AI, Natural Gas, and the Middle East: Navigating Energy Supply Shocks feat. Rob Hummel

In this episode of the Market Misbehavior podcast, Dave is joined by Rob Thummel, Managing Director and Senior Portfolio Manager at Tortoise Capital. Recorded 3/17/26.

Rob shares what he’s learned from 30 years of investing in the energy sector, including his perspective on navigating unprecedented global supply shocks. We dig into the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and its impact on the Strait of Hormuz, the critical differences between WTI and Brent crude, the mechanics of Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs), how the AI boom is supercharging natural gas demand, and why high free cash flow and dividend yields matter so much in a tricky 2026 environment.

📈 Topics Covered
• The closure of the Strait of Hormuz and its immediate impact on global oil supply
• Key differences between West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent crude oil benchmarks
• The role of the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) during supply disruptions
• How US energy independence and shale technology buffer against hyper-inflationary oil prices
• The fundamental shift in energy sector balance sheets toward high free cash flow and dividend yields
• Understanding Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs) and their unique structure
• How the massive electricity demand required for AI data centers is driving the long-term bull case for natural gas

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The content in this presentation should not be considered as a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All information is intended for educational purposes only and in no way should be considered as investment advice. 

Transcript

Rob: [00:00:00] AI is gonna be the next economy. Obviously,. But what does AI need? It needs electricity and electricity. Demand growth in the US is gonna grow tremendously. Okay, well what's the largest fuel supply source for electricity?

Well, it's natural gas. 44% of the LEC US electricity supply at the present time. It's gonna continue to grow over the next several years. US electricity demand is gonna continue to grow, and it hasn't grown for decades now. It's gonna grow for, for, for many more decades to go. And you say, well, how does the US win the AI race? If you think about ai, it really boils down to data and energy. We've got the data and the technology down pretty well here in the us. The other thing that we have in the US is we have the energy and we have low cost energy, and we have low cost energy because of low cost natural gas that can generate.

Low cost energy. So that's that competitive advantage , from a natural gas perspective will be the thing along with the technology that allows US to win this global AI race.

Welcome to the Market Misbehavior Podcast, hosted by Dave Keller. Dave talks to [00:01:00] top market practitioners, money managers, technical analysts, investment strategists, and authors to help you navigate the markets and become a more mindful investor. The content of this podcast should not be considered as a recommendation or solicitation to buy or sell any security.

All information is intended for educational purposes only, and should not be relied upon for any investment decision. The host of this podcast as well as any guests may hold positions in securities discussed.

Hey there everyone. Dave Keller here with Market Misbehavior and welcome to our latest episode of the Market Misbehavior Podcast. Today I'm sitting down with Rob Thummel, Rob's the, uh, managing director and senior portfolio manager at Tortoise Capital. I interviewed Rob, the first time on the podcast almost a year ago in April of 2025, talking about a different world back then, the energy sector.

Kind of up and down, but infrastructure plays, right? Pipeline companies were really the only area of the, uh, [00:02:00] the energy sector really showing, you know, some decent opportunity. , At that point. , The world has changed quite dramatically and certainly year to date, and especially here in March of 2026 with events in the Middle East unfolding.

So I thought it was an opportune time to bring Rob back on the show to ask some follow up questions about how those infrastructure, uh, plays have fared. How events in the Middle East relate to our ability to value energy stocks, where opportunities could lie going into the second quarter and beyond, given how the world has rapidly changed.

So please enjoy this interview with Rob Thummel of the Tortoise Capital.

Dave: Rob, you and I sat down last, almost a year ago in April of 2025. Anything going on between now and then? I mean, do, are we

Rob: No, not a lot. Yeah, not a lot. David. Hey, we're still using energy though. You know? Everybody's still using energy.

Dave: You Hey, call of the year. You correctly predicted we would be still using a lot of energy in, uh, in, uh, early 2026, so well done there. so obviously, you know, a, a conflict in the Middle East that I think has surprised [00:03:00] many in terms of its scope, certainly in terms of its market impact. And I, I think that's been one of the big, um, I think surprises for a lot of investors.

