In this week's Stansberry Investor Hour, Dan welcomes Stansberry Research's Director of Research Matt Weinschenk back to the show in a special crossover episode with Top Stocks. In this collaborative episode, the two discuss diesel, and Matt shakes things up by asking Dan most of the questions.

Matt and Dan kick things off by discussing the current state of diesel. The reserve diesel supply is now low enough that it's being measured in days instead of the usual months. The most recent report says that America only has 20 days' worth in reserve. This doesn't bode well for AI data centers since they cannot afford to have long downtimes, and at least 90% of their backup generators run on diesel. Another issue is that the fuel has a limited shelf life. If it's being stored, it can only last for so long, and if it's sitting in a generator, it has to be used or switched out so the generator isn't filled with gunk. And Dan says that even if global issues suddenly got better, diesel's current predicament wouldn't be resolved for a while...

I think people are really missing the fact that even if the war stops tomorrow, [it will take] six months to clear the mines in the Strait of Hormuz. That's another six months [to improve supply]... I saw one estimate. It's a very ballpark figure, but let's just use it – 10,000 wells shut down in the Middle East. And when you shut wells down real quick, it's [not like] you're turning the kitchen faucet off and back on. The chemistry keeps going and the geology keeps moving when you turn the man-made machines off... The bottom line is, things happen under the ground that result in the need for, at least in some cases, maybe $10,000 to $20,000 per well of fixes, maybe $1 million of rig work in some cases.

Next, the two explain how difficult it is to get a permit to build a new diesel refinery in the U.S., along with the pressure of building one near residential areas. Diesel costs around $100 per barrel and between $5.45 and $5.50 per gallon on average. Folks will adopt a "not in my backyard" mentality even if the price of diesel is higher. And even if the stakes are high enough, Matt says that no one is going to step up and compete with established oil and gas companies to build a new refinery...

The upfront costs are huge. And you're competing with existing facilities that are old, and there [are] not enough of them. But diesel is still not expensive enough, so to speak, for you to go, "Yeah, we'll build a new $5 billion facility and deal with the headaches and the incredible regulatory overhead to get that done and the risk that it might not even get built." No capitalist will make that decision.

Finally, Matt and Dan detail all the industries and segments that rely on diesel. And with data centers having high demand, in the event of a power outage, they'll pay to have top priority for the available supply. But despite the worry around the potential diesel shortages, there are ways that you can profit from it. Dan shares the names of several companies that he believes will continue to perform well and return value to shareholders. These are companies that he has recommended to his subscribers in the past during "buy the dip" scenarios, and he still recommends them. And Dan teases a new group of "Magnificent Seven" stocks that will serve the "hard asset" needs of AI...

I was looking into the AI trade, and it turned into an energy trade. Well, more broadly speaking, it's an atoms trade. So we've been building the digital economy, and we didn't want to build the atom economy, the physical economy. We wanted to shut down all those physical things, all the mines and the, you know, not even chip manufacturing, all kinds of hard-asset-type businesses. Well, we are hitting a wall with that. The AI build-out is going to continue. It is absolutely massive. And the real play, one of the really great plays right now that is unappreciated, is what we are calling the new "Mag Seven," [which] is actually going to be companies that are serving that need for those atoms, not just digital bits.

Click on the image below to watch the video interview with Matt right now. For the audio version, click "Listen" above.

(Additional past episodes are located here.)

The transcript is coming soon.

This Week's Guest

Matt Weinschenk is the director of research for Stansberry Research. He also serves as the editor of Top Stocks, senior analyst for Dr. David "Doc" Eifrig's franchise of publications, and a member of the investment committee for Stansberry Portfolio Solutions.

At Stansberry, Matt works to find safe ways to grow capital with income-generating investments. His approach marries fundamental research and business quality with a quantitative understanding of the factors that drive stocks over both short- and long-term horizons. Before joining Stansberry in 2013, Matt provided research for The Oxford Club and was a founding analyst for the White Cap Report and Wall Street Daily – focusing on small-cap stocks and disruptive technologies.

Matt has been a Chartered Financial Analyst charterholder since 2014. He also holds bachelor's degrees in economics and political science from the University of Pittsburgh and a master's in applied economics from Johns Hopkins University.

