transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:07] This is Macro Voices, the free weekly financial podcast targeting professional finance, high net worth individuals, family offices and other sophisticated investors. Macro Voices is all about the brightest minds in the world of finance and macroeconomics, telling it like it is. Bullish or bearish, no holds barred. Now, here are your hosts, Erik Townsend and Patrick Ceresna.

Speaker 2:
[00:33] Macro Voices, episode 529 was produced on April 23rd, 2026. I'm Erik Townsend. SaxoBank's chief commodity strategist, Ole Hansen returns as this week's feature interview guest. We'll discuss what comes next in the Iran conflict, what the longer term implications are for energy markets, what's coming in food inflation and how to trade it, and a longer term outlook for secular inflation. Then be sure to stay tuned for our postgame segment, and Patrick's Trade of the Week will explore how to position in crude oil using options on longer dated crude oil futures in order to reap the benefits of backwardation by capturing an entry price well below the current front month price, something Ole Hansen will explain during the feature interview. And then we'll have our usual coverage of all the markets with Patrick's postgame chart deck.

Speaker 3:
[01:25] And I'm Patrick Ceresna with the Macro Scoreboard week over week as of the close of Wednesday, April 23rd, 2026. S&P 500 up 164 basis points trading at 71.38, continuing to press 52-week highs. We'll take a closer look at that chart and the key technical levels to watch in the postgame segment. US dollar index up 56 basis points trading at 98.60. The June WTI crude oil contract up 591 basis points trading at 92.96. Back into the 90s after last week's dip. The June Arbob gasoline up 797 basis points to 3.25, pressing back to 52-week highs. The June gold contract down 147 basis points trading at 47.53. The May copper up 82 basis points trading at 6.13. The April uranium up 64 basis points to 86.75. And the US 10-year treasury yield up 3 basis points trading at 4.31. The key news to watch next week is we have the Bank of Japan, ECB, and the FOMC policy rates and statements, the core PCE inflation numbers, and a large number of key earnings releases. This week's feature interview guest is Saxo Bank head of commodity strategy, Ole Hansen. Erik and Ole discussed the broad ripple effects of the Iran-driven energy shock, why tightness in refined products and commodity inputs may be underappreciated, how extreme backwardation is creating powerful return tailwinds, and why fertilizer shortages and supply constraints across metals and agriculture could drive the next leg of the commodity cycle. Erik's interview with Ole Hansen is coming up as Macro Voices continues right here at macrovoices.com.

Speaker 1:
[03:31] And now with this week's special guest, here's your host, Erik Townsend.

Speaker 2:
[03:36] Joining me now is Ole Hansen, who heads up commodity research at Saxo Bank. Ole prepared a slide deck to accompany today's interview, so I strongly encourage you to download that as we'll be referring to those slides over the course of this interview. The download link is in your research roundup email. If you don't have a research roundup email, it means you're not yet registered at macrovoices.com. Just go to our homepage, macrovoices.com, click the red button above Ole's picture that says, Looking for the Downloads. Ole, obviously the big story is oil and Iran. I shouldn't say oil, it's energy generally, and Iran and other commodities that are affected by this whole conflict. We just had a dip, which hopefully many of our listeners were listening last week when I suggested there's going to be a big dip that came on Friday morning. Hopefully, people bought $79 crude oil when they had the chance to do so. You've missed that opportunity if you didn't do it then. Tell us your perspective on the big picture of what's going on with energy, how long this is likely to last, and what we can expect for energy markets out of this conflict.

Speaker 4:
[04:45] Well, hello, Erik. Thank you very much for having me back. I think there's no doubt that even though the market is behaving relatively benignly, especially if you're just watching front bonds, the futures price in the crude oil market, you will kind of be saying, what's the whole fuss about? But this disruption we're seeing right now is just so profound because it's not only the energy space that we are seeing being impact. One thing is crude oil, but another thing is the all the refined products where we're really seeing the tightness right now, diesel, jet fuel, petrochemicals and so on. But it's also the associated impacts that we're seeing. I think many were probably not aware how the importance of the Middle East besides energy production, that in recent years, the Middle East has obviously expanded its production base. Why just sell oil out of the ground and send it on the ship when you can actually make some money on the process of refining these into other areas. That's why we suddenly left with a market where besides gas, obviously, which is Qatar and a major supplier to the global market, we have all the associated productions of commodities that takes place in the Persian Gulf simply because they have an abundance of cheap energy available. So the energy intensive commodities, that's anything from aluminium to especially fertilize which requires a lot of gas with the main feed stock. They have become key issues. Reason we just come to know as well that miners in South America then need sulfuric acids in order to break down the copper from their mines and that basically means with 50 percent of that coming out of the Middle East, then we also suddenly face a potential shortage in that area. We talked about helium has been mentioned prior to the chips industry. So it's just the whole, how the breadth of this crisis and how it impacts not only energy, but anything through to metals and the agriculture as well. The duration is really the one that everyone is trying to work out because looking at the forward curves, especially in the energy space in Crude Oil, you would imagine that you think that this would be over within a few months. We're seeing a very extreme backwardation right now, which basically means the price is further out, trades relatively cheap. If you look at Brent's Crude December contract is trading just above 80. You can easily argue that having gone into this year with all the talk about ample supply with the biggest supply glut in living memory as touted by the IEA, which potentially was too high compared to where the market was actually signaling. We traded the year in a $60 to $75 range looking at Brent. I think there's an argument that once the dust settles and we're on the other side of this, we should expect prices to settle in at least $10 higher level, maybe even $15 higher. The floor has moved higher for this. That basically means if you're looking at Brent Crude for December at $80, that's potentially where the new floor should be. So I'm struggling to see any forward prices really reflect what potential will unfold in the coming months because it will take time. It will be a logistic nightmare. Ships are not in the right place. We have refinery damages. We have wells that needs to be restarted. But before they can restart, the oil tanks needs to be reduced. The inventory levels has to come down so that the tanks can free up space for the production to restart. We're easily looking at two to three months from a peace deal before we can start to talk about any kind of normalization in my book. This is getting a little bit long area, but I think also interesting to note that in the last six weeks, how much has the US crude oil production risen by zero barrels? How many additional rigs has been employed in the US shale area? Zero rigs. Basically, where are the US producers? Why are we not seeing any response? And I think part of that is clearly the fact that the curve is very backwardated. So if you as an oil producer needs to hedge your production three to six months out, the prices are still not that great. And some of them may be also just raising a question, are we getting close to a saturation point in terms of how high US production can actually go at this stage?

