Ben Barker

@GriftReport Maybe they are non verbal because they are disappointed they have two dads who purchased them for their gay relationship.

Made in Chelsea star Ollie Locke, 39, has opened up about his “humiliating” financial meltdown after spending £500,000 on IVF and surrogacy to have twins Apollo and Cosima. He and husband Gareth, 37, sold their home and remortgaged after six miscarriages costs spiralled way beyond the original £150k estimate. The twins, born prematurely at 31 weeks, are still nonverbal at nearly three and need £1,000-a-week speech therapy and specialist classes. The couple racked up £45,000 in unpaid rent, late fees and legal bills on their £7,000-a-month Chelsea home, leading to eviction in February. Ollie admitted it triggered a breakdown: “I feel horrendous… This has pushed me to have a breakdown.” They’ve now moved to a cheaper family home outside Chelsea and are repaying the debt.

@iAmJoshHunt You should have added how landlords are flooding the markets with property due to new changes too! This is sure to have another major effect.

I want to talk about the scale of what’s coming for the UK over the next three months. Because I don’t think many people have joined the dots yet. The Strait of Hormuz has been effectively closed for over five weeks. Before this war, 135 ships passed through it every day. Now it’s 5 to 7. Over 600 vessels are still stranded. Iran has mined the strait, is charging tolls, and controlling who passes. The CEO of Abu Dhabi’s national oil company said it this week: “The Strait of Hormuz is not open. Access is being restricted, conditioned and controlled. That is coercion.” Two thirds of Gulf crude has no alternative route. 14 million barrels a day behind a 21-mile chokepoint. Energy bills are forecast to jump 20% in July. From £1,641 to nearly £2,000. The second major energy shock in four years. Petrol up over 15%. Diesel up nearly 30%. Wholesale gas rose 75% in under four weeks. Food inflation could hit 8% by June and 9% by December. Academics advising DEFRA say it could reach 12%. UK food prices are already 38% higher than before Covid. We’re only 62% self-sufficient in food. We import 60% of our nitrogen fertiliser. Red diesel for farming has surged 60%. Average arable farm income has fallen to £17,000, the lowest in over 20 years. Yesterday, China announced it’s halting all sulphuric acid exports from May. Sulphuric acid is essential for phosphate fertilisers, copper mining, oil refining, and battery manufacturing. A third of the world’s sulphur was already blocked by the Hormuz closure. Now the world’s largest exporter has pulled the other lever at the same time. The fertiliser crisis just got significantly worse, heading straight into planting season. Before the war, markets expected rate cuts. Now they’ve priced in two rate rises. Over 1,500 mortgage products have been pulled. Two year fixes have jumped from 4.8% to 5.5%. Nearly £1,000 a year extra on a £200k mortgage. Gone in weeks. Flights are next. A quarter of UK jet fuel comes from Kuwait, behind the strait. In early April, major carriers said they had five to six weeks of reserves. That clock is running. Ryanair’s CEO has warned 5-10% of summer flights could be cancelled. Iran’s strike on Qatar’s Ras Laffan LNG complex, which handles 30% of the world’s helium, is estimated to take 3 to 5 years to repair. Helium is critical for semiconductors and MRI machines. That’s not a disruption. That’s structural damage. Chemical and steel manufacturers are imposing surcharges of up to 30%. Analysts are warning of permanent deindustrialisation. European gas storage was at just 30% after a harsh winter. If the strait stays restricted through summer, Europe can’t refill for next winter. In Ireland, fuel protests shut down Dublin for four days. The army was deployed. Over 100 fuel stations ran dry, with warnings of 500 by end of the week. Downing Street has held talks on the potential for mass protests here. The OECD has downgraded the UK more than any other G7 nation. Growth slashed from 1.2% to 0.7%. Inflation forecast nearly doubled to 4%, with some saying it could breach 5%. Starmer and Trump spoke this week about military options to reopen the strait. The UK is leading a 30+ nation coalition. But the ceasefire is already fracturing. Iran re-closed the strait over Israeli strikes on Lebanon. Reeves is boxed in by fiscal rules. Higher gilt yields are eating her headroom. And I haven’t heard a credible plan from anyone in Westminster. Energy. Food. Fertiliser. Aviation fuel. Mortgages. Industrial chemicals. Semiconductors. Shipping. Government borrowing. Political stability. All under stress. All compounding. This country imports 44% of its energy. Has almost no gas storage. Imports most of its food and fertiliser. Gets a quarter of its jet fuel from behind a mined strait. Every structural weakness built up over 20 years is being stress tested at once. The next three months aren’t going to be uncomfortable. They’re going to be defining

