Actionable insights — Group Non-Think
The repeatable analysis behind the call: not what he buys, but how he fades a consensus snap-back, builds the lost-supply/SPR inventory case, and dollar-cost-averages pulled-back energy breakouts, written so each step can be rerun.
How to read this page: each insight is a method — fading the crowd's normalization, sizing the supply hole, and the entry discipline for a volatile sector. The boxed line shows how it applied to energy and APA.
1. Fade the consensus "snap-back" — price the supply hole, not the headline
The repeatable method
- Spot a near-universal belief in a fast normalization (oil to $60–70 once Hormuz reopens) and ask whether the physical math actually supports it.
- Size the cumulative damage in absolute units: ~1B barrels lost heading to ~1.5B — then compute the time to refill even under a generous surplus (2 mb/d → ~1.5 years).
- If the time-to-normalize is measured in years, the consensus snap-back is wrong and the disagreement is the opportunity.
Here: the crowd expects $60–70; the lost-barrel math says years to rebuild — so Hay leans the other way.
Watch for
- A consensus that a shock reverses quickly while the underlying stock/flow data implies a multi-year recovery — the gap is the trade.
2. Build the inventory thesis — depleted SPRs add years of structural demand
The repeatable method
- Check strategic-reserve levels: industrialized SPRs drawn to dangerously low levels are a hidden, must-fill source of future demand.
- Add the refill timeline as incremental demand (+1 mb/d through most of the decade, per Goehring & Rozencwajg) and note new buyers building reserves (e.g. Pakistan).
- Conclude that supply returns into a system "starved of inventory" that "will not rebuild gracefully" — a structurally tight market, not a glut.
Here: the SPR-replenishment demand stacks on the lost-supply shortfall — both pushing against the $60–70 call.
Watch for
- Drained strategic reserves + a multi-year refill requirement as a durable demand floor underneath a commodity the crowd thinks is about to fall.
3. Dollar-cost-average pulled-back 2-year breakouts to play a volatile sector
The repeatable method
- Accept the sector's volatility and refuse to time a single entry — buy methodically in tranches (dollar-cost-average) instead.
- Use weakness as the trigger: ceasefire-hope dips and a formal ceasefire are buying opportunities, not exits, given the structural setup.
- Target the chart pattern: names with a 2-year breakout that have "settled back" and look poised for longer-term range expansion — accumulate those rather than chasing extended ones.
Here: APA is the illustration — a settled-back 2-year breakout to average into on ceasefire-driven weakness.
Watch for
- A multi-year breakout that has consolidated/pulled back, bought in tranches on sentiment-driven dips — the entry discipline for high-volatility energy names.
Methods distilled from the paid Haymaker Substack post (text in transcript.txt) for personal study. Not investment advice. © Haymaker / David Hay for source material.