I have 5 charts for you today which put this crazy market into context and give some clarity on what might come next.

We’re at a fascinating crossroads for markets, geopolitics, and finance.

Let’s get started.

Semis Party Like It’s 1999

First up, semiconductor returns. The index below includes U.S. semi stocks like Nvidia, Micron, Intel, Broadcom, Marvell, Texas Instruments, and more:

Source: Charlie Bilello 

As you can see, during the dotcom bubble, semiconductor stocks soared 234% over 14 months in the period leading up to February 2000. That was the peak of the market, and tech stocks wouldn’t recover for about 15 years.

And in the past 14 months, SOX is up 237%. Reminiscent of the dotcom days.

Maybe this time is different, and yes, the stocks are more profitable today. But it’s undeniable that markets are getting bubbly. Semis are looking especially frothy. When AI spending inevitably slows down, watch out below…

+$2.99 Trillion

Over the past year, America’s federal debt jumped by $2.99 trillion.

Needless to say, our current trajectory is unsustainable. We’re paying about $1.2 trillion per year just in interest on federal government debt.

This is the key reason I believe interest rates will need to go down to near zero sometime in the next few years. Even if inflation remains above target. And it’s why I still believe holding precious metal investments is key to wealth preservation and growth.

AI Infrastructure Surpasses Humans

We all know data centers are booming. But the chart below puts it all into perspective. It compares office construction (blue) to data centers (red):

Source: Zerohedge

Simply remarkable. We’re spending more on infrastructure for AI than humans.

And since 2016, spending on data centers is up more than 10x.

But all around the country, locals are pushing back against big tech. Data centers are extremely loud. They spike local electricity prices to unaffordable levels. In some cases, they pollute the water with nitrites and other chemicals.

And most importantly, our power grid is hitting its limits. We can’t build new power plants fast enough to keep up. So eventually, the data center boom will have to slow down significantly. And that will likely mark the top of this boom/bubble.

Silver vs Stocks

Silver has had a rough few months. After rising almost 4x in a year, it has been cut in half.

The chart below compares silver to the S&P 500. As this chart rises, silver is beating stocks. When it falls, it is losing.

Source: Tavi Costa

As you can see, even at the recent highs we didn’t get anywhere near the levels we saw in 2011, when silver outperformed stocks for an extended period.

We’ve gotten our big correction, and I believe the next 5 years will be excellent for silver. It still has a long way to go to reach 2011 levels (compared to stocks). And supply deficits today are far more extreme than they ever were back then. Solar is booming and investment demand is soaring, especially in Asia.

I remain convinced silver will find new highs over the next few years. Maybe sooner.

-$246B Gambling Losses

The USA’s gambling problem is getting worse. As a whole, Americans are on track to lose $246 billion this year.

Source: Joey Politano

As we highlighted last week, Americans invest about $600 billion in 401ks every year. That number could be $850 billion if we ever learn that gambling has horrible odds.

Look, if you can afford to gamble and enjoy it, great. But many people are trying to strike it rich. And that almost never happens.

Gambling is all around us, and we should be on guard against its pernicious effects. Saving and investing should always come first.

I hope you all have a nice Independence Day weekend.

The post 5 Charts to Navigate This Chaotic Market appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

In the video below, Jim Rickards talks with Aaron Gentzler about how to navigate this dynamic period in history. They discuss the rise and fall of empires, before moving on to the importance of faith and family in today’s crazy world. Enjoy.

The post Jim Rickards on Faith and Family appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

Elon Musk sleeps on a couch at his factory and gets told he owes $50 billion on money he hasn’t spent. A handful of women holding similar fortunes, built from inheritance or divorce, not from anything they personally shipped, and get magazine profiles about their “thoughtful giving.” Same wealth bracket. Completely different treatment.

The reporting gap isn’t random. In it, three separate failures are stacked. Let’s explore them, one at a time.

The Tax Code Punishes Builders, Not Holders

Start with the actual policy question, because it’s the one part of this argument that isn’t about vibes.

Nearly every billionaire’s net worth is mostly unrealized gains, tied up in stocks that haven’t been sold. If “you have $X billion in paper wealth, so you owe taxes on it now” were applied evenly, it would hit every fortune the same way, regardless of its source. It doesn’t. The complaint about unrealized gains seems to surface only for entrepreneurs whose wealth is visible, contested, and usually tied to a controversial public figure.

There’s a real asymmetry in what kind of wealth gets targeted, too. Let’s not feel too bad for them, but founder wealth is usually the least liquid kind there is. It’s locked in voting shares of an operating company, often legally restricted from sale, and often collateralized against loans. Yes, many founders use “buy, borrow, die” to avoid inheritance tax, and rightly so. But mostly, they want to hang onto what they spent decades building.

If you force a founder to sell shares to cover a tax bill on paper gains, you’ll likely force a change in control of the company itself. That means sometimes handing the kingdom’s keys to outside investors, like activist hedge funds, who had nothing to do with building it.

Inherited or divorce-settlement wealth is usually the opposite. It tends to be already diversified into liquid, tradable assets, precisely because the person who built the underlying business is out of the picture, and the recipient never had to run it day-to-day.

Yes, I realize MacKenzie Scott helped to set up Amazon with her then-husband, Jeff Bezos. Then she left the company to raise their children. Great. And yet, she’s given away $26 billion to left-wing causes and solved precisely zero of the world’s problems. Why does she get a pass when Elon’s trying to take us to the moon and beyond?

But more than that, it astonishes me that the general public can’t distinguish between cash in an account and paper wealth. It’s as if people think Elon has a trillion dollars sitting in his bank account right now, collecting dust.

The Press Decides Who’s a Villain Before the Facts Are In

Layer the media’s behavior on top of that, and the picture sharpens.

Search any major outlet’s archive for Musk, and you’ll find years of stories interrogating his ethics, his politics, his sleep schedule, and his tax bill. Search for billionaires who inherited fortunes or pocketed nine-figure divorce settlements, and the coverage tilts toward profiles of their philanthropy and “quiet influence.”

The sorting variable isn’t how the money was earned. If it were, inherited wealth would draw more scrutiny, not less. There’s no entrepreneurial story that explains the cost or the reason for the wealth.

The actual variables are political alignment and personal brand. If you fund causes the average newsroom likes, stay out of culture wars (or be on the “right side of history”), and keep a low public profile, then you’ll get coded as responsible. Pick fights, say the wrong things, or back the wrong political tribe, and you get labeled a problem.