It, it's felt like specifically because we've had. Conflict in this general region before, and the market impact has been minimal. Now all of a sudden, we all need to be experts in the Strait of Horus and all the, you know, the, the supply and demand around oil. What's different about this particular conflict that's, that's escalating with Iran that is causing so much of a direct market impact and in a way that I think has surprised many investors.

Rob: Yeah, no, David, I, I think, you know, in my 30 years of investing in the energy sector, we've never had the straight of horror moves closed, and now effectively it's been closed and that, as you know and as you highlight, takes off a significant amount of potential supply. For a period of time now, the physical barrels themselves, are not being delivered.

and so that then results in, you know, scarcity and concerns about are, is there enough oil in the [00:04:00] world and can we access the storage tanks? And all of that's been going on. And so what that's done is, really thrown the supply demand off balance, a global oil supply perspective.

And the, and prices have, have, skyrocketed obviously here, here in the short term, because of that.

Dave: There's been obviously a significant short-term impact as you, as you said, right? I mean, crude oil prices, at least West Texas intermediate, there are US benchmarks shooting above a hundred dollars a barrel and kind of right around there, here in mid-March when you're sort of evaluating what's happening here.

How do you think about crude oil prices? Right? I mean, is there a way to think about a potential price target? Is it more just about getting a sense of, of, of changes to the supply picture or, you know, what, what sort of allows you to anticipate how high things could go? 'cause I've heard some pretty extreme upside targets given the scope of the conflict.

Rob: Yeah, I think David way we thinking about a tortoise is, the futures curve actually is, pretty reflective of where we think the prices could go. And if you look at the futures curve, , for WTI West Texas, as you just mentioned. You know, you can see oil getting back [00:05:00] into the seventies and, and potentially down to the sixties.

Now, look, that's not gonna happen tomorrow, right? But that could happen over the next six months to a year. , Now if we have a prolonged, time in Iran where the street war moves is closed for an extended period of time, physical barrels are taken off the market for months.

or if we have an environment where infrastructure is damaged. You know, the oil wells can be turned on, relatively quickly in weeks, let's say, but the infrastructure, it's gonna take months, maybe even years to rebuild infrastructure. So, so far we don't have any disruption in infrastructure other than the straight or moves not being open.

But, but if we can get back to quote normal operations, uh, with the straight or moves opened, uh, we can see oil prices then move towards what, which, where, where the future's curve indicates. And, and that's a much more affordable price for, for all of us.

Dave: When, when you mentioned some of the, you know, potential damages to infrastructure, um, I guess for those, and I apologize for asking some serious energy 1 0 1 questions, but I think it'll help my viewers quite a bit. Robin, [00:06:00] I and I, so these are probably remedial questions for someone like you, but I appreciate you indulging us, uh, and, and helping us get our head around this.

I would assume it's not as simple as we turn the spigot off, we turn it back on. There's no oil. All of a sudden there's plenty of oil. What sort of time impact, right? I mean, if there is this disruption, let's say a conflict would end tomorrow, like how long would it take for damages to infrastructure to be repaired to the degree that it would be kind of how it was before this conflict all started?

Like what kind of timeline would be thinking about?

Rob: depends on the severity. But if you think about it, and you're talking about oil. Infrastructure, right? We're talking about tanks and pipelines and I mean, none of this stuff is easy to fix, right? And, and none of this is, none of this is easy to repair and, install.

And so, We're talking about days maybe to turn, turn, turn the, uh, the, the pumps back on and get oil back into the ships and get them moving. through the straight or moves. But if we have to rebuild the pipelines, we have to have to rebuild the storage tanks.

You have to rebuild the processing units, um, and the docks and all of that, that's required to export oil, , from a place [00:07:00] like Iran, that, that exports a fair amount of oil, several million barrels a day, that's gonna take potentially months, maybe even years.

Dave: I know some have been thinking, obviously, you know, in the US we're, energy independent, which is different than, you know, previous. S in the Middle East. It's been, more of a potentially direct impact. Talk to me about the impact to the us. You know, we're not reliant necessarily on, on oil from Iran, but disruption, they're still gonna affect the price of crude oil for, for all of us here.