Speaker 2:
[08:40] You mentioned backwardation, and this is something I've really been surprised by over the years. Even among professional investors, people who are not professional commodity traders, seldom understand how important term structure is in commodity trading, particularly for position traders who hold a position because of a macro viewpoint for several months to several years. You can make money in a down market, and you can lose money in an up market depending on what the term structure is. You're probably the only person I know who's put a chart together that really clearly explains this. Let's jump ahead to page four of the slide deck. I want to go back to what I just said a moment ago and ask you to explain it because it sounded crazy. I said you can actually lose money being long in an up market, and you can make money by being long in a down market depending on what's going on with the term structure. Explain how that's possible.

Speaker 4:
[09:41] Simply because if you are a passive long investor, Erik, almost no matter how you invest into a commodity space, whether it's through an ETF or through a swap, whoever provides you the ETF or the swap will always go back to the clean market. And the clean market in this case is the futures market. And if you have a market which is backwardation, i.e. it's a signal of a relatively tight supply, and you're holding a futures position to hedge your exposure to the ETFs and the swaps that you have issued, every time you roll that position, if we are in backwardation, you'll be selling an expiring contract at a higher price where you buy the next. That is giving you a positive roll yield over time. And obviously, the opposite occurs if you have a period with ample supply where spot prices or the first future month is cheaper than the next, then you'll be selling low, buying high. That's basically one of the reasons why natural gas is such a dog to trade from a long-term perspective, because the return there is just so difficult to achieve because it's a long period of time during a calendar year. We have periods where the natural gas is trading into really steep contangos. Basically, when we're moving out of peak demand into lower demand season, where we have this very, we move from a very high price in the winter to a very low price during the summer, that period is just killing you if you're trying to just be long because you're constantly selling high and buying low. But how does that impact you as returns? And that's really where it starts to get interesting, because one thing is that there's a lot of investors looking at commodities from that perspective, saying, well, the outlook potential looks good for us, we like to have some hard assets in our portfolio, but we don't want to get killed by a potential contango. What I put up here on chart for slide four is simply the performance between the Bloomberg spot index and the Bloomberg total return index. The spot index is basically reflecting the movements in the underlying futures price, and the total return takes these roles that are mentioned into account. And we had a five-year period, let's just do it in five-year cycles here. We had a five-year period from 2016 up to 2021. I could have gone further back, so we kind of just hit the nail where we had the bottom in 20. But that's just for argument's sake, those five years. During that time, the spot index actually indicated that if you had bought an investment in commodities, tracking the Bloomberg Commodity Index, you would have made 52%, but your actual return was only 14. That massive difference is basic because we had a period, a number of years, where most markets were trading in contango. Basically, there was ample supply. We come out of a period where producers had responded to higher prices in the past, and we also had the recession, a weakness that in the economic outlook, there was holding demand out. So basically, we had a market that was ample supplied. Fast forward to the last five years from 21 to 2026. Once again, if you look at the spot index, the yellow line, it has basically more or less done the same performance, up 57% against the 52 in the previous five years. But if you look at the total return, you actually up 83%. That is a massive difference in the performance of your investment. And that's why backwardation is so important to keep an eye on. And if we are seeing a future where we see tightness emerge in several, across several commodities, and that backwardation will continue to be present, then that would basically provide an investor with some tailwind besides the actual movement in the price.

Speaker 2:
[13:06] Now, coming back to the oil market, I want to jump ahead to slide seven in the deck, where you show a forward curve chart. Now, for people who are not commodity traders, might not be familiar with a forward curve chart. This is not showing the price action over a period of time. This is one snapshot of one instant. The price is not just a price, it's a bunch of prices. Explain what the forward curve chart is showing us on the left here. And particularly, that's a lot of backwardation. What we just saw on the previous chart was the more backwardation is, the more that actual realized return exceeds the return on the underlying spot price. So what does this all mean for crude oil investors? And boy, look at the difference between the front month and just say the December of 26 contract. That's huge.

Speaker 4:
[13:54] Indeed, Erik. And it reflects several things. But first of all, it does reflect the fact that we have the war, we have the tightness, which is mostly impacted, which starts at the very spot. That's why if we add in some like data brand, which is the price that the barrels are exchanging hands, physical barrels are exchanging hands in the North Sea, then that would be trading at an even higher price. So basically, a very backwardated curve, because the stress is in the front end of the curve, because that's where we have the tightness and where we have the worries about where the next barrel is going to come from. And that's driving this kind of curve structure. In addition to that, there is also a speculative element. And I highlight that on the right-hand side, basically, where we look at what managed money, so that's hedge funds and CTAs, how they position themselves in the oil market. And we come out of a, at the start of the year, basically, you can see that we literally had a net short position. If you look at the WHI and Brent combined, I can't recall, I've ever seen the hedge funds being so weak in terms of the position. Started, moved into the year, and then suddenly, basically, it really took off, and you can see, primarily, it was Brent that took off. Brent is more a reflection of the global situation. And where do hedge funds buy into the market? They do that at the front end of the curve. Simply, that's where the liquidity is best. So that's also underpinning the front end and driving up the backwardation. So some of it is related to tightness, but also some of it relates to speculative interest. And that's also why we see these $5 to $10 corrections. We've seen two now in the last couple of weeks, and part of that is most certainly driven by speculators having to get out of long position, because we have to remember hedge funds, if there's one thing they're not, they're never ever married to their positions. If something goes wrong, if there's a technical change or fundamental change, they will seek a divorce as soon as possible. Whereas the rest of us potentially can sometimes get bucked into a position where we think we're right and the market is wrong. But hedge funds, they respond when there is a change in the market, and that helps add to some of the volatility we see at the very front end. But also just returning to the steepness of the curve, that does obviously mean right now when we're moving now from the June to the July contract in Brent and more or less the same in WSI, you're basically going to pick up $5, so they would be rolling out of at $95, buying back in at $90. And if the market in the month time is still on change, that we still have tightness and we're back to $95, then basically that's your $5 that just come in and there's an additional gain. So it's further out the curve. That's really where many of the producers, they're operating and that's where they're looking if they need to hedge their production further out. And if we imagine that the new flow in Brent is closer to 80 than 70 that as it was just a few months ago, then you can see further out that we dip below 80 at two levels where we potentially may not be warranted given how the world has developed in the last three to two months there where we've basically seen a massive reduction in the overhang of global supply. We're seeing more than half a billion barrels of production that has not been lost, but has not been produced. And that's really tightening up the global market. SPR, strategic reserves needs to be rebuilt. And that basically also means there's an additional layer of demand into the market. So I'm just basically questioning that how soon and whether we are going to see a significant drop back below 80 when we get through this current crisis.

Speaker 2:
[17:24] Well, let's talk a little bit more about that because what this curve on the left slide of page seven is showing us is about 12, 12 and a half dollars of backwardation between the June contract and the December contract. So that means if you bought the December contract and waited for it to come to expiry in six months, you'd be making 15% on that investment in six months. So what does that annualize to a whole lot? Even if the spot price stays exactly where it is, it doesn't go up or down. Of course, somebody might say, but wait a minute, that's just because of this situation, which is about to blow over. I mean, the president said on TV, it's going to be over any day now. Well, hang on a second, I'll let this began in February. By the time this episode airs, we've got one week left in April before we're into May, and we haven't even seen the beginning of the disruption yet, because the tankers that left the Persian Gulf at the end of February are just now arriving at their destination. So the big disruption of supply is only about to start and go on for at least six weeks. So how does this blow over to the point where oil prices are back to normal in six months? I don't get it.