Once someone’s coded as a problem, every fact about them gets filtered through that lens. The tunnel company becomes “vaporware.” The satellite company becomes “Pentagon overreach.” The largest individual tax bill ever paid, somehow, becomes a moral failing. The amount is never enough, and it’s published by people who’d never think to run the same math on anyone else. Or themselves.

Just ask Ro Khanna. I’d tell you to ask his children, who themselves have large ownership shares in three private golf clubs, a significant stake in a $65 billion wealth management firm, and investments in hedge funds that focus on distressed debt, but they’re minors. Yes, they’re minors. Enjoy going down that rabbit hole. Or should I say, “loophole?”

The Walmart Footnote Deserves Its Own Argument, Not a Drive-By

I started writing this piece thinking about the Walton heirs as people who didn’t earn their wealth but got a free pass. But it turns out, they don’t get anything like a free pass.

Of course, the salient point is that a large share of Walmart employees rely on government benefits. That’s worth examining on its own terms. It’s a question about labor structure, wage policy, and how a massive employer’s pay scale interacts with the social safety net.

But claiming Sam Walton’s heirs are personally culpable is ridiculous. Making it about their personal net worth turns a real policy question into a personality contest.

Decades’ worth of management decisions, competitive pressure in low-margin retail, and labor policy choices shaped Walmart’s wage structure. By making it about the heirs’ bank accounts rather than the company’s pay practices, you’ve traded a fact-based argument for a much weaker one. And you’ve let the actual question slide off the page unanswered.

Wrap Up

A tax framework built around the politics of envy rather than consistent principles gives the press their “perfect villain.” Of course, if the public doesn’t understand how that wealth was built, they’ll assume it was arrived at by ill-gotten means.

A press corps that sorts billionaires by political hue trains the public to treat wealth scrutiny as a referendum on personal politics rather than policy.

Once the scrutiny becomes personality-driven, nobody bothers to separate legitimate critiques, like Walmart’s wage structure, from illegitimate ones, like demanding that a founder liquidate his company to cover some imaginary tax dodge.

None of this means inherited or divorce wealth is illegitimate, or that builders are saints. Plenty of founders behave badly, and plenty of heirs do real good with money they didn’t earn.

The point is narrower: if a policy or a press narrative can’t survive being applied evenly across every billionaire regardless of how sympathetic they are, it isn’t about fairness. It’s about who’s politically easy to smear every week.

Once you notice the pattern, you’ll see it everywhere. The conversation about wealth turns into a conversation about which billionaire deserves to be this month’s villain.

The post The Billionaire Sorting Hat appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

Better than gold. Better than copper. Better than oil. This one grain has the potential to be the best performing commodity in 2026.

According to the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture data, the hard wheat crop will be the smallest in 69 years. The June update revised the entire wheat crop down from 1.4 billion bushels last month to just 1.0 billion bushels. And the export variety of the grain is well down.

Wheat prices don’t reflect that shortage…yet. There’s a simple way for investors to cash in on the coming jump in wheat prices.

Hard red winter wheat (HRWW) is the main source of bread and exports. This harvest will be the smallest since 1958, primarily due to drought across the Great Plains. According to Reuters:

Production of hard red winter wheat, the largest variety grown in the United States, was projected to fall to 497 million bushels, down from an outlook for 515 million last month and well below last year’s 804-million-bushel crop.

The quality of the harvest is poor as well. Only 25% of the crop rates as good to excellent. That’s the lowest since 1986, according to Reuters’ reporting.

Let’s look at historical wheat prices. As you can see from the chart below, the wheat price is nowhere near recent highs.

Commodity prices tend to move in cycles. Oversupply leads to low prices. Undersupply leads to high prices. And we are firmly in the undersupply situation. Competition for the available supply will drive prices up.

That’s the opportunity for investors today. This isn’t an overnight 20% trade. This is a several month, double your money kind of speculation. And if the wheat price tests recent highs, it could be a 200%+ return.

These kinds of opportunities happen in cyclical commodities. The trick is to buy when no one is talking about the trade. When the headlines scream about soaring wheat prices, it’s too late.

We want to buy wheat now and sell it when the price goes up. And make no mistake, this will happen. Wheat is like oil. It’s a commodity we all buy every day. It goes into nearly everything we eat, either directly or indirectly.

Livestock can substitute grains when one gets too expensive. You cannot substitute soybeans in breads, rolls, flatbreads, noodles, pasta, crackers, cookies, cakes, pastries, cereal bars, and some other processed foods.

The reason wheat prices could soar is two-fold. First, the main supplies of wheat come from the U.S. and the Black Sea. The war in Ukraine is a material risk to Black Sea grain exports. And the other risk is weather.

The incoming super El Niño is a major weather phenomenon that could impact wheat crops around the world. Historically, these events bring dry conditions to wheat producers in Australia and Asia. Reduced global supply at a time when U.S. productions are at extreme lows will add upward pressure to the price.

The risk in this trade is that there is plenty of wheat on the market right now. The lack of wheat will hit later this fall. And that’s when I expect to see the price climb.

The best way to profit from the coming wheat shortage is by owning the Teucrium Wheat Fund (WEAT). It’s an ETF that holds wheat futures.

If the wheat shortage is as bad as I expect, WEAT could double over the next 6 months or so. The risk/reward ratio here looks excellent.

The post The Next Big Commodity Winner appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

For years, Elon Musk has dreamed of turning X (formerly Twitter) into the “everything app”.

Now that X is part of SpaceX (SPCX), and the combined company just raised $112 billion, the time looks ripe.

Elon envisions X as a single place where you can bank, chat, earn, advertise, use AI, shop, and more.

X Money is a key part of that vision. And we just got the first idea of what it will look like.

The program just launched to a small group of users. To attract deposits, X is offering some pretty crazy (and likely temporary) perks:

• 6% APY on cash, no deposit limit
• 3% cash back on purchases (with exceptions)
• $10 million FDIC insurance (by splitting deposits up between banks)

A 6% yield is not sustainable long-term (at current interest rates). It’s a teaser rate to get people to switch to X Money. Same goes for 3% cash back. That’s 3x higher than the industry average, and will almost certainly not last long.

These teasers may get a lot of people to switch. But it’s unclear how long the perks will last, and it’s currently only available to a small group.

X is not a bank. At least not yet. It’s more like a “neobank”, which manages the marketing and customer relationship, while licensed banks handle the deposits.

