Enlightenment - A Herold & Lantern Investments Podcast

From Greenland To Gold: How Geopolitics Is Rewriting Portfolios

Keith Lanton Season 8 Episode 2

January 20, 2026 | Season 8 | Episode 2

Markets wake to a sharper geopolitical edge as U.S.–Europe tensions rise over Greenland and investors rethink traditional havens. We connect policy moves to asset flows, then share specific stock ideas across payments, biotech, coffee, and energy gear.

• Postwar order under strain and shifting spheres of influence
• Dollar and Treasuries lose some haven appeal amid deficits
• Rotation toward gold, silver, copper, and real estate
• Europe’s remilitarisation risk and tariff escalation paths
• Iran’s protests tied to currency collapse and food inflation
• Japan’s long yields jump and global rate knock-ons
• Market tape: futures slide, banks and megacaps under pressure
• NYSE explores 24/7 tokenized securities trading
• Stock ideas: Shift4 Payments, biotech acquisition targets, Starbucks turnaround
• Energy services pick: Cactus and FlexSteel international opportunity

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Alan Eppers:

And now introducing Mr. Keith Lanton.

Keith Lanton:

Good morning. It's Keith. Today is Monday, January 20th. As we past halfway point of the first month of 2026, we have started to see an acceleration of earnings coming out from corporate America last week where we got some of the bank stocks. I had the Martin Luther King holiday yesterday, financial markets were closed, and we come in today, Monday, January 20th, and we have lots of information to digest, further teetering, I'll call it, of the post-World War II order, as President Trump here in the United States has ratcheted up his talk about the United States needing Greenland, this following on the heels of the U.S. taking of Nicholas Maduro in Venezuela, and all of this is questioning what exactly this means for the geopolitical situation throughout the world, the traditional alliances, and what that means for financial assets going forward, and we'll talk about some or all of that this morning. We'll also talk about another big geopolitical event that was getting lots of attention, but has been overshadowed by the recent talk here with respect to the United States and its European allies, and of course all that tied to Greenland, and that is what's going on in Iran, and we'll talk about perhaps why the protests in Iran that have developed have reached the crescendo that they reached. There was brutal crackdown over the over the weekend in Iran, reports of several thousand dead, and we'll talk about that repression and why we are seeing what we're seeing in Iran and why that may continue, and that we may get change in Iran and why that may be. And and then we'll talk some more about the day's events, and we will cover a couple of individual stocks from barons that may make sense in these uncertain times. So here we are this morning, mentioned the alliances that the United States largely set up in response to the post-World War II world, which was a world that saw the United States and the USSR meet to defeat the the predominantly the Germans and their allies and and the Japanese in World War II, and the Soviet armies occupied the majority of Eastern Europe and U.S. Western Europe, and there was a meeting at Yalta, you may remember, and largely the US and Russia decided how they were going to allocate the assets meaning meaning military forces and alliances in the in the world that ensued. We all know that after that the United States set up the United Nations, which is now you know coming under some question as well, with President Trump looking to set up some alternative potential sources of international diplomacy, and the rest of the world is trying to digest this and decide where do we go from here. So let's just take a step back, let's look at what's gone on here, probably starting some point, let's call it 1975. The world order as we know it started shifting between 1945 and 1975. We had a world that was very much US Soviet oriented, United States was dominating the world in terms of industrial production capacity, utilization, manufacturing. We were the place where manufacturing got done. But what happened is the rest of the world started to rise back up from the ashes of World War II when the United States started to get competition in a meaningful way in terms of in terms of industrial production starting about 1975. And this is the period when the United States began to start running trade deficits as the rest of the world became more competitive, and we built a world that we live in today, whereby the United States is a big consumer, the U.S. consumer, the 70% of our economy purchases goods and services, and we have been running trade deficits, as President Trump has talked about, and that we're well aware of, and that has been financed by the issuance of treasury securities and debt, and that debt has been purchased by both U.S. investors and foreign investors, and this has created a interdependence, this world trade as well as this world capital flow. We are reliant upon the rest of the world for goods and services, the rest of the world provides capital back to us in order for us to continue to buy goods and services, and trade has largely been credited with creating interdependency, and perhaps that was one of the solutions that was hoped for that would minimize future worldwide conflicts. So this started to change somewhat in the 70s as the U.S. started doing these started running deficits as the rest of the world became competitive, and then things really began to change. Let's call it starting in around 2000, Chinese gained entry into