@kaiba755 Can’t stand posts like this. It’s like you want recognition for now being a normal human being. Well done for now being standard. We’ve all got a victim story. Do better.

Left: Homeless, shooting a cocktail of heroin, fentanyl & cocaine. Right: Almost 2 years sober, running my second half marathon. 627 days sober today. Two years ago I thought I’d die, like so many friends did. Today, I love being alive and grateful for this second chance. Change is possible.

X has to be the worst place to get any financial insight into the global markets. 95% of people are totally wrong on everything. It exposes the true vunerabilities of retail traders and their greed/fear. If you plan to use X to build confidence in your market theories, use it as an opposite signal... every time. It was clear Trump wouldn't erase an entire country. A deal would appear last minute. Yeilds were spiking. Countries aggresively selling bonds/gold and everything else to prop up their currencies. Trump wants lower inflation. Lower gas. Low dollar. Read his book. It's the same play every.single.time.

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China imports US oil for Asian fuel markets amid Hormuz crisis @asiatimesonline asiatimes.com/2026/04/china-… China is moving to resume large-scale purchases of United States liquefied natural gas (LNG) and crude oil, as supply disruptions in the Middle East and tightening fuel markets across Asia force Beijing to recalibrate its energy strategy. In return, China will have sufficient fuel supply to resume gasoline exports to Asian countries, helping it maintain market share and increase political influence in the region amid tightening fuel supplies. On March 11, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) ordered a halt to exports of gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel. The resumption of China's purchases of US crude oil and LNG appears to reflect limited strategic flexibility for Beijing, as disruptions to supplies from Venezuela and the Middle East constrain its options. He adds that China’s decision to resume large-scale energy purchases from the US comes ahead of a planned leaders’ meeting between Beijing and Washington in May, and that the deal helps create a more constructive atmosphere for high-level dialogue.

@LogicalThesis Higher rates for longer hurts businesses. Which is why jobs data throughout 2025 forced FED to cut even though they wanted to keep them higher due to tariff inflation concerns. The cuts end of 25 may now be providing some relief. Need more data to confirm. As Feb was -133k.

Market wanted rate cuts to support the labor market Bc of the war, cuts are delayed Market doesn't like that Strong NFP print provides the market the cover needed for the rate cut delay If economy remains strong, it can withstand higher oil *for now* Tick in the bullish column

@CyclesFan @MoMoMacro gold.org/goldhub/gold-f…

@MoMoMacro Where do you see central banks panic buying gold? The only news I saw related to that was Turkey selling large amounts of gold.

$Gold monthly - TSI turned down from its highest level ever and is about to have a bearish crossover. If the current 7 year cycle equals the duration of the 7YC in 2008-2015, the next 7YCL will occur in November 2029. Possible retest of the last 7YCH at 2100, minimal target 2800.

My latest article discussing parallels between today’s gold price action & 2020/2008. sappsview.com/gold-2008-or-2…

@Bank_of_NFTs @sunilgurjar01 Probably now life coaches and motivational speakers at town halls 😂

@BX2CAP @sunilgurjar01 That’s hilarious you know that. I remember this days and the one top dog grew up in my town 🤣 wonder where they are now. Probably doing pretty well.