But for the user, it feels like a bank account and debit card. Deposits, yield, wire transfers, autopay, P2P payments, etc.

The WeChat Model

Musk’s desire to build the “everything app” may have been inspired by China’s WeChat.

WeChat is owned by Chinese tech firm Tencent. It started out as a simple messaging app. But Tencent rapidly expanded its utility, and today it is basically a digital operating system for the country.

In China, WeChat is used for payment, invoices, government interactions, making appointments, videos, shopping, games, chatting on social media, and much more.

WeChat Pay holds a massive 38% share of payments in China. More than a billion people use the app. It’s so ubiquitous that many Chinese people essentially run their lives through the app.

Largely as a result of WeChat’s success, Tencent has become a $488 billion tech giant.

This is what Musk is aiming for. If X Money succeeds, it could help justify SpaceX’s lofty valuation of $2.2 trillion.

SpaceX’s Huge Ambitions

X (formerly Twitter) has been the least-discussed part of SpaceX.

All the attention has been on rockets and AI. For good reason. Those are both very exciting areas.

But X deserves attention as well. Musk aims to turn the social network into a super-app, much like WeChat. Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion. If he succeeds, it could be worth much more over the long term.

But running what is essentially a combination bank and social network is no easy matter. For one thing, it makes security far more important (and challenging). It’s going to require a massive customer support team. And that’s one area where Elon’s X has struggled.

X Money is going to be a critical part of building the “everything app”. And the team is going big on the launch.

Think about the 6% APYs X is offering on deposits. Let’s say that X Money attracts $10 billion in deposits over the first year.

Paying a 6% yield on that much cash could cost SpaceX $240 million a year in losses. That’s assuming their own internal return on cash is around 3.5%, plus bank fees and other transaction costs. This is why I assume the 6% APY is temporary.

And the 3% cash back? That appears to be on a debit card, which doesn’t have the same fee support as a credit card. So that could be another very expensive tool to attract users.

But the losses could be worth it. The market they’re targeting is massive. Payments, banking, and eventually – everything.

So will X succeed in becoming a “super app”? Honestly? I think it’s a long shot.

X Money would probably need to be wildly successful and run away with the market.

One problem is that Meta/Facebook (META) will copy anything that looks to be working. The company is notorious for it. And they have a much larger user base. Meta also already has WhatsApp pay and several payment integrations with Facebook.

Another problem is that American banks are extremely profitable, and in some ways act like a cartel. They won’t appreciate X stepping onto their turf, and may fight back. With lawfare, lobbying, or other means.

A Beautiful But Difficult Model

The “everything app”, or the WeChat model has been the dream of every social media company in the world for a while. But it’s going to be very difficult to pull off at this stage of the game.

Then again, we should never count Elon out. If he’s going to go hard after this market, SpaceX certainly has a shot at winning it.

SpaceX just raised $87 billion in its IPO, then another $25 billion in bond sales. That is a massive war chest.

SPCX has big aspirations. And with a $2.2 trillion market cap, it has a lot of growing to do in order to justify that lofty price.

X Money is a calculated risk by SpaceX. One that could pay off big.

I don’t have a position in SpaceX, but it’s going to be fascinating to watch.

The post Elon’s Next Move: Your Money appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

It’s a very special week: this coming Saturday we’ll celebrate Independence Day at the 250-year mark, recalling the moment when the United States of America formally came into being.

The arc of progress tracks from Jerusalem to Athens, then Rome, to London and finally Philadelphia. There’s serious history here, culminating on July 4^th, 1776. Although really, it’s all much more than just one particular day of the calendar.

America’s march to Revolution began in the 1760s after the Seven Years’ War, moved through a decade of imperial crisis, and turned violent in 1775 at Lexington and Concord.

Meanwhile, in 1775 the Continental Congress established the Army in June, the Navy in October, and our beloved Marine Corps in November. Thus, before there was a nation, there were soldiers, sailors and Marines. (“Which is exactly as it should be,” some might say.)

The combat phase of the Revolution ran from 1775 to 1781, ending at Yorktown, while the formal peace came with the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Then came the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution of 1787, ratification in 1788, and George Washington’s inauguration in 1789.

In short, it took time for the U.S. to get its “new nation” thing right. And even then, one of the first official acts of the new federal government was to supplement the Constitution with Ten Amendments, now known as the Bill of Rights. Not a moment too soon!

I mention it all because this week is a fine time to discuss America’s history. But there’s another angle worth pondering as well: the geology. In other words… How 1776 marked the Birth of a Post-Glacial Nation. And with that, let’s dig in…

Welcome to a Post-Glacial Continent

When Europeans arrived on the Atlantic coast of North America, they set foot upon a landscape profoundly shaped by the Ice Age. Pleistocene ice had retreated about 10,000 years earlier, but it left behind scoured bedrock, mineral outcrops, lakebeds, moraines, kettle ponds, marshes, drowned river valleys, sand and gravel deposits, and the enormous freshwater system of the Great Lakes.

North American Pleistocene ice cover, 1.8MY – 10,000 yrs ago. Credit U.S. Geological Survey.

By itself, post-glacial geology did not determine American history. But it created physical conditions that strongly shaped communication, settlement, agriculture, transportation, industry, military strategy, and westward expansion. For Native inhabitants and later arrivals alike, the landscape influenced flora, fauna, animal migration, trails, habitation, farming and industry.

America’s Glacial Inheritance

In Pleistocene time, ice sheets repeatedly advanced and retreated. At various times ice covered much of what became New England, New York, northern Pennsylvania, the Great Lakes states, the upper Midwest, and western mountain ranges as well.

As ice moved, it scraped and polished bedrock, deepened valleys, opened or blocked drainage, and carried debris known as till. As the vast sheets melted, torrents of water moved boulders, gravel, sand, silt and clay into outwash plains, deltas, floodplains and lakebeds.

For Native peoples and then Euro-colonists, these ancient mass movements left terrain full of opportunity and constraint: rich lowlands beside rocky uplands, navigable waterways beside difficult overland passages, and abundant construction materials beside thin or stony soils.

A Post-Glacial, Coastal Nation

Due to hard bedrock and forbidding terrain, even by 1776 European settlement had barely penetrated the North American interior. Most people lived near the coast or upstream along rivers that flowed to the sea.

