On the Swedish stock exchange we have Thule ($THULE) — the company best known for making it easy to haul your active outdoor lifestyle around.

Roof boxes, bike racks, strollers, bike trailers, backpacks, suitcases… if it helps you carry stuff while looking like a proper Swede on the move, Thule probably makes it.

On Monday they reported Q2 results: organic growth of 2.5%. Other numbers were decent, but the market had priced in more, so the stock took a hit.

As a Swede with no position in the company, the number that caught my eye was that they actually increased sales.

Why does that matter? Because Thule’s core customers are families with children — and their products sit firmly in the higher price range. These are loyal buyers, often referred to as the “Thule family” because once you start, you tend to buy the whole ecosystem.

When families with kids start opening their wallets for premium outdoor gear again, it’s usually a pretty good signal that the Swedish consumer is finally crawling out of this long, painful recession.

It’s still early days. But it’s one of the more encouraging signs I’ve seen in a while.

While much of the world is focused on the Strait of Hormuz, it’s worth paying attention to what’s happening in China.

Beijing is sending mixed signals again.

On one hand: New stimulus measures aimed at the real estate sector and consumption.

On the other: Increased military activity and threats against Taiwan.

Is this a deliberate strategy? Creating external tension to justify domestic stimulus and distract from internal problems?

A classic “rally around the flag” move.

If it works, it could be good news for European luxury stocks.

Chinese consumers are among the biggest buyers of Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Chanel and Ferrari.

A stronger Chinese economy usually translates into higher luxury spending.

This might be why LVMH, Hermes and Richemont could be unexpected winners from Beijing’s latest moves.

Right now, most platforms only show you the change in share price compared to your cost basis. That works okay for pure growth stocks. For those of us who actually live off dividends, it’s borderline useless.

Take $FDUS as a perfect example. On one of our platforms it shows as a loss based on current market value. We’ve held it for over five years. Once you factor in the dividends received and reinvested during that period, the picture changes dramatically — and it suddenly looks like a very solid holding.

This is exactly the kind of information that matters when deciding whether to keep, add to, or sell a position. Yet I still have to calculate it manually in a spreadsheet.

I only started tracking total return properly in 2025, so I don’t have full historical data. But even looking at the last 18 months, the difference between “what the platform shows” and “actual performance” is significant.

Come on brokers and platforms — give dividend investors a proper total return view. It’s not rocket science.

The conflict in the Strait of Hormuz is messing with more than just oil prices — it’s quietly threatening our dinner plates.

Sulfur, a byproduct of oil and gas production, is essential for making sulfuric acid. That acid turns phosphate rock into the fertilizers (DAP and MAP) that feed much of the world. No sulfur = no fertilizer = higher food prices and potential harvest shortfalls.

The ongoing disruptions have already caused real pain: factories cutting production, demand destruction, and surging costs for import-dependent countries like India, Brazil, Indonesia, and parts of Africa.

It’s a beautiful paradox for the energy transition. We want to reduce fossil fuels to fight climate change, but we also desperately need fossil fuel production to avoid starving. Trees love CO₂, but humans apparently need the dirty byproduct sulfur to grow food.

Classic Catch-22. Who knew geopolitics could make my grocery bill a geopolitical issue?