Speaker 4:
[18:42] Nope, and I agree, Erik. And I think the only thing that really in the short term could potentially drive them down there is if we see an extended phase of long liquidation from hedge funds, as I mentioned, basically holding around 500 million barrels of longs. But I think a lot of that has still be initiated above levels where we are right now. So yeah, there could potentially be a piece of sell-off, but then once that is done, I think the market will very, very quickly turn around and ask the hard questions, when is the normalization going to occur? And then that's really when I think we will come to the conclusion that it's not going to happen anytime soon. And that basically means that we will have to live with higher for longer in the oil market. And as you mentioned, if around 18 December, the longer it takes, the more we will move towards the actual current level. So that's why the back, that's the beauty of back-gradation, how it works over time. And just looking at Brent on Friday, we dripped, we dipped all the way down to 77. And one could argue that below 80, there is some value to be found in Brent, basically based on the fact that this is going to take a long time to sort itself out.

Speaker 2:
[19:46] I want to move on now to another potential trade opportunity that I think might be even more ripe than the energy trade. Because let's face it, even though it's resulted in this steep, steep backwardation, I mean, the front month has been played here. It's priced in, everybody knows that there's a war on, although frankly, I'm not sure it's priced in as much as it should be, given that so many people seem convinced that this is ending when I'm not persuaded that it is. But I want to come to something that I don't think has been priced hardly at all yet, which is it seems to me that the fertilizer deficit is near certain to result in diminished crop yields next year, because it's planting season right now. Everything I'm reading says that American farmers, and I'm sure it's probably the same in Europe, the farmers can't afford or can't get their hands on enough fertilizer to fertilize the crops as much as they normally would want to. They're planting under-fertilized crops, seems to me like that can only mean under-sized yields, that presumably results in higher prices. Am I right about that? More importantly, has that already been discounted and priced into the market, or is that something the market isn't really pricing yet?

Speaker 4:
[21:00] It's priced in to a certain extent, Erik, but I think the reason why it has not significantly impacted the market at this point in time is simply because it's still too early. We are also a lot of hinges on weather in the coming three months during the growing season across the Northern Hemisphere. But if we have a combination of adverse weather and the fact that the amount of fertilized that was available and that has been used, if we see a combination of those, we will see downgrades to crop production targets for this year. And that will start to eat into an overhanger supply because we are coming into this, just like the oil market, we're coming into this fertilizer crisis, which we can call it, with ample supplies of some of the key crops, soybean, corn and wheat. But it really only takes one bad season for that whole equation to change around. And that's really the worry in the coming months, that if we see some troubled weather potential as well, we're already now in the US. And that's why US natural gas is dirt cheap, because we've had a very mild end to the winter, but also a very dry start to this season. And that basically means something like wheat prices are struggling, or wheat crops are struggling in some of the major wheat belts production areas. And that has already added a bit to wheat prices. But wheat is one that is nitrogen intensive of the major crops. And the one that's least intensive is soybeans. And that's why we have seen that the response in the crop market being strong so far in corn and wheat prices, we have other associated impacts, which is also lifting something like soybean oil. So the question is really whether we are, whether this benign performance we've seen in agriculture now for the past couple of years, just looking at the agricultural sector as a whole in the last year, the total return on the agricultural sector has been 1.3 percent. Two years is only 5 percent. So it really has been bumping long near some multi-year lows, some of these key crops, but the risk is clearly that the cost of fertilizers and adding to that also the cost of diesel into a system where farmers are already struggling from having produced at low prices in the previous few years, that that will add to the pain. You could argue that across the Northern Hemisphere, as we were so close to the planting season when this started, that fertilizers were not coming from Middle East because it arrived in the US and Europe way after the planting has finished and the need for the fertilizers was there. But so the focus is probably equal as much on some of the near the regions closer to the Middle East in the coming months. There will be India, Africa, but also later on South America. And South America has become one of the biggest, well is the biggest exporter of key crops, especially to China. All in all, it raises concerns that we are potentially facing higher food prices in the coming months. And that basically means that metals was a driver last year, energy was a driver at the start of the year, potentially agriculture will become another driver as we move into the second half and into 2027.

Speaker 2:
[24:06] Now the challenge with agricultural commodities normally is they're typically contango markets. Contango is the opposite of backwardation, meaning that the price goes up over time. And that just makes it very difficult to make any kind of bet on what's happening next year. Because if you try to go long next year's agricultural commodities, there's so much price premium that you're paying for buying in advance that it ends up canceling out. You don't make anything on the trade even if you were right. Have these markets moved into backwardation as other markets have in this crisis?

Speaker 4:
[24:35] Not yet to the extent that we've seen in especially in the energy. If I'm just scrolling down looking at my one year and the one where we have the most significant backwardation right now is soybean oil. And again, that's the energy related story. Soybean oil has been in strong demand and now biofuel link to diesel. Soy oil is in backwardation. Wheat and corn still in 10% one year contango. And then elsewhere we have some like coffee, which is actually in a decent backwardation as well. But generally, as you said, Erik mentioned, crops tends to be in contango. So just the mere fact that we're moving towards anything less than 5%, which is basically a reflection of the one year funding cost. If you look at the dollar, then that basically means that we are moving towards a tightening market. So what we need for that to return to a proper backwardation is really just what we see, as similar as what we see in the oil market, that the spot market is becoming stressed because inventory levels are being drawn down and for worries of supply. And again, it's not a situation I'd ideally like to avoid because one thing I talk about gold prices are doubling, that's fine, but talk about wheat prices dropping, that's a complete different in terms of global food security and what it does to nations. But it's one we cannot ignore simply because the impact of fertilizers and the lack of it right now. So key markets to watch in the coming months, I would say.

Speaker 2:
[25:57] Let's go a little bit deeper on that. Suppose that my trade hypothesis is it's planting season right now in the Northern Hemisphere. Suppose I think this crop is probably not going to be as productive as prior years have been because of this fertilizer situation. First of all, what's the right time frame? Would it be, say, December of 26 futures that I would be looking at to try to trade the outcome of this year's planting season? And because of the contango that you described, it seems like we got to figure out how to hedge that somehow. So what would you think about something like a pairs trade, long wheat, say December 26 wheat futures, short soybeans, basically betting on the more nitrogen-dependent, more fertilizer-dependent market, outperforming the non-fertilizer-dependent market of soybeans?

