Nick Hodge,
Publisher
Oct. 14, 2025
Editor’s Note: Please enjoy the intro to the October issue of Foundational Profits issue, below. We are outperforming the S&P 500 by a factor of three this year. We took profits on three positions in this issue, and I recommended three new positions. You can learn more about this retirement portfolio management service here.
Hard to believe it’s October.
Kids are back in school. Windows are open. And the poplar outside my office window will be even more yellow by the time this issue’s over.
When this issue hits your inbox I will be midway through Montana, on my way to chase roosters at the North Dakota border — just east of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation and just west of the Williston fracking boomtown.
A decade off from its $120+ per barrel heydey, it still booms. Williston’s population doubled to 27,000 between 2009 and 2015. And even though oil prices have only been lower since then, its population is even higher.
Indeed, one of my neighbors in Eastern Washington commutes there every six weeks to run plugging operations in the formation. The development and maturation of that market is one of the reasons oil prices have been a tier lower over the past ten years.
Energy as a sector and oil as commodity have yet to really inflate this cycle. It has been meat and metal that have driven up commodity indexes and prices. Here’s lean hogs (HEV), live cattle (LEZ), silver, and gold vs Texas Tea.
After handling the energy sector beautifully in 2020 and 2021, my track record since has been a bit more spotty.
2020-2021: Held the Energy Select SPDR for three months for 39%. Held the Oil & Gas SPDR for eight months for 23%.
2023-2025: Held the Energy Select SPDR for ten months for -5%. Held the Oil & Gas SPDR for two months for -5%. Held the Oil & Gas SPDR again for eight months for -7%. And then held the Energy Select SPDR for one month for 1.5%, as if it were any consolation.
“When in doubt, stay out,” was a Top 5 Dinesism. And so there will be no chasing of the energy complex this month, only birds.
I bring this up because I mentioned oil during our Q3 member call-in last month. I specifically asked, with WTI threatening to break north of $65, if it was time to try oil again?
Indeed, the breakout failed a few days later, and has since broken down.
What’s not cooling off is inflation — it’s just manifesting elsewhere, in terms of geography and commodity. We are back to 3% inflation here in the US, and Europe is over 4%.
The dollar has moved slightly higher in the past month, but bond yields remain subdued, with the latter now primarily driving precious metals higher as traditional inverse dollar correlations have broken down.
And the Trump administration wants to run it hot, still pressuring for rate cuts. The market is now pricing in a 92% chance of a quarter point cut this month and a near 79% chance of one in December.
Meanwhile, M2 is already moving higher, passing Biden highs to an all-time record of $22.1 trillion, and accelerating.
The debt will soon hit $38 trillion.
The masses now see the government as trapped and are flocking to the inflating assets.
Gold, yes. But Bitcoin hit a new high over the past month a touch above $126,000. And other major cryptos like Ethereum and Solana are catching a bid as well.
The indexes, S&P 500 and NASDAQ, are at all-time highs as well, with memestocks returning and futuristic tech like gaming, space, and AI leading the market higher.
We’ll get the injection this month, and then another in December. And it’ll be early next year before we need to seek new medicine to keep it all going.
Call it like you see it,
Nick Hodge
Publisher, Daily Profit Cycle