65% of tankers leaving the Gulf are running dark. That tells you
everything. ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏
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 ͏  ͏



 

[Morning Watchlist]

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THE STRAIT IS LEAKING, OIL IS A TAX, AND WASHINGTON IS FUNDING THE
CHOKE POINTS        

_A quick note from Behind the Markets_

Good morning.

Wall Street keeps telling you the market is "resilient."

Translation: the biggest players are still making money… so they
want you to ignore the stress in everything else.

Today's reality is simpler: oil is acting like a tax, the Strait of
Hormuz is still half-closed, and small companies that actually make
things are about to get paid because Washington finally wants domestic
supply chains.

-------------------------

1) THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ IS "LEAKING" OIL — AND THAT'S WHY PRICES
AREN'T ACTING AS CRAZY AS THE SITUATION IS

If you're watching a war, a choke point, and a supply shock… and
wondering why oil isn't already at $150 — here's your answer.

CNN reports JPMorgan estimates visible traffic through the Strait of
Hormuz is down to 15% OF PRE-WAR LEVELS.

But the same analysis points to "clandestine flows" — roughly 2.1
MILLION BARRELS PER DAY transiting during the last two weeks of May,
with pre-conflict flows around 15.6 MILLION BARRELS PER DAY. Tankers
are reportedly dodging the blockade by turning off transponders to
avoid detection. Maritime intelligence firm Vortexa says 65.2% OF
OUTBOUND LADEN VESSELS transited "dark" in May.

In plain English: the market found a messy, expensive, semi-illegal
workaround.

That's the part the headlines miss. The world is adapting. But it's
adapting at a cost: more risk premium baked into every barrel, more
"ghost shipping" and shadow logistics, and more room for sudden
accidents, miscalculations, or enforcement that shuts the workaround
overnight.

And that's why you're seeing this weird pricing regime: oil can stay
in the $90–$110 zone without "breaking"… until it breaks.

Because when you're running a global supply chain on the equivalent of
gray-market plumbing, the system is stable right up until the minute
it isn't.

Meanwhile, somebody is getting paid handsomely for every one of those
longer, riskier voyages.

COMPANY: FRONTLINE (SYM: FRO)
World's largest publicly traded crude tanker operator — VLCCs,
Suezmax, and Aframax vessels

When oil has to travel farther, dodge blockades, and pay war-risk
premiums, tanker owners collect the bill. Frontline operates roughly
80 vessels, including 41 very large crude carriers — and the Hormuz
disruption has sent charter rates to levels nobody modeled a year ago.
VLCC daily rates spiked past $400,000 at the peak of the crisis.

The earnings followed. Frontline reported RECORD ADJUSTED Q1 2026
PROFIT with revenue of $714 million — up sharply from $432 million
the prior quarter — and declared a $1.55 PER SHARE DIVIDEND for the
quarter alone. The forward yield, if elevated rates hold, runs into
the HIGH SINGLE DIGITS OR BEYOND.

FRO is currently trading around $36, with analyst targets in the
$41–$45 range. Fair warning: this is a cyclical, volatile business,
and a durable ceasefire that fully reopens the Strait would compress
rates fast — two analysts downgraded in late May on exactly that
risk. But as long as the Strait stays "leaking" instead of open, the
longer routes and risk premiums keep flowing straight to Frontline's
bottom line.

BOTTOM LINE: The Strait isn't "open or closed." It's partially closed
with leaks — and that means oil volatility is a feature, not a bug.
Your portfolio should be built for that reality.

-------------------------

_Edge on the Street_

EVERYONE SEES THE BOTTLENECK. FEW SEE THE OPPORTUNITY.
[[link removed]]

[VLTLF]
[[link removed]]

Demand for critical metals is rising fast, but supply still takes 7-10
years to catch up. One U.S. company is already producing from an
overlooked source - and it's running today.

SEE THE COMPANY AHEAD OF THE SHIFT >
[[link removed]]

-------------------------

2) OIL WOBBLED, STOCKS SANK — AND INVESTORS ARE STILL PRETENDING
THIS IS "JUST GEOPOLITICS"

The New York Times reported oil prices fluctuated and equity markets
pulled back after a wave of U.S.–Iran strikes strained a two-month
cease-fire.

The piece notes Brent slipped about 0.4% to around $91 and WTI fell
about 0.6% to roughly $88.

Wall Street will say: "Oil is down today. So we're fine."

That's not how this works.

The real damage from a $90+ oil regime isn't one-day price direction.
It's the second-order effect: higher transport costs, higher input
costs, margin compression for anyone without pricing power, and
consumer demand getting quietly taxed.

And the market's reaction tells you something else. NYT notes S&P 500
futures were pointing to a drop of about 0.8%.