Speaker 4:
[26:48] That could be a way of expressing it, Erik, if it's purely the nitrogen balance that we are looking at. And it is interesting if you look at it, and you mentioned where we're on the curve, and it really depends on whether we should include the next Brazilian harvest. Obviously, wheat is not a major product in Brazil, so it's mostly in the Northern Hemisphere, and then later on in Australia as well. But if you look at December, or the current front months in wheat, it's trading just above $6 a bushel. If you look further out, which is the new crop, which basically is concentrated in the December contract, then we're looking at a price currently at just below $6.40 per bushel. There is this contango. But if you do see the market start to tightening up in the coming months, then the December contract out there will start to increase. And we're also seeing just March next year, trading again quite a bit higher. And that's when we start to take in the Southern Hemisphere harvest into account. But generally, if you're looking at not this harvest, or not the present situation, which is basically anything you trade right now in terms of front month, that's basically what's left. Trading what's left in stocks around the world in inventory. If you want to trade what's coming out of the ground in the coming months, you will be looking at December corn, December wheat, and November soybeans.

Speaker 2:
[28:07] Let's move on to the longer term effects of this crisis situation. One of the things I've been fascinated in the study of inflation is the extent to which it tends to be a self-reinforcing process once it gets going. It seems to me, well, frankly, I thought we were headed into secular inflation even before this whole Iran conflict came about. But it seems to me, if we weren't there already, we ought to be by the time this is done, because the effect that this is having on energy prices, I think is going to send an inflation signal into the economy that's likely to become self-reinforcing. Do you agree with that? And if so, what does that mean for commodity trades?

Speaker 4:
[28:47] Commodities will be a major input to that risk. And as we talked about, because of the broad nature of the current stress that we're seeing, it's not only energy and fuel markets, it's also spreading to some of the metals and some of the food commodities, then the impact will be felt. And yeah, it just raises the question where to be positioned in such a scenario. And I think just simply looking at the commodity space, how it's recovered from the pandemic low in 2020 and how we basically since then has risen almost 200%. If you look at the Bloomberg Commodity Index once again, actually 160%, then the underlying reason for holding hard assets, I think the argument for that probably has only been strengthened by developments in the last month, because we are increasingly facing a world where we're moving from, I don't know if whether it was Jeff Curry or one of the others that you had on the show recently, that we moved from a just-in-time to a just-in-case world, where the economy is basically the disruption we're seeing to the global trading system to the breakdown in normal relations, basically means that we are much more focused on having ample supplies instead of just having enough supplies and being reliant on supply chains, being able to deliver so you don't run into any shortages. That basically means that there will be a demand for, drive demand because inventory levels needs to be kept around the world at higher levels than it was in the past because of this change in the way we look at the world. And then we'll have to see how that feeds in to some of the dialings of last year, which I think is basically just right now, just taking a bit of a breather. Some of the metals, I see the gold market just consolidating right now. I think we're actually seeing some of the macro tailwinds starting to return. But as I mentioned before, the speculative community, especially heads funds, they don't have a signal here. We're basically just bashing around a bit aimlessly around that 50% retracement of the big sell off from the highs to the low we had last month, which ended up at the 200-day moving average, which was quite a strong level of support. But I think once we're on the other side of this, we will start looking at some of the reasons that why we drove these prices up in the first place have not really gone away. If we had that with the risk of high inflation, if we had that with central banks having to sit in stock between two chairs, should we focus on inflation or should we just start to focus on the economic support? I think that still, and then the whole fiscal debt situation, which has had anything worsened in the last six weeks, that basically still points back to investments in hard assets where gold is one of the go-tos, but also the energy sector simply because we're going to see a higher floor than we saw before. That will benefit the energy producers. The recovery that we started to see in the energy sector last year was accidentally, obviously, has accelerated, which may go through a partial consolidation. Now, if we do get a deal, what we're left with is the fact that higher prices will be higher going forward, and that should be benefiting the earnings. So again, the energy sector and all the producers are also the sector which I think will benefit in the future.

Speaker 2:
[31:59] You mentioned in the course of that answer that we're up about 160% in this cycle since 2021. I want to go now to slide three in your deck where you talk about the super cycles that commodities tend to trade in. Looking at this slide here, the 1970s were a famous bull market and commodities and bear market and almost everything else. It seems like there's a strong correlation with that famous inflation of the 1970s there. These cycles seem just from the looks of the slide here that last about 10 years. We're five years into the present one. So does that mean we're halfway done, halfway there? What should we expect in terms of the current cycle? Where do you think it's headed?

Speaker 4:
[32:41] Well, I think we're heading higher simply because what can we call the third wave? I think we can probably call it the energy transition simply because of the increase. We're still in a power hungry world that where demand for power continues or energy continues to go up. It's increasingly focusing on electricity. We all know some of the major culprits for that increase in demand. We need to make sure we are in a situation where we can conduct all that power. That is just very commodity intensive. Again, I think that's actually Curry's phrase. The old world is striking back against the new world because the new world wants to accelerate at 100 miles an hour towards progress, but the old world is bumping along at a much lower speed because they can't keep up with the demand that is coming from all the different, all the new technologies and all the direction that we want to go. I think that basically leaves us in a situation where the old saying that the best cure for high price is a high price because it incentivizes supply and also impacts negatively the demand side. I think that is still obviously relevant in many areas. The most striking one reason has been cocoa prices, which went from 2,500 to 12,000, only to utterly collapse back to where we came from, simply because there was a response both from the demand side, which slowed and the supply side, which increased. But I think if we look at some of the both the energy and the metal space, what we're missing or could be missing in such a scenario is simply the supply side, not being able to respond to higher prices. And that leaves us in a precarious situation where prices could actually still go up, even though economic growth is not great, or potentially not at levels that we could invest in, simply because the demand for many key commodities is at a level where the physical world is struggling to keep up, to deliver all that material and energy that is required. So I think we are, perhaps we are halfway through, but perhaps it could last even longer. It depends really on the speed of it. And I think if anything, what we learned from the year 2022, the war in the Russian invasion of Ukraine was how the renewable sector obviously had a massive boost in the months that followed because the realization that we need to be less dependent on fossil fuels. I think what we were already seeing signs of that re-emerging now with the very high energy prices we have that. So we are seeing parts of the power sector or that part of the energy equation having another renaissance. And that again will just speed up the process in terms of tightening some of the markets that delivers the materials and commodities that's required to sustain this energy transition.

Speaker 2:
[35:16] You also mentioned gold a few minutes ago. So I want to move on now to page nine in your deck where you're talking about gold here. It seems like some very fascinating things have happened. Gold normally functions as a geopolitical hedge. So bombs drop, gold goes up. Something flipped like a switch, Ola, at about 11 PM on March 2nd, where all of a sudden bombs drop, gold goes down. What happened there?

