Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Over the last few years, a handful of “Mega-Capitalization” (mega-market capitalization) stocks have dominated market returns. The question is whether that dominance will continue and if the same companies remain the leaders. It is an interesting question. The number of publicly traded companies continues to decline, as shown in the following chart from Apollo.

This decline has many reasons, including mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcy, leveraged buyouts, and private equity. For example, Twitter (now X) was once a publicly traded company before Elon Musk acquired it and took it private. Unsurprisingly, with fewer publicly traded companies, there are fewer opportunities as market capital increases. Such is particularly the case for large institutions that must deploy large amounts of capital over short periods. With nearly 40% of the companies in the Russell 2000 index currently non-profitable, the choices are limited even further.

However, this period’s concentration of market capitalization into a few names is not unique. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was the “Nifty 50.” Then, in the late 90s, it was the “Dot.com” darlings like Cisco Systems. Today, it is anything related to “artificial Intelligence.”

As shown, the leaders of the past are not today’s leaders. Notably, Nvidia (NVDA) will get added to the list of the largest “mega-cap” companies for the first time in 2024.

However, investors must decide whether Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Amazon will remain the leaders over the coming decade. Just as AT&T and GM were once the darlings of Wall Street, today’s Technology shares may become relics of the past.

Earnings Growth

One primary determinant in answering that question is earnings growth. As should be obvious, investors are willing to pay higher prices when corporate earnings are growing.

The problem is that in 2023, all the earnings growth came from the index’s top-7 “mega-capitalization” stocks. The S&P 500 would have had negative earnings growth excluding those seven stocks. Such would have likely resulted in a more disappointing market outcome. Notably, while analysts are optimistic that earnings growth for the bottom 493 stocks will accelerate into the end of 2024, with economic data slowing, those hopes will likely be disappointed.

Over the next decade, companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Alphabet will face the challenge of growing revenues fast enough to keep earnings growth rates elevated. Given that Nvidia is a relatively young company in a fast-growing industry, it has been able to increase revenues sharply to support higher valuation multiples.

However, Apple, a very mature company, cannot grow revenues at such a high rate. Such is simply because of the law of large numbers. I have included a 5-year annualized growth rate of revenues to illustrate the issue better.

That is where the Wall Street axiom “Trees don’t grow to the sky” comes from.  

In investing, it describes the danger of maturing companies with a high growth rate. In some cases, a company with an exponential growth rate will achieve a high valuation based on the unrealistic expectation that growth will continue at the same pace as the company becomes larger. For example, if a company has $10 billion in revenue and a 200% growth rate, it’s easy to think it will achieve 100s of billions in revenue within a few short years.

However, the larger a company becomes, the more difficult it becomes to achieve a high growth rate. For example, a firm with a 1% market share might quickly achieve 2%. However, when a firm has an 80% market share, doubling sales requires growing the market or entering new markets where it isn’t as strong. Firms also tend to become less efficient and innovative as they grow due to diseconomies of scale.

For this reason, many of today’s top market capitalization-weighted stocks may not be the same in a decade. Just as AT&T is a relic of yesterday’s “new technology,” such may be true with Apple a few years from now when no one needs a “smartphone” anymore.

Passive Investing’s Impact

Over the last two decades, the rise of passive investing has been another interesting change in the financial markets. As discussed previously, the top-10 “mega-capitalization” stocks in the S&P 500 index comprise more than 1/3rd of the index. In other words, a 1% gain in the top 10 stocks is the same as a 1% gain in the bottom 90%. As investors buy shares of a passive ETF, the ETF must purchase the shares of all the underlying companies. Given the massive inflows into ETFs over the last year and subsequent inflows into the top 10 stocks, the mirage of market stability is not surprising.

Unsurprisingly, the forced feeding of dollars into the largest weighted stocks makes market performance appear more robust than it is. That is also why the S&P 500 market-capitalization weighted index has outperformed the equal-weighted index over the last few years.

Investors often overlook this double-edged sword. For example, let’s assume that Tesla was 5% in the S&P 500 index before Nvidia entered the top 10. As Nivida’s rapid share price increased its market capitalization, Tesla’s was reduced as its stock price fell. Therefore, all index funds, passive fund managers, portfolio managers, etc., had to increase their weightings in Nvidia and reduce their ownership in Tesla.