When investors start selling the index on war + energy stress, you're
not in a "stock picker's playground." You're in a macro tape.

So who keeps earning when energy stays elevated for a year? The
companies that charge a toll on every barrel and molecule — no
matter what the price is.

COMPANY: ENTERPRISE PRODUCTS PARTNERS (SYM: EPD)
Fee-based midstream energy giant — pipelines, processing, storage,
and export terminals

Enterprise doesn't drill. It doesn't bet on oil prices. It owns the
pipes, processing plants, and export docks that energy has to move
through — and it charges fees based on volume, not price. Think of
it as the tollbooth on the energy highway.

That model shows up in the numbers. Q1 2026 net income rose 7.4% YEAR
OVER YEAR to $1.48 billion. The partnership is building $5.3 BILLION
IN MAJOR CAPITAL PROJECTS — including Permian processing plants and
export terminal expansions — and just raised its growth capex
budget. Leverage sits at a conservative 3.2x.

EPD is currently trading around $38 and pays a quarterly distribution
of $0.55 per unit — an annual yield of roughly 5.9%. It has raised
that distribution for 27 CONSECUTIVE YEARS, through oil crashes,
pandemics, and rate cycles.

When oil is a tax on the economy, EPD is the toll collector that gets
paid regardless. That's the kind of business you want when
"geopolitics" stops being a headline and starts being a regime.

BOTTOM LINE: In an energy-driven world, the question isn't "is oil up
today?" The question is: who can keep earning when energy stays
elevated for a year.

3) THE UNDERFOLLOWED DEFENSE TRADE ISN'T PRIME CONTRACTORS — IT'S
CRITICAL MATERIALS AND THE COMPANIES THAT CAN ACTUALLY DELIVER

Retail investors always get pushed toward the obvious names.

Big defense primes. Big ETFs. Big headlines.

But the real bottlenecks aren't always in the final assembly.

They're in specialized inputs.

COMPANY: ELMET TECHNOLOGIES / THE ELMET GROUP (SYM: ELMT)
Sole U.S.-owned, vertically integrated tungsten and molybdenum
manufacturer

Elmet announced Tuesday it secured $4.3 MILLION IN STRATEGIC FUNDING
through a U.S. government contract award to expand domestic
manufacturing capabilities for molybdenum-based products and
refractory metal components used in critical defense programs.

The release highlights investments in precision machining, production
automation, additive manufacturing, finishing, and inspection systems
— aimed at increasing throughput and improving precision components
for mission-critical interceptor systems.

Here's why this tiny contract matters more than its dollar figure.
Elmet is the ONLY U.S.-OWNED AND OPERATED, VERTICALLY INTEGRATED
TUNGSTEN AND MOLYBDENUM MANUFACTURER IN THE COUNTRY — nearly 400
employees across facilities in Maine, Ohio, and Michigan. Those metals
go into interceptors, hypersonics, and defense platforms that cannot
legally or practically source from China. The company IPO'd earlier
this year, raising $125.5 MILLION, and reported Q1 revenue growth of
nearly 21% with accelerating demand in aerospace, defense, and
government markets.

The stock is currently trading around $17, down from recent highs —
small, volatile, and thinly covered. That's exactly the profile. This
is a speculative small-cap, so size any position accordingly.

Here's the bigger setup:

In a world where wars are real again, "domestic capacity" stops being
a political slogan and becomes an industrial policy.

And industrial policy doesn't just fund the primes. It funds specialty
metals, machining and inspection, subcomponents that can't be swapped
at the last minute, and suppliers that can pass audits and deliver on
time.

That's where small and mid-caps can get explosive — because they're
under-owned, under-covered, and suddenly indispensable.

BOTTOM LINE: Don't just buy the prime. Follow the choke points in the
supply chain — especially critical materials and precision
manufacturing.

-------------------------

_Finplays_

TINY NASDAQ FIRM LANDS €13.9 MILLION SEMICONDUCTOR DEAL
[[link removed]]

The semiconductor arms race is heating up.

AI chips. Advanced-node fabs. Hundreds of billions of dollars pouring
into the infrastructure powering the next generation of computing.

Every major economy wants more chip production.

Every tech giant wants more AI capacity.

That's where HUHUTECH (NASDAQ: HUHU) enters the picture.

The company recently landed a €13.9 million deal tied to a new
advanced-node semiconductor facility in Europe.

Just weeks earlier, it announced a separate USD$3 million contract
connected to Arizona's rapidly expanding semiconductor corridor.

Many investors haven't heard of HUHUTECH yet. But the company has
participated in more than 1,000 semiconductor fab projects across
North America, Europe, and Asia - giving it exposure to one of the
most important industrial buildouts underway today.