Can you talk about how that would directly impact us and why? In, in the US and in North America.

Rob: Yeah, so if you just think about it practically, you know, if, if the price of oil goes up across the world, it's gonna probably go up in the US as well. What It encourages the US to export more oil to other parts of the world. And you've seen that, right? If you look at Brent oil prices kind of a proxy for the world oil price, they're higher than US.

Oil prices, WTI that you and I were just talking about, that encourages more. US exports. But, but, uh, but I, I think you gotta take a step back, David, and think about this a little bit bigger picture too, and think about what if the US wasn't producing [00:08:00] point 13.6 million barrels a day? Where would oil prices be?

They would be significantly higher. So I think the US energy sector has done a fantastic job of. and it's through shale technology of finding this new supply source, of oil. And it's been around for a while, but it's, but, but it continues to produce, it continues to produce consistently. , And as a result of that, when we have a crisis, like we have, like nothing that you and I, at least that I haven't seen in my 30 years.

The oil price in the US doesn't just escalate to the 200, 300, $400, per barrel. We're able to keep it in check a bit and keep inflation down and keep in economies, both globally and domestically going, with a reasonable energy price given the level of conflict that we're experiencing at the present time.

Dave: So far, Rob, this is fantastic. I really am. I'm excited to ask you all these questions. I appreciate you, you going through all of this with us. One, for those that are not familiar with the phrase strategic petroleum reserve, that has now come up in the news because that's starting to be tapped a bit.

Can you talk a little bit about what that actually is, , how that could [00:09:00] alleviate some, some price shocks and, and where is that? I mean, is that a, everything's gonna be okay, kind of reserve, or are there issues where we would over tap that for some reason? Like, like what, how does that fit into the overall picture?

Rob: Yeah, so you can think about the strategic petroleum reserve. It's kinda like storage, right? Long term storage. US wants to put oil. Predominantly down on the Gulf Coast, uh, where they store stored oil for years, we probably have a 30 60 day supply of oil. That can be distributed across, you know, all, all, all the consumption regions.

In other words, distributed to the refineries so the refineries can. continue to process oil and refine it into gasoline so that we just don't have the whole US economy shut down because of some unusual circumstance, like, like what is happening right now. So we've got a massive amount of oil in south Texas, effectively, that can be utilized.

, And like I said, it's a, it's, it's, think about it, of days of supply. We probably have 30, 60 days of supply down there that if, if we could not get any oil at all. Then we could tap that supply source that we have in the US and that, and that could keep everything continuing to run. , [00:10:00] Refineries would keep producing gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, so the whole economy doesn't come to a shutdown.

Right?, , I mean, Oil is still relevant. David, as you know. Oil is really important. We're finding out now as an economic driver in our daily lives, in every consumer product. It seems like oil plays a more important role than what anybody ever expected. But the good news is, is we have a supply that we can, that the US can add back to the, the domestic economy.

Uh, if we would've a prolonged period of, of, uh, oil not being able to come to the us.

Dave: You had mentioned, uh, and, and sort of, uh, touched on the different, uh, crude oil benchmarks. Right. And, and, and again, apologies for another 1 0 1 question, but I, I know this is one that some may have in their head. Can you talk to us about the difference between WTI, sort of, the benchmark we often refer to just as crude oil prices, and then Brent Crude, which is a European benchmark.

What's the relationship between those two and how should we think of them differently given what's going on here?

Rob: Yeah, so typically Brent crude is more of a global indicator, so that's more of a global supply demand indicator. WTI is more of a US supply [00:11:00] demand indicator. So what we've seen lately is because there's been concern about the global oil supply declining, because of what's going on in the strayhorn moves or what's going on potentially with Iran and its infrastructure, you've seen the price of Brent crude oil actually increase more than W-T-I-W-T-I is more of an indication of the US what we know.