In the future, whatever the next generation of companies garners Wall Street’s favor, the current leaders could fall out of the top 10 as the “passive” flows require additional selling of today’s leaders to buy more of tomorrow’s.

Share Buybacks

Lastly, corporate share buybacks, expected to approach $1 trillion and exceed that in 2024, could weigh on current leadership. That is because the largest companies with the cash to execute large multi-billion dollar programs, like Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Nvidia, dominate buybacks. For example, Apple alone will account for over 10% of 2024 buybacks.

If you don’t understand the importance of share buybacks in maintaining the largest companies’ current market dominance, here is some basic math.

• Pensions and MF = (-$2.7 Trillion)

• Households and Foreign = +$2.4 Trillion

  • Sub Total = (-$0.3 Trillion)

• Corporations (Buybacks) = $5.5 Trillion

  • Net Total = $5.2 Trillion

In other words, since 2000, corporations have provided 100% of all the net equity buying.

Therefore, it should be unsurprising that there is a high correlation between the ebbs and flows of corporate share buybacks and market performance.

Therefore, as long as corporations remain the top buyers of their shares, the current dominance of the “Mega-caps” will continue. Of course, there are reasons the current rate of corporate share repurchases will end.

• Changes to the tax code

• A ban on share repurchases (they were previously illegal due to their ability to manipulate markets)

• A reversal of profitability, making share repurchases onerous.

• Economic recession/credit event where corporations go on the defensive (i.e., 2000, 2008, 2022)

Whatever the reason, the eventual reversal of buyback programs could severely limit the current leader’s market dominance.

I have no clue what event causes such a reversal or when. However, a reversal could undo mega-cap dominance since corporate share buybacks have provided all the net equity buying for the largest stocks.

Conclusion

The current dominance of the largest “Mega-capitalization” companies is unsurprising. As noted, they make up the bulk of earnings growth and revenues of the S&P 500 index, the largest purchasers of their shares. These are also the same companies in the middle of the current “Artificial Intelligence” revolution, as has been the case for the last decade.

However, given the speed at which technology and the economy rapidly change, such suggests that leaders of the last decade may not be the leaders of the next.

As investors, it is vital to understand the dynamics of each market cycle and invest accordingly. However, those buying stocks today at some of the most extreme valuations we have seen over the last century and expecting those shares to dominate over the next decade could be disappointed.

Many variables support the current secular bull market cycle. However, as has been the case throughout history, a myopic approach to investing has led to poor outcomes.

Invest accordingly.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo took a swim in the Seine River on Wednesday this week in an effort to prove the “long-polluted” river was now clean enough to host swimming during this year’s Olympic Games.

Earlier this year the water showed unsafe levels of E. coli bacteria, AP reported. 

During her swim she was joined by swimmers from local clubs, Paris 2024 chief Tony Estanguet and the top government official for the Paris region, Marc Guillaume, the report says. 

Hidalgo said during the swim: “The Seine is exquisite. The water is very, very good. A little cool, but not so bad.’’

She called the day “a dream” and a “testimony that we have achieved a lot of work”. 

Estanguet added: “After twenty years of doing sports in the river, I find it admirable that we are trying to clean it up.”

In preparation for the Summer Games starting on July 26 with a grand open-air ceremony featuring an athletes’ parade on boats on the Seine, efforts are underway to highlight the river’s improved cleanliness.

As AP notes, swimming in the Seine has been banned for over a century and since 2015, organizers have invested $1.5 billion to prepare the river for the Olympics and ensure a cleaner Seine for Parisians post-Games.

This plan included building a massive underground water storage basin in central Paris, renovating sewer infrastructure, and upgrading wastewater treatment plants.

Originally planned for June, Hidalgo’s swim was delayed due to snap parliamentary elections. During that time, the hashtag “jechiedanslaSeine” (“I’m pooping in the Seine”) trended on social media as a protest against the Olympics.

Previous attempts to clean the Seine, including a pledge by former French president Jacques Chirac in 1988, were unsuccessful. Hidalgo followed French Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, who swam in the Seine on Saturday wearing a full-body suit.

