Mark Thompson

Have you been leaving your thermometer in direct sunlight because you have an agenda to push? The higherst recorded temperature in india in 51 degrees centigrade, recorded over 10 years ago, beating by 0.4 degrees the 1956 record. More inconvenient truths.

$STAR.L should be getting far more attention than it is after yesterday’s filings showing that the founder of Blackberry and commodities guru @METhompson72 bought an absolute crapload of stock via private placement right around this level. Mark said on X last night that his “base” case is a 30x and his bull case (I believe) is 50-100x for this microcap UK gas company (with some geothermal) positioned to benefit from the return of energy independence and prioritizing BTM data center solutions (think shale gas) in the UK. The political winds are shifting, and this company is now well funded to seek out additional attractive shale gas assets to bring into the fold before a massive re-rating is likely to occur w/ the next general election. Mark was the first to recommend $EQR.AX at $.03, it was a Tungsten 10x and having run First Tin and Tungsten West among other things, he knows his shit. And I don’t hold him being an Oxford guy against him at all 😂

I am please to announce my new investment: I have taken a 5% stake in Star Energy Group in the recent placing, bringing my overall exposure to just under 7%. This is a long term hold, in anticipation of the economic imperative of on-shore gas, energy security, re-industrialisation of the UK and a change in government. starenergygroupplc.com

@AtlasShrug1 I typically don’t invest for percentages, looking for big positions and big multiples in a handful of stocks where I am meaningfully engaged. The UK on-shore gas sector was valued at about £1bn under Liz Truss, now less than £30m EV. 30x is realistic base case.

@METhompson72 Do you think this can be a 10x like EQR was? How do you see the upside bull case looking out 3 years?

@soulMiner1 No optimism involved. Just an identified massively asymmetric risk/reward opportunity and an openness to a 100% loss. Keep doing these sort of trades and outsized returns are very likely.

@METhompson72 I like your optimism. We need more of it.

@oilgastourist Do anything at the right price.* This is the way. *Except Morris dancing and incest.

@METhompson72 Why onshore UK? It's like trying to play a game on ultra hardcore difficulty

@Treespotter25 A sensible repricing of risk/reward would be a good start, but this is a high-conviction trade into the next General Election.

@METhompson72 Good luck with that Mark. Decent conviction there. What time frame are you looking at for a decent return?

@AtlasShrug1 Catching the falling knife!

@METhompson72 Love it! I could not agree more, the UK 🇬🇧 really needs to get its shit together…but the time to amass the assets is before that happens, whem they are being underutilized or not utilized at all! ⭐️ to the 🌖!!!

@AmonkMonkey This may sound outrageous, but I see 50x upside in Star Energy's share price on a better than evens chance of a pro-hydrocarbons govt. There is risk - big risk; but it is currently seriously mispriced.

I doubled up my personal holding too as basically very little downside and vast upside

The intellectual decline of the so-called Labour “Right” can be seen in their recent proposals to hike capital gains tax massively to income tax levels, just copying a proposal from a far left group called Centax whose dodgy statistics underpinned Labour's disastrous move to force non-doms out of the UK. The likes of Wes Streeting and the so-called Labour Growth Group ignored or more likely didn't even know about HMRC's calculations, which show that such a move would actually cost over £10 bn, as people unsurprisingly will decline to sell their assets if they have to pay a huge tax bill to the state. International & past UK evidence shows clearly that higher CGT rates lead to lower revenues, whereas lowering rates increases revenues. Contrast Streeting’s thoughtless plan to hike CGT with Labour’s CGT cuts under the Blair/Brown government: Gordon Brown first CGT reform in 1998 involved taper relief from CGT, so the amount of gain charged to tax would be reduced the longer an asset had been held. He described this as “a new structure of capital gains tax which will explicitly reward long-term investment, and which is based on a downward taper and lower tax rates”. The lowest rate was 10% In June 2002 the Labour Government reduced the business asset taper so the 10% CGT rate would cut in after only 2 years. “The UK’s CGT regime for business assets is now one of the most competitive in the world. However the Government believes it is now time to go further and ensure that our regime is among the most favourable to enterprise in the developed world”, a policy paper said. The then Economic Secretary to the Treasury Ruth Kelly, commented on the shorter two year taper: “The change that we are making this year will specifically build on the success of earlier reforms and, in particular, encourage investment in start-up and growing companies. For such companies, equity investments are a vital source of finance”. The reforms were indeed a big success, not least in the increase in CGT tax revenues which trebled over a 5 year period. Unfortunately the so-called Labour Right today are too dim to be able to draw conclusions from even their own party's past success in this area.