As we've talked about us has plenty of crude oil . There has not been a disruption to the US crude oil infrastructure. The US operates the largest infrastructure network in the world. There's been no disruption there. Um, US producers, no disruption. So US crude oil volumes continue to plug along and at a steady pace and actually increase a little bit Globally though, there's a lot more, uh, uncertainty with regards to the global oil supply.

Dave: Got it. So I, that makes sense. So having the two different benchmarks, probably helpful, just getting a sense of how it's impacting these, , different regions. . Talk to me a little bit about the ripple effects of crude oil prices. , If crude oil prices would remain elevated, what are some of the ways that would impact, uh, potentially our US economy and, and what's the timeframe between crude [00:12:00] oil prices remaining elevated and when we would start to experience some real impact potentially.

Rob: what we have learned, uh, crude oil does go into about every consumer product. So we would see some, some inflation, but what you see most directly is, is, is gasoline, right David? And you've seen that you've seen gasoline prices, inch higher. Now once again. If we weren't producing so much crude oil in the US, gasoline prices would be way higher.

So we are fortunate from that perspective and, you know, owe some gratitude to the energy, us energy industry to help keep our gasoline prices low, in a period like this. And, and where, where there is this much volatility, we would have much higher gasoline prices if we didn't have the US energy sector.

So, that's where you see it probably the most, you probably see it. In gasoline prices first and then other consumer products, diesels obviously is a raw material that, they use to transport everything. So, so that's where you start to see it. But, but we're probably talking about, we're gonna have to see this, this crude oil price be higher, much higher for, uh, you know, six months, uh, nine months before you're gonna see it probably permeate, uh, or trickle down into all consumer [00:13:00] products.

But the first place you'll see it's in gasoline.

Dave: Oh, super helpful, Rob. Now, the last time you and I spoke, and again April, 2025, I feel like it was a different world in, in so many ways now. It's changed so much, just, uh, just in the last six weeks or so. But last time you and I spoke, we talk a lot about infrastructure names. , There was a period where.

broader, like big integrated companies, a lot of ENP names not performing as well, versus infrastructure, , which is where you saw some, , just really strong performance, you know, from a technical perspective. You saw some very strong charts there as well. , Talk to me about infrastructure, uh, companies here in the us.

, The infrastructure space appears to be still doing quite well. What gives you confidence or skepticism that that sort of performance could continue going forward?

Rob: Well, I think the great thing about the entire energy sector, I think that investors are . Finally waking up to is the fact that the energy sector, including energy infrastructure, generates a lot of free cash flow. And then what that did means is that these energy stocks, including these energy infrastructure companies, can pay out high dividend yields to [00:14:00] investors.

And, you know, who doesn't like a high dividend yield these days? Get a little growth on that dividend as well. And then they still have money left to, to, to buy back stock. And so I think those, those tenants basically, um. have been something that has been in the sector at least for the last couple years, we've been really trying to highlight them at tortoise for the last several years.

And I think it differentiates the sector. And, and finally investors have, have come around to the fact that, you know what, these energy infrastructure stocks, they're, they're still, uh, cheap on a, on valuation perspective, especially relative to mega calf tech. So we've seen a bit of a rotation into these, uh, low obsolescence assets like pipelines that are really, really important.

You can't replace them. , And when you can get a dividend, a little growth and some stock buybacks, that, that, that formula, that recipe seems to be something that, investors really are liking right now.

Dave: You had mentioned valuations in particular with infrastructure names, Rob. Uh, is it as simple as. How we would evaluate or, or value companies in other sectors? Is it simply price versus earnings, or are there specific, valuation metrics that make sense, particularly for things like [00:15:00] infrastructure?

Rob: Yeah, you, you can use priced earnings. We, we tend to like to use e uh, EBITDA or, or even free cash flow yield for this sector. You know, you're looking at an energy infrastructure sector with a free cash flow yield. That's, that's on average about 10%. You know, the s and p free cash flow yield's probably around 5%.

The big mega cap techs are one point a half percent. So we just think that, that, that free cash flow yield spread between what infrastructure trade's at and what, uh, the, the broad market trade's at is, is really too wide, which is an opportunity for infrastructure stocks to continue to perform.