Concerns about the Seine’s flow and pollution levels continue, leading to daily water quality tests by Eau de Paris. Early June tests showed unsafe E. coli levels, but recent results have improved.

The Seine will host several open-water swimming events during the Games, including marathon swimming and the swimming legs of the Olympic and Paralympic triathlons.

Readers have been well-informed about the collapse of the green energy bubble over the last several quarters, with solar, hydrogen, and wind stocks imploding. The primary driver of this downturn has been high inflation and elevated interest rates, which have decimated demand for solar and wind projects in the US and across Europe. The much-hyped green transition ushered in by the Biden administration is unraveling as quickly as Biden’s presidential election odds. 

The latest mess in the green space comes from a research note on Thursday supplied to clients by Roth MKM. Analyst Philip Shen cited a letter from SunPower to dealers that explained as of Sept. 17, it “will no longer be supporting new leases and PPA sales, nor new project installations.” 

The letter continued, “We continue to dedicate our attention to addressing our financial position and are actively working to navigate our current challenges.” 

Bloomberg said SunPower confirmed the letter in Shen’s. However, there are lingering questions about how long the suspension of installations will last. 

“They are essentially saying that they’re not able to continue operations,” said Pol Lezcano, an analyst with BloombergNEF.

JPMorgan Chase analyst Mark Strouse said the suspension will not be resolved quickly: “We do not believe this is a temporary halt, but rather an indefinite suspension of SPWR’s future dealings.” 

Bloomberg pointed out, “The notice comes after the company said in April it needs to restate almost two years of financial results. It also replaced its chief executive officer and chief operating officer, defaulted on a credit agreement in late 2023 after an earlier earnings revision, and is grappling with an installation slump in California — its home state and the country’s biggest solar market.” 

In markets, shares of SunPower crashed as much as 40% on Thursday, with shares tumbling 12% lower in premarket trading to around $1.33 a share. 

Over the last three years, iShares Global Clean Energy ETF (ICLN) has plunged 37%, while Goldman’s MAG7 index has surged 47%. 

In November, a Bloomberg MLIV Pulse survey of over 600 professional and retail investors revealed that more than half anticipate the downturn in green energy stocks will persist into 2024. Certainly, this has been the case, as there have been no notable analysts we follow calling for dip buying in solar, wind, and hydrogen stocks (yet).

Earlier this year, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Sheldon Whitehouse, both climate alarmist Democrats, penned a letter to Fed Chair Jerome Powell requesting an immediate halt to the interest rate hiking cycle to avert further collapse of the renewable infrastructure space. 

In the letter, first obtained by Bloomberg in mid-March, Warren and Whitehouse warned that interest rate hikes have “completely tanked major renewable infrastructure projects across the country.” Or perhaps, ‘tanked’ their stock accounts… 

Powell’s interest rate hikes have derailed the Democrats’ dream of renewable power to save the planet. Even JPMorgan has acknowledged this, calling for a “reality check.”

Much of the solar and wind is unreliable and unstable for supplying power to AI data centers, and that’s why we’ve informed readers in recent years, as well as several months ago in the ‘powering up America’ theme, that nuclear is the best bet for clean, reliable energy to power the rapid electrification of the economy. 

Authored by Kevin Downey Jr via PJMedia.com,

Just days after a smelly, pimply-faced incel tried to put a bullet in his head, President Trump accepted the Republican nomination for president.

He was surrounded by family and faithful Republicans, eager to help him make America great again.

Tucker Carlson delivered a rousing, joyful unscripted speech about Trump’s actions following the assassination attempt in Bradford, Pennsylvania, exemplified the essence of leadership.

“A leader is the bravest man,” Mr. Carlson said to applause.

“That is true in all human organizations. This is a law of nature,” he added, crediting the president’s bravery with preventing a chaotic situation from spiraling further out of control and recognizing that “a leader’s duty is to his people.”

Hulk Hogan‘s speech made me want to take a hot-tub time machine back to April 19, 1775, and unload muskets at lobsterbacks at Lexington and Concord.