@AtlasShrug1 @AlexSherlock_ Ahh… my big new position has been outed!

Oh wow, thanks foe flagging that. I don’t him, but that is interesting. @METhompson72 is one of the best commodity investors I know so a big boost of confidence there. He was in $EQR.AX at like $0.03 and has built multiple successful companies. My view is this: the UK has some outstanding shale gas resources which could be used for BTM power for data centers. I think $STAR.L is significantly undervalued as it is, but what could take it from a 5x to a 50x is optionality around the lifting of the fracking ban which any sane government would do when they are facing crazy prices and need to be more energy independent. So if Nigel Farage or whoever wins the next general election, $STAR.L will be in pole position. I want to see how they use the capital they announced they raised in early May, my hope is that they acquire more cheap shale gas optionality through M&A while it’s cheap bc of Starmer and the leftist loons. Make sense?

While I definitely have a more bearish view of the technicals and macro right now, there are still names I really like and which I think can do well unless the market gets decimated. If I had to rank them as of today would be as follows: Tier 1: 1. $PENG 2. $VLX.L 3. $STAR.L 3. $VPG (though I wrote some otm Sept calls to collect premium) 4. $6324.T 5. $SMOP Tier 2: 6. $OSS 7. $FPS 8. $6268.T 9. $SHAO.DE 10. $ENPH/$SEDG if we get more of a pullback Tier 3: 11. $CLFD 12. $VECO 13. $HLIT 14. $CLF 15. $IPWR Event Driven/Summer: $NUAI leaps

'If I cut tax on visting Alton Towers, more people will go. If I increase the tax on employing people...no, hold on...'

@OG_TINBARON Nada.

@METhompson72 Nada?

Any updates from the #tin conference? @METhompson72 or anyone?

@julianHjessop Meanwhile, back in the real World, I am flicking through brochures for Milan and Singapore.

Here's my tuppenceworth on capital gains tax (CGT)... 1️⃣ as a starting point, CGT and income tax rates should be equalised, based on the principles of tax neutrality and simplification 2️⃣ I don't really buy the "double taxation" objection, because its only the gain that is being taxed not the original investment 3️⃣ the UK is an outlier in its relatively favourable treatment of capital gains (though many would say that's a good thing!) Now for the 'buts'... 4️⃣ it could not be as simple as just equalising CGT and income tax: capital gains are lumpier (so CGT would need to be smoothed to be fair), and the tax should only apply to real gains (so you would need some form of indexation to strip out inflation) 5️⃣ you would probably also still want some form of carve out for genuine entrepreneurs, and for other certain other forms of investment. Increasing CGT could discourage saving and distort decisions (for example, people would have a bigger incentive to hold on to assets rather than pay tax, or rush to dump them in anticipation of future tax increases). 6️⃣ for these and many other reasons, the revenue to be gained (or possibly lost) from raising CGT is relatively uncertain; the behavioural responses, including capital.flight, could actually reduce revenues... 7️⃣ finally, this should only be part of a wider reform of the tax system; the UK already taxes "wealth" in many different ways, and any increase in CGT should be used to cut other taxes, such as stamp duty on both property and shares, and IHT (but that is not of course what Labour leadership candidates are thinking!)

@neilherd32 - Please credit gbbc.uk when “borrowing” our content!

In 2021 one of the larger contractors in HS2 told me the internal number was £130bn whilst busy moving dirt from one field and then back again on a cost plus sub-contract. The top contractor got a slice on top. Since then scope has been reduced and they are reporting everything un-adjusted for inflation. I blame Osbourne, I blame Cameron, I blame everyone since. Mostly I blame the civil service. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

@willmrry I know!

@METhompson72 The account is satire...

Vote no to data centres and vote yes to China holding all of your health records, bank accounts data and providing the AI battlefield management for our military. What could possibly go wrong?

@AtlasShrug1 Red Ed Miliwatt Milliband. Cultist, Chinese agent, mental Pygmy or a combination of all three? I can never quite decide.

@METhompson72 These ppl are truly morons. Remember the guy that kept claiming there was an international price for natural gas, insisting he was right? So embarrassing 🙈.