Dan Ferris:                 Get ready for something a little different today. We're going to do a little crossover event with my good friend Matt Weinschenk of Top Stocks. So, you're going to get Top Stocks and you're going to get Stansberry Investor Hour in one. We're going to talk about diesel fuel and the crisis building there. We're also going to talk a little bit about what I'm calling the new Mag Seven – the new Mag Seven or the next Mag Seven out of the AI trade. It's completely different than what you think. You can find out more about it at backdoorprofits2026.com. Matt and I will talk about it. So, let's do this thing, man. Let's talk with Matt Weinschenk. Let's do it right now.

Matt Weinschenk:       OK, Dan, thanks for – I would say joining me, but this is our show. This is the crossover event, Top Stocks and the Stansberry Investor Hour.

Dan Ferris:                 That's right. It's a momentous occasion, Matt. Let's bring it all together.

Matt Weinschenk:       The financial media has been clamoring for such an occasion, but it will be fun.

Dan Ferris:                 Before we talk with my good friend and colleague Matt Weinschenk, I want you to know about a presentation that's happening Wednesday, June 24, at 10 a.m. Eastern time. It's by my good friend and associates, Marc Chaikin and Joe Austin. They're going to talk all about the AI boom. And let me tell you something, these are the two people you want to hear more than any talk about it because they know how to exploit a boom and they know how to exploit a bust and all kinds of other trends. They have tools nobody else has. Marc Chaikin and Joe Austin, June 24, click the link below or aim your phone at the QR code on the screen to secure your spot and see that amazing presentation.

                                    All right, let's talk with my friend Matt Weinschenk, who is also kind of my boss, and we're going to do a special episode of the Stansberry Investor Hour with him. OK, so let's do it. Let's talk with Matt Weinschenk. Let's do it right now.

Matt Weinschenk:       So, I'm going to kind of flip the script. I'm going to ask a lot more questions of you than you get to ask on your show because you're the expert on this one. How bad is the diesel situation?

Dan Ferris:                 The latest report is that the U.S. has 20 days of diesel supply left in reserve. And it's usually months. It's usually not measured in days. But I – to tell you the truth, it's worth talking about how I got into this diesel thing. And it started in the fall of 2025 when I thought just like the dot-com boom was real, it was true, the Internet really did change everything for everyone, there was a big boom and a bust, but the boom was rooted in reality. I think the same thing is happening here with AI. So, I thought, "Boy, wouldn't it be nice if I adapted to this environment and learned how to take advantage of this on the way up?"

Matt Weinschenk:       You were AI-pilled, is what you – yeah.

Dan Ferris:                 Yeah, I got AI-pilled, man. Well said. So, I went all in with my first AI stock, pure speculation, not profitable, growing rapidly, but not profitable: Tempus AI.  They're creating something that strikes me as incredibly valuable, this database where your doctor can go in and basically use AI to tailor a treatment just for you based on your medical history and your genetic information and everything they know about you, rather than generically saying, "He's sniffling. He's sneezing. He's got a cold. Take some medicine and call me in 10 days." It'd be much more tailored. And they're using it for things like – I'm joking about having a cold. They're using for cancer and getting very good results with it. And so – and they're working on including other serious illnesses. So, I thought, "This is very valuable." Long story short, I got stopped out in a heartbeat on Tempus AI.

Matt Weinschenk:       We always use trailing stops or sell stops to protect our downside and we stick to them. So, the stock dropped past your threshold.

Dan Ferris:                 Yeah. Pretty quick. Yeah. It was in and out. And so, I kept looking and I – and it comes down to something that we of course all already know, which is part of the biggest – one of the biggest parts of the AI bottle neck is energy. The amount, the sheer amount of electricity. And so, I looked into it further, and rough numbers here, Matt, 5,400 – or a little more now than 5,400 data centers in the United States. Ninety-five percent of them have diesel backup generators. So, these are – it could be like a 2-megawatt diesel backup generator, and then they have 30 of them or 20 of them or something onsite, and you need enough diesel on site to power them. And even in California, it's 90% diesel backups in California, and we know how much California hates fossil fuels. Right?

Matt Weinschenk:       Yeah.

