Editor’s Note: Eric Fry is a “global macro” investing expert and the analyst behind the InvestorPlace services The Speculator and Fry’s Investment Report. He’s also one of the most successful analysts in the newsletter industry. While most investors are lucky to find one or two 1,000%+ recommendations over the course of their career, Eric has found 42, more than anyone we know of in our business. Now he’s making available to the larger public, for the first time, his newest trading service. It’s one that employs an investment strategy that many of the world’s most successful money managers use versions of.
And he believes that a couple of the executive orders that Donald Trump signed this week just created a profit opportunity that’s ideal for this strategy. Eric just released a free video strategy session where he goes in-depth on this strategy. You can check that out here. He recorded that broadcast before Inauguration Day, however, so I invited Eric here today to explain the opportunity President Trump just set up for us.
************************
Hello, Reader.
Amid the blitz of executive orders signed by Donald Trump this week, two in in particular have the potential to turn the best trade of early 2025 into the best trade of maybe the next few years.
Let me explain…
Since the start of the year, we’ve seen La Niña conditions officially develop, and those typically bring frigid winters to North America.
That’s certainly true this year.
On Monday, Washington saw its coldest Inauguration Day since 1985. And Southern American cities from Houston to New Orleans to Jacksonville are still digging out of the region’s heaviest snowfall since accurate records began in the early 1900s.
And – good news for my subscribers –my Fry’s Investment Report oil and gas recommendations are surging. Plus, my Forecast #4 for 2025 – that natural gas will outperform the S&P 500 – is off to a strong start.
Let’s take a look at some numbers…
- SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production (XOP): +6.8% YTD
- Valero Energy Corp. (VLO): +13.6% YTD
- S&P 500 Index: +3.0% YTD
Clearly, those who speculated on energy in late 2024 are feeling mighty smug right now… and may even be considering cashing out to take some gains.
But I think they may want to hold on a while longer.
Better yet, they should consider making a small, simple change to their investment approach… one that can transform double-digit winners into triple-digit windfalls. (I dive into many more details in a free research video on the strategy that my team just put together, which you can check out here.)
Here’s the thing: Trump is going to ratchet up domestic energy production like we’ve never seen before. And he’s doing that with via two executive orders he signed this week:
“Unleashing American Energy” and “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential.”
You can think of these as the “Drill, Baby, Drill” executive orders.
The first order encourages “energy exploration and production on Federal lands and waters… in order to meet the needs of our citizens and solidify the United States as a global energy leader long into the future.”
The second order lifts restrictions on oil, gas, and mineral production in Alaska by maximizing “the development and production of the natural resources located on both Federal and State lands within Alaska” and prioritizing “the development of Alaska’s LNG potential.”
This includes the sale and transportation of Alaskan LNG across the United States and the Pacific region.
The goal here is to revive the LNG industry, which produces and transports natural gas in liquid form. It is historically a cost-effective way to transport natural gas over long distances and to places where pipelines are not feasible.
Now, not all natural gas is created equal. You can’t just pick a natural gas stock at random. You see, the gas’s location greatly affects its value.
For example, natural gas fetches $4.43 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) at the Henry Hub pipeline convergence point in Louisiana. But gas at the Waha Hub trading outpost near the Delaware Basin in West Texas “sells” for minus $1.06/MMBTU.
In other words, producers near the Waha Hub literally pay companies to truck away natural gas. The Delaware region’s natural gas is geographically undesirable.
But the economics of producing natural gas in the Delaware Basin may be on the verge of a major transformation – one that will flip today’s negative gas pricing into solidly positive pricing.
And I’ve found two ways to take advantage of the opportunity.
The first is a stock.
The second is that simple twist in your investment strategy that I mentioned earlier… the one that can turn 2X winners into 5X winners – and beyond.
Let’s take a look…
The “Pipeline” to Achieving Long-term Gains
Investment in natural gas transport and processing facilities has recently ramped up in the Delaware Basin.
One of those facilities is a new pipeline that transports up to 2.5 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas from the Waha Hub to the Katy area just west of Houston. This pipeline opened in the fall of 2024.
And anotherpipeline is expected to begin operating in 2026. This one will transport gas from West Texas to the Agua Dulce Hub in South Texas, near Corpus Christi.
Now, one particular natural gas producer has contracted for significant offtake capacity on both pipelines. It is planning to ramp up its natural gas production from the Delaware Basin over the next few years… and to take advantage of the LNG pricing improvement as these projects get built out.
I first spotted the opportunity that is company is offering back in November. That is when I recommended it to my Leverage subscribers.
Now, one way of investing in this natural gas opportunity would be to buy and hold a stock. But at Leverage, we do something a little different. We use the power of options.
To refresh folks new to options, they are side bets on a stock’s price that allow investors to make enormouspayoffs if they get things right. The math might be complicated, but the outcome is straightforward.
Plainly put, an option is a security that confers the right (but not the obligation) to buy or sell a specific security at an agreed price within a set period of time.
Every option is identified with a specific stock. So, whenever you place an options trade, the movement of the underlying stock will affect the success or failure of your investment.
The Power of Time
Now, all options have expiration dates. It’s usually a matter of weeks or months.
These are the short-term options that you often hear about making their owners triple-digit gains in a week or two – or even just a day. Just as often, you hear about them wiping out traders’ portfolios overnight.
I avoid them.
The sort of options I use at Leverage are long-dated options whose expiration dates are one to three years away. And when it comes to making gains of 100%, 200%, 1,000%, and more, I typically prefer these LEAPS options. (That stands for “Long-Term Equity Anticipation Security.”)
I prefer LEAPS for a variety of reasons, including:
- The “price of admission” to a particular trade is lower. For example, buying call options on 1,000 shares of a stock costs much less than buying 1,000 shares of that stock outright
- You benefit from leverage (hence, the name of my service). You put down a small investment to control a large amount of stock.
- You have much smaller downside risk, compared to a stock. For example, the buyer of a call option can’t lose more than the cost of the option, no matter how far the underlying stock might fall.
There’s also the added benefit of having more time for your investment thesis to play out.
In fact, just this week my Leverage subscribers booked partial gains of more than 550% on a dynamic LEAPS call option I recommended just a year ago on an AI-focused high-tech materials firm. We’ve still got a quarter position open on that trade – and thanks to taking profits along the way, we’re guaranteed a total gain of at least 230% on this trade, even if the stock goes to zero from here.
The underlying stock is up about 80% over the past year. Now you can see why these LEAPS trades are so powerful.
You can use this strategy to turn small moves in stocks over a year or two into huge gains.
For example…
- The gold ETF GLD I recommended is up 9%… but by using this strategy, my members saw their stake in GLD go up 117%.
- Shares of the 20-year Treasury bond ETF (TLT) rose 18%, but my play went up 107%.
- And my recommendation of Vipshop Holdings Ltd. (VIPS) went up 22% for the stock… but my LEAPS strategy soared 252%.
It’s why, to return back to the natural gas producer in the Delaware Basin, I recommended the trade as a LEAPS call option.
Thanks to Trump’s “Drill, Baby, Drill” executive orders, the LNG stock I recommended to my members – and others like it – have double-digit potential in the near future. But with a LEAPS position… bought at today’s prices… with the economic benefit of leverage that long-term options give you… triple-digit returns are definitely in play.
And quadruple-digit returns are possible.
For a deeper dive into how my strategy works, here’s that link again to check out my latest free research video.
When used selectively, like we do at Leverage, options can impart powerful benefits to an investment portfolio, turning ordinary stock moves into large profits.
Regards,
Eric Fry
Editor, Smart Money