the World Trade Organization. China's growth started to accelerate. China, which had previously been a producer of goods and services, largely goods and services that were considered cheap or or or poorer quality, started to improve that quality and started to become a manufacturer of of a lot higher quality goods and services and the trade deficit between China and the trust rest of the world. The Chinese had a big surplus, the rest of the world became a big consumer of Chinese goods and services, and we see that culminating with President Trump in his first term in office, where he starts to question and challenge the Chinese, I would argue rightly so, as they had grown very very bold and brash with respect to their manufacturing industry, and arguably had started crowding out or or or making it more difficult for the rest of the world to compete with them by using what would be viewed as dumping or practices that could be viewed as state supported or unfair, and we saw the first real friction between the United States and and China and China and the rest of the world. And then we had one of the big events that that then subsequently happened starting in 2022. Another big change in the world order is when Russia invaded Ukraine, and a big change here was not so much this wasn't the first time that Russia had invaded a a country that they felt was in within their sphere of influence. There was the invasion of of Poland, Czechoslovakia, where they put down rebellions, Hungary where they put down rebellions, as well as the Russian war in Afghanistan. But here, the real seat change, I would argue, occurred when President Trump was elected to office for his second term, and he changed the narrative in terms of the U.S. position with respect to Russia. Previously, the U.S. position with respect to Russia on all matters had been to push back against Russian expansion. And here we had U.S. administration that was not as aggressively pushing back, questioning some of the positions of our allies in Europe with respect to how to proceed, with respect to Ukraine, and we started to see a change of mindset in terms of spheres of influence and how to respond to Russia in particular, which was a big marker of the global world order. Here we see the global world order shifting again with the new position here in the United States. And then we saw another shift when the United States, President Trump and his administration aggressively pushing against the Chinese, imposing big tariffs on China, as you may remember just a few months ago, and the Chinese pushing back and and weaponizing their rare earth minerals. And what has happened as a result of that, at least so far, is that the United States has become more more accepting of the Chinese in their trade, and the United States has sought to make sure that we maintain a supply of these rare earth minerals, and we've seen a movement away from rhetoric with respect to China, at least at the moment, here in the United States, perhaps arguing for return of spheres of influence. The United States will protect and own their sphere of influence, perhaps the Chinese theirs, , and perhaps Russia theirs, and this seems to be some suggesting this is the world order that is currently developing. This accelerated recently with the military operation in the of the U.S. in Venezuela, with the capture of Nicolas Maduro, the former leader of Venezuela. And now it's reaching a new level with the talk of potentially using military force not being ruled out against the NATO ally, Denmark, and the suggestion that perhaps this would change the entire NATO relationship. So these actions are starting to result in some changes in investors and their portfolios, and that's what we're here to discuss. We try and take a broad view of what's taken place and try to explain what's happening in financial markets. One of the things that's happening in financial markets that we've seen and continues to see is we are seeing a flight to the safety of hard assets. We are seeing gold up, not just this morning, but in general. We're seeing silver rise, copper, platinum, and we're also seeing a rise in the value of especially residential, but real estate, because real estate is a real asset, it is a commodity. So one of the one of the conundrums that the current administration has right now is that the policies are that they're currently engaged in here are leading to a appreciation of real assets. At the same time, we'd like to make real assets, at least residential homes, more affordable. I mean, that's something that President Trump is going to try to address. What is interesting is what has not happened as a result of this questioning of existing norms is something that was traditionally what would take place, which would be a flight or a flight to the dollar in times of trouble. And at the moment the rest of the world is growing increasingly wary of holding this asset that they sought to hold in times of times of uncertainty being the dollar, and we're seeing we're seeing the dollar not rallying, and at the same time, what we're also seeing is not a flight to bonds. We are not seeing a flight to U.S. treasuries, as the concerns are about the U.S. deficit, the U.S. being reliant upon the rest of the world for their deficit. Arguably, our greatest Achilles heel, perhaps, is that we are so reliant upon others to finance our debt, and therefore the concern is what will happen if others are less likely to finance our debt. In fact, we're seeing that this morning with Dow futures down about 600 points, and we're seeing the 10-year Treasury rise four basis points this morning to a 428 this morning. So we're seeing the tenant of the