Long River Holding

Today, my work over the years received another validation. The DoJ, together with the FBI, announced charges against three executives of SuperMicro (SMCI) for Conspiracy to Violate the Export Control Reform Act. Since at least early 2024, SMCI's executives built a sophisticated, systematic scheme to illegally divert billions of dollars worth of high-performance AI servers containing restricted Nvidia GPUs to China, using a pass-through company in Southeast Asia to evade U.S. export controls. I was the first to call out this smuggling phenomenon in late 2023, when it was just beginning to pick up volume. I tracked the flow of chips across Southeast Asia, including their final destinations in China, and identified the key participants, SMCI among them, documenting how the sophisticated, systemic scheme operated. What the DoJ described in its charging documents is precisely what I wrote about numerous times: the mechanics of how it works, the routes the GPUs travel from origin to their final destination in China, and the volume of the smuggling, which I estimated at tens of billions of dollars worth of GPUs. SMCI is a significant catch, but it is far from the only player in this smuggling ecosystem. Others remain uncharged. What has been equally troubling is that many companies, including public companies and their executives, have had knowing or willful blindness to this phenomenon, looking the other way in order to hit sales targets and meet Wall Street estimates. Meanwhile, the smuggling network has evolved in parallel with one of the fastest datacenter buildouts in Southeast Asia, involving numerous subsidiaries, local companies, and datacenter operators who have absorbed every lesson from the smuggling playbook and are now working around the clock to build a datacenter empire across the SEA region.

Kalshi has raised $1 Billion at a $22 billion valuation - WSJ

Unilever $UL and Kraft Heinz $KHC held talks over food merger uniting ketchup and mayo, per FT. Will this save $KHC ‘s stock price?

Genuine thoughts here: As of March 8, 2026, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan estimate the "War Risk Premium" at roughly $13–$15 per barrel. This means if the missiles stopped flying tomorrow, oil would instantly drop from $90 back to ~$75. While Iran has declared the Strait a "closed zone," global markets are already pricing this as a high-friction but temporary disruption. If it were a permanent, total blockade, oil would be at $150+, not $90. The fact that it’s hovering at $90 suggests the market expects a diplomatic or military de-escalation by Q3 On March 1, 2026, OPEC+ made a critical decision to increase production by 206,000 bpd starting in April. This is the "Smoking Gun" for bears. OPEC+ would not be adding supply if they believed the current $90–110 level was sustainable or healthy for long-term demand. The EIA's latest March 2026 report projects a 3.1 million bpd inventory build this year. This is a massive "glut." Brazil and Guyana are adding over 400,000 bpd alone. At $110+ (USO), we begin to see "demand destruction." High fuel costs are already beginning to show in the dismal February jobs report. Consumers pull back, which naturally forces prices down. I do believe that this $110 level is a "Geopolitical Spike" rather than a "Structural Shift," this is the optimal time to enter a bearish position. I might need to do some research.

Updated thoughts: I do still think 100+ price spikes are temporary shocks. While strait is a bottleneck, the world is currently over-supplied by roughly 3.2mb/d if flows were normal. The IEA's decision on March 11th to release 400M Barrels - the largest in history - is specifically designed to prevent super-spikes. But, after viewing some video clips and seeing signs of escalation, I do want to call this out as I didn't make it obvious. Currently, 20mb/d is at risk. Only about 4.2mb/d can be bypassed via pipelines through Saudi Arabia and Oman. If conflicts leaders to regime change or permanent infrastructure damage (which seems like a real possibility now), this price increase that can last for years. If non-OPEC+ supply (Brail, for example) fails to ramp. Things will get ugly. But also, high prices are already "destroying" demand. The IEA has already cut 2026 demand growth forecasts by 210,000 b/d in just the last month. Global stocks are at their highest level since 2021 (8.2 billion barrels). If the war ends and Saudi/UAE production comes back online while China's economy is still cooling, the market will face a massive surplus. I have to say I am more concerned after seeing infrastructure attacks and multiple recent assassinations.