The wires were buzzing this morning. Goldman and BofA dropped the data: a record $130 billion has flooded into global equity funds this year, but the US share of that pie is shrinking fast. Four years ago, half of every dollar went to US funds. Now it's one in four. The consensus is clear: sell America, buy the world. And I'm calling it. This is a classic head-fake, and the dumb money is walking right into the trap. Most traders are wrong about this. They see a stock rotation story. I see an energy story that's about to blow this entire thesis apart.

Big fund flow numbers are lagging indicators. Period. They tell you where the money *has been*, not where it's going. This surge into ex-US equities is performance chasing. People see a market like Japan's Nikkei hit all-time highs after 34 years and they get FOMO. They see European valuations looking cheap compared to the S&P 500 and think they've discovered some secret arbitrage. My friend Emma Blackwood does great work on valuations, but from a trader's perspective, valuation is a terrible timing tool. It can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. This isn't a new idea. It's the same story they've been selling for a decade.

What's really happening is that capital is flowing to where the narrative feels safest *right now*. But the ground is shifting under their feet. The entire bull case for Europe and many emerging markets rests on one fragile assumption: stable and low energy prices. That assumption is about to get torched.

I spend my mornings looking at weather maps and tanker traffic, not P/E ratios. And what I see tells a completely different story. Europe got lucky with a mild winter. Natural gas storage is high. Complacency has set in. But the oil market is tightening. My contacts in Houston are talking about inventories drawing down faster than expected. I've got my OPEC decision spreadsheet open right now, and their discipline since 2022 has been rock-solid. They are not going to flood the market to help out Western economies.

We're seeing a clear pattern of higher lows in WTI crude since the December bottom. The $70/bbl level has become a concrete floor. I'm already long from $76.50, and I'm looking to add on any dip towards the 21-day EMA. The path of least resistance is up. A break above $83 opens the door to $90, and I don't think $100 is out of the question by Q3. What happens to the 'cheap' German manufacturer when their energy bill doubles? What happens to the Indian growth story when their import costs skyrocket? Those equity inflows will reverse so fast it'll give you whiplash.

• Key Support (WTI): $75.80
• Initial Target: $83.50
• My Stop-Loss: A daily close below $74.00
• Thesis Driver: Sustained OPEC+ cuts and rising Asian demand.

This is the start of the next leg in the commodity super cycle. While everyone is busy rebalancing their stock portfolios, they're missing the much bigger, much more violent move coming in the raw materials that make those companies run. For anyone looking into futures trading for beginners, this is a masterclass: follow the physical, not the paper. The macro guys like Jake Morrison see the big currents, but I'm watching the choke points. And the energy choke point is about to get very, very tight.

So I'm not buying the EFA or the VWO with my 'fun money'. I'm adding to my core futures position in crude and buying more physical gold as a hedge against the monetary chaos this energy shock will cause. The trade is clear. The only thing that blows up this thesis is a genuine, coordinated global recession that craters demand overnight. Not a mild slowdown, but a 2008-style collapse. That, or OPEC suddenly breaks ranks and opens the spigots. I don't see either happening. My risk is defined. I'll be stopped out of my crude trade if we get a convincing break of the uptrend, but I'll be looking to get back in because the structural supply issues aren't going away.

The financial media loves a simple story, and 'US expensive, World cheap' is as simple as it gets. But the real world is driven by barrels, tonnes, and bushels. The capital flows will eventually have to follow the commodity flows. So, is this rotation into ex-US stocks the smart money finally diversifying, or is it the last gasp of a dying narrative before energy costs change the entire game?