As Diesel Crack Explodes Higher, DNB Warns Beijing Has “Little Reason” To Rescue The West Bloomberg’s NYMEX one-month heating-oil/crude spread, tracked on the Terminal as the HOCL1 Index, breached $100 per barrel early Tuesday before surging to nearly $106 by late morning. The historic blowout is a major warning that refinery outages in Russia (read Goldman’s latest diesel warning), restrictions on industrial fuel exports, and […]

Republican Campaign Arms Ask Supreme Court To Restore Cheapest TV Ad Rates Ahead Of Midterms Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times, Republican committees have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow them access to lowest-rate television ads before the November midterms after a federal appeals court ruled that only candidates are entitled to the special campaign rate required by law. The Supreme Court in Washington on Aug. 31, […]

Trump: ‘Large & Powerful Strikes’ In Iran Ongoing As ‘Retaliation’ For Mining Hormuz Strait Summary Reports of fresh US strike wave on southern Iran, oil soars