Hunt, Mike, and Jason walk the Cash Flow Memo across an escalating Iran-US oil standoff, the widening federal deficit, a wave of new AI agent products from xAI and Meta, and a Montana law reshaping the economics of cancer immunotherapy.
The Cashflow Memo
Key Takeaways
Iran-US tensions escalated in the Persian Gulf (US Navy sinking Iranian shadow fleet tankers after a failed missile strike on the USS Abraham Lincoln) and pushed Brent over $100 intraday, but Hunt reads the ~$20 12-month backwardation as the market pricing de-escalation and holds his call that oil isn’t sustainable much above $90.
The $2 trillion US deficit and the $15 trillion US repo market (matched by ~$15 trillion in Europe) are the macro risk to watch: Hunt wants a credible 24-month path from Treasury Secretary Bessent to cut the deficit to $1 trillion or expects repo-market stress reminiscent of 2008’s Bear Stearns/JPMorgan rescue; Jason sees no political will to act absent a crisis.
Grokbot (xAI) is emerging as the household/enterprise AI-agent leader on $20-$300/month subscription tiers, with Meta building a comparable agent monetized through frictionless in-app purchases (e.g. Instagram) rather than subscriptions; Mike frames AI as a sustaining innovation for Microsoft’s knowledge-work franchise, while Jason argues Apple risks just selling screens if it doesn’t ship an equivalent iOS agent.
Montana’s expanded right to try law is opening a roughly $50,000 cash-pay alternative to Moderna’s roughly $500,000 personalized mRNA cancer immunotherapy, riding now-cheap DNA sequencing and AI-driven mutation targeting; Mike and Jason see no patent-infringement exposure since the underlying science is federally funded and public, and flag insurance reimbursement — not the FDA pathway — as the real gate on Moderna’s pricing power.
China’s share of global pharma licensing deals jumped to 42% in H1 2026 (from ~20% in 2023, near zero before that), with a Chinese-developed bispecific antibody now showing head-to-head superiority over Merck’s Keytruda on the PD-1 pathway; Jason and Mike flag drug development running 3x faster and 30-50% cheaper in China as a structural threat to US/Europe biotech economics.
Show Notes
[00:00:27] Oil: Why $90 Still Holds Iran’s failed missile strike on the USS Abraham Lincoln and the US Navy’s response — sinking Iran’s shadow fleet tankers — pushed Brent over $100 intraday, but Hunt reads the ~$20 12-month backwardation as the market betting this de-escalates rather than a new sustained regime.
[00:04:27] Gas: Riding the Permian’s Coattails Higher oil prices mean more Permian drilling and more associated gas supply, a headwind Hunt is weighing against otherwise supportive gas fundamentals.
[00:04:47] Deficit: A $15 Trillion Repo Market Under Strain The $2 trillion federal deficit and a $15 trillion US repo market (matched by roughly $15 trillion in Europe) are where Hunt expects the next crack to show, unless Treasury Secretary Bessent delivers a credible 24-month path to cut the deficit in half; Jason doubts the political will exists absent a crisis.
[00:08:47] A New Framework: Two Years Back, Three Years Forward Hunt introduces his personal method for underwriting a five-year plan — two years of real backward-looking analysis plus three years forward — starting with SpaceX’s capital-intensive, data-center-driven growth, and previews Amazon/Google-style capital spenders against Apple/Nvidia-style cash generators.
[00:11:23] Agents: Grokbot Goes Mainstream xAI’s Grokbot is already automating Mike’s household admin (registering appliances, renewing car registration, booking hotels) on $20-to-$300-a-month tiers, with Meta building a comparable agent monetized through frictionless in-app purchases rather than subscriptions.
[00:17:50] Microsoft and Apple: Sustaining Innovation vs. Just Selling Screens Mike argues AI is a sustaining innovation for Microsoft’s knowledge-work franchise if it ships a good enterprise agent; Jason warns Apple risks becoming a screen-seller if it doesn’t integrate an equivalent agent into iOS, even after Apple’s same-day Apple Intelligence event.
[00:21:02] Montana: A $50,000 Alternative to a $500,000 Cancer Treatment Montana’s expanded right to try law lets clinics offer personalized mRNA cancer immunotherapy for roughly $50,000, versus Moderna’s roughly $500,000 approved treatment, using now-cheap DNA sequencing and AI-driven mutation targeting; Mike and Jason see no patent issue since the underlying science is public and federally funded, with insurance reimbursement the real constraint on Moderna’s pricing.
[00:28:14] China’s Pharma Surge China’s share of global pharma licensing deals hit 42% in H1 2026 (up from ~20% in 2023 and near zero before that), including a Chinese-developed antibody now beating Merck’s Keytruda head-to-head, as China develops drugs roughly 3x faster and 30-50% cheaper than the US and Europe.
Download this week’s Cash Flow Memo at telltales.us and join us next Wednesday for more on Nvidia’s frontier-model ambitions and China’s pharma push.
Cashtags
AAPL 0.00%↑ AMZN 0.00%↑ GOOGL 0.00%↑ JPM 0.00%↑ META 0.00%↑ MRK 0.00%↑ MRNA 0.00%↑ MSFT 0.00%↑ NVDA 0.00%↑
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