Dave: Here's my next 1 0 1 question, Robin. And again, thanks for indulging me on all these, uh, MLPs. Anytime someone starts learning about infrastructure, someone, uh, you know, suggests looking at some sort of MLP related product. What is an MLP? How does that relate to what we've talked about so far, and what is that structure in particular?

Rob: Well, MLP stands for Master Limited Partnership. That's a portion of the tax code that basically, that refers to, if you generate qualifying income, which basically means transporting, uh, volumes of, of US energy or well of energy.

Through pipelines [00:16:00] effectively, then you, you, uh, get a little bit of a tax advantage. You don't have an entity level tax like a regular corporation does. You have a pass through level, so the owners of these MLPs actually get K ones, at the end of the year if you buy an MLP directly and you can buy those.

We have, uh, ways to buy those at tortoise, uh, through separately managed accounts. But what we've, , really tried to do it, tortoise is make it easy. We've created a. ETF, the tortoise, MLP, active ETF, that basically allows investors to, to get access to the MLPs, but you don't have to worry about all of the tax problems and the tax complications and getting all of these K ones, you get a simple form 10 99.

So that makes life a little bit easier for investors right now. What's, why, why do people like MLPs? That's probably more important than the structures that we have. People like MLPs because of that high dividend yield. Uh, and, and, and that growth in the dividend. And, you know, we're talking about six, seven, 8% dividend yields in a lot of these companies right now.

You can't find that anywhere, David, that's, that's, that's really attractive. I think, uh, um, in, in this, uh, at least in this investment in investing world.

Dave: Your ETF, the tortoise, MLP, TF [00:17:00] Tickers, TMLP, uh, correct. And, to your point, I think when, you know, anytime I've scanned for products that have a decent dividend yield looking for like an income play, often MLP products, like the one you you mentioned often come up, right? 'cause they tend to have consistent and pretty, pretty high, uh, dividend components.

I'm told there are other parts of energy besides crude oil. It's hard for us to get out of that. 'cause I feel like our blinders are on and we're focused on crude oil, crude oil, crude oil. Natural gas is also a big part of the, the energy story. Talk to me about that, uh, separately and, and what, what's been the, the evolution of natural gas here so far in 2026?

How does that look, uh, you know, in the quarters to come?

Rob: well, natural Gas is one of our favorite subjects at Tortoise. So we, we've been a, a big proponent of natural gas for, for a long time. , And natural gas is a really important component, today. But if you think about what's going on, what is everybody else talking about other than crude oil? It's ai, David, and, and so when you talk about ai, we all [00:18:00] know that we're, you know, we're, it seems like we're headed to a world of autonomous, everything.

AI is gonna be the next economy. Obviously, Jensen Wong is out, , talking about that at the GTC, this, this week, , at least about the, the potential uses of ai. But what does AI need? It needs electricity and electricity. Demand growth in the US is gonna grow tremendously. So when we look at it, we say, okay, well what's the largest fuel supply source for electricity?

Well, it's natural gas. Natural gas. Rev is, is, I think for left, roughly 44% of the LEC US electricity supply at the present time. It's gonna continue to grow over the next several years. US electricity demand is gonna continue to grow, and it hasn't grown for decades now. It's gonna grow for many more decades to go.

And you say, well, how does the US win the AI race? If you think about ai, it really boils down to data and energy. We've got the data and the technology down pretty well here in the us. Um, from, from that perspective. The other thing that we have in the US is we have the energy and we have low cost energy, and we have low cost energy because of low cost natural gas that can generate.

Low cost energy. So that's [00:19:00] that competitive advantage with NA from, from natural, from a natural gas perspective will be the thing along with the technology that allows US to win this global AI race.