The culture, economy and politics of Colonial, and then Revolutionary America were dominated by towns and modest cities along drowned river valleys: Boston and coastal Massachusetts; Narragansett Bay; New York and its harbor system; Philadelphia on the Delaware; Baltimore on the Chesapeake; and Charleston farther south.

It all makes good geologic and cultural sense when you understand how glacial melt raised sea levels and flooded river mouths, creating inlets that became harbors, ports and colonial gateways.

Colonial-Revolutionary America, a seacoast phenomenon. Credit Library of Congress.

In post-glacial New England, the geological inheritance was not merely influential but tyrannical; indeed, the land was more unforgiving than the harsh rule of any English king.

Across New England, glaciers had stripped and scoured the land, leaving thin soils, exposed ledges, boulder-strewn fields, drumlins, ponds and uneven uplands. Such conditions discouraged large-scale agriculture and favored small mixed farms, woodlots, livestock, fishing, shipbuilding and town commerce.

Or consider the famous stone walls of New England; they’re not just quaint rural decoration. In fact, they reflect decades of backbreaking labor by farmers who cleared glacial debris from their fields and stacked the rocks. Season after season, agriculture and property ownership was shaped by what the ice left behind.

Stone by Stone: The Magnificent History in New England’s Stone Walls. Robert Thorson. Credit Amazon screen shot.

At the same time, post-glacial geology offered advantages as well. Ice and meltwater shaped coves and estuaries, and created protected harbors that supported maritime trade. Thus did the rocky coastline of New England play a key role to position Boston, Newport, Portsmouth and other well-positioned locales for colonial commerce.

Further inland, steep gradients and post-glacial streams powered sawmills, gristmills and small manufacturing. Falling water turned wheels that converted timber into boards, grain into flour, ores into metal, and other raw materials into marketable goods long before coal-fired energy lit off, so to speak.

In other words, the same ice-shaped ruggedness that limited farming pushed New Englanders toward diversified enterprise: seafaring, craftsmanship, industry and town-based economies. And it’s all quite different from the Southerly system where plantation agriculture was more feasible and industry less favored; sociological facts with downstream implications of their own.

Glacial Geography of Westward Expansion

Post-1776, if the U.S. was to expand it had to overcome immense geological barriers. Right away, the new country was trapped on the coastline by the mighty Appalachians, difficult to cross even today and certainly back then.

Geology controlled geography, and geography controlled movement. Post-glacial drainage patterns shaped routes by which Natives, trappers, traders, soldiers and settlers moved into the interior. Still, though, ancient meltwater had reorganized river systems, carved channels, and left valleys that became corridors through rugged country.

Hudson-Mohawk Valley/Erie Canal route. Credit msnikkijones.weebly.com.

By the early 1800s, New York’s glacially formed Hudson-Mohawk route transformed old Native trails and water passages into one of the key corridors of the era. America had a route up the Hudson to Albany and, via the Mohawk-Erie Canal west to Buffalo and the Great Lakes, the new nation’s inland sea.

No doubt, the Erie Canal was a triumph of engineering and hard work. But at root—literally—its success was built upon a landscape where bedrock and glacial history had produced a workable path from east to west.

Where canals did not yet exist, portages reflected glacial geography as well. Short overland treks between watersheds eased movement from the St. Lawrence to the Great Lakes and eventually into the Ohio and Mississippi systems, themselves heavily influenced by ancient ice and meltwater.

Strategically, westward growth reflected an effort to understand and master the interior’s geologic-scale hydraulic systems. One famous example is the journey of Lewis & Clark down the Ohio, up the Missouri, across the divide, and eventually down the Columbia to the Pacific.

Lewis & Clark Expedition on Missouri River. Credit Smithsonian Institution.

Similarly strategic, the Great Lakes were—and remain—the most dramatic post-glacial feature of the continent. Their basins reflect bedrock structures deepened by extreme glacial erosion, then filled with meltwater that became America’s inland ocean.

Early map (1749) of Great Lakes region. Credit University of Notre Dame, Hesburgh Library.

By the 1780s, American leaders understood that the Great Lakes linked the St. Lawrence Seaway to the far interior. Indeed, at one point no less than Benjamin Franklin traveled to Montreal to urge the French up there to join America’s rebellion against the British. (They declined.)

That is, American leaders understood how control of lake routes meant control of trade, diplomacy and military movement, especially with British North America to the north, and confrontational Native nations throughout the region.

Then came the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, built upon the idea that the Great Lakes were central to America’s national development. And as anticipated, the lakes opened Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota to settlement, development and commerce.

Meanwhile – and fortuitously! – ancient glacial outwash across the Midwest contained ground-up quartz, feldspar, limestone, clays and other minerals. Add 10,000 years of prairie grass, bison, groundhogs and beavers, and much of the region was moist, fertile, and outstanding for agriculture.

Now, add the ability to ship grain and ore back East over the Great Lakes, and America’s post-glacial interior offered a recipe for wealth creation.

Minerals and Mines

Indeed, post-glacial effects greatly influenced American mineral development too, not least via exposed ore bodies that dated from geological Deep Time. Consider Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula, where elemental copper had formed 1.5 billion years ago from Precambrian magma and hydrothermal systems associated with the Midcontinent Rift.

Keweenaw elemental copper, mined (L) and “float” (R). BWK collection.

The copper itself was not “Ice Age,” but Pleistocene glaciers scoured the region, stripped overburden, exposed bedrock, and transported pieces of native metal as “float.”

For many centuries, Keweenaw copper was known to Native peoples. And by the 1840s it fueled America’s first industrial-scale mining boom. Ore moved across the Great Lakes, then down to Pittsburgh and other industrial centers, where coal (aka “energy”) was abundant, which led to a new, regional metals economy. Later, these same commercial channels moved Minnesota iron ore to steel mills across the industrial Midwest.

California offers another mineralogical example. The Sierra Nevada held lode veins of gold-bearing quartz. And during glacial episodes, the bedrock underwent massive mechanical erosion, while falling water helped break bedrock and concentrate dense gold particles at the bottom of stream gravels.

Those gravels eventually led to the “Eureka” discovery at Sutter’s Mill in 1848 and the Gold Rush which pulled large numbers of people west, transformed California, and helped make San Francisco—built alongside another drowned valley system—into a globally significant metropolis.

Wrap-Up: America the Post-Glacial Nation

There’s more to say, of course, but the main point is that the U.S. did not arise from a blank geologic slate. It emerged on a continent where ice, meltwater, sea-level rise, erosion and sediment had already arranged many of the basic facts of bedrock, if not life.