old world order of the past 50 years, which was an interdependent world tied together by trade being challenged being challenged, and as this old world order frays, we are seeing the safety or the sacrosancity of the dollar and U.S. treasuries being viewed a little bit more questionably than they than they traditionally had been. And these are factors we need to think about here as as we see the world sh move and shift. Undoubtedly I could s suggest that we will see some sort of increased militarization to a much larger extent in Europe. That seems to be one of the more, let's call it, obvious effects of what's taken place. Obviously, Europeans have been ramping up their military spending because of concerns that the U.S. wasn't providing the same level of support to Ukraine. But I believe that this is going to accelerate to a large larger extent. This is gonna take time, this is gonna take change within the mindsets of some of the European capitals, but there is an accelerant here, and we can see that what we may see is the re-militarization mentality become a lot stronger in Europe post-World War II, may see significant investment in in militarization and assets in Europe not and and not to be reliant predominantly upon or exclusively upon the United States as one certain effect, I believe, of of these policies. So the issue of the day is is the push for Greenland. Trump President Trump has renewed his push for Greenland, claiming the European Union won't resist too much, he said. We have to have it, President Trump said. He said he will meet with several parties over his ambition to take over the island during the World Economic Forum, which is in Davos, Switzerland this week. This morning, Secretary Bessent was speaking there. President Trump is due to speak there on Wednesday, which will almost certainly gain the attention of a lot of the world, so he will certainly have lots of people listening to what he says. After his most recent comments this morning and last night, the market reaction has been swift. U.S. futures dropped as the standoff with Greenland deepens, treasuries , as I mentioned, also falling as the allure of U.S. assets is dimming marginally this morning. Investors looking for havens pushing gold to a record, silver reach an all-time peak with trade war fears rising. Secretary Bessent this morning did urge calm amid the growing transatlantic rift, calling for allies to honor their trade agreements and saying the idea that Europeans might dump treasuries and hold and might dump treasuries and other U.S. assets, he said defies any logic. If you're thinking about Europeans and assets that they do own, a little perspective, Europeans own about three trillion of U.S. treasuries. There's about 30 trillion treasuries out there. There's about 37 trillion in debt, but the six or seven trillion is owned by the Federal Reserve. So Europeans own about 10% of the float of treasuries. Europeans own about 14 trillion in U.S. stocks. Total market capitalization of U.S. stocks is about 70 trillion, so Europeans own about 20% of of our equities. In other news, President Trump may announce his pick for the new Federal Reserve Chair as soon as next week, said Treasury Secretary Bessant. As this plays out, current Fed Chair Jerome Powell plans to attend Wednesday Supreme Court hearing over the attempted dismissal of Fed Governor Lisa Cook by the Trump administration. All right, so we talked about what's taken place in Davos this week, what's going on with the United States and Europe with respect to Greenland at the moment, and how that is widening the gap between the U.S. and Europe and what the effects may be both here in the United States and in Europe, and we're going to move to Iran. And just last week Iran was perhaps the biggest news story, but as we know, the media companies follow the latest and greatest, which at the moment is the sensationalism with respect to Greenland. But last week we were talking all about the protests taking place in in Iran, and over the weekend there was a brutal crackdown, reports of several thousand people killed in Iran. But that what's taking place in Iran may have a more enduring potential than some of the other uprisings, and why is that? It's because what's taking place in Iran is taking place with the backdrop that the economic conditions in Iran are awful for the average Iranian. These are people who are not connected to the government, aren't politically dialed in, and this is due to the tremendous, tremendous devaluation of the Iranian real, which is the Iranian currency. So in 2015, this is the world where Iran had reached a nuclear quote unquote deal with the Europeans and the United States. Iran was in a period of relative calm, and the real traded at around 30,000 reales to the dollar. Well, here we are in 2026, and the market rate, not the official rate, but the market rate, the real rate of the real is about 1,400,000 to the dollar. So that means that the real has depreciated around 50 times or 98% relative to the dollar. And what that means is that if you were an Iranian teacher or a government worker and you retired on a pension 10 years ago, five years ago, and you had a fixed rate, well, that fixed rate can buy very little in today's world. In 2015, the price of rice has gone up since 2015 24 times. So think about it this way here in the United States. If a bag of rice costs $3 in 2015, today it costs $72. The price of red meat has gone up twenty-five times. The cost of eggs, which is something that's very sensitive here to us in the United States, has gone up ten times. Cost of bread is up fifteen times, the cost of cooking oil is up twelve times. If you want to feed your