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As Tech Trade Falters, Value Stocks Are Breaking Out | David Hay

Adam Taggart | Thoughtful Money® Jul 26, 2026

Summary

The guest argues oil's rally from $69 to the low $90s reflects a supply squeeze built on a decade of maintenance-only industry spending.

WTI (West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. crude benchmark) is his yardstick, with a $70 to $100 range and upside spikes expected.

He prefers energy equities over crude futures, naming EOG Resources as a specific pick trading near 10 times earnings.

Uranium mirrors oil's late-June setup: depleted inventory, Russian enrichment reliance and new reactor demand tightening a neglected market.

His real warning is market structure, as AI concentration, margin debt and possible Japanese capital repatriation could swamp passive inflows.

Adam Taggart's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Taggart argues a rotation out of AI and tech into value is more likely than a collapse, and tells viewers not to go to a bomb shelter but to stay alert for unloved opportunities.
  • He has been pushing international markets for over a year and says they outperformed last year and again this year.
  • He buys on a fixed schedule and added to his physical silver holding the week before recording, saying the discipline of dollar cost averaging is what carries him through drawdowns.
  • He points to the regional bank index breakout and to a broad screen of value-stock breakouts as the practical way to find opportunities, citing GMO data on how cheap value and deep value have become.
  • He treats Jeff Currie's reserve warning and the possible repatriation of foreign capital as reasons to hold cash-like optionality rather than ride the index.

Mike Preston's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Preston says energy and especially oil service stocks are a core part of his model, added almost a year ago and since nearly doubled, and that valuations have not caught up with the move.
  • He says regional banks are one of the strongest and most promising sectors in the model, now at a full position of 4 to 5 percent.
  • He sees early signs of a bottom in gold and silver and wants to see SLV and GLD reclaim a downtrend line, calling the 50-day over 200-day death cross a likely fakeout.
  • He argues the precious metals pullback is nearly over, the sector is oversold on bullish-percent readings comparable to 2020 and 2022, and viewers with no metals exposure should start building a position.
  • He recommends 5 to 10 percent of investment assets in gold and silver, warns against oversized positions, and says his indicators have shifted neutral to negative in the past week, so defensive action is possible but not yet taken.

David Hay's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Hay says he has taken partial profits on his crude oil futures after WTI moved from about 69 at the end of June to roughly 93 by the time of recording, still holds a large contract position, and believes any dip should be bought.
  • He stresses the oil thesis was not built on the Iran conflict, pointing instead to a physical market trading far above futures, Asian physical oil near 170 in April and May, reduced Red Sea capacity, Hormuz and Mandeb risk, and attacks on Russian tankers.
  • His base case is a range-bound oil market with an equilibrium around 80 to 90, with upside spikes possible, and he sees more remaining upside in energy equities than in the commodity itself.
  • He points to industry capex where roughly 90 percent over the past decade went to holding production flat and only 10 percent to growth, and says the agency's superglut call is wrong given the shortage.
  • He flags risks he thinks are not priced, including foreign capital being pulled out of US assets, a yen rally that could repatriate up to about a trillion dollars, a 30-year Treasury yield breakout at 5.18 percent with 6 percent a real threat to stocks, and AI capex running ahead of what can physically be built.

Michael Lebowitz's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Taggart says Lebowitz recently demonstrated real yields rising while inflation expectations trend downward.
  • Hay reads that combination as weakening demand for long-dated government debt rather than an inflation scare, tying it to foreign central banks stepping back from the market.

Lacy Hunt's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Taggart says Hunt rang him with an important message and describes a remarkable shift in his position, with a dedicated episode due the following Tuesday.
  • Hay says Hunt had been close to a permanent bond bull and now expects a secular period of rising inflation and higher interest rates, a stagflationary setting that Hay treats as the main threat hanging over the bond market.

Mike Green's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Hay credits Green as the source of the giant mindless robot framing of passive investing, and Taggart sets Green's case for persistent capital inflows against the possibility of that flow reversing.

Rick Rule's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Hay credits Rule with saying energy should be bought last month when the sector was widely hated, and notes he released an oil-focused video the same day they recorded.
  • He says Rule's case rests less on the current war, which Rule treats as a short-term catalyst, than on decades of underinvestment in exploration.
  • He relays Rule's view that that underinvestment will catch up painfully for the whole world by the end of the decade.
  • He relays Rule's call that the oil price jump so far this year is only a preview of what is to come.
  • He says Rule is good at buying when things are down and taking profits when markets reach blow-off phases, as he did in precious metals.

Jesse Felder's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Taggart runs several Felder Report charts, including margin debt measured against market cap and against GDP, which he says has gone vertical.
  • He notes the prior peaks came in 2000 and just before the financial crisis, and that high margin demand has historically been followed by poor returns.
  • He cites Felder on gold and silver miner ETF outflows, pointing out that the heaviest redemptions came even as miner profits were running away.
  • Taggart says Felder treats the weak yen and the AI trade as opposite ends of the same trade, so a sharp yen rally could deliver a serious hit to AI stocks.

Jeff Currie's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Hay cites Jeff Currie as warning that a Day Zero for the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve is unavoidable, meaning the drawdown must stop and the reserve refilled at any price.
  • He says Currie is also very bullish on natural gas, and describes the warning as inventory-specific because no amount of paper contracts can create a barrel that is not there.
  • Hay says the warning was delivered before military operations resumed against Iran, so recent events have only made the position worse.

Kevin Muir's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Hay says Muir defended the bullish energy stance on a previous podcast when the sector was on its heels.
  • He also says Muir posted the bears who were celebrating the end of the shortage and insisting there was no shortage at all, which Hay calls simply wrong.

Fred Hickey's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Taggart says Hickey raised on a recent interview that a large share of the big tech earnings are one-time gains tied to the AI trade.
  • He says Hickey also notes the reported earnings look artificially healthy because a heavy schedule of depreciation from AI investment has not yet reached the profit and loss account.
  • Taggart relays Hickey's adjustment, which moves price-to-earnings from the teens or low twenties to around 65, so the headline multiples are heavily skewed.

Jeremy Grantham's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Hay uses a chart from Grantham's firm to argue that value is very cheap and deep value is, in his words, unbelievably cheap.
  • He says Grantham's broader point is that these speculative episodes always end, and he also relays a firm letter on an electricity tipping point in the next energy boom.

John Loder's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Loder says annual central bank surveys show broad expectations of continued, significant increases in gold reserve holdings, a fundamental backdrop he says cannot be overlooked despite the pullback.
  • He points to gold miner margins since 1970, where the gap between the gold price and all-in sustaining costs is as wide as it has ever been.
  • He notes gold mining stocks still trade at a discount to gold itself and at valuation multiples near the low end of the last fifteen years despite those record margins.
  • He caps his core portfolio at 12 to 15 percent in gold mining stocks and currently holds 5 percent in gold miners plus 2.5 percent gold bullion and 2.5 percent silver bullion.
  • He says he added oil and gas service stocks at the end of September last year on relative strength and momentum, well before the Iran conflict, and that they have nearly doubled.