Long before the Declaration of Independence, the country’s landscape was dotted with coastal inlets, river valleys, fertile bottoms, rocky uplands, mineral exposures, lake routes and mountain barriers. Americans did not choose those conditions; they inherited them.

It’s no overstatement to say that post-glacial results controlled almost everything that mattered in early U.S. development: where people could land ships, where towns could grow, where farms prospered or struggled, where mills could turn, where roads and canals made sense, where ore could be found and moved, and where military power could be projected.

Boston, New York, Philadelphia, the Hudson-Mohawk corridor, the Erie Canal, the Great Lakes, Keweenaw copper and California gold were not random items on the historical checklist. Each reflected a deeper geological inheritance translated into economics, politics and settlement.

Of course, we revere the Declaration, the Revolution and the Constitution. We study politics and personalities. Indeed, these are the visible architecture of America’s story. But behind and beneath that architecture lies the physical foundation: bedrock, soils, water, ports, ores and transport routes, much of it shaped or revealed by ice and post-glacial erosion.

Geology did not write the Constitution or win the Revolution. But America’s post-glacial geologic realities made certain choices easier, some harder, and some outcomes far more likely than others. In this sense, America was founded in 1776 but its roots trace back 10,000 years to a post-glacial continent. And the nation has been working with that inheritance ever since.

That’s all for now. Happy America 250!

Thank you for subscribing and reading.

The post America 250: Birth of a Post-Glacial Nation appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

In 2020, Strategy (MSTR, formerly known as MicroStrategy) was a sleepy but profitable software company.

They had a bunch of cash sitting around, and no idea what to do with it.

Interest rates were near 0%. And the company’s CEO, Michael Saylor, expected inflation to become problematic.

So where could the company stash its cash? Saylor and his team looked into various alternative assets. Gold, real estate, bonds, and even Bitcoin. After some research, they decided on Bitcoin.

In August of 2020, the company made its first purchase of 21,454 Bitcoin for a total of $250 million. That’s a purchase price of $11,652 per coin.

A Beautiful Plan (At First)

Investors loved Saylor’s plan. MSTR shares shot up from around $14 to $130 in about six months.

Of course, Bitcoin was rising simultaneously. Partially due to Strategy’s buying, but also because the world saw how much governments were spending during the COVID era. Inflation was spiking, and the “debasement” trade was beginning.

But the remarkable thing was that MSTR was actually outperforming Bitcoin. The stock was booming.

Back in 2020, there was no Bitcoin ETF. To buy cryptocurrency, you had to open a crypto account and do it the old-fashioned way.

Most professional investors had no way to access the Bitcoin trade before Strategy. Their companies didn’t allow them to buy cryptocurrencies. But they could buy Strategy, a company that owned Bitcoin.

Both retail and institutional investors jumped on the Saylor bandwagon. And they wanted Saylor to go big.

The company sold debt to buy more Bitcoin. There was insatiable demand for Strategy’s stock and convertible bonds.

Forbes proclaimed Saylor as “The Bitcoin Alchemist” in a flattering cover story in January, 2025.

Source: Forbes

Bitcoin ETFs Disrupt Strategy

In January 2024, a bunch of Bitcoin ETFs launched. Now all investors, both institutional and retail, could access pure Bitcoin exposure through the stock market.

There is no leverage in Bitcoin ETFs. They simply hold Bitcoin, charge a small fee, and offer investors an easy way to buy.

So one of the main reasons that investors bought Strategy (MSTR) had disappeared. They could simply buy the iShares ETF (IBIT), pay a tiny expense fee, and avoid all the overheard expenses and debt at Strategy.

Bitcoin ETFs were a smashing success, and threatened Strategy’s business model.

So Saylor and his team got more aggressive.

Massive Buys

Strategy issued billions of dollars worth of MSTR shares, convertible notes, and a new idea – preferred shares.

The first Strategy preferred stock was STRC, which launched in July 2025 with a handsome 11.5% dividend yield. They sold STRC to investors so MSTR could buy even more Bitcoin.

The idea was that Bitcoin should return much more than 11.5% per year, so it was a good deal for Strategy shareholders. And STRC investors would earn a very high yield.

STRC was a success, at first, so Strategy launched more preferred shares. STRD, STRK, and STRF followed. All had a different yield, and different terms on the dividend payments.

In total, Strategy has now issued $15.5 billion in preferred shares. The cost to pay dividends on those shares is about $1.7 billion per year.

MSTR holds around $50 billion worth of Bitcoin. Here’s a chart showing all of Strategy’s Bitcoin buys:

Source: Strategy

Look at all those buys above $90,000, all the way up to over $120,000… Risky.

The company’s average purchase price on their 847,000 BTC is now around $75,000. The problem is that Bitcoin itself is now trading around $59,000.

Strategy is now underwater on its Bitcoin purchases.

And it has to cover $1.7 billion worth of dividends per year. Strategy also has around $6.7 billion worth of convertible debt outstanding. Some of that will need to be refinanced in 2027/2028, which could be complicated if the company is still struggling.

Juggling Molotov Cocktails

This morning, Strategy made a major announcement. They are now considering selling up to $1.25 billion worth of Bitcoin, and using the proceeds to cover dividend payments and debt interest.

For years, Michael Saylor said the company would never sell its Bitcoin. But now they’re at the point where there’s essentially no other choice.

MSTR has boosted its cash reserve to $2.55 billion, which is enough to cover about 17 months of interest and dividend payments.

It’s a start. And shares are up 12% today. But there are still major risks for MSTR. If Bitcoin continues to fall, they may be forced to sell more coins. This could create a nasty cycle of lower prices leading to more selling.

And considering the fact that Strategy owns 847,000 coins, which is 4% of the world total, this cycle could potentially lead to much lower Bitcoin prices.

Additionally, there are now a lot of other companies imitating Strategy’s Bitcoin-centric plan. The “Bitcoin Treasury” strategy has spread around the world, magnifying the risk.

Strategy shares (MSTR) are now down 83% from the all-time high. STRC, which is supposed to trade around $100, sits at $82.

The Perils of Leverage

The Strategy story is a cautionary tale about leverage and aggression. Saylor wasn’t patient enough with his Bitcoin buys. He was also overly-eager using debt to fund purchases.

It almost seems like he thought his company could keep Bitcoin prices heading higher eternally.