family a serving of meat, which is about two and a half pounds of meat, that will require about 25% of the average workers' wages for one meal of meat. Meat consumption in Iran down 50%, dairy consumption down about 30%. In any society, any society is roughly nine meals away from chaos. And that is something that Iran may be experiencing here as people are struggling to not not not not go out and buy new new Levi's, but but struggling to put food on the table. And that's something that that becomes a true source of of uprising and revolution despite brutal crackdowns. So to be continued, we'll see we'll see what the brutalization of the people of Iran and how much how much the how far the government's willing to go and and and how far the people are willing to rise up when you have nothing, you're willing to to risk a lot more. So this morning, mentioned futures are to the downside, Dow futures down just about 700 points, SP futures down 105, NASDAQ futures down four hundred and seventy points. This is after the major averages incurred modest losses last week. Small caps did outperform last week. The mega cap stocks, which lagged in the previous week, are under pressure again this morning. All of the Mag 7 names down at least 1% pre-market. Of course, geopolitical tensions are the headlines of the day. We talked a lot about that. One of the main drivers here is that President Trump said that several NATO members will face a 10% tariff that is to increase to 25% until he completes the total purchase of Greenland. And amid those reports, Bloomberg is reporting that the European Union is considering regul retaliatory. Tariffs of 93 billion euros on U.S. goods in response, and that's why we are seeing the uncertainty playing out and therefore resulting in selling of assets here in the United States, at least at the outset this morning. Last week we got some earnings. I alluded to the bank earnings, and we got some more earnings this morning, but attention clearly much more focused on what else has taken place in the world. No major economic data today, though we will see the release of the PCE price index for October and November, which is the Fed's preferred inflationary gauge. The market not will not hear from any Fed officials this week. It is blacked out ahead of the January FOMC meeting. Also reports that the White House is still considering an executive order to cap interest rates on credit cards, whether or not they can do that illegally is something that markets question, but nevertheless, the administration is still floating that idea out there. 3M, symbol MMM, had earnings this morning. They beat by three cents. They beat also on revenue, they guided 2026 in line, stocks down about eight points or five percent on that news. Netflix up slightly this morning. Warner Brothers discovery about flat as they amended the agreement to purchase Warner Brothers to an all-cash transactioning transaction accelerating the path to a Warner Brothers shareholder vote. Bank stock in the news this morning, U.S. Bank Corp released earnings they beat by seven cents, reported revenues in line, that stock up about 30 cents or one half of 1%. Big news this morning coming out of Japan, and that is that their their JGBs, which are their treasuries, are sliding sharply. The 20-year Japanese bond is down in price. The yield is up to 3.32%, that is 16 basis points higher on their 20-year treasury. That is a huge move. An even bigger move is the 40-year Japanese government bond. Yield is up 29 basis points. The yield is up to 4.21%. First time you are seeing a 4% yield on any Japanese bond in over 30 years. Why is this happening? Well, there is talk that Prime Minister Takaichi will be holding a snap election on February 8th, and she is talking about cutting taxes on food, which is potentially viewed as inflationary. So we are seeing Japanese bonds rally significantly. This is one of the reasons perhaps behind some of the sell-off here in U.S. treasuries, on top of the sell U.S. possibility. The other possibility is that Japanese investors are repatriating funds as their interest rates continue to increase. China saying that they will take steps to boost demand for their domestic consumption over the next four years. The People's Bank of China left their one and five year prime interest rates unchanged. The one-year prime rate in China is three percent, the five-year is three and a half percent. To be specific about the tariffs that President Trump is considering applying to some of the European countries, he said he will impose 10% tariffs on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland until a deal is reached for Greenland. And then the tariff will increase to 25% on June 1st. President Trump saying he will meet with various parties with respect to the situation in Greenland at Davos. As I mentioned, the EU is looking to avoid regulatory action against President Trump's tariffs, seek a diplomatic solution. Officials saying it's too early to threaten to deploy the EU's anti-coercion instrument. That's according to Politico, the anti-coercion instrument there would be for Europeans to have a wholesale plan to sell or divest some U.S. assets, which could roil not just domestic markets here in the United States, but international markets. Wall Street Journal reporting that President Trump linked threats to Greenland to missing out on the Noble Peace Prize. As I mentioned earlier, Secretary Besson says the threat that Europe would sell U.S. assets, specifically U.S. Treasuries, defies logic. One candidate that is rising as a potential Fed chairman is Rick Reeder over at BlackRock. Talk that that he may be who succeeds Chairman Powell. President