Dan Ferris:                 So, I thought, "OK, well, this is interesting." And digging further into it, let's just say the power goes out in Loudoun County, Virginia. This is "Data Center Alley," the world's highest concentration of data centers in any one location, like 300 of them, and maybe a year from now 400 of them because they're still building more. A third of the world's Internet goes through here. I mean, it's just incredibly important. Well, if the power goes out and they run down their 12-to-24-hour onsite supply of diesel, because you got to have some, you're looking at maybe the potential for a 3% national spike in demand, and with trucks arriving at data centers every seven or eight minutes, having to replenish the diesel. You can easily see how that could be a bit of a problem.

Matt Weinschenk:       And that 3%, that's just if this happened in Loudon County. That's not all –

Dan Ferris:                 Right. That's a 3% national spike in demand just from if the power goes out for too long in one place. And there are other centers around the United States where there are plenty of data centers. It doesn't have to be the biggest one. But I thought, "Wow, that's interesting."

                                    So, tail risk, at least, insurance – owning refiners at that point is tail risk insurance. Now, you and I both know that commodity plays are tough. They're not for the faint of heart. And mostly – we do have some services that pay close attention to commodities, but mostly you're insane if you go near them is the general view at Stansberry and among a lot of who are fundamental bottom-up investors. So, you've got to have a supply issue as well at the same time to make it appealing.

                                    And it just so happens that in 2025 and early 2026, we lost more than half a billion barrels a day of refining capacity. LyondellBasell, the big chemical company, they shut down the oldest refinery in the United States. That was 268,000 barrels a day. I might not have these numbers perfectly correct. I want to say there was one that Phillips 66 shut down, Wilmington, around the L.A. area, I want to say 139,000 barrels a day, and then 170,000 barrels a day in Benicia, California shut down by Valero, all within the past year.

                                    So, at the same time that we're getting this massive new surge of demand, we're seeing the supply cut by 500,000 barrels. And diesel is interesting, man. Diesel can go bad like milk. And if you let it sit in the machine too long, it'll foul up the generator. So, there's a baseline that has to be maintained where you've got to run them, the diesel generators, for so many hours per month and in order to not foul up the machinery. So, there's this new baseline of demand from these data centers.

                                    I thought, "Well, that's interesting, too." And if it sits – if the onsite supply sits for too long, it has to be replaced every six or 12 months, depending on heat, weather, things, whatever. It's because it can just sit in the tanks and go bad. I thought, "Well, this is an interesting commodity." I don't think – for an energy commodity, nobody thinks about fuel going bad. So, I thought, "Well –" and knowing nothing about anything that was going to happen in Iran, I just thought, "This could be a 50% or 100% return over the next two, three years or something." Well, we're five months in and we're up 60%. And we were actually up 50% just a couple months in as soon as the war started, because of course refined products, a lot of refined products come through the Strait of Hormuz. So, I thought, "Wow."

                                    And so, adding to the AI demand is this new situation in energy, because I think people are really missing the fact that even if the war stops tomorrow, six months to clear the mines in the Strait of Hormuz, so that's another six months, and during those six months – I saw one estimate. It's a very ballpark-y figure, but let's just use it: 10,000 oil wells shut down in the Middle East. And when you shut oil wells down real quick, it's not – you're not turning the kitchen faucet off and back on.

Matt Weinschenk:       No, they're a mess.

Dan Ferris:                 The chemistry keeps going and the geology keeps moving when you turn the manmade machines off. And so, I can describe that in detail, if you wish, but the bottom line is things happen under the ground that result in the need for, at least in some cases, maybe $10,000 to $20,000 per well of fixes, maybe a million-dollar kind of rig work over in some cases. And in – I would suspect. amounting to 1% to 2% of the global production capacity, it's off line permanently.

Matt Weinschenk:       Permanently.

Dan Ferris:                 Yes.

Matt Weinschenk:       Yeah.

Dan Ferris:                 And we're not – if you look at the oil future strip, which is a conversation we have internally at the company here that's going on by the day, it's not pricing any of that in. And I think that's a mistake.

Matt Weinschenk:       Yeah. So, this diesel, I want to go back to that 20 days of inventory –

Dan Ferris:                 Sure. Yeah, let's go back. Yep.