Last summer, Michael Saylor got some criticism for “buying the top” in Bitcoin. He replied that he would be “buying the top forever.”

But nobody is bigger than the market.

If you want to own Bitcoin, I say just buy an ETF like FBTC, or open a crypto account. There’s really no need to buy MSTR anymore. At some point, if the company gets in deep trouble, the shares may get low enough to interest me. But for now I’m steering clear.

Strategy’s preferred shares (STRC, STRK, STRD, etc) may also become attractive at some point. Fat yields are always interesting to me. But there’s too much risk for now. Strategy could eventually get to the point where they skip dividends in order to preserve their Bitcoin stash.

Buy Bitcoin When it Looks Dead

To be clear, I think Strategy will survive. They may have to dilute shareholders, and sell a bunch of Bitcoin, but I think the company will make it through this crisis.

BUT… There’s a chance this thing unravels and they’re forced to sell a large portion of their Bitcoin at fire-sale prices. If that happens, it could crash BTC for a while.

If Bitcoin ever gets down to the $20k level or so, I’d probably buy some. That’s the thing about Bitcoin though. The only great time to buy is when it looks like the project is dying. And most people won’t do that.

Even if Strategy crashes and burns (which isn’t my expectation), Bitcoin will survive. It’s been through this type of event many times before.

So if Strategy ever does fall apart, my advice would be simple. Buy Bitcoin when it looks like all hope is lost. It’s a proven technique, but is psychologically difficult for most people. If we ever get to the point, I’ll let you know.

The post Saylor’s Bitcoin Flywheel Hits a Snag appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

Americans are natural risk takers. This trait goes back to the country’s founding stock.

Many of our ancestors decided to leave their homelands and set off to the New World.

In search of freedom, land, meat, and prosperity, these pioneers laid the foundation for a bold nation.

As a result, Americans have always excelled in the entrepreneurial arts. We aren’t afraid to take the risk of starting a business. This is surprisingly rare throughout the world. It’s one of the prime reasons our nation is so exceptional.

But today, our risk-taking nature is being taken advantage of.

Gambling EVERYWHERE

You can’t watch sports these days without the inevitable gambling ads. TV hosts offer up their suggested bets and plug the sponsor’s gambling app.

This was absolutely unheard of even 10 years ago. But in 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that sports gambling had been improperly banned by the federal government.

The rest is history. The chart below shows legal sports gambling volume since 2018:

Source: Author

From $4.6 billion in 2018 to $166 billion in 2025! It’s a disturbingly bullish chart. That’s a lot of money being flushed down the drain every year.

According to the largest study of online sports betting, about 96% of people lose money. That’s based on tracking digital payments. Only 4% ever withdrew winnings.

The odds are shockingly bad. And the crazy thing is, even if you do manage to beat the system, the gambling apps will limit your bets to tiny amounts. It’s rigged.

The study also found that lower-income people are hardest hit. They gamble more of their income, and lose more.

Investors are increasingly using “parlay” bets in an attempt to hit it big. You can bet on the outcome of 10+ different events, and depending on their probability, win 100x or more your money. But these parlays almost never hit. And the house makes a lot more money from these bets.

Too many people today view parlays as a retirement plan. There are much better ways to speculate available, like the stock market.

But even parts of the stock market have turned into a casino.

Stocks, Too

Citadel Securities is a firm you may not have heard of. But they handle about 25% of all retail trading in the U.S. Stocks and options.

And their latest data is shocking. In February 2026, 39% of all options volume was on “zero-day” contracts. In other words, options that expire the same day. We call these “ODTE” options. Incredibly risky.

Source: Citadel Securities

This is day trading on steroids. Note how in 2021, 0DTE volume was just 12% of the total.

Many Americans are struggling. Housing is unaffordable, food prices are ridiculous, and the job market is rough. So they’re trying to use 0DTE options to strike it rich.

For the vast majority of traders, this strategy will end in tears.

Prediction Markets – Bet on Anything

And now, the next evolution in gambling. Prediction markets.

The name sounds respectable. Honey, I’m not gambling. I’m predicting.

Same difference.

On sites like Kalshi and Polymarket, you can bet on almost anything.

• Will it rain in New York City today?
• Will Trump say “Dumbocrats” in his speech tonight?
• Will the Fed raise interest rates by 0.25% in October?
• Who will win the UFC fight?

You can even bet on where Taylor Swift’s wedding will take place. New York, or Rhode Island? A few bold bettors say it’ll be in Pennsylvania (3% chance, make 33x your money!).

Source: Kalshi

The suspense is killing me…

Naturally, there is a huge insider trading problem in prediction markets. Someone on Taylor Swift’s team probably knows where the wedding will be. They could bet themselves, but then they might get caught. So they might tip off friends, and share the winnings.

Insider trading is becoming a major problem in prediction markets. We’ve already seen a U.S. soldier get busted for betting on Nicolas Maduro’s removal from power in Venezuela. He won $400,000, but got caught.

Source: DOJ

Of course, there are going to be productive uses of prediction markets. But for most people, it’s really just gambling under a fancier name.

What’s The Solution?

Pandora’s box is open. Gambling has become a big part of our culture and economy.

It’s unlikely to be outlawed or restricted anytime soon. There’s too much money to be made.

But gambling is draining the savings of Americans. And preventing many from investing their money where it should be, in the stock market. Or a small business.

So we should encourage our kids, grandkids, and friends to steer clear of gambling. Many people are developing serious gambling addictions in this new world.

Many have come to see reckless speculation as their only “way out”. This is understandable, but it almost never works.

Sports gambling is not a path to riches. Quite the opposite. And 0DTE options and prediction markets may seem more sophisticated, but the result will be similar for most people.

Instead of making a deposit in the sports book, people should be opening a Roth IRA, or contributing to a 401k. These legal tax shelters offer incredible benefits, and over a long period you will make money with a well-thought out portfolio.

Sports betting was $166 billion last year. Total U.S. investment into 401ks is about $600 billion per annum. And gambling is growing much faster.

Compared to sports gambling, where only 4% win, the choice is clear. Take advantage of the most powerful force in the universe: compounding. And the only way to do that with a high probability is by owning quality stocks.

Be sure to put as much as you can in retirement accounts. Or if you’re already retired, encourage your kids/grandkids to do so. Compounding works best when the government isn’t constantly taking a cut.