Eric Trump‘s speech dropped truth bombs all over the joint. But President Trump transcended everything with a speech he reportedly wrote himself, days after a narcissistic animal tried to upend American history.

I am told Trump had an edgy speech full of facts that Biden wouldn’t like but instead went with something more “unifying.”

I had no idea fellow Detroit hometown homeslice Kid Rock was going to be Trump’s hype-man.

Rock killed with a pro-Trump rap song that set the house on fire.

Kid Rock isn’t the first musician/rapper to back Trump. Amber Rose gave a speech at the convention earlier in the week. Then there are all these rappers in this article who have come out loud and proud for Trump:

Dana White had the pleasure and privilege of introducing President Trump, who took the microphone as Lee Greenwood sang “God Bless the U.S.A.” and the conventioneers chanted “U.S.A., U.S.A.!”

We Rise Together, or We Fall Apart

Trump took to the stage with a bandage covering the wound left by the would-be assassin’s bullet. He kicked off his mesmerizing speech by thanking the GOP for the nomination and promising to stand for all Americans, stating: “We rise together or we fall apart.”

Trump’s speech was unlike any of his others. It lacked the bombast and sarcasm of earlier speeches, which I find entertaining. Instead, it focused on unity.

Trump discussed the attempt on his life in Butler, Pa., on July 13, which Catherine wrote about here in more detail.

I’m not supposed to be here tonight. Not supposed to be here. Thank you, but I’m not, and I’ll tell you, I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of Almighty God watching.

Donald Trump tells the story about how he almost lost his life on Saturday, says he will never tell the story again because it’s too painful.

You are witnessing history.

Less than a week ago, this man was a quarter inch from death.

Today, he is giving the most… pic.twitter.com/1qbO1dZH9d

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 19, 2024

He pensively described the attack that could have ended his life and altered American history forever.

Trump stated, “I’m not supposed to be here tonight,” and the crowd responded with, “Yes, you are. Yes, you are!” I can’t lie; I got a little weepy at that point. I can remain calm at funerals and Hallmark commercials, but for some reason patriotism makes me misty.

Trump commended his Bulter audience for not stampeding out in panic and praised their bravery under fire.

He paid homage to the patriotic firefighter Corey Comperatore, who was killed at the rally while shielding his family from the miscreant’s bullets, calling for a moment of silence for the slain husband and father of two daughters.

In the case of Corey and the other two, by the way, they were very, very seriously injured, but now they’re doing very well. They’re going to be okay. They’re warriors. So now I ask that we observe a moment of silence in honor of our friend, Corey.

Trump spent much of his time thanking his followers, the Secret Service, and his family, who have been dragged through a mud pile throughout Trump’s numerous Stalin-like trials.

Trump promised to secure the borders and return patriotism to our schools after we “rescue the nation.” 

Trump declared he would close the border and make America prosperous again. He took minor jabs at the Biden administration while only naming him once. 

If Democrats want to unify our country, they should drop these parties and witch hunts, which I have been going through for approximately eight years, and they should do that without delay and allow an election to proceed on this journey.

He gave hope to a nation that just saw him take a bullet and then stand up and pump his fist while yelling, “FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!”

Trump gave what some would call a kinder, gentler speech while invigorating We the People to take our nation back on Election Day. He seemed to embrace humility. I imagine being millimeters away from an assassin’s bullet has that kind of an effect on a person.

Trump declared that illegal immigrants were stealing jobs from black and Hispanic communities. Someone yelled, “Blacks for Trump!” Trump responded with, “I like you too!”

Trump briefly mentioned the 2020 election and stated it would not happen again, an obvious reference to what some believe was a rigged election.

As Trump was winding down, he managed to score a few laughs, especially when joking about MS-13 and the chart that he “never really got to see,” referring to the moment the domestic terrorist tried to kill him as he looked at the now famous statistical chart displayed at the rally. He also killed with what is likely an ad-lib line about Hannibal Lecter.

In his closing moments, Trump promised to “drill baby, drill, and close the border.”

He vowed not to let killers into our country, referring to the growing list of rapists and murderers crossing the southern border, which Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas claims is secure. 

My favorite part was when Trump reminded the world how he scared a terrorist, allegedly by showing him a picture of his house and threatening to kill him if he hurt even one American.

