The Foxhole

When oil spikes, crude gets the attention. I think the boring refiner in the middle is where it gets interesting, and a record shows why.

⛽ The profitable gap: Diesel refining margins just hit an all-time record above US$106 a barrel.
🛢️ The middlemen of oil: 8 undervalued US refiners turning this crunch into margin.
📊 Peak or plateau?: Judge the whole US refining sector's valuation for yourself.

Oil is spiking again as the Iran conflict chokes the Strait of Hormuz, so it’s no surprise that all eyes are on crude. But the real opportunity could be one step downstream. Refiners buy crude and sell diesel, gasoline and jet fuel, and their margin, the "crack spread," just hit an all-time record above US$106 a barrel.

The contention worth wrestling with here is that many refiners have nearly doubled (or more) over the past year. Crack spreads are cyclical, and a spike this extreme tends to mean-revert once supply normalizes.

So is this a durable shift or a peak that fades?

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mitchell_lawler

10m

When oil spikes, crude gets the attention. I think the boring refiner in the middle is where it gets interesting, and a record shows why.

So is this a durable shift or a peak that fades?

mitchell_lawler

Berkshire sold Visa and Mastercard. Ackman just bought both. So whose "smart money" are you actually following?

💳 See the whole hand: Bill Ackman's full Pershing Square portfolio analyzed.
🧠 The missing ingredient: A community author's actual thesis on Visa (V).
📖 Go deeper: Why friction decides which payment stocks collect the fee.

The Q2 13F filings just dropped, and Bill Ackman's Pershing Square bought Visa (V) and Mastercard (MA), part of a US$3.3 billion move. The polar opposite of what Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway did a quarter earlier. Two of the most admired investors alive, opposite sides of the same two stocks.

It highlights the importance of building real conviction rather than blindly following others. As the saying goes, “You can borrow someone else’s stock ideas, but you can’t borrow their conviction.”

Who has it right this time… Buffett or Bill?

👍🧠🥱🔥

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mitchell_lawler

The world's in stitches over robots sprinting into walls. I still think they're the answer to our productivity problem.

🎥 The clip that went viral: Humanoid sprinters breaking human records (and parts).
🤖 Hype or the real deal: Our embodied AI deep dive and the supply chain behind it.
🔍 Who's actually building them: See 38 global robotics and automation names.

Fair's fair, it's an entertaining clip. Running too fast to brake, hitting the cushion, followed by a spritz of sparks. However, the same event produced a 100 metre time of 8.64 seconds. Usain Bolt's record is 9.58.

The bigger picture to consider here is that OECD labour productivity growth had a median of just 0.4% across member countries in 2024. Between 2001 and 2007 it was 1.8%. Italy, Japan, the UK and Germany all went backwards. Growth in output per hour is the engine of rising living standards, and it has all but stalled.

Which company in your portfolio do you think helps break the productivity plateau?

👍🧠🔥

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mitchell_lawler

A landmark settlement is meant to punish Meta (META). If the 1998 tobacco deal is any guide, it might protect it.

🚬 Big tobacco: Since its 1998 settlement, Altria has returned over 12,000% with dividends.
⚖️ Social Narrative: Does Meta's cash machine hold as regulators push harder.

This week Meta (META) agreed to pay about US$18 billion over ten years to settle claims from 29 states that it designed Facebook and Instagram to hook teens. It admitted no wrongdoing and denies the claims.

In 1998, the tobacco industry signed the largest settlement in US history and paid states for decades. Yet it didn't break the leaders, it entrenched them. States became financially tied to the industry's survival, and the sheer cost of settling became a wall new rivals couldn't climb. The punishment became a moat. None of that lessens the human stakes here. But it seems a landmark crackdown on a dominant company can end up shielding it.

Did the states punish Meta, or create a wall its rivals can't climb?

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