Speaker 4:
[35:43] The market panicked and when the market panics, it's a question of just getting out of positions or getting reduced, getting your exposure down to levels that you find that's manageable. And so gold, to some extent, some of the other metals will suffer from the success they've had in the previous month. So they become a very widely held investment, meaning that they were also exposed when that situation unfolded. And we've seen similar situation. The liberation day last year was another example. It takes some of the major crisis we've had in the last 30 years. The dotcom bubble, the global financial crisis, we've had a couple of others. The initial response in gold has quite often been a sell-off, only to recover very strongly and making new highs in the months and quarters that followed. And I think it should not be taken as a surprise that when we have such a major event that gold is struggling at least in the short term. And then the depth of the correction, $1,500, which is pretty insane. But then again, just looking at the chart, it's not simply because of distance. We traveled in the months and quarters up until that peak point back in January. So we corrected $1,500. We found support in 200-day moving average. We're now just treading waters. We've gone from a bit of a liquidity and inflation shock, perhaps now more towards a growth shock, where the implications of this crisis will start to play out in the coming months in terms of soft economic growth. And with that also, the central bank struggle business between focusing on inflation on one hand, and perhaps focusing on economic stimulus on the other side. And I think that that will eventually send the gold prices higher again. But for now, we are consolidating. And it's really just, if you look again on the chart, it's literally just around the 50% retracement of the big sell-off. So it's a natural point for the market to consolidate and try to gather what's going to happen next. So I see more of the side we're trading in the coming weeks. But I think the foundation that was laid and sold in the previous years for this multi-year bull run has not suddenly died a sudden death. The correction was necessary. It was becoming, especially in silver, becoming completely and obviously unhinged. But now the market has had time just to reflect. And I think over time, we'll start to see prices go back up again.

Speaker 2:
[37:55] Well, I very much agree with everything that you've just said. But there's one big caveat or fear that exists in my mind, which is, boy, we've really seen that at least since March 2nd, gold does not like the idea of an oil-driven inflation signal. And the problem I have with this chart is it seems to be recovering as people are unpanicking about Iran and the oil market. And I agree with you that I am not so persuaded that this is over yet in the oil market. I don't think it is. That makes me worry that another big leg down in gold could be coming, maybe even retesting or moving to a lower low below the 200-day moving average. At what point would you get concerned that, okay, wait a minute, it looks like at a certain price level, this thing's going the wrong way. It's time to maybe step out of gold for a while.

Speaker 4:
[38:48] I would say if we start to break back below the 500, 4,600 area, then I would also get a bit nervous. But I think what you said, the area beautifully reflects what the market is thinking, that we are trading sideways here simply because there are still traders and investors out there having some concerns about what may happen next. But I think ultimately, we also just need to keep an eye on the dollar, even though the movements in gold is much bigger than the movements in the dollar, it still sends a strong signal. And we just gone through a massive amount of dollar short covering, which led to a, we've gone from a multi-year big short position. If I look at the weekly cut data covering futures price, the IMF futures market to the biggest long in two years. There's been a significant amount of dollar buying, which now seems to be tapering off again. And I think the low point or the recovery seen recently probably is also a sign that the dollar is starting to send a little bit of mixed signals. We're starting to see some weakness coming back in. I think that weakness will eventually continue. But again, if we see a further escalation, then the dollar could once again be the go-to safe haven, at least liquidity safe haven in the short term. And that's probably the biggest risk that another major escalation could lead to that and lead to another round of general and broad liquidation. So yeah, it's a two-way market right now. And I think it's a question of probably being a little bit patient here.

Speaker 2:
[40:19] You know, as I look at this chart on page nine, boy, what a beautiful, great big rally that was from 2024 all the way up to the peak, just at the beginning of the year in January. But oh, it's been so painful since then. It makes you wish that you could have maybe a little bit less upside for the sake of more stability. Well, hang on a second, even though it's gold and silver that everybody's talking about, let's move on to page 11. That suddenly looks like a chart that's exactly what I just said. It's a really solid uptrend, maybe not quite as steep, but without the profound volatility that we've seen in precious metals. And of course, that's copper. And I think the fundamentals are a lot of speculators love gold, but the real economy needs copper. Is that actually the better trade to speculate on instead of gold?

Speaker 4:
[41:12] It should be the less volatile trade because if copper price suddenly doubled, then you would also have some problems with some of the big projects that requires copper. So, but I think the direction is pretty clear. We've gone through a correction. I actually used a weekly chart here, but if I put in a daily chart, that low point back in March was exactly the 200 day moving average as well. So some technical support emerged at that area, but since then, the recovery has been quite strong. And again, copper is not only a question about demand, it's most certainly also a supply story. And what I don't think we knew or realized was that the miners in Chile, Peru and Congo and other places, they need sulfuric acid in order to break down the copper and to release it from the underground. And suddenly we've come to realize that 50% of global seaborne exports comes out of the Middle East. So partly a story about the recovery in China. I'm actually showing that on the next slide, on slide 12, where we see that despite having seen a massive search in exchange-monitored copper stocks, in inventories, both in London, New York and Shanghai, copper price actually held up very well. And what we've seen recently is that the total number of stocks has started to come down, but it's actually coming down pretty hard in China. So market is taking that as a sign that there has been some pent up demand in China, which still remains by far the world's biggest consumer that has started to emerge after we saw the correction. So it does tell me that the prices, copper prices are responsive to price changes. So maybe a little bit too expensive last year, but at least producers had to or users of copper had to get used to it. And once we had the correction, they came back in and the result of that is sharp drop in inventory levels in Shanghai. They are now paying a decent premium to import copper. That's the red line. That's the premium they're paying over London. And that indicates that the demand side is starting to recover in China. And then at the same time, when you have the supply side struggles, we had multiple disruptions last year, but then you have such a basic thing as a chemical that's required to actually ensure that the production can take place is another major factor, which is underpinning copper. So I think that both of these will continue in the coming years. Suppliers, miners will struggle and demand will remain robust to rising.

Speaker 2:
[43:25] One of the biggest stories in commodity markets in recent years has been this just crazy move in cocoa prices, which chocolate lovers are certainly been affected by. What happened there on page 13? What caused that massive, what was it, quadrupling or so of, or more than quadrupling of cocoa prices? And it looks like we're back down to what looks on this chart, like a pretty firm support level.