Afghanistan, I spoke to the head of the Taliban.

You’ve heard this story. Abdul, still there.

Still the press got on me. “Why would you speak to him?”

I said, “because that’s who the killing is. I don’t have to speak to somebody that has nothing to do with it.”

And I told them, “Don’t ever do that. Don’t ever do that again. Don’t ever do that again,” because during the Obama administration, many great people and soldiers, a lot of soldiers, are being killed from long distance. I said, “if you keep doing that, you’re gonna be hit harder than anybody’s ever been hit by a country before.”

And he said, “I understand, your excellency.”..

I wonder if he calls the other guy “your excellency”?

Most inspiringly, Trump declared he would never let us down. 

As expected, he ended his inspiring speech with, “We will make America great again” before thanking Wisconsin and various others.

I mentioned that President Trump can’t save America alone.

All real Americans must unite to fight the pinko toilet-dwellers until communism is nothing more than a stain on our boots.

As Lawrence Wilson concluded at The Epoch Times, The Grand Old Party was made new at this year’s national convention. It is no longer the party that Ronald Reagan energized with his Morning in America optimism, which reestablished America on the world stage after the war in Vietnam.

After eight years of a growing populist impulse, the Republican party is now definitively the party of Donald Trump, united around his vision of America First.

For four nights, a parade of current and former elected officials, ranchers, cops, and Gold Star moms have ascended the platform to laud the former president as the one person capable of uniting the country, defending the interests of ordinary Americans, and restoring America to greatness at home and abroad.

Notable former critics of former President Trump one by one pledged their support, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, and Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State in the Trump administration.

Once-prominent GOP leaders who symbolized the pre-Trump party were conspicuously absent, including former Vice President Mike Pence, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, and former House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Wisconsinite.

Russian prosecutors initially sought a very significant 18-year prison sentence in the espionage case of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. A verdict has been handed down by a court in Yekaterinburg on Friday in the late afternoon (local time), after the regional court’s press service said that proceedings reached the final stage for the American journalist who has been behind bars since is March 2023 arrest.

Russian authorities claim he was spying for the CIA while investigating a major Russian defense company in Yekaterinburg, a city which lies east of the Ural Mountains. The court has convicted him, with a judge delivering a steep 16-year sentence.

A prior Russian state media statement asserted he was “attempting to obtain military secrets for the CIA”. It described: “Investigators claimed in a statement that they have evidence proving the US citizen was acting on behalf of the foreign intelligence agency when he tried to collect classified information about Uralvagonzavod, a major Russian producer of tanks and armored vehicles, in Ekaterinburg in March 2023.”

This has made him the first American journalist to be imprisoned and convicted in Russia on such an allegation since the Cold War.

Friday witnessed closing arguments in the court, which allowed Gershkovich the opportunity to deliver close remarks, but it was done behind closed doors.

He along with the WSJ and the US government have decried the charges against him as a ‘sham’ and as trumped-up and politically motivated. Washington very quickly declared Gershkovich “wrongfully detained” which allows for the Biden administration to pursue hostage negotiations to gain his release.

The WSJ previously reported in a Friday update:

The Yekaterinburg court is widely expected to convict Gershkovich, as acquittals in Russian espionage cases are exceedingly rare. Gershkovich was tried in a secret proceeding over three days in which he received few of the protections accorded to defendants in the U.S. and other Western countries.

Russian authorities have produced no public evidence to support their allegations. Gershkovich is expected to be sentenced soon.

A court in Yekaterinburg has convicted Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich of espionage and sentenced him to 16 years in a high security penal colony. The trial has been dismissed as a ‘sham’ by US officials & the WSJ. pic.twitter.com/1tSodId4pR

— Steve Rosenberg (@BBCSteveR) July 19, 2024

It is widely believed that Russia is using the case as a bargaining chip, in order to free high level Russian detainees in the West, just like the prisoner swap involving Brittney Griner and Viktor Bout played out. Likely this process will only intensify now that he has been sentenced.

In today’s world, factors such as polarization, misinformation, scandals, economic instability, and inequality have all contributed to a deterioration in people’s trust in institutions like government and media. But for some countries, trust is slowly returning.