Dave: Well said. I I love that, that way of describing it, AI equals data and energy. Um, I'm gonna quote you on that one. That's a great one. Uh, that's a keeper. you know, I think for a challenge for a lot of investors, right, is looking at the energy sector here, and we're recording this mid-March 2026.

you know, energy has obviously had a pretty remarkable 2026 and, and, and the energy sector, to be clear, was performing really well, was outperforming even before events Iran started to, bubble over. , But I know a lot of investors look at that and feel like it's extended. It's already had a pretty good run and, and obviously stronger crude oil prices, you know, seem to be, seem to be supporting that.

How do you think about risk management or how would. How should investors be thinking about, given the run it's already had? If you haven't taken a shot at energy yet, how should you think about potential future gains versus the risk of the fact that it's already had the run it has?

Rob: Yeah. And you're right, it has had [00:20:00] a good run. But I, I, what I would say, David, is, you know, a lot of people are underweight energy, right? The energy sector's a small piece of the s and p 500. The way we try to look at it here at Tortoise is, I think you gotta look at, at, at, at energy in a little different way.

First of all, if you haven't looked at the energy sector for a while, I would really encourage you to come back and take a look at it. , Because of the high free cash flow that these companies have generated for several years now, the balance sheets are in much better shape.

A lot of these companies are not, the profitability is not tied as much to, to, uh, crude oil prices and commodity prices as it used to be., And so that said, the other reason to, to really take a. Second look at the energy sector is because think about it, we need energy for everything that we do. So even though energy's a small piece of the s and p 500, in reality, it touches all of the components of the s and p 500.

And so what, what we've told our clients is, you know, five to 10% are not unusual. Um, and, and, and some go even higher than that because, , the significance, of energy, you know, being infrastructure, being industrial, being a consumer product, being a consumer staple.

So, [00:21:00] so that's, that's kind of the, what, what I, I guess the message I would have for people to come back, look at the energy sector again, because I think there's some really attractive things, uh, going on. The valuations are still compelling. The free cashflow yields are still strong. The assets are absolutely essential.

And so that, that I think is something where investors should, should retake a look at their, their allocation to energy because energy demand is just going up.

Dave: I mean, to your point, Rob, I, I feel like a lot of people are probably surprised at how much. Of an impact. It's having just this conflict in the middle is, it's a, it's a great wake up call to how essential a lot of these energy companies are to just the normal function of the, of the economy. So, so good.

Wake up call all around what, you know, one, maybe one final question. You, you mentioned valuation a couple times. When you think about the energy sector as a whole, is there some sort of historical comparison and where we at a lot of discussion has been made about valuations, particularly in the growth sectors, right.

Technology being. Astronomically high relative to historical standards. When you look at energy in particular, where are we at relative to kind of historical expectations [00:22:00] of, uh, of, of a, sort of a normal level of valuation.

Rob: Well, if you think about that energy for years had no free cash flow, if you think about it, right? Especially in the shale technology boom. Right? Because even Exxon and Chevron were spending almost all of their, operating cash flow on capital expenditures, um, and, and building new assets and even, you know, some of the large pipeline operators in Bridge and.

Canada and all, all of these, these larger pipeline operators, similar thing. And, and, and as you know, in some cases a lot of the energy companies were outspending their free, their, their operating cash flow. So they were having to go back to the debt markets and the capital markets all of the time. All of that now, doesn't exist.

There's free cash flow in the sector, so it's hard to draw a parallel because. The sector, at least in my 30 years, rarely has had a, a, uh, adequate level of free cash flow yield. Now we have an excessive amount of free cash flow yield in the energy sector, like I said, 10% for, for a lot of these companies.

That's what I would point people to and, look at that, , free cash flow yield relative to his history. And it's, it's still , substantially higher than where it's been from a historical basis.

Dave: Rob, this is [00:23:00] awesome. I mean, what, what a great opportunity for a lot of our, our viewers to sort of get, get insights from someone , with this much, , experience and understanding of the energy sector. No perfect time than with, with what's going on here. So thanks for coming on the show today. I know@tortoisecapital.com you've got some good information about.

Your, uh, your ETFs and other products. , Thanks for coming on the show. I hope we can do it again. I hope it's not a year until we speak again.