Matt Weinschenk:       – because it's pretty crazy. So, you have increased demand and you have just this long-running decades, long removal of refining capacity. No one wants a refiner in their backyard. You can't get one permitted. They get older. They actually – California really drives them out of town, so to speak. And so, we just get less and less and less.

Dan Ferris:                 Valero practically said that when they closed Benicia. They – you never see this sort of stuff in that analysis. They say, "Well, the facility has not been profitable. Blah, blah, blah." They just keep it very generic. But they said, "We can't do business in California." They were very explicit. So, yeah.

Matt Weinschenk:       Gosh. And so, that's getting tighter. And then when the ships can't go through the strait, everything – any inventory you look at, oil prices have not gone up that as much as you might have expected if someone told you this was going to happen before, because we've been drawing down these inventories.

Dan Ferris:                 There are strategic petroleum reserves all around the world. We're not the only – and they're all drawing them down.

Matt Weinschenk:       Yes.

Dan Ferris:                 And it's still $90 to $100 a barrel and we're all drawing down into the market.

Matt Weinschenk:       I know. And so, one of those things that is drawing down is diesel and we have – we're on the cusp of heading towards – we're pretty close to 20 days of our regular use of diesel, which is just frighteningly low. There's very little breathing room there at that point.

Dan Ferris:                 Yeah. When I wrote this thing up in December, the EIA, the Energy Information Administration, those are the good numbers. The American Petroleum Institute numbers, eh, not so good because they just – it's a voluntary survey of their members. EIA is – everybody is required to report, so that's the good number. And even they were reporting, they said diesel inventories, distillate inventories, which includes diesel, could go to the lowest level since 1963 this year.

Matt Weinschenk:       1963.

Dan Ferris:                 OK. All right.

Matt Weinschenk:       And it's already gone from, like, $350 to $570 or something, I ran the price of diesel, and we're still running through it as fast as we can.

Dan Ferris:                 Yeah, national average as we speak, I think, is in the $540, $550 per gallon region, $600 where I live, on the best coast. And just north of where that Benicio refinery shut down is where I live. Little side tidbit for you, Matt. I just found out that I live in a place that is three hours' drive from a pipeline terminus, and it goes over a mountain pass that gets snowed in. So, basically, I'm dependent on trucks to deliver all the refined products that we consume.

Matt Weinschenk:       Oh, to get the last three hours.

Dan Ferris:                 And I'm like, "Wow. That feels a little – I'm at the end of the supply chain here."

Matt Weinschenk:       So, this – I was going to my – next question was does anyone seem to care when you tell them about this? But there was a time, I want to say it was 2022 when the Colonial pipeline had a cyberattack or something. And so – but that brought gasoline up to the Northeast. And anyway, I was going to drive somewhere, visit people, and I was stopping at gas stations and they all had this little sign taped up [that read,] "Out of gas. Out of gas." And I'm going to another one and it's out of gas. And I'm looking up – I'm on GasBuddy and it's trying to tell you who has gas and who doesn't. But every gas station I drove to, I'm like, "Well, now I'm doing this math of I'm driving further to find gas and my tank is going down and down." And it wasn't an emergency, it wasn't life-threatening, but it's the first time I've been in a situation where you're like, "I can't get this thing that I need?" And people in other countries kind of deal with that in different –

Dan Ferris:                 More often than we do.

Matt Weinschenk:       More often than – we're very lucky. But gosh, when it actually happens, there's – it's panicking. It doesn't feel good to be like, "Where am I going to get my gasoline?" Or my baby formula or my diapers. That was things we saw in COVID. That's scary.

Dan Ferris:                 Our country, our economy runs on diesel fuel. If there's not enough diesel, and things can't be delivered and transported – the pipelines have diesel generators hooked up to them –

Matt Weinschenk:       To run, to push the gas. 

Dan Ferris:                 – to run the compression and stuff. So, you can't transport anything really without diesel in this country. And all the waterborne stuff is diesel-powered and 98% of the big class A trucks are all diesel. It's just – we really – it is not an exaggeration at all to say that our economy runs on diesel. And we're getting pretty low in supply here.