During the pandemic, trust in politicians was particularly shaky, with 63% of respondents of an Ipsos survey finding politicians untrustworthy.

This infographic, via Visual Capitalist’s Kayla Zhu, shows the 2024 Edelman Trust Index scores of 28 countries and their change from 2023.

The Trust Index is meant to represent the average percent trust in NGOs, businesses, government, and media, based on a survey of over 32,000 respondents from 28 different countries conducted by Edelman Trust Institute.

Asian Countries are Becoming More Trusting

Globally, trust in institutions increased by one percentage point from 55 to 56 since last year. With an average Trust Index of 63, developing countries are far more trusting of institutions than developed countries, who have an average of 49.

Most of the Asian countries included in the survey saw increases to their Trust Index scores, including South Korea, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Japan. China and Indonesia were the only Asian nations whose populations became less trusting in 2024.

South Korea saw the biggest jump among all 28 countries surveyed, with their Trust Index increasing by 7 from 2023.

When comparing each country’s low income (bottom 25%) and high income (top 25%) earners’ Trust Index scores, Thailand had the greatest income-based trust inequality, with wealthy Thai citizens having a trust index of 82 while low income Thai citizens only having 55.

In general, the Edelman Trust Institute’s survey found that governments are seen as far less ethical and competent compared to businesses.

Authored by Aatisha Mahajanvia Rystad Energy,

• Global oil and gas exploration is increasingly concentrated in “core” areas like Guyana and Namibia, where recent discoveries have been made.

• While this concentration brings economic benefits, it also raises concerns about unexplored potential in other regions and the environmental impact of deepwater drilling.

• Namibia, with its recent discoveries and influx of major oil companies, is poised to become a significant player in the global oil and gas market, but must navigate the challenges of the “resource curse.”

The skewed activity is highlighted by explorers demarcating assets within their portfolios as ‘core’ areas of operations, with the majority of guided exploration spending being directed towards exploring these areas. Secondly, the acceleration of development of proven basins amid the rise of renewable sources of energy has been demonstrated by the recent flurry of activity within the Guyana Basin and Namibia’s sector of the Orange Basin. These basins have not only seen an increase in activity but have also in recent years contributed significantly towards global conventional discovered volumes, which have been declining. Additionally, the availability of vast resources within technically and financially challenging offshore areas has been exemplified by an increase in deepwater and ultra-deepwater activity and the announcement of standout discoveries from these areas.

A shift to ‘core’ areas

Guyana and the Orange Basin continue to drive exploration spending and explorers are estimated to spend about 50% of this year’s projected exploration expenditure (expex) in offshore basins, with French major TotalEnergies set to spend around 30% of its total guided exploration spending this year of $1 billion on Namibian exploration. This risk-taking appetite among explorers is highlighted by the fact that 15% of this year’s estimated expex will be dedicated towards proving the subsurface potential of environmentally challenging and high-cost ultra-deepwater areas. However, a concentration of exploration within so-called core areas may prove a disadvantage for some host nations that could see their subsurface potential remain unexplored. TotalEnergies recently indicated it is willing to exit its Brulpadda and Luiperd discoveries offshore South Africa in a move that could lead to these breakthrough finds being stranded.

Following the swift rise of Brazil’s pre-salt plays with the announcement of the huge Tupi find in 2006, discoveries such as Eni’s Zohr gas field in the Mediterranean Sea ignited hopes of countries such as Egypt replicating Brazil’s success. However, the North African nation has since failed to unearth any discovery akin to the size of Zohr. Both Guyana and Namibia have, however, managed to follow up basin-opening discoveries with a raft of similar finds, with ExxonMobil making the Liza discovery on the Stabroek Block off Guyana in 2015 and Namibia posting TotalEnergies’ Venus and Shell’s Graff finds in early 2022. With ExxonMobil and its Stabroek partners already heading towards sanctioning of their seventh development, the announcement of over 12 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) of recoverable resources on the block is set to propel Guyana to the fifth-largest conventional liquids producer by the mid-2030s.

