I’m all about keeping investing simple: Stripping my “investment cases” and strategies down to their essence …
Taking an “Econ 101” approach to investing.
For instance, in commodities — where we’ll increasingly see a future where long-term supply will be swamped by surging demand. That’s an Econ 101 lesson: When supply and demand get out of whack that way, prices will surge.
Commodities investing can be tricky — and isn’t for everyone. There’s an innate cyclicality to commodities like copper, silver, rare-earth metals … and coal.
But just as flour, eggs, sugar, salt, butter, milk and baking soda are the key ingredients for a really great cake baked from scratch … commodities like wheat, soybeans, oil, natural gas, gold, silver, aluminum, water and more are the key “ingredients” that make the economy “go.”
So commodities are kind of a “window into the economy.” And a moneymaking opportunity if you understand how to invest.
But commodity producers and investors have been dealt some new wildcards … wildcards like deglobalization, extreme weather, a switchback regulatory climate, new demand-drivers like artificial intelligence (AI), green energy production, electric vehicles (EV), data centers and more.
So producers — and investors — have an interesting and challenging new hand to play. Investment pros work the commodities markets by using options and futures to trade the cycles. Or they’ll “play” the stocks of the producers.
But we’re not traders. For retail investors, options and futures and whipsaw trading are Wealth Killers — plain and simple. We’re Wealth Builders. We identify big opportunities and invest for longer stretches — an approach that typically excludes the volatile, short-term fits-and-starts of commodities.
But that backdrop I described — the Econ 101 imbalance and the “wild cards” that are changing the markets — have transformed certain commodities into “special-situation” investing opportunities.
And here at Stock Picker’s Corner (SPC), we love a clearly defined special situation.
Silver is one of the special-situation commodity Wealth Builders we’ve detailed.
And today I’m going to talk about another: Coal.
That’s right … coal.
Well-informed Wealth Builders tend to have a visceral response to coal.
And that’s understandable.
Because, well, it’s coal.
Retail investors hear that word and immediately think:
It’s a dying industry — to be avoided.
And the deck is stacked against it — thanks to tougher regulations, mine depletion and the move toward so-called “clean” energy initiatives like EVs, wind-and-solar power, and the whole “net-zero energy” push.
But thanks to the Econ 101 investment case I outlined, coal is actually a potential special-situation wealth-builder.
That’s why I’ve been chatting with my good friend Matt Warder — the new helmsman at The Coal Trader.
I’ve known Matt for years — as a friend, collaborator and co-worker — and can tell the subscribers of that already superb publication that they scored big in having Matt take over for the also-excellent David Dyer.
Matt is a former Wall Street analyst, who specialized in coal. And I worked with him for years (we actually shared a pretty unique office in a converted brownstone) in a historic part of Baltimore.
So I know that Matt’s expertise in coal translates into some fascinating (Wealth Builder) insights about energy in general, and the commodities space — especially for folks who want to gain the insights that put them at the apex of “informed investors.”
Because, as you’ll see in our chat, all coal wasn’t created equal, and a certain type of coal is a critical ingredient in the material needed to build our nation’s infrastructure.
He’ll also share some of the biggest players in the space and the companies he pays the most attention to for a starting point for your own research.
After watching the video, you can learn more about Matt and The Coal Trader here.
For Wealth Builders, Coal Is Now a "Black Diamond"