Matt Weinschenk:       And nobody –

Dan Ferris:                 And that thing in 2022 that you mentioned, we're still working on – that's still the peak in price for national average. We still haven't hit that for gasoline or diesel, but we're getting close.

Matt Weinschenk:       Yeah. And people don't seem to worry about this stuff. Everything just shows up as it's supposed to. Every – I don't know. Like you said, natural gas – they use diesel to run the natural gas pipeline. So, the natural gas is coming to your house – your house is heated. If there's no diesel, you can't get natural gas in your house to heat it. It's so interconnected, and we're down to 20 days. And I don't really see anyone worried about this.

Dan Ferris:                 No. And the idea that we're going to build a new refinery is probably a – I don't think that's going to happen. With much fanfare, they announced the America First Refinery. And they didn't tell you that the company, America First Refinery, piddly little company. At best, this is their sixth corporate name. And they've been trying to build a pipeline to get crude oil to that spot where they want to build a refinery [at] the Port of Brownsville, since 2016. They haven't been able to build the pipeline. They haven't been able to build the storage. You and I are not petroleum specialists, but if you don't have a supply of crude oil to the oil refinery, you cannot operate the refinery. Of that, we are certain.

                                    And so, we haven't built – we've actually built 14 rather small facilities, and I'm talking south of 50,000 barrels a day when the last big one was 600,000 barrels in Louisiana with the Marathon facility there. So, that was 1977. So, when people say the last refinery in 50 years, they're talking what we call full conversion. Full conversion, meaning you're not processing – you're not winding up with things like asphalt and gas oil. It's all high value, refined – diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, all the highest value stuff. We haven't done that in a long time. They tried to do it – a small one, a 50,000 barrel a day went up in Belfield, North Dakota and they've been trying to do that since about 2016 or so. And oddly enough, they never quite – they've raised almost $40 million for that billion-dollar project.

                                    That's the other thing. America's First is going to cost between $5 billion and $10 billion if they really build it out to size. It's not – and nobody – you don't see – it's America's First and they have Reliance, this Indian company, which is fine. That's a real company. They've committed some money to it. But you don't see ExxonMobil or Chevron or even Motiva, the Saudi company that operates – they operate Port Arthur, biggest refinery in the country. You don't see any of these guys saying, "Yeah, man, give me a piece of that America's First Refinery deal." They're like, "No. Uh, no." And then the CEO of ExxonMobil is sitting in the White House going "We had our assets stolen in Venezuela twice. It's uninvestable." There's no big news supply of crude or refined products or anything. It's hard to make this stuff. The Fed can't print it now. You know what I'm saying?

Matt Weinschenk:       Yeah, the upfront costs are huge. And so – and you're competing with existing facilities that are old and there's not enough of them, but diesel is still not expensive enough, so to speak, for you to go "Yeah, we'll put a – we'll build a new $5 billion facility and deal with the headaches and the incredible regulatory overhead to get that down and the risk that it might not even get built." No capitalist will make that decision.

Dan Ferris:                 Yeah, but I'm telling you, Matt, it can be $10 a gallon, and you're not going to get it built. And the problem – you can get – you know what they did in Belfield? They got it permitted. They broke a little bit of ground. But now there's barley growing on that site because they didn't want the – to cause a dust storm or whatever, have erosion. That's what you get. You get "Oh, yeah, we'll give you $40 million to get permits and maybe build a road in" or something that looks like you're almost going to do this. But when it comes down to it, as you say, nobody within 100 miles is going to say, "Yeah, let's do it." And up there it was like, "Yeah, let's put a new refinery next to Teddy Roosevelt National Park. Let's do that. That's a good idea."

Matt Weinschenk:       I don't blame them. I don't want one near me either.

Dan Ferris:                 I wouldn't want one – yeah, nobody does.

Matt Weinschenk:       OK. So, how – this – diesel does everything. Let's talk more about that. It delivers all the goods to all the stores, to your house. Trains.