Trump also hit threatened to hit French wines and champagnes with 200% tariffs in an effort to encourage French President Macron into joining his Board of Peace initiatives aimed at resolving global conflicts. Macron indicating that he would not accept the offer and President Trump with the response that he would not be pleased if that were the case. All right, this morning, another story to think about, how what the implications may be, moving to the world of trading. Wall Street Journal reporting that the New York Stock Exchange may be launching a 24-7 trading platform for blockchain-based securities. The New York Stock Exchange said it will seek regulatory approval, which companies could use to issue securities that are represented as digital tokens on a black blockchain, similar to the way cryptocurrencies work. It didn't specify the timing of the launch, which depends on when regulators give it the green light. Like Crypto Exchange is the new platform, would be 24-7, which is of course different from the way the NYSE operates currently, where it's open five days a week and shuts down overnight. So imagine a world where you could trade stocks anytime electronically on the blockchain. That would certainly be a different world than the world that we have grown accustomed to. New York Chart New York Stock Exchange said the new platform would settle trades instantly. Another feature that sets us apart from traditional financial industry practices. Currently, trades settle the next day. Users of the new platform would be able to use stable coins to fund the to fund trades. Stable coins are a popular type of cryptocurrency whose value is pegged to the dollar. If this platform is approved, it could be used by blue chip companies to issue tokenized versions of their stock that would be accessible to U.S. investors. So something to certainly put on the radar, this would be something that would dramatically be a game changer in terms of in terms of trading U.S. equities. So it looks like a long time ago now, three days ago, looking back at Friday of last week. Last week the Dow was down about three-tenths of one percent, the SP four tenths, and the NASDAQ seven-tenths of one percent. While the declines were small and the indexes remained, at least they did at the end of last week, near all-time highs. We did see the indices underperforming small caps, international, and the equal weighted SP 500, and a sign that investors are looking beyond the usual suspects of stocks to buy. Some would argue that this would be an encouraging sign, seeing a broadening out of the market rally that had taken place over the last few years. This morning, of course, that narrative being challenged by the geopolitical events, but nevertheless, some suggesting that if and when the U.S. rally continues, that it may take place first or predominantly in small cap stocks rather than rather than the traditional large caps that have been driving the rally. Another source of strength in the markets has been the transportation stocks, made up of leading trucking, railroad, airline, and shipping companies. That closed last week at a record high, which is a sign that the economy certainly has momentum. Taking a look at Barron's, I mentioned I mentioned a couple of stocks from Barron's. So Barents had their round table, and in this round table, which is a get together of some leading investment minds, they all offer up some ideas of where they think the economy is going and what some individual stocks that they think will be good performers in 2026. And I will mention a few that I thought were interesting and worthy of sharing, one of which is recommended by Henry Ellenbogan. He is the chief investment officer at Durable Capital. One of the companies that he recommended in this round table is Shift for Payments. The symbol is for F-O-U-R. Came public in 2020, was founded by Jared Isaacman, name may ring a bell. He was CEO until December when he left to run NASA. Initially, the company primarily serviced merchant payments for the restaurant industry. Now 50% of revenue comes from other businesses. One is Stadiums. Shift 4 provides software and payments to process food, retail, and beverage and ticketing services at stadiums. For those of you who have traveled internationally, you may have come across Shift for Payments other big acquisition, and that is last year it bought Global Blue, whose payment technology facilitates tax-free shopping. Global Blue is a 70% share of that business and has been gaining share. It's now 25% of Shift 4's revenue. Restaurant business has also been growing, and , as I mentioned, it's about 50% of business, and they have seen their cash flow conversion now up to 50%. So, in other words, new business that they that they bring on board, about 50% of it is is cash flow, the remainder expenses tied to getting that business, but a 50% cash flow conversion margin is impressive. Despite growing in the mid-20% range last year, Mr. Ellen Bogan said, including acquisitions, Shift4 is trading for only 10 times 2026 earnings per share. They announced a billion-dollar stock buyback. Company has a six billion dollar market cap, so if they were to follow through, that is significant. With the departure of Jared Isaacman, the former CEO. The company is going to eliminate its C shares and switch to a single class structure. So, in other words, previously Mr. Isaacman controlled a lot of the stock. Now they are going to open it up so that the voting is controlled by all shareholders. That's generally a positive. He said that he thinks that Shift 4 can deliver a 25% stock return by the end of this year if there is no multiple expansion. That means expanding