Down Then Up

Cash heavy, options positioned, and waiting — here's exactly what I'm watching | Crown Compendium VIII

An informal dispatch on markets, money and my musings. For those who want to go deeper, the links are at the bottom.

Get your tickets to the RULE SYMPOSIUM 2026

“Never, ever invest in the present. It doesn’t matter what a company’s earning, what they have earned. You have to visualize the situation 18 months from now, and whatever that is, that’s where the price will be, not where it is today.”

S. Druckenmiller

Market Musings

My macro view in terms of most sectors price action can be briefly summarised thusly: down, then up.

Really I think it is that simple and as such I am very happy to have come into 2026 with such a huge amount of cash liquidity.

For 2026 through to Q1 2028 I am bearish on the broad equity markets in most countries, yet have no interest in flirting with bonds trying to time that market as its long term fundamentals are simply dreadful in my view. Ergo, I have left my profits in my gold bullion trade as a free ride and sold only enough to withdraw my initial capital. In the near term, I am putting on various options trades to profit from an anticipated downturn in what I consider to be the most liquidity-sensitive assets: BTC (via IBIT), QQQ and SPY.

My bearish trade on IBIT is already very profitable and I only require a mere 10% drawdown in QQQ and SPY to make a ~4x return on capital. I deem these rare examples where a high probability outcome also coincides with an asymmetric payoff. Interested readers can learn the exact positions in Machina Capitalis .

This then leaves my outlook for 2028 and beyond and brings us back to Druck’s quote above. If things go as stated above, thanks to contracted liquidity available in western capital markets, the only politically expedient option for policy makers will be to (yet again) inject enormous amounts of liquidity into financial markets and the ‘main street’ economy. All signs point to this occurring right when goods inflation is increasing thanks to a dearth of historic capex, combined with de-coupling and, thanks to the recent Iran war, outright destruction of key supply chains and infrastructure hubs.

Thus, with an eye towards 2028 and beyond I remain with my core positions in royalties and exchanges, which won’t be touched, and am using my large cash reserves to gain more leverage to precious metals and their associated royalty Co.s via options setups. It’s difficult for me to imagine the gold price to be less than $5,500 per oz in Dec 2028 and so logically it follows that if I am so confident in Gold appreciating circa 20% from today’s spot price, then I should be maximising my exposure via options on the metal itself and the royalties as mentioned above.

My Price Targets On Gold

Remember: a LOT can happen between now and then.

ICYMI: In the chat this week I shared a PDF of one of the tranches I am allocating to GOLD options. This tranche only needs $5,ooo/Oz gold by DEC ‘28 in order to profit and provides 3-5x the upside of price appreciation in the bullion. I’ve kept the tranche small as it’s totally possible that we experience more sharp and vicious sell offs to come as various states and institutions may need to sell (albeit reluctantly) in response to pressing liquidity needs.

So patience is what I’m practicing. the last thing I want is to be out of bullets if/when the true sell off arrives.

To summarise, Here’s a list of things I’m watching:

IMHO people are way to blasé around the potential risks of an energy shock.

Media

I have a number of appearances coming up this week. Main topics I’ll be speaking on are: Royalty & Streamers, Exchanges & Water.

In the meantime, I re-iterate that my main framework for assessing the macro-economic environment is the global liquidity index tracked and published by Michael Howell. I am a premium subscriber and consider it one of the most useful and informative subscriptions I have.
If you haven’t already you really should watch the conversation I had with him recently.

That’s it for this compendium, take care out there. Markets are in for pain unless we see results from the Strait situation very quickly. Be intelligent, do your own due diligence and in the words of the great man…

Benjamin

— The royalty King

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Disclaimer: This publication is intended solely for documenting my personal journey with trading and investments for income and travel purposes. I am not a certified financial advisor nor am I a financial professional and none of the content provided should be construed as investment advice. It is essential to conduct your own thorough research and consult a registered financial service provider for appropriate guidance. I cannot guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information presented. Any actions taken based on the information shared in any of my work are done at your own risk and discretion. Past performance is not indicative of future results. All investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. There is no guarantee that any investment strategy, including those discussed here, will achieve its objectives or generate profits. You should carefully consider your investment objectives, risk tolerance, and financial situation before making any investment decisions.