While chipmakers dominate the headlines, another story is unfolding
deeper within the semiconductor supply chain.

And a handful of lesser-known companies are helping make the AI
buildout possible.

GET THE FULL BREAKDOWN
[[link removed]]

-------------------------

4) TOMORROW'S MARKET IS ABOUT "WHO NEEDS MONEY" — NOT WHO HAS THE
BEST STORY

One more contrarian point.

In a high-rate, high-volatility world, the market doesn't punish bad
products first.

It punishes bad balance sheets.

When oil stays elevated, inflation stays sticky. When inflation stays
sticky, the Fed stays restrictive. And when the Fed stays restrictive,
small caps stop being a "value" bucket and become a "financing"
bucket.

So here's the filter I'm using right now: Who can self-fund growth?
Who has real free cash flow — not adjusted EBITDA? Who has
maturities coming due in the next 24 months? Who is one capital raise
away from losing control?

Wall Street wants you to chase the big narrative.

Retail wins by doing the boring work: avoiding funding traps.

If you want that filter applied systematically across the whole
market, there's an ETF built on exactly these criteria.

ETF: ISHARES MSCI USA QUALITY FACTOR ETF (SYM: QUAL)
Large- and mid-cap ETF screening for high return on equity, stable
earnings, and low debt

QUAL's index does three things: it selects for HIGH RETURN ON EQUITY,
STABLE EARNINGS GROWTH, AND LOW DEBT-TO-EQUITY — sector by sector,
so you're not just buying a tech fund in disguise. In other words, it
owns the companies that don't need permission from the bond market.

QUAL is currently trading around $213, near the top of its 52-week
range of $175 to $218, with a rock-bottom 0.15% expense ratio. It
holds the market's most profitable, least-leveraged large companies
— the ones that fund their own growth, survive credit squeezes, and
pick up market share when weaker competitors start cutting.

It won't be the most exciting line in your portfolio. It will be the
one still standing when the financing bucket gets emptied out.

BOTTOM LINE: The best stock in your portfolio is the one that doesn't
need permission from the bond market.

-------------------------

_The Oxford Club_

THE WINDOW MAY BE CLOSING [[link removed]]

Most investors miss opportunities the same way.

They wait.

They assume they'll get around to it later.

Then the story catches fire, the crowd rushes in, and the chance to be
early disappears.

One market strategist believes that may be happening right now with a
little-known opportunity connected to SpaceX, Starlink, and the AI
buildout.

His concern isn't that investors will miss it entirely.

It's that they'll discover it after everyone else does.

SEE THE OPPORTUNITY BEFORE THE CROWD →
[[link removed]]

-------------------------

_BEFORE YOU GO_

Markets are turning into a game of bottlenecks.

Energy bottlenecks. Supply-chain bottlenecks. Financing bottlenecks.

If you train yourself to look for choke points — instead of hype —
you'll see the next winners before Wall Street can package them into a
product.

We are issuing this disclosure in compliance with Section 17(b) of the
Securities Act, which requires us to disclose any compensation
received or expected to be received in cash or in kind in connection
with the purchase or sale of any security.

We would like to inform you that we have received or expect to receive
compensation in connection with the purchase or sale of the securities
of LibertyStream Infrastructure Partners Inc. (VLTLF). The
compensation consists of $7,500 and was received/will be received from
i2i Marketing Group.

This communication should not be considered as an endorsement of the
securities of adviser LibertyStream Infrastructure Partners Inc.
(VLTLF) and we are not responsible for any errors or omissions in any
information provided about the securities of LibertyStream
Infrastructure Partners Inc. (VLTLF) by Edge on the Street or i2i
Merketing Group.

We encourage you to conduct your own due diligence and research before
making any investment decisions. You should also consult with a
financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

This disclosure is made as of 06/11/2026.

We are issuing this disclosure in compliance with Section 17(b) of the
Securities Act, which requires us to disclose any compensation
received or expected to be received in cash or in kind in connection
with the purchase or sale of any security.

We would like to inform you that we have received or expect to receive
compensation in connection with the purchase or sale of the securities
of HUHUTECH International Group (NASDAQ: HUHU). The compensation
consists of up to $7,000 and was received/will be received from Think
Ink Marketing.

This communication should not be considered as an endorsement of the
securities of adviser HUHUTECH International Group (NASDAQ: HUHU) and
we are not responsible for any errors or omissions in any information
provided about the securities of HUHUTECH International Group (NASDAQ:
HUHU) by Finplays or Think Ink Marketing.

We encourage you to conduct your own due diligence and research before
making any investment decisions. You should also consult with a
financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

This disclosure is made as of 06/11/2026

Our mailing address is:
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Boca Raton, FL 33431

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