Harmonic pattern is easy to trade.👇 #trading

@pepemoonboy Yeah do that with something like $BYND 😂

Dollar cost averaging (DCA) is such an underrated strategy. I used Perplexity Computer to test a “buy every 5%+ down day” strategy on $HOOD over the last 3 years, investing $1,000 on each qualifying drop and charting what each buy and the full portfolio would be worth today. The results were pretty incredible...

@TheBlac24417990 @LukeGromen Yeah I agree. FED always too late

@BX2CAP @LukeGromen This things hard to predict, and when you say now we print.... the people end up selling

They’ll hold a meeting, realize they can’t open it if the US couldn’t, & then just agree to pay Iran in CNY… …and the easiest/only way to secure CNY is by buying physical gold in USD and selling that gold to China in CNY. People selling gold today are likely to be sorry.

@TheBlac24417990 @LukeGromen The speed of what’s happening, could be this year

@BX2CAP @LukeGromen Yes you are right that happens next year...first down then up

@TheBlac24417990 @LukeGromen If countries continue selling bonds, the FED will be forced to print to buy them back. Pumping liquidity into the system. This is positive for assets

@BX2CAP @LukeGromen It did if the countries drop US bonds now because of liquidity that is the way we go, so you have the same endpoint.

@TheBlac24417990 @LukeGromen Yeah because gold dropping in 1980 had nothing to do with Volker hiking rates to 20% from 1979 to 1982.

@BX2CAP @LukeGromen Oil shock 1980

Overall Feb was net positive of 19T. Main buyer Poland, record 20T. Feb overall was higher than Nov 25. Turkey hasn't sold as much as you say. "Governor Fatih Karahan noted that: “a significant part of these transactions are in the nature of gold-currency swap futures. In other words, when it matures, the gold in question will return to our reserves.” gold.org/goldhub/gold-f…

Türkiye’s sold 120 tons of reserve gold to support TRY during the Iran war. Gold sales so far do not look excessive vs history (+CBRT bought a lot in 23/25), but they should be monitored. We all know that wasting reserves to prop up FX on a long-term basis tends to backfire

@TheBlac24417990 @LukeGromen 40% drop from current price implies a total drop from top of 50%. When has gold ever erased 50% of it's market value in modern times?

@LukeGromen I agree about gold, just believe before that its gonna go another 30-40% lower, next year probably up. You talked in podcast if 3-4 weeks do not opet its gonna implode the economy....something like covid freez, i believe first down then up.

@mikemcglone11 Why don’t you sell it then?

Gold Could Languish for Years Under $5,000 - February may have marked the best opportunity to sell gold in about half a century. The metal stretched to its highest-ever vs. the Bloomberg Commodity Spot Index and its greatest premium to its 60-month moving average since 1980. My takeaway is that gold's parabolic 2025 rally -- the best year since 1979 -- was prescient of the Iran war, and the 2026 high may mirror 1980's. Full report on the Bloomberg here: blinks.bloomberg.com/news/stories/t… {BI COMD} #gold #stockmarket @BBGIntelligence

@iGlobalGold @MH74ro76 Different situation then. Huge liquidity pumped into system during covid. Rates rose to counter this. Job growth was perceived strong as everyone was returing to work from pandemic. They had room to do it. Now they don't.

@MH74ro76 Well they did raise from 0% to 5.25% from 2021 - 2023, never say never.

Market dynamics are incredible. Over the long run, we know that war is the *MOST* inflationary activity that human beings can engage in. War is thus the *best* backdrop for rising gold prices. Just look at the US Civil War (in which gold prices tripled in 5 years), the Vietnam War (gold 24X in 9 years), or the Iraq / Afghanistan wars (gold 8X in 20 years). However, we are in a very strange dynamic presently in which war is being perceived as *negative* for gold prices. The "logic" of the market is: the worse the Iran war gets --> the higher oil prices go --> the more inflation spreads throughout the system --> the less the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates --> therefore, sell your gold. It is an illogical and perverse short-term response, amidst a backdrop which is the most bullish for gold we could ask for. Smart investors will be using any short-term weakness in gold to accumulate, letting the algorithms and shortsighted traders sell to them at better prices.