Dan Ferris:                 Trains. Trucks. Like we said, pipelines. Most of the – all of the waterborne trade around the country, and we have some waterborne trade up and down the Mississippi. Boy, I took a cruise up and down the Mississippi and I want to tell you what, it was a pleasure cruise on a nice little ship and everything, it was well outfitted, but you feel like you are driving – it's like that feeling if you've ever driven through Elizabeth, New Jersey and there's – it's like a Mad Max movie set. There's stuff shooting out, the flames shooting out of the top of the refinery columns and whatever's there. And it's like that on the water. And it's just like you and your lovely luxurious pleasure ship riding back and forth and tugboats and all kinds of diesel-powered monstrosities pulling all kinds of commodities, these barges late with commodities. It was hilarious.

Matt Weinschenk:       Oh, my gosh.

Dan Ferris:                 Wonderful trip. Had a great time. But it feels like you're driving through New Jersey. It's amazing.

Matt Weinschenk:       And diesel isn't jet fuel, but it's essentially the same situation, I think for jet fuel.

Dan Ferris:                 Yeah, distillates. Yeah.

Matt Weinschenk:       Yeah, and then military vehicles.

Dan Ferris:                 Yeah. Oh, the military. Yeah, they're a huge, huge diesel consumer. And the funny thing is all of these things that we're talking about – and there's diesel machinery in – agriculture is a huge one. And there's diesel machinery in the industrial world in factories and things. But all of these things that we're talking about, including the military, by the way, the price gets to be $10 a gallon, they'll back off. There will be some demand destruction there. But the data centers, they're 24/7. They've written – their contracts are all written with four nines reliability. That allows you five minutes a year – a year – of downtime or else it costs you real money. So, if it's $10 a gallon and the power goes out, they're paying it.

Matt Weinschenk:       Yeah. They do not care.

Dan Ferris:                 Yeah, so –

Matt Weinschenk:       So, the potential for a huge spike in diesel is there.

Dan Ferris:                 Right. All the supply is going to rush to in a – in a power outage, all the supply is going to rush to the data centers. Plus, we've got this serious supply shortage that's getting more and more urgent. It's an – when you write these things, when I write the words "tail risk," I'm like, "This could get really bad." Three percent national demand spike. I'm like – I recognize that it's a rare – it's unlikely to occur. I think it's more likely than most people think but – and I've written this in the digest about many things. I thought it was my shtick for a while to say, "Yes, this is unlikely, but it's more likely than you realize." And then this sh** happens one day and we wake up and we're like, "Oh my God, it's – we're counting the clock, 20 days of diesel left."

Matt Weinschenk:       I know. Well, that was – commodity prices themselves don't really have to deliver a return like a stock does in general. You don't expect them to keep going up.

Dan Ferris:                 No.

Matt Weinschenk:       But you hold them for times of turmoil, and we had that huge spike in gold post-tariff, and you go, "Oh, my gosh." This is why you've held gold for 10 years, just for this. And then, you – oil was just floating around, you could own a good oil company or something, and then Iran just sent them all soaring. Well, I should say the U.S. and Iran sent them all soaring.

Dan Ferris:                 The day before the war, I think – I can't remember. I think it was WTI, not Brent. But it was $74 a barrel. I don't think – I mean, the end of the strip a year out is, like, $80. So, I don't think we're ever going to see – I don't think we're going to see $74 a barrel for a while.

Matt Weinschenk:       So, when Dan talks about the strip, he means you can look at oil futures and the oil futures kind of tell you what the market expectation of the price at a point in the future is. So, if you look at it and you say, "What's the price of oil in 2028?" they're saying it's going back down, which is aggressive, considering the situation in Iran, how long it's been going on, and the physical impediments to starting oil back up and getting production back to where it used to be. So –

Dan Ferris:                 And other problems. They have – I think they have 14 LNG trains in Qatar, which Qatari LNG is, like, a third of the world supply, 30%, something like that. And so, two of them are wrecked enough that they're going to cost billions of dollars to fix and probably three to five years. That might influence the price of something. Sulfur. The U.S. doesn't have to worry about sulfur. We produce massive amounts of sulfur internally, but the rest of the world doesn't necessarily. And so, sulfur goes through there. Urea. We've all probably heard about these things. Urea, like ammonia, fertilizer, and stuff, which gets into food prices.

Matt Weinschenk:       Well, you had mentioned agricultural diesel and you start thinking about a farmer with skyrocketing fertilizer prices, doubled diesel prices, lower prices on their – agricultural commodities are going down and the tariffs have screwed all of that up and it's like the perfect storm to put farmers out of business.