The post Speculation Nation appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

Can a popular 1960s television game show help us understand Donald Trump’s decision-making process with regard to the war in Iran?

The answer is yes.

To understand why, we first need to understand how the game show worked. Using that as a model, we can apply it to Trump’s choices in Iran, see how he arrived at the current ceasefire and negotiation stage and consider what may come next.

The game show we’re considering was called Let’s Make a Deal. The host was Monty Hall, a Canadian-American talent who hosted the show from its debut in 1963 through 1976. The show was continued in many forms under different names all over the world, but the original format is what we want to study for geopolitical purposes.

The game consisted of a stage with three closed doors. Behind one door was a grand prize, such as an all-expenses-paid trip around the world. Behind another door was a modest prize, perhaps a TV set or kitchen appliance. The remaining door had a comedic “zonk” prize with little or no value. One of the famous zonk prizes was a live goat.

The number and order of the doors doesn’t matter mathematically, but for purposes of illustration, we can say that Door No. 1 has the grand prize, Door No. 2 has the zonk prize and Door No. 3 has the modest prize. The contestant does not know which door holds which prize.

The contestant was offered something of reasonable value but was allowed to “trade” that item for something hidden behind the doors. Most contestants would do the trade. Then they had to pick a door. Let’s say the contestant chooses Door No. 3.

Here’s where the game gets interesting.

Monty Hall, knowing where the prizes were, would walk up to the stage and open one of the doors the contestant did not choose. In our example, he would open Door No. 2 to reveal the zonk prize. He would then ask the contestant if she would like to change her mind. The contestant could switch from Door No. 3 to Door No. 1 or could stand pat with Door No. 3.

Most contestants would stick with Door No. 3. Their logic was that Door No. 3 originally had a one-third chance of being the grand prize. That’s the correct probability.

They would reason intuitively that Door No. 1 also had a one-third chance of being the grand prize. Since the odds were the same between Door No. 1 and Door No. 3 and since nothing had changed, there was no reason to switch doors.

If the contestant stuck with Door No. 3, that door would eventually be opened and the contestant might or might not win the grand prize.

The Math Most People Get Wrong

It’s counterintuitive, but the logic most contestants use is incorrect.

Door No. 3 still has a one-third chance of containing the grand prize. But Door No. 1 actually has a two-thirds chance.

A contestant given the situation described above should always switch doors. That doesn’t guarantee a win every time, but it does double the chances of winning.

Here’s why:

At the start of the game, Door No. 3 has a one-third chance of holding the grand prize. That means Doors No. 1 and No. 2 combined have a two-thirds chance.

The key insight is that Monty Hall is not opening a random door. He knows where the prizes are and deliberately reveals a losing door.

When Door No. 2 is opened and shown to contain the zonk prize, the two-thirds probability that originally belonged to Doors No. 1 and No. 2 does not disappear. Instead, it shifts entirely to Door No. 1.

Nothing has changed about Door No. 3. It still has a one-third chance of containing the grand prize.

But Door No. 1 now carries the full two-thirds probability that was previously shared between Doors No. 1 and No. 2.

That’s why switching doors improves your odds of winning.

This is a simple example of Bayes’ Theorem. You start with the best estimate you can make based on the information available. When new information arrives, you update your assessment.

Once Monty Hall reveals that Door No. 2 contains the zonk prize, the odds change. A rational contestant updates the probabilities and switches doors.

(By the way, when the Let’s Make a Deal solution was first published, thousands of readers — including many with PhDs — wrote in insisting there was no benefit to switching.

Experiments with pigeons showed the opposite. Pigeons almost always switch.)

Trump’s Three Doors

Interesting. But what does this have to do with Trump and the war in Iran?

It turns out that Trump has a Monty Hall problem of his own in terms of policy choices in the war.

The grand prize, from a practical standpoint, is a negotiated settlement. It doesn’t sound appealing, but it would end the fighting, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, help reunite MAGA and get Republicans focused on the midterm election.

The zonk prize is a continuation of the stalemate. This avoids fighting in the short run, but it keeps the Strait of Hormuz closed. The world was close to running out of energy and other strategic inputs, and major parts of the global industrial economy were coming close to shutting down. It was the worst possible outcome economically and politically.

The modest prize is escalation. It has a short-term feel-good aspect to it, but it doesn’t accomplish much in the long run without 600,000 boots on the ground. It might reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but at a high cost in lives and treasure.

We can think of retreat behind Door No. 1, stalemate behind Door No. 2 and escalation behind Door No. 3. Retreat has a political cost. Stalemate has an economic cost. Escalation has a cost measured in uncertainty and casualties.

The Zonk Prize Revealed

Trump was merely guessing as to which choice had the best outcome and which choice was the zonk prize.

Two weeks ago, Trump was leaning toward Door No. 3 without really knowing what he was doing or what the outcome might be. He was guessing.

At this point in the policy process, JD Vance and others explained to Trump that Door No. 2 was the zonk prize. In effect, he opened the door like Monty Hall.

Door No. 2 was never a good outcome. The result of running out of energy was always going to be catastrophic. It was just a matter of time and the time was near.

Now Trump was like the contestant in Let’s Make a Deal. He could stick to Door No. 3 or switch to Door No. 1.

His goal was to get the best possible outcome for the United States without really knowing how to achieve that. When he saw that stalemate was the zonk prize, the odds favored switching strategies to increase the odds of success.

And that’s what he did.

Why Trump Switched Strategies

Over the course of June 11 and 12, 2026, Trump first threatened to bomb Iran into reopening the Strait and then abruptly announced a planned memorandum of understanding (MOU) that would reopen the Strait by giving Iran most of what it was asking for and leaving critical issues to be negotiated over the next 60 days.

In effect, Trump switched from Door No. 3 to Door No. 1 to increase the chance of success.

It worked.

The odds of the Strait reopening went up significantly and, as of today, substantial tanker traffic is in fact moving through the Strait (although it’s a tenuous situation with Iran firing on an oil tanker in the Strait just yesterday). Economic catastrophe has been averted at the cost of some embarrassment for the United States.

But we still achieved the best possible outcome.

The Next Round of the Game

Of course, war and diplomacy are far more complex than Let’s Make a Deal. There are many mixed cases. Agreements like the MOU can be torn up and the war restarted.

Or the MOU negotiations can be used by both sides to restock depleted weapons systems in preparation for another round of fighting.

Trump has already said he will “bomb the hell out of” Iran if it doesn’t live up to his expectations under the MOU.