from the 10 times earnings it's currently trading at. And he says if the market were to increase the multiple, which he thinks it should, but of course that remains to be seen. But if the multiple can expand to 11 to 13 times 2027 earnings, well then you'd see a share price from about $62 currently to somewhere between 90 and 106, which if it were to happen would produce a return of 40 to 60%. Barons also spoke with David Giroud, T. Row Price's chief investment officer. One of the trends that he highlighted was the coming off of patent of significant drugs for the big pharmaceutical companies, Merck's Tetruda, which is the number one cancer-selling drug in the world. That comes off patent in 2028. Novo Nordisk, which you may recognize as the producer of Wigovi, well, their GLP1 drug loses patent in 2031. Eli Lilly's Mongiorno's got some more room, but they lose patent in 2030. But what he suggests is that these companies are producing significant cash flows. They need to replenish those pipelines. So biotechnology stocks that have promising products, he think will be acquisition targets. He mentions several here: Biointech, BNTX, Dyne Therapeutics, DYN, Vaxite, PCVX, Apogee Therapeutics, APGE, Cytokinetics, CYTK, and RCEX ACLX. Probability is they won't all be winners, but if you have a portfolio of companies that potentially could be big big pharma candidates, he thinks that this is an opportune time to consider making an investment in those companies. David Giroud is also positive on Starbucks. Said that it's an iconic American company that was poorly run, but they've now brought in an A-plus CEO, and he thinks the odds of a turnaround are high. He said the margins are now about 10%. They were 17% in 2019. The new CEO has taken steps to end aggressive promotions, which he said should enhance margins. He said there's a possibility that margins could even exceed that 17% in 2019 in the next several years. He says that Starbucks has a shot at earning close to $6 a share by 2031 and boosting their operating margin all the way up to 18%. If that were in fact to happen, he thinks the stock, which is currently trading in the low 90s, could trade as high as 150 to 180 over the next four to five years. And you'd also continue to enjoy the dividend, which is currently paying about 2.7%. Finally, I will mention one last stock and then conclude. And this is a suggestion or recommendation from Merrill Whitmer. She typically suggests looking at some stocks that have smaller market capitalizations. She did not disappoint. She suggests taking a look at Cactus is the is the name of the company. The symbol is WHD William Hotel Delta. It's trading at about $48 a share, has 80 million shares outstanding, and it supplies the oil and gas industry with pressure control equipment and something called spoolable technologies. Pressure control segments manufactures wellhead systems, which are the equipment at the surface of an oil well, supports the drilling and production equipment and controls the flow of oil and gas, preventing leaks and blowouts. And she says that cactus' design is viewed as a safer and better option than their competitors. And the other big segment that they have is the spoolable tech segment, which it bought three years ago. And she said they make a product called Flex Steel, which is a pipe that combines the strength of steel with the corrosion resistance of high density polyethylene, ethyl ethylene. It offers a cost-efficient alternative to traditional welded pipe and is ideal for carrying oil, gas, water, and other substances needing high pressure and corrosion resistance. They're able to deliver these pipes long lengths, and they can deliver these pipes from 600 feet to one mile depending on the width of the pipe. She says they're able to deploy it fast, and fast is important because time is money in the oil fields. And interestingly, the pipe is particularly good with sour crude. Sour crude eats up traditional steel pipe and has to be replaced regularly. This product is well penetrated in U.S. oil fields, but not internationally, and she feels they have a real opportunity to deploy this product internationally where you have lots of sour crude because recently Cactus made an acquisition of Baker Use's wellhead business. Baker Use has significant revenue in this business, about 85% coming from the Middle East. So now they have a Middle East business. They have a product that would be really strong in the Middle East, so she feels that the product opportunity for that flex steel pipe in the Middle East is significant. So she said that she feels that cactus can earn about four dollars a share in the future with good execution, and that's not factoring in the other big oil story out there, the possibility that they're able to win some business in the longer term with flex steel and the rebuilding of the oil fields in Venezuela. That's everything I've got.

Alan Eppers:

Thank you for listening to Mr. Keith Lanton. This podcast is available on most platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. For more information, please visit our website at www.heroldlantern.com.

Sophie Cohen:

Opinions expressed herein are subject to change and not necessarily the opinion of the firm. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. The information presented herein is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide personal investment advice. It is important that you consider your tolerance for risk and investment goals when making investment decisions. Investing in securities does involve risk and the potential of losing money. The material does not constitute research investment advice or trade recommendations.