Speaker 4:
[43:51] Yeah. As I mentioned, really just a complete classic response from the market to a rally that was triggered by production problems in the, in the Ivory Coast and Ghana at a time where, where prices simply had been too low for production to be maintained. And then we had two events of one with too much rain at one point and too dry at another point. And then, and suddenly the production was, was challenged and we saw this massive run up. But what, what do we do when prices ran it to the, to the point of chocolate manufacturers? They start to look at reducing the number of cocoa content. That makes obviously the chocolate bar a bit cheaper to produce. In some places we also have inflation, so the bar is suddenly not the size that you were used to. So the combination of these things basically had a major impact on demand in Europe, which is one of the biggest grinders. And with demand, it fell to the lowest since 2013 at some point. And combined with the higher prices that suddenly were starting to benefit the farmers in these areas, they responded by increase in production. To the point that now we have the reverse situation, where too much cocoa is being produced, demand is no longer as strong because the producer reduced the content. So we're now going through another painful process, which potentially could lead to another spike in the coming years. Unless, I think I read somewhere recently that someone was trying to, Israeli company that think they can replicate cocoa through a lab grown cocoa. I'm not quite sure how much we can put into that. This is just a classic example of how it goes through these various big cycles, where supply and demand responds to both lower prices and higher prices.

Speaker 2:
[45:31] We spoke earlier about where the trades might be that are related to the oil crisis, but are less obvious and not necessarily priced in yet. Most people would never make a connection between oil prices or a oil market dislocation and cotton prices. Explain what the connection is there and is there a trade there? Now, I think we've got a cotton chart on page 8 on the right-hand side.

Speaker 4:
[45:58] We come through, as you can see on the chart, we've been in a downtrend for cotton prices for quite a long time. We had low energy prices. And what is the competition for cotton? That's in synthetic fiber or that's a petrochemical-derived product. And that's where you have the link, partly as well, I have to add, driven by the drought that has underpinned the winter wheat crops. And the US has also been underpinning cotton price because this is New York cotton futures. And they have also been supported by some dry conditions in the cotton regions. But no doubt that quite a lot of that is also the substitution. If synthetic fiber goes up, well, then you can return to the real deal, to the real cotton. And that's underpinning prices. And then we have others where, as we talked about, the direct link between fuel prices is both biofuel, so that's soybean oil, but it's also ethanol, especially in Brazil, where the sugar canes are either used to produce biofuel, or ethanol is called, or to produce the sweetener that we unfortunately eat too much of still in the world. And when those substitutions occurs, then we do have impact on prices. So we're seeing sugar prices move higher as well, only to a certain point, because there's still ample supply in the world. But there is a direct link, and that's why we see these movements unfold, when suddenly agriculture responds to an energy development.

Speaker 2:
[47:31] Ola, I can't thank you enough for a terrific interview, and I have to tell you how much I appreciate and really enjoy your work. You're one of the most insightful people in the commodity market, and you publish a whole bunch of stuff for free. You make a daily podcast. You publish, I think, the best analysis there is of the commitment of traders reports, which is the government data on who holds how much of each commodity. Tell us, and let's take a look at page 14 in the deck, tell us about the various different things that you produce and how people can follow your work.

Speaker 4:
[48:04] Well, thank you very much for that, Erik. As you probably know, when I work at Saxo Bank, I've been doing that for 18 years as head of commodity strategy. So obviously, what we produce here is primarily, is first and foremost, produced on our platforms, but also on our web page, which is the bottom there, home.saxo4.insights. Otherwise, when it comes to a little bit more quick and sharp, small updates, I'm still quite actively on X. And you can find me there at ollie.s, on the score Hansen. The end has just disappeared. We can move that. But yeah, so recently also moved on to a sub stack. So multiple different ways of finding me. But the most up to date most for now is on X. And that's also where I link back to stories that are popular on our websites.

Speaker 2:
[48:51] Patrick Ceresna and I will be back as Macro Voices continues right here at macrovoices.com.

Speaker 1:
[49:02] Now back to your hosts, Erik Townsend and Patrick Ceresna.

Speaker 3:
[49:07] Erik, it was great to have Oli back on the show. Now listeners, you'll find the download link for this week's Trade of the Week in your Research Roundup email. If you don't have a Research Roundup email, it means you have not yet registered at macrovoices.com. Go to our homepage and look for the red button over Oli Hansen's picture saying, looking for the downloads.

Speaker 2:
[49:29] Patrick, for this week's Trade of the Week, Ola contends that the market is underestimating how long this energy disruption is really going to last. The forward curve is already showing extreme backwardation, and Ola explained in the feature interview how that spells opportunity for investors. So, how do you position in crude oil with options farther out on the curve, assuming that you think Ola has the call right?

Speaker 3:
[49:54] As Oli highlighted, this is not simply a short-term geopolitical spike in oil, but a shift in the structural floor beneath the market. The acute tightness at the front end has created pronounced backwardation, but the more compelling opportunity sits further out in the curve, where deferred prices still appear under price relative to likely duration of this disruption. Rather than chasing front end volatility, the trade is about positioning in the deferred part of the curve to capture both a higher equilibrium price and that carry profile. The most direct way to express that view would be through a long position in the deferred crude oil futures. But instead of taking outright futures risk, I want to introduce a symmetry into the structure, defining the downside while preserving meaningful upside convexity if the repricing higher unfolds. So this week's Trade of the Week, I'm expressing the view through a bull call spread in WTI. While spot crude oil prices are trading around $94 at the time of this recording, this structure focuses on the December, 2026 WTI contract currently trading near $77.40, with approximately 211 days to expiration. Using the corresponding November options with roughly 208 days to expiry, the trade begins by purchasing the deep in the money $70 call for approximately $11.70, of which $7.40 is intrinsic value. To offset the remaining time value premium, I'm selling the $90 call for roughly $4.40, creating a $20-wide call spread for a net debit of approximately $7.30. What makes this structure compelling is that the premium paid is a largely intrinsic value, resulting in break even near $77.30, essentially in line with the underlying futures price. In practical terms, that significantly reduces vega exposure and minimizes time decay, effectively transforming the position into a defined risk, high delta exposure with embedded convexity. Rather than paying heavily for optionality, you're primarily owning intrinsic value while financing the trade through the sale of the higher strike upside. From a payoff perspective, max loss is limited to the $7.30 debit with a max profit of $12.70 with almost no carry cost creating a favorable asymmetric profile while maintaining exposure to the deferred curve. The objective is simple. Use a capital efficient bull call spread to express a higher structural floor and oil, capturing upside repricing with defined risk and reduced sensitivity to volatility.

Speaker 2:
[52:57] Patrick, every Monday at Big Picture Trading, your webinar explains how retail investors can put on our most recent Trade of the Week. For those listeners that want to explore how to put on these trades in greater detail, don't miss out on a 14-day free trial at bigpicturetrading.com. Now let's dive in to the post-game chart deck.

Speaker 3:
[53:16] All right, Erik, let's dive in to these equity markets.

