocks in the uranium universe – all 140-odd of them – then check this link out. Hopefully these resources will help any investors eager to deploy capital in uranium to navigate the sector.

How’s this for a very “lucky” trade

Talk about – ahem – good timing. Last Thursday, Cisco Systems announced it was acquiring Splunk, a California software data company, for around $28 billion, or $157 a share. Splunk’s stock traded over 20% higher on the day following the news of the acquisition. However, the day before, one lucky trader bought $22,000 worth of out-of-the-money call options with a strike price of $127 on Splunk that were set to expire on the Friday. At the time, the stock was trading around $120 a share. This means the trader was betting the stock would increase dramatically in a span of just a couple of days. The call options were trading for just $0.04 on the day of the purchase but shot to $18.30 after Cisco announced the acquisition. That makes the trader’s options worth more than $10 million in less than 24 hours, not bad on a $22,000 bet. As this article on Decrypt states, social media observers have speculated that the move was an insider trade. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst James Seyffart told the site “that this person is either the dumbest or luckiest person in the market.”

Sam:

If AI turns on us, this is a good example of what that might look like

This is a lengthy read. Allocate at least a good hour or two to read it but also understand it. It’s a detailed look at the hypothetical situation of how AI could look to wreak havoc in society. It does a great job of providing a baseline scenario that we should consider when looking to ensure that artificial intelligence (AI) is deployed safely and ethically in our world. It’s a heavy piece, but worth the effort and time.

Global payments in the fax era

It’s early December 2013. I’m in Paris. It’s cold, really cold. However, I’m at the LeWeb conference listening and meeting with the movers and shakers in the world of tech. One of the headliners at that conference was David Marcus, the then president of PayPal. By 2019, he had moved on to Facebook and was the lead of its “Libra” (renamed to Diem) cryptocurrency program. At a US Senate hearing on the subject, he says:

If America doesn’t lead innovation in digital currency and payments area, others will. If our country fails to act, we could soon see a digital currency controlled by others whose values are dramatically different from ours. I believe that Libra can drive positive change for many people and can provide an opportunity for leadership consistent with our shared values.

He’s not wrong and he’s also not changed his views. He’s now CEO and co-founder of Lightspark which is working on bitcoin and lightning network innovations. Recently he was on CNBC talking about it all and he had some very interesting things to say that are well worth listening to.

I’m still not buying an EV

You have to love the comedy of politics, particularly “green” politics. This story is worth a read even just for the laughs. However, it does also point out some epic flaws with the idea that by the end of the decade, we’ll all be happily zooming about in our electric vehicles (EVs). I doubt it. Also with some changes coming from the UK government, I doubt it’ll ever be a world solely dominated by EVs. But check this comedy out anyway!

James Allen and Sam Volkering
Editors, Small Cap Investigator