Rob: Thanks, David

I really enjoyed that conversation with Rob Thummel. I, uh, asked him ahead of time. I said, look, brace yourself. I'm gonna be asking some 1 0 1 level questions. And he got a big smile. Said, no problem. Whatever you want to ask, I'm here to do it. I, I am, I'm so thrilled at the opportunity to, uh, to be able to ask someone like Rob questions that I feel like should be on investors' minds.

Right? With what's happening in the Middle East, how does the scope and scale of that conflict, how could that impact crude oil prices? How do we determine where it goes from here? What does, uh, you know, higher or lower crude oil prices, what does that mean for [00:24:00] energy companies? For infrastructure companies for.

Logistic companies for consumer companies. And, uh, I was, uh, I was glad to be able to tease out some of those, uh, some of those things. I hope that helps you if you're not as familiar with the energy space, start to understand some of the different components in there. And it, and it goes to sorts of basic things like our benchmarks, like, uh, you know, WTI, crude oil, uh, and, you know, which is a, you know, a, a benchmark in the us Brent crude oil, which is a European benchmark, more of a global benchmark.

Um, you know, thinking about some of the ripple effect, ripple effects of. Uh, the conflict in the Middle East, uh, as it evolves. Um, also, you know, with pipeline companies, we, uh, we talked about a master limited partnerships. MLP, you're gonna find a number of, um, you know, opportunities if you, if you look around to get exposure to that space.

And a tortoise capital has. Uh, an ETF as we, uh, as we discussed among other ETFs in the, uh, in the energy space. But interesting given, uh, you know, how energy companies have done so well in 2026, even [00:25:00] before the conflict in the Middle East started to, uh, bubble over. Uh, you know, those infrastructure names have done remarkably well.

And what's interesting about those in particular is that they have a, a big dividend component, right? The structure of those partnerships is meant to, uh, you know, have a high dividend. So a lot of times you'll find. Dividend yields up in like the eight, 10 percent-ish kind of range. Uh, and they're able to do that because of the structure and sort of how they, um, you know, how they, uh, you know, design the, uh, the, the product.

So interesting. If you're not familiar with, please do your due diligence, but hope this gives you some, uh, some ideas of where to, uh, to look. I love that idea that AI is basically two things, data and energy. I feel like so many investors kind of automatically think of data. When you think of ai, you think of the magnificent seven.

You think of chip makers, and again, obviously those are pretty important. Uh, but the energy component has been a second part, which is right, all of the energy, all the electricity, all of the energy [00:26:00] requirements to, uh, fuel literally this, uh, this AI revolution. There's a big need for, um, you know, for, uh, energy related products.

And natural gas is a big part of that, right? In terms of providing the, the energy, uh, energy needed. I would say the third part of the AI story, which you didn't get to, is all the companies doing all the stuff with the ai, right? So I would even add. I would add a corollary, data, energy, and probably the consumer, right?

All, all the, um, the things that, um, will, that companies will use AI for, I think is where we, you know, at some point we'll go, but, but the data and the energy are still gonna be obviously vital. And the more we use ai, the more we're gonna. Uh, those resources. Great discussion there. And thanks again for Rob Thomo, uh, for be patiently answering a bunch of, uh, rookie questions.

But those are the kind of things that I, I thought you might, uh, you might find interesting. So hope you enjoy that interview with, uh, with Rob. By the way, if there are other, uh, experts, market strategists, market practitioners, money manager. People that you hear elsewhere that you think [00:27:00] would be great to get on the podcast and, uh, and to ask some questions along the way, uh, please let me know.

Drop a comment on our YouTube channel. Uh, hit me up on social media. I'll look for your message. And, uh, happy to approach anyone and everyone as we plan out the podcast for the, uh, for the months, uh, to come. , By the way, if you wanna learn more about some of the technical analysis tools we can use to analyze the energy sector, how we can think about relative performance.

Of energy versus other sectors, which I would argue has been one of the most important things to think about here in, uh, 2026. So far, our market misbehavior premium memberships could be a great opportunity for you to supercharge your own, uh, process in 2026 and beyond. Three great benefits to the premium membership.

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