Speaker 2:
[53:19] Patrick, so far as I'm concerned, the ceasefire has mostly already collapsed just as I predicted that it would, but equities are shrugging off higher crude oil prices and continued to rally to new all-time closing highs on Wednesday, despite the fact that it's pretty darn clear that the Iran crisis isn't quite over yet, and frankly, I don't think it's anywhere close to over. So as I explained when this all began, the usual wartime playbook starts with a big panic sell-off. Oh my gosh, there's a war on, sell everything. Then people calm down and remember that wars are always inflationary and usually good for the stock market even if they're bad for humanity. In many ways, it feels like that's what's happening here. The initial shock is over, we're used to this now. The stock market is rallying because obviously this means that there's going to be more spending on defense and buying more weapons and inflation factors and so forth. It seems like that's what's happening. The thing is, an energy delivery disruption that threatens to halt the global economy definitely is not bullish for equities. The market seems to be convinced, and the market's usually more right than I am, so maybe I'm wrong on this one, but the market seems convinced that this is all gonna go back to normal soon enough and the risk posed by the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz isn't as big of a risk as was first feared. I disagree. I think it's a very big risk, and furthermore, I think that risk is growing exponentially with every day that this continues. So my S&P hedges expired worthless on Friday and I replaced them same day with a new put spread, 6,800 to 6,000 bear put spread on S&P futures. I don't think this is over yet, and hey, if that too expires worthless and I give up all that premium as insurance cost, I would much rather have been wrong on that one, and I'll be delighted to watch those hedges expire worthless as well. Meanwhile, I'm happy to have downside protection in place because I think this is a long way from over, and I do think that the energy disruption is a result of the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz is a big deal for the global economy and ultimately for the stock market. Now, to be clear, if I'm wrong about the geopolitics and it really does blow over in the sense of the strait really and truly reopening, traffic can flow without disruption, oil tankers just go about their merry business, then it really is over and I think the stock market rallies considerably from there when it's over. I just don't think we're there yet.

Speaker 3:
[56:05] Well, Erik, I want to speak to the technical levels. First of all, we had an extraordinary 23-day April bull run on the upside. That has the market trading at a pretty overbought level on the upside, up 13 percent over those 23 days. We're trading along those 52-week highs. Now, what really drove this was a lot of systematic drivers. There was a huge flip back on the bull side by CTAs, vol targeting funds getting back in. We've seen vol normalization. We're seeing a dealer gamma completely collapse, creating a band of tailwind to the upside of the market. There was a lot of structural buying. We're now at a level where much of that structural buying is now rear-view mirror. I think in order for the market to make its next leg higher, it's going to have to be driven by earnings. So what we saw was a substantial reversal of the prior six-month sector rotation. The MAG 7s came out of the gate very strong. The QQQ went ripping higher. We saw a tech-driven advance on the upside of this market. So with the fact that we have the earnings of five of the MAG 7s next week, they're going to determine whether or not there's another bullish impulse towards, let's say, 74, 7500 on the upside of the market. Now, again, that is defining the macro logic that you were referring to. But on the short-term, liquidity and momentum may take this market higher. Overall, I think that once that exhausts itself going into May, we could see all sorts of potential reversal points. But at this stage, in order for us to have any serious technical damage, we would need to see over a 5% drop in this market at this point to really start reversing the flows that have really driven this market higher. So, while I'm not too optimistic about the asymmetry of the opportunity in terms of how much upside there is on the market, there also doesn't feel like the backdrop of an imminent market drop. So it's one of these things where we have to respect the prevailing trend and see whether the earnings can give it that extra impulse to go another leg higher. All right, Erik, let's touch on this dollar.

Speaker 2:
[58:26] Patrick, we still have a big unfilled gap on the Dixie chart running up to 99 spot 38. That's from after the ceasefire was announced. And I expect that to get filled shortly after the third US aircraft carrier battle group arrives in the Gulf Theater, which should happen around the end of this week. So I think this weekend could be when the fighting resumes. But eventually, I think the dollar downtrend, and that, by the way, coincides with originally Trump said he was going to extend the ceasefire kind of indefinitely, and then he put a three- to five-day time limit on it. That's the amount of time it takes for the USS George HW. Bush to circumnavigate the continent of Africa. They didn't go through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, I think, because they were afraid of being targeted by the Houthis. So they had to go a long way around Africa. That's going to take three to five days to get there. Coincidentally enough, the ceasefire that Trump gave an extension to just happens to coincide with when the carrier Bush will arrive in the combat theater. I don't think that's a coincidence.

Speaker 3:
[59:36] Well, the dollar index has turned up, and it's really being driven by the last few days of weakness in the euro. And to me, I want to continue to focus on that euro chart. The euro failed along the 118 level, and that to me remains a very critical line in the sand. If the current environment in Europe will inevitably lead to some sort of economic weakness because of the geopolitical and macroeconomic backdrop, then a euro breaking down would almost certainly be the bullish tailwind that the dollar index would need to go higher. Will we see the euro weaken back toward 115 is the thing on my radar. All right, Erik, let's just touch on crude oil.

Speaker 2:
[60:20] But once again, I question whether macro traders understand the lag effects in the physical delivery of crude oil. JP Morgan says that Iran can only withstand about two more weeks of having its crude oil exports blockaded by the United States. Now, it's not quite the same thing as the Hormuz closure. It's the US stopping Iran's exports. If that US blockade continues to be successful, for more than about two more weeks, Iran will be forced to begin shutting in its oil production. And after about one more month, Iran would be forced to substantially shut in most, if not all, of its oil production because of a lack of any place to store the oil. Once shut in, those wells take a long time and cost a lot of money in order to bring back online. That means it's plausible that the US could resort, in a worst case, if they can't succeed militarily on other fronts, they could get into a wait-them-out game where they say, okay, we're going to, you know, wait out Iran, force them to close in their wells, which creates an economic collapse for Iran so they don't have to target civilian infrastructure with military strikes, which I hope for the sake of innocent civilians, they won't resort to doing. So the length of time that the global energy supply could be affected by all this increases exponentially from here. And the reason I say exponentially is if you get to the point where Iran and other countries are forced to shut in their oil production, let's say we go two more weeks and there's a bunch of shut-ins, it doesn't mean that it extends the disruption for two more weeks. It extends it for the two weeks that it takes until that happens and however long it takes after they shut in that production to bring it back online, which could be months. So two more weeks of this could result in two or three more months of disruption of supply to the global economy, higher oil prices, stagnant economic activity, decreased profits could be really bad news for equity markets and everything else. So it's important to understand if it goes on a few more weeks, it could be a few more months in terms of the resultant effect. Again, many other producing countries, not just Iran, would be forced to close in their wells. So if the US has to resort to waiting out Iran closing in its wells as a way to end this conflict without having to target civilian infrastructure, well, the consequence is going to be everybody else closes in their production. That means we could have six to 12 months of dramatically elevated energy prices globally, completely screwing up the entire global economy. So I say this is a bigger deal than most traders seem to be predicting. I could be wrong and frankly, I hope to be wrong on this one.

