Chevron and Exxon Mobil face capital strain after their hedging blew up. They may need to raise capital through sales or borrowing if they cannot cut costs, and are struggling to keep enough capital to sustain their dividend floor. x.com 

The oil trade is over because crude can no longer make higher highs, even with Middle East crude exports back near their peaks. Oil is trading around its average price of the last eight months and set a lower high in September, so it is only a matter of time before the market gives up. Crude looks about to fall through the floor, with rates following and high-beta stocks then going vertical as every dip gets bought. x.com  x.com  x.com 

Exxon Mobil and other critical names that embrace every theme should go vertical, even though hard assets, especially energy, sit in the fog of war and no one wants to chase them. Timing hinges on a late-summer pivot: @radigancarter sees markets front-running it, and winners and losers should be sorted ahead of it. In that shift, duration is torched but bifurcates between abundance and scarcity, convexity is mispriced and beta looks dangerous. x.com 

Strategy's preferred instruments can trade at a discount and still recover over time, without needing to return to par, because Michael Saylor built the company to weather this kind of volatility. Oil once fell to -$30 a barrel and recovered, and Exxon, Chevron and Shell came through unscathed. x.com 

Oil will come down significantly, because Trump will eventually make a deal with Iran and put the conflict to bed. x.com 

Exxon Mobil and Chevron are among the highest-quality energy stocks and are long-term holdings, so a quarterly earnings decline is just noise while the thesis is intact. In cyclicals like energy, the approach is to buy only at the deepest cycle lows, never chase, and hold until the thesis permanently breaks. x.com 

Occidental Petroleum is mispriced at about 8.4x trailing earnings and an 8.7% free cash flow yield during an oil shock. Eight times earnings in an oil shock is not a valuation but a clerical error with a ticker symbol. Iran cannot beat the US Navy, so it is waiting out America's vote in 49 days, since Iran does not vote until 2028; owning Occidental beats hiding in Treasuries. x.com 

Oil looks set to rise in the short term because Trump is likely to introduce complications during the intended two-week ceasefire. Funding on Hyperliquid is -700%, and most of those positioned against oil have to be wrong. This is a modest, short-term hedge given how unpredictable Trump is. x.com  x.com 

Exxon's stock is pricing the screen, not its sworn 8-K disclosure that Q2 earnings will be about $5 billion above Q1. The July 7 filing attributes $3.5-3.9 billion to higher crude and $3.3-4.1 billion to refining and chemicals, less about $1 billion of war disruption. Yet Exxon closed at $145.09, ten dollars below its war peak. x.com  x.com 

US large caps face more downside while the Iran war keeps the Strait of Hormuz closed, so rallies on negotiation headlines are for selling until the Strait actually reopens. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq have fallen five straight weeks as rate-cut hopes collapsed: markets price about a 50% chance of a hike by December, and the 10-year yield hit 4.48%. The Fed is boxed in by oil-driven inflation and Trump's credibility is eroding. Once the Strait reopens, the relief rally should be violent. x.com  x.com  … Show more