Dan Ferris:                 Yeah, we've got a drought that's now affecting – a historic drought affecting about 150 million Americans right now, too, that – I don't see that making the headlines. They're not talking about it on Bloomberg or anything.

Matt Weinschenk:       Yeah. OK, well, let's turn to the profit side of the equation off all that sad stuff. What – how do you profit from this refinery shortage, this diesel shortage?

Dan Ferris:                 OK, I think people should always own ExxonMobil and probably Chevron, too. They both have lots of refining capacity. They're fully integrated oils from pulling it out of the ground to refining the product and that you sell – put into your gas tank. But the refiners that I recommended, and I'm willing to go public with these now because they've already run about 60%, so my readers are in that trade and they're good. And I will classify these two as buy the dip stocks. And we bought an excellent dip in December. That was part of the deal that I said at the time, I said, "If you look at the charts, this is a nice dip and we've got the supply situation and all this stuff." And it worked out and we were up 50% in a couple of months. And then, the war happened and all that.

                                    But it's – the two big ones in the United States that are independent are Valero and Marathon, the two biggest – roughly 3 million barrels a day capacity for each of them. And they both produce a lot of renewable diesel as well. And diesel is like – refining generally, refining is – it's practically ancient technology. It's like it hasn't changed. Our need for it doesn't change. Our need for the products doesn't change. And so, I think they have a really nice – it amounts to a competitive advantage. You talked about nobody wants to build one and we've been tearing them down for a couple of decades here. And that makes – of course you tear these things down; each one that remains is a little more valuable than it was before the other one went out of business.

                                    So, I think that – I think these stocks will continue to catch a bid beyond what anybody would normally expect of them. I think it's only just begun. I think there's probably a double or maybe even a triple over the next couple of years in these. From where I started out in December, to be clear, double or triple from there. But that's pretty good from where we are right now, too.

Matt Weinschenk:       OK. Also, you have been working on a new Magnificent Seven. Can you tell us about that?

Dan Ferris:                 OK, I told you I was looking into the AI trade and it turned into an energy trade. Well, more broadly speaking, it's an atoms trade. So, we've been building the digital economy and we didn't want to build the atom economy, the physical economy. We wanted to shut down all those physical things, all the mines and the – even chip manufacturing, all kinds of hard-asset-type businesses. Well, we are hitting a wall with that. The AI build-out is going to continue. It is absolutely massive. And the real play, one of the really great plays right now that is unappreciated is that what I'm calling, what we are calling the new Mag Seven is actually going to be companies that are serving that need for those atoms, not just digital bits. It's going to be everything from copper and uranium to chip making, all the real hard assets of the AI trade.

Matt Weinschenk:       Wow, that sounds incredible. I see you can find out more about that at backdoorprofits2026.com. That's where you can learn about the new Magnificent Seven. And I'm with you. The physical world is running hard into the reality of economic growth and that's where the next opportunity is going to be.

Dan Ferris:                 Yep.

Matt Weinschenk:       And this as an industry, the oil producers – not so much – the refiners were always good, but they've sort of "got religion" on not overspending on capital. They've been a lot more focused on treating shareholders right than exploring for new oil and burning through everything. And so, Marathon, if I look at Marathon – I know it know better than Valero. But if I look at marathon, they are producing good cash flow. They've bought back half their shares since, like, 2018 – bought back half their share since 2020. Their margins are – so, now they're sitting in this spot where they – their margins are going to get bigger because of the crack spread, which is diesel prices going up, so to speak. But when you step back, you forget your macro view, you forget this diesel crisis, it's a good company with a good dividend, sending money back to shareholders, doing the right things. And so, in my mind, a stock goes like this and the value – this is a ticking up value stock with a surge right now because of the current situation.

Dan Ferris:                 Another way to say what you just said is, yes, there are actual commodity companies run by people who have financial discipline. It exists, I promise.

Matt Weinschenk:       I know. It's very – it's fun to find some crazy speculation that doesn't have any assets yet, but this is a real company doing real things.

