Nutstuff heading to New Orleans to see both my daughters, am back monday!
WHAT A WEEK:
Good to have 3i UK recovering. We have 5x digital assets +>8% and also a spec sit name like NEBIUS ( a tech name I really do like that we bought as a minnow 2+ yrs ago; and despite AI dump is back +32% this week). Also YET MORE great Legal progress in US on mass marketisation on Peptides. ( a big Nutstuff thought piece out on this and psychedelics 2 days ago; 4-5 “Must own” names!)
I also want to be very clear again; Nutstuff intensely dislikes the S&P500 here. 24 stocks =52% mkt cap, a levered bet on 1 theme all in a week when a Chinese AI?! rescues a US AI gone rogue! <5% weight in Energy is daft.
Next week however may prove to be one of the most important earnings seasons of the AI era. For 3 years investors have only asked one question: “How much more can they spend?” Next week they may start asking a far more important one: “What return on capital are they actually earning?” That maybe changes everything?!
2 THINGS:
1. NORTH SEA / UK ENERGY: 2 of my 3 key names both +11% again today.
Let’s be clear. Andy Burnham and his new sidekick haven’t suddenly discovered oil. Andys discovered simple brutal economic reality & maths. As ever, much of the media has muddled up two very different things: approving existing licences such as Jackdaw and Rosebank, which the Government has little practical choice but to progress, and issuing new exploration licences, which is an entirely separate debate. Block Jackdaw and Rosebank and the taxpayer still gets lumbered with the decommissioning bill, while Norway happily pockets £10-12 billion of supply contracts and sends the investment somewhere less stupid. Britain loses the jobs, the tax revenues, the energy security and still pays for the clean-up. More importantly, when most Budget measures move the dial by £5-10 billion, the North Sea is one of the very few levers capable of putting £30-50 billion back into the public finances under the OBR’s accounting framework. There simply aren’t many policies that move the needle that quickly. The answer isn’t another Energy Profits Levy. It’s to scrap the windfall tax altogether and replace it with a stable fiscal regime that encourages companies to invest, produce and pay taxes over decades rather than months. I’ve been arguing this for two years, The Nutstuff basket is outperforming almost every other sub grp in the market.
2. BIG TECH (course you have to own some!) and I am now I hope VERY clear on what to own; my simple analogy; own the co. That owns the customer, isnt allocating 90% of its fcf to AI spending; think about this framing…. “Imagine two or more men during the California Gold Rush. A bunch are spending a fortune blasting tunnels into a mountain, convinced the biggest seam of gold lies just around the corner. One quietly owns the only bridge into town and charges everyone to cross it.” That the one Nutstuff wants to own!
July 24, 2026 221
