I Beat Hunter Biden

No sleep, a strange bestseller list, and a heads-up.

Writing to you on almost no sleep this morning. Spain won the World Cup last night, and we live right in the town center — so the celebrating went on till five. The video below is just how it started; it only got louder from there.

So forgive me if this one’s a little groggy.

Last week brought a couple of milestones I'm still getting my head around. Thanks to you, SNAFU Investing hit #1 Rising in Finance on Substack. And then there was one that nearly made me spit out my morning coffee: on the New Bestsellers list, we landed at #2 — one spot ahead of Hunter Biden.

Needless to say, I did not have “beat Hunter Biden on a bestseller list” on my bingo card for this year. Come to think of it, I didn’t even have “Hunter ‘Laptop’ Biden starts a Substack.” What a (weird) timeline.

But I’ll take it as a win — Substack clearly worked their asses off pushing the guy into every corner of the platform.

Now, the unfortunate flip side of all this newfound “popularity.”

A wave of impersonators has shown up — fake accounts using my name and photo.

So a few things, plainly, so you’re never caught out:

I will never DM you or reach out to you off Substack out of the blue (the only exceptions being founding members, or anyone who’s written to me first). Otherwise, the only place you’ll hear from me is right here, in the public comments. I will never try to move you onto WhatsApp, Telegram, or some private “signals” group — that is always a scam, never me.

The tell is usually in the name: the fakes misspell a letter or look just slightly off.

If one contacts you, don’t engage — just report it. That’s the only thing that actually gets them taken down. And if you’re active on Substack, double-check you’re not following one of them by mistake. My only account is Lau Vegys (SNAFU Investing with Lau Vegys).

On my end — we’re into the third week of the launch now, and I’m happily buried. Between working through a mountain of email — sorting out sign-ins and payment snags one by one, helped enormously by my lovely wife, who, having done her time in tech startups, knows her way around this stuff far better than I do — and hunting down the next opportunity to put in front of you next month, there aren’t many spare hours. If I haven’t gotten back to you yet, I will — bear with me.

Speaking of opportunities — I also dropped a second SNAFU Investing recommendation on Saturday; the free silver thesis behind it is open to everyone above the paywall, and paid members can see the pick itself. (Last week also brought the Wednesday essay on uranium, the Strait of Hormuz, and the sulfuric-acid squeeze — linked just below if you missed it.)

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From the Comments

One of the things I’ve come to appreciate most about writing here is the conversation that happens in the comments. Five stood out last week, for different reasons — and a couple of them were reacting to this:

Source: X

That was a story I highlighted in a Substack Note last week. As I put it at the time: looks like politics isn’t just influencing markets anymore — it’s becoming a subscription service. Outrageous on so many levels. But then again… I suppose that’s just SNAFU. Judging by the comments, it clearly resonated.

Note that each comment below links back to where it was posted, so you can click through for the context.

Thanks again to everyone who left a comment last week. I read all of them, even the ones I don’t get a chance to reply to individually.

Regards,

Lau Vegys

P.S. If you joined as a paid member this week — welcome aboard. Here’s where to dive in:

• The first recommendation — a uranium play, with the full thesis, buy-up-to price, and tranche levels.

• The second recommendation — a silver miner, out this weekend.

• The live portfolio — the scorecard of every open position and where each one stands.