New doors and new choices keep emerging.

Still, models are a useful way to analyze complex problems when all the inputs are not known. Bayes Theorem, which is the model behind the Monty Hall problem, is a powerful tool that I used frequently in my work at CIA.

The lesson is straightforward: Start with the best assessment you can make. Then update that assessment when new information changes the odds.

Rather than throw up our hands at Trump’s apparent contradictions, we can view his decisions as responses to changing information and changing probabilities.

That approach won’t predict every outcome, but it can help us make more accurate forecasts than intuition alone.

The post Let’s Make a (Iran) Deal appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

Every fifty years or so, a tech breakthrough revolutionizes warfare.

The English longbow devastated heavy cavalry at the Battle of Agincourt, and beyond.

Mongol composite bows and horse archery conquered Eurasia.

Crossbows made anyone into a ranged threat.

Gunpowder ended the age of heavy armor, knights, and castles.

Now drones are doing it again.

Moscow Refinery Hit

This is what the skyline looked like on the outskirts of Moscow last week.

Source: X

On Friday June 19th, Ukraine launched a massive drone attack. It reportedly involved more than 700 long-range drones. Russia shot most down, or used electronic warfare to crash them, but some got through.

The drones mostly hit “soft targets” like oil refineries and storage tanks. A few apartment buildings were also hit, but it’s unclear whether these were a mistake, or possibly targeted at military housing.

The picture above shows Moscow’s largest oil refinery. According to Reuters, the refinery that Moscow residents rely on for their fuel will be down for the rest of the year.

Normally this site produces 6 million tons of gasoline and diesel per year. Ukraine’s wave of attacks on Russian energy sites has severely hampered production. The country may soon be forced to stop exporting diesel, leaving customers in the lurch.

The most disturbing thing here is that Moscow probably has the best air defense network on the planet. A massive ring of electronic warfare zones. Short, medium, and long range anti-air missile systems. There were even huge nets over the refinery, but some of the heavier drones still got through.

Russia’s capital is only 280 miles from the Ukrainian border, so it is under constant threat. Defenses have been built over years, but they still weren’t enough.

The rain was black again, and this time in Russia’s capital.

Cheap and Dangerous

The drone pictured below is Ukraine’s AN-196 Liutyi. It has a range up to 2,000 km and a warhead that weighs about 75 kg (165 lbs).

Ukraine’s AN-196 Liutyi long-range drone | Source: U.S. Army

This is one of Ukraine’s top tier drones. It costs an estimated $200,000. The expensive parts are the optical suite, navigation, processing, and electronic hardening. As production scales up, costs should fall sharply. And even at $200k, that’s far cheaper than any cruise missile.

Companies around the world are working to mass-produce attack drones. Efficiency improvements over the coming years will make long-range drones even cheaper.

It’s estimated that Russia’s Geran-2, with 1,500km range and a ~200lb warhead, costs $20-50k depending on the version. Small drones used on the frontlines cost well under $1,000 each, and can take out a $5 million tank.

New drones are being equipped to operate using on-board AI.

Drone Stocks

A technology so disruptive inevitably brings opportunity.

The U.S. military is beginning to acknowledge this shift. The Pentagon will ask for $55-75 billion in funding for unmanned systems for the next fiscal year.

However, that’d only be 5-7% of the total defense budget.

In Ukraine, drones account for around 90% of Russian casualties. That’s according to former CIA Director David Petraeus. For Ukraine, it has become a drone war.

Russia is using more glide bombs, missiles, and artillery. But I’d guess that still 60% of the casualties they inflict are from drones. And 80% of the long distance strikes are carried out by UAS (unmanned aircraft systems).

So in the largest war in recent history, and the largest modern frontline combat in history, drones are the undisputed king.

Shouldn’t we be spending 30% or more on unmanned systems? Soon enough…

Aerovironment (AVAV) – Worth a Look

There are a few “pure play” drone stocks out there. Aerovironment (AVAV) is among the largest and most well-established.

I dug deep into this stock over the past few weeks. AVAV has had a rough year. It’s down 42% over that period, and down 65% from its all-time high of around $417.

Expectations for Aerovironment were sky-high. They had acquired BlueHalo, a leading drone defense and space communications company, for $4.1B.

Then one of BlueHalo’s key contracts with Space Force was cancelled. And AVAV had to restate earnings due to an accounting error, which is never popular with investors.

Additionally, the company’s Switchblade drones performed somewhat poorly in Ukraine. Russia jammed them, the warheads were too small, and they were very expensive compared to off-the-shelf Chinese drones + RPG warheads.

The Switchblade 600 did score kills against expensive Russian missile systems, IFVs, and other targets. Overall though, the cost was too great compared to alternatives. But lessons were learned, and new products are launching.

At some point Aerovironment will become attractive. Maybe soon. They still have major contracts for both offensive and defensive drone systems. Their products have been through the ultimate test – operating in Ukraine. The experience and data gathered is valuable, even if their products weren’t a huge battlefield success.

Aerovironment’s BlueHalo division has a number of counter-drone defense systems which are promising. Their Titan counter-UAS unit has sold more than 1,000 units worldwide, making it a leading U.S. drone defense company in terms of systems deployed. This unit can detect, track, and defeat (jam) drones.

AVAV’s Titan 4 RF counter-UAS system

The company has anti-drone missiles, laser weapons, microwave systems for swarms, and interceptors.

Drone defense is one area I’m particularly bullish on. It’s even possible that more money will need to be spent on defense than offense. When a $500 drone can destroy a $200 million bomber, or shut an oil refinery down for 6 months, the problem is hugely asymmetric.

AVAV looks like one of the more promising names in the counter-drone space.

I haven’t bought Aerovironment yet. Still doing research, but it’s on my watchlist. The stock looks like it may go lower before finding a bottom.

Drones are one of the most disruptive breakthroughs in military history. This tech is rapidly spreading around the world, and there’s no putting the toothpaste back in the tube.

A few U.S. companies will likely end up as the dominant drone players. And there’s a good chance it won’t be any of today’s defense giants.

My research continues, and I’ll share anything interesting I find. We’ll review more drone stocks soon.

Further reading:

• Defense Dinosaurs Fall Behind
• Black Rain Drone Destruction
• Modern Warfare: Lessons from Ukraine
• Modern Warfare 2: Lessons from Iran

The post Drones Invade Moscow appeared first on Daily Reckoning.