Black Gold Runs The World (and the stock market)

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.comEnjoy this article thanks to Constant Contact!Reminders: Copy Trading HerePortfolio Views HereMacro Indicators HereResearch Reports HereInsider Trading & Hedge Fund Reporting: Found at InsiderEdges.comHelp Me Help You!One of the things I want to do more than anything else is ensure that you all are getting what you want from me. Please take a bit of time this weekend to let me know what you think can be improved upon in the newsletter by clicking the link below. There aren’t a million questions, nor am I collecting data, I just want to hear from you.If you want to get a quick overview of the current happenings in the oil market, I would go read last week’s newsletter (or listen to it). I would also strongly recommend that you go listen to anything from Doomberg. He is one of the top energy market analysts and is the person (group) that I turn to when the energy markets are having their moment. Doomberg was one of the first people to get me into my SMR investments. The most recent podcast I have seen from him is this one. Between those two articles, you should be able to catch up on the world of oil and the current state of the oil economy. If you have been following my recent oil bets over the past few weeks, then you know that we have made 3 main bets and they have returned 12%, 13%, and 10% just in the past week. You can find all of those picks I made in last week's newsletter, and I will include them in this week’s with some updates on performance. Let me quickly give my opinions on the upcoming market movements and the current state of the market. My opinions from last week remain. In 18 months, oil will be lower than it is today. If you wanted hard numbers, I would say that oil will be down below $90, and likely below $80 a barrel. With that being said, I think we are absolutely on the verge of an energy crisis; however, I do not think that the US is going to be affected as adversely as people think. Here is a quick quote on energy consumption in the US: The United States consumes approximately 20–20.5 million barrels of petroleum products per day as of 2023-2024, representing about 20% of global consumption.- https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=33&t=6Here is a quick quote on the energy production in the US:U.S. crude oil production is at record levels, averaging approximately 13.4 to 13.6 million barrels per day (b/d) as of early 2026. The U.S. is the world's top producer, with total petroleum production (including natural gas liquids) exceeding 21 million b/d.- https://www.eia.gov/pressroom/releases/press577.phpSo, the key thing to note here is that we are seeing production and consumption in the US that are nearly equal. We do not have to export what we have; we are self-sufficient in the oil markets, and if we need to, we can turn off the export machine and keep our oil internal. This means that we will not see oil restrictions at the pump, but the prices could remain elevated for longer. One of the trades that I would love to scream about from the rooftops right now is buying natural gas. Oil and natural gas have a long-term correlation, and with natural gas so low right now, the argument could be made that going long natural gas would be beneficial. The one issue I have with that trade is the fact that when we drill for oil, we typically end up with natural gas as well. Modern techniques like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling can extract both from the same well, and operators are likely to focus on the higher-priced petroleum products in the short term. This actually puts negative pressure on the price of natural gas in the short term, bringing prices even lower. The natural gas trade is coming, but has yet to arrive fully in my eyes. If we see natural gas futures get pushed down below $2 (or even lower), then we could have some extremely large upside opportunities over the long run. For now, the best trades to make are long oil (like we have done) and neutral on nat gas. The rest of the market will continue to decline until we see the newest American war start to shut down. Again, we are about 50% invested in our portfolios, and 25% invested in these oil bets on the side, and we can take this additional 25% in cash and push further into these one-off oil bets if we see further upside (helping to offset the portfolio losses further). Quick CommentsI am still 50% invested in my portfolios. These are the same ones you can copy trade on Autopilot (The Flagship, AI Second-Hand, and Tech Growth) portoflios. About 25% of my portfolio is uninvested and is returning 3.25-3.75% returns in HYSAs, treasuries, and other “cash equivalent” positions.The final 25% is currently invested across 3 main oil names and 1 additional crypto bet (with small allocations to others). Please note that these are available to paying subscribers. I will be sure to discuss these directly below for pro members. This year, the portfolios are struggling (no surprise here, as the whole market is); however, the other 50% is what is keeping our returns stabilized. My current investments are down about 10% YTD for all of the portfolios. In comparison to the -7% we are seeing in the SPY, I am not upset in the slightest about these returns. I still think we own some of the top-quality companies available to investors in the US!The 25% cash position is up something like 0.8%. The 25% we own in one-off bets is up about 10% on average. Portoflios (50%): -10%Cash (25%): +.8%One-off (25%): 10%Overall portoflio (100%): -2.5% YTDOverall, having a loss of 2.5% while the market struggles and sits at losses over 7%, I can’t be too sad. I think there are a lot of investors who are struggling much worse than I am right now. As an important note, I think we have some extreme upside in those one-off bets we have made, and we will see the portfolio turn green in the coming weeks as oil prices remain at their higher-than-normal levels. Between all of our oil bets, I can see a +30% upside possible (on average). **Final note: these are my personal opinions and investments and are in no way, shape, or form am I acting as a financial advisor for you or your portfolios. If you want to take a 100% position in the oil bets, if you want to take a 50% position or a 1% position, it does not matter to me. You do not, nor should you, copy my exact portfolios or positions. The “monthly picks” that I made have been faring the storm relatively well. They are down only .34% this month. We will be closing these trades on Tuesday, and we will then be opening April’s trades the following day (April 1st). We currently have 2 monthly stock picks in the works for next month. With all of that being said, I would love to hear from you all how you would like to see all of these different research articles and stock portfolios presented. I have thought about building a sort of heatmap for all of these, but I don’t know what would be best for you all.I like the website, but I think we can do better…As a further note, this is everything we offer to subscribers:* Portfolios* Flagship fund* AI Second Hand Effects* Tech Growth* Other* One-off Research* Macro Allocations* Monthly Stock Picks* Weekly Stock Picks* Hedge Fund Portfolio* Coming Soon in partnership with InsiderEdgesQuick Updates (Current Bets)