These volumes in Guyana have not only increased cash flow for the companies holding stakes in the discoveries but have also deeply impacted the economic conditions of the host nation by accumulating billions of dollars via its oil fund. 

Namibia, although having announced over 2.5 billion boe of oil and gas volumes, is still in a nascent state in terms of its upstream sector and awaits development of its discoveries. The announcement of additional volumes via future exploration could help the nation’s dream of replicating the Brazilian and Guyanese success stories, although it will have to overcome the effects of the so-called resource curse, which has in the past negatively impacted many resources-rich African nations.

Namibia on the rise

Discoveries in both Namibia and Guyana have seen industry players flocking to these countries to secure exploration blocks. Following the success of majors Shell and TotalEnergies in Namibia, peers BP, Eni and Chevron are now farming into the country’s exploration blocks, with a series of wells to be drilled over the next few years, which would leave ExxonMobil as the only major not present in the basin. Additionally, Galp Energia’s Mopane discovery, announced earlier this year with a postulated resource potential of about 10 billion barrels of oil, has attracted industry attention, with about 12 major oil and gas companies reported to have expressed interest in acquiring 50% of the Portuguese operator’s 80% interest in the tract. Additionally, with numerous wells planned to be drilled, Namibia could be on track to replicating Guyana’s success, at least in terms of resource potential, primarily due to success of exploration across different blocks compared to Guyana, where success has been limited to Stabroek.

Although mature upstream areas such as Southeast Asia, the US Gulf of Mexico and the Norwegian Continental Shelf will continue to entice global explorers, owing to their rich networks of infrastructure and the ability to economically develop medium to small finds, explorers in the next few years will continue to probe the Southern Atlantic margin, focusing on mature countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Guyana, while Africa also takes a front seat. According to Rystad Energy analysis, Africa leads among regions with the largest number of high-impact wells planned to be drilled this year, taking 13 of the planned 36 wells.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

Zelensky insulted Indian Prime Minister Modi during his trip to Moscow last week by tweeting that “It is disheartening to see the leader of the world’s largest democracy embrace the world’s most notorious criminal in Moscow”, thus prompting India to summon the Ukrainian Ambassador on Monday.

It’s unclear what he was told, but his hosts predictably made it clear that such rhetoric isn’t welcome, especially after Modi lamented the loss of life in all conflicts during his meeting with Putin.

While some might imagine that Zelensky simply tweeted whatever his Western patrons told him to, the reality is that he probably did so on his own prerogative, though therein lies the problem. In his mind, the latest phase of the Ukrainian Conflict sparked by Russia’s special operation is an epic battle between democracies and dictatorships, not anything having to do with security dilemmas and national interests. This false perception was impressed upon him by the West over two years ago.

While his embrace of it might have been opportunistic to begin with, namely to rally the Collective West around the cause of Ukraine reconquering its lost territories per Kiev’s envisaged maximalist goal, he’s since become a sincere believer in this paradigm as evidenced by what he tweeted about Modi. The reason why this is troubling isn’t just because it’s an inaccurate way of assessing everything, but also because it led to Ukraine stirring trouble with the Voice of the Global South, India.

The past nearly two and a half years have seen Ukraine belatedly realized that it must obtain some support from this diverse collection of non-Western countries if it’s to have any hope of pressuring Russia to compromise on its own envisaged maximalist goals in this conflict. This explains the recent outreaches to that part of the world during last month’s Swiss talks, which were over-hyped ahead of time and thus became a disappointment after they failed to meet the public’s lofty expectations.

Zelensky announced earlier this week that four more talks are planned before December, with at least two of them taking place in the Global South states of Qatar and Turkiye, the first of which has first-world living standards for its citizens (though not migrant workers) but is still a non-Western country. Quite clearly, this schedule was discussed over the past month since the last Swiss talks, it wasn’t something that was broadly agreed to by those countries over the past week since Modi’s Moscow trip.

Accordingly, Zelensky should have exercised better judgement than to insult the Indian leader like he did since this in turn reduces the chances that Modi will send high-level representatives to those events, let alone sign whatever final declaration might emerge from them. It also declined to put its signature on the Swiss document so precedent suggests that it was already planning to withhold it from forthcoming ones, but nonetheless, India’s attitude towards Ukraine will sour even more than it already has.