Dan Ferris:                 Yep. And Valero is in the same general ballpark. But I can't talk about disciplined capital allocation with these companies without saying ExxonMobil is the one everyone should own because they are the Mac Daddy No. 1 capital allocators in the petroleum industry globally. They can't – they don't do anything that doesn't make a return, which is beautiful for shareholders.

Matt Weinschenk:       And so, Exxon, as opposed to Marathon, just so people understand, is a – it does everything. Marathon is refining and also pipelines.

Dan Ferris:                 Right.

Matt Weinschenk:       Yeah, Exxon does basically everything. They have a hole in the ground and they go all the way to a gas station where you actually buy the gasoline.

Dan Ferris:                 Yeah, pipelines, chemicals, all the way to your gas tank. Yeah.

Matt Weinschenk:       Yeah. And so, they can – when you're saying they're capital efficient or good capital allocators, they just put money in the right places. They can move it from one business to the other. They just seem to actually care about making the share price go up for shareholders, which so many companies don't. And it's a cyclical – a very cyclical business, but it's returned 10% a year over the last 10 years, which is a nice steady baseline for a portfolio. It's not – maybe not your cocktail party brag about stock, but this is how – this is what you build a portfolio out of.

Dan Ferris:                 Yeah, the cocktail party brag about stock, that's the one that's going to fall. You just – you're bragging about making 5X and it's going to fall 80%.

Matt Weinschenk:       Yeah, everyone at the next cocktail party will go, "Hey, how did that stock you were telling us about do?"

Dan Ferris:                 "Oh, that was OK. But this other is really great because I'm up 5X on that one now."

Matt Weinschenk:       Exactly. Exactly. So, all right. So, Marathon, similar vein. They just do refining and pipelines, buying back shares, and they're sitting right there where we have this 20 days of diesel left and that's going to be a long-term problem. Is Marathon a top stock? I mean, you brought it in here, so I'm sure you'll say...

Dan Ferris:                 Absolutely. And refining? That's the one.

Matt Weinschenk:       That's the one.

Dan Ferris:                 If you've got to have one, it's Marathon. And I'll tell you another thing. If Dan's wrong about the building of a new refinery and you really can do it, it ain't going to be America's First. It's going to be Marathon or ExxonMobil or some combination of those companies.

Matt Weinschenk:       They've got the capital.

Dan Ferris:                 Because they – yeah, they can write the check tomorrow. That's part of the thing. It's like "So, let me get this straight. All of the companies, literally every single one of them that does this better than anyone one in the world, just about, and allocates capital to this sector better than anyone in the world wants nothing to do with this First Refinery, this major full conversion refinery." OK. But if they ever do, that's how you'll know, Matt. If ExxonMobil or Chevron or Marathon or Valero, any of these guys come out and say, "We want a piece of this new refinery," that's how you'll know.

Matt Weinschenk:       That's a real one. Well, I agree. Marathon, definitely a top stock, definitely a top refiner. Thank you for sharing the Stansberry Investor Hour stage and Top Stocks with me. It's been a great time, Dan.

Dan Ferris:                 Thank you, Matt.

                                    Well, it's always fun to talk with my friend and colleague, Matt Weinschenk. And of course, it's fun to talk about diesel fuel because I've been singing this song for about five or six months now. And I really do – I'm amazed. I really do think it'll continue and I'm amazed that it is turning into – it's nearly a full-blown crisis with the diesel supply being where it is. And that's what Matt and I talked about. And of course, he, like me, we're both seeing the broader trend, too. The physical world is colliding with the financial world. And you heard me talk about the world – the digital world, the world of bits colliding with the world of atoms, the physical world. That is happening right before our very eyes. It's amazing. You can see it in the market. These stocks are ripping. We'll talk about the diesel refinery. Just ripping: 50%, 60% in just a matter of months.

                                    And I think this is the beginning of a bigger trend. And Matt sees it, too, and I know he's got some good ideas on it. Well, maybe we'll talk with him again in another several months about this and see where it is then. Until then, that was a great, fun interview and a fun episode of the Stansberry Investor Hour. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we really did. Remember to hit like and subscribe and sign up for our free daily e-mail.

Announcer:                 Opinions expressed on this program are solely those of the contributor and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Stansberry Research, its parent company, or affiliates.

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