Speaker 3:
[63:20] Well, Erik, we have crude oil continuing to trade above its 50-day moving average and we have found some critical support along retracement zones. So overall, while it was a deep pullback, it could have just been because oil was overshot on the upside and a few tweets were able to create this mean reverting correction. But as the backdrop we've talked about is there, it will be interesting to see whether crude oil can muster up another bull advance back up towards its highs. The particular thing that I want to touch on though that's more interesting is the fact that the pullback in RBOB gasoline was nowhere near as deep as WTI. And while this multi-week correction on gasoline came down to the 290 level, we're back up to 52-week highs on gasoline. It will be really interesting to see whether we have a fresh new breakout on gasoline futures and whether that's a leading indicator to the fact that crude oil still has some more upside ahead of it. All right, Erik, let's move on and discuss these precious metals markets.

Speaker 2:
[64:24] Patrick, I remain convinced that we're ultimately headed to new all-time highs in gold. But you know what? Tactically, I'm getting pretty darn nervous about this chart. It's looking more and more to me like lower highs and lower lows. It's developing a pattern here. And if I'm right about oil price induced inflation lasting longer than most people expect, well, that's going to be a longer headwind and a bigger, stronger headwind than is currently priced into the market for gold. I see 46.85, that's the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement as a critical level. A close below that suggests much more downside as possible and maybe even new cycle lows below 4100 could be in the cards. Now, to be clear, when the Iran conflict really and truly is over and the global energy system begins to return to normal, I think gold will rally and rally hard to new all-time highs. But that could be quite a ways off the way things are going. So I'm waiting to see what happens at 46.85. We touched that level. It looked like we're about to trade down through it, and then Trump extended the ceasefire for, at that point, it sounded like indefinitely. Now it's scoped down to three to five days. Let's see if we can hold above 46.85. If not, I start to get really worried about where we're headed next.

Speaker 3:
[65:47] Well, Erik, I have similar concerns about gold. So far, the entire rally that's lasted throughout April has barely tested the 50-day moving average in the Fibret Tracement Zone, and it seems very heavy, like it's rolling over. The thing about gold is that we're seeing the exact same pattern on silver, platinum and palladium, so including the gold miners themselves. So what we had was clearly some sort of a topping formation, and maybe there's still a little bit more correcting to go. Ironman quite bullish long-term gold. The question here is, will the second quarter of the year be much more consolidation that creates a next compelling buying opportunity for a potential second half of the year rally? All right, Erik, let's have this conversation about uranium because it's been relatively quiet for the last month.

Speaker 2:
[66:38] Well, we're seeing a nice brisk recovery in uranium miners and the stochastics and RSI on the weekly charts suggest that there's more room left to go even higher. So as long as the broad market risk off event doesn't spoil that party, I think the chart looks really bullish. The thing is, I'm, as I said earlier, kind of concerned about that broader market risk off event spoiling the party. So long as the broader market holds though, I do expect more outperformance to the upside by uranium miners. The nuclear news flow couldn't be more bullish long term, so I'm definitely super excited and bullish about this market long term. But at the same time, I'm still concerned that the broader stock market will take the nuclear stuff down with it if it takes a big tumble. And I think that tumble could be coming if we get a reality check on how long this Iran conflict could take, not just to resolve the conflict with Iran, but for the energy system globally to return to normal after that. I think it's gonna take longer than a lot of people think.

Speaker 3:
[67:43] The interesting part about uranium, Erik, is that it is structurally being accumulated. It is making higher highs. It's crawling higher. But we haven't seen there being a big burst higher that drives the momentum that attracts many traders to come piling it back into this trade. And it doesn't mean it won't happen. But right now, at this point, uranium is just quietly moving higher. And the question is, is that, does that trigger some new bull run? Well, if the market stays relatively stable and the AI trade continues to be a focal point, there is lots of room for uranium to potentially catch a bid here and run a little bit as we move in towards May.

Speaker 2:
[68:27] Patrick, before we wrap up this week's podcast, let's hit that 10-year Treasury Note chart.

Speaker 3:
[68:32] The correlation to crude oil continues as pressure on the upside of crude occurs and pushing yields higher. So will we see a crude oil breakout? And if we do, does that push yields towards 440, 450 on the upside is going to be the key to watch. Overall, I think we're heading in the second half of the year to lower rates like Luke Grohmann was suggesting. But on the short term, this correlation to oil is so evident and we'll see whether or not any bullish impulse here on the short term of crude results in higher yields on the short term.

Speaker 2:
[69:09] Folks, if you enjoy Patrick's chart decks, you can get them every single day of the week with a free trial of Big Picture Trading. The details are on the last pages of the slide deck or just go to bigpicturetrading.com. Patrick, tell them what they can expect to find in this week's research roundup.

Speaker 3:
[69:23] Well, in this week's research roundup, you will find the transcript for today's interview and the trade of the week chart book that we discussed here in the post game, including a number of links to articles that we found interesting. You're going to find this link and so much more in this week's research roundup. So that does it for this week's episode. We appreciate all the feedback and support we get from our listeners, and we're always looking for suggestions on how we can make the program even better. Now, for those of our listeners that write or blog about the markets and would like to share that content with our listeners, send us an email at researchroundup at macrovoices.com, and we will consider it for our weekly distributions. If you have not already, follow our main account on X at Macro Voices for all the most recent updates and releases. You can also follow Erik on X at Erik S. Townsend. That's Erik spelled with a K. You can also follow me at Patrick Ceresna. On behalf of Erik Townsend and myself, thank you for listening and we'll see you all next week.

Speaker 1:
[70:33] That concludes this edition of Macro Voices. Be sure to tune in each week to hear feature interviews with the brightest minds in finance and macroeconomics. Macro Voices is made possible by sponsorship from bigpicturetrading.com, the internet's premier source of online education for traders. Please visit bigpicturetrading.com for more information. Please register your free account at macrovoices.com. Once registered, you'll receive a free weekly research roundup email containing links to supporting documents from our featured guests and the very best free financial content our volunteer research team could find on the internet each week. You'll also gain access to our free listener discussion forums and research library. And the more registered users we have, the more we'll be able to recruit high-profile feature interview guests for future programs. So, please register your free account today at macrovoices.com if you haven't already. You can subscribe to Macro Voices on iTunes to have Macro Voices automatically delivered to your mobile device each week free of charge. You can email questions for the program to mailbag at macrovoices.com, and we'll answer your questions on the air from time to time in our mailbag segment. Macro Voices is presented for informational and entertainment purposes only. The information presented on Macro Voices should not be construed as investment advice. Always consult a licensed investment professional before making investment decisions. The views and opinions expressed on Macro Voices are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect those of the show's hosts or sponsors. Macro Voices, its producers, sponsors, and hosts, Erik Townsend and Patrick Ceresna, shall not be liable for losses resulting from investment decisions based on information or viewpoints presented on Macro Voices. Macro Voices is made possible by sponsorship from bigpicturetrading.com and by funding from Fourth Turning Capital Management, LLC. For more information visit macrovoices.com.