India is the world’s most populous country, the Voice of the Global South, and a major power that’s pivotal to the global balance between all key players so getting on its bad side like Zelensky just did will capsize Ukraine’s plans to generate wider support for its cause. China refused to attend the Swiss talks and thus likely won’t participate in the forthcoming ones, and with India possibly sending low-level dignitaries from here on out who are now less likely to sign any declarations, the Global South is lost.

Without at least one of those two’s support, especially India’s seeing as how it’s the world’s largest democracy, Zelensky will be unable to obtain real support from the Global South as a whole and can’t continue upholding the claim that this conflict is an epic battle between democracies and dictatorships. To be sure, it was never realistic to expect India to fully support Ukraine due to its multi-alignment policy and principled neutrality towards this conflict, but it might have signaled more sympathy for its cause.

That’ll never happen now after what Zelensky wrote about Modi, which amounts to one of the greatest self-inflicted soft power blows that any leader has committed in recent memory. He let himself believe the false paradigm about this conflict and then emotionally reacted when he saw Modi hugging Putin instead of taking some time to calm down before tweeting.

This episode says a lot about Zelensky as a person, and it’s that he’s a very weak man at heart, not the lion that the West has pretended that he is.  

Authored by Grzegorz Adamczyk via ReMix News,

The Polish Border Guard recently lost two legal cases brought by migrants who were injured during their attempts to enter Polish territory illegally from Belarus.

The rulings are controversial considering the extreme violence Polish soldiers and officers routinely face while protecting the border, including the recent stabbing murder of Polish border officer, 21-year-old Sgt Mateusz Sitek.

In the first case, the Polish Administrative Court in Białystok ruled in favor of an Afghan man who fell while trying to breach a border barrier on the night of April 3, 2023, resulting in a broken foot.

After receiving medical treatment in a Polish hospital, he was taken back to the border with Belarus. Upon completing his treatment, Polish activists informed him of his right to file a complaint against the actions of the Polish officials.

The second case involved an Ethiopian man who broke his lower leg after falling from a ladder he was using to cross into Poland.

“He is from Ethiopia and is homosexual. In Ethiopia, homosexuality is illegal and punishable by imprisonment ranging from 1 to 15 years. He arrived in Moscow on April 12, 2023, and in the early morning of May 6, 2023, he and some others attempted to cross into Poland using a ladder,” the court’s judgment read.

🇵🇱🔪WATCH: Dramatic video shows a Polish soldier brutally stabbed in his rib cage at the border by a migrant through the border fence near Belarus.

In this surveillance footage, the soldier is being treated by a fellow soldier while migrants toss objects at him from the other… pic.twitter.com/O5nJUmbx6S

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) May 29, 2024

The court sided with his account, stating that after his accident, he was not taken to a hospital but left on the Belarus side.

He managed to write a note in English under the fence stating his desire for asylum in Poland. He spent a day under the fence before being transported to a hospital in the town of Siemiatychy.

Meanwhile, another case continues in Polish court involving three Afghans who are seeking 240,000 zlotys (€56,000) in compensation from Polish taxpayers.

🇵🇱 Tributes are laid outside the military hospital in Warsaw to honor Mateusz, the Polish soldier who died on Thursday after being stabbed by an illegal migrant with a makeshift bayonet through the border fence with Belarus last week. pic.twitter.com/UpOYfuDWhc

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) June 6, 2024

Two of them have since moved to other countries and are expected to be questioned by local services there.

In related developments, Belarusian Foreign Minister Maksym Ryzhenkov recently stated that Belarus is ready to discuss the border situation with Poland — a shift in stance by the Lukashenko regime potentially linked to the stringent border controls Poland implemented, which have disrupted the transit of goods from China through Belarus.

Despite murdering a Polish soldier, migrants are stepping up their attacks on Polish authorities at the border. https://t.co/Ywysju1D3z

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) June 10, 2024

The border crisis between Poland and Belarus began in the spring of 2021 when the Lukashenko regime brought thousands of migrants from Asia and Africa and facilitated their transfer across the border as part of a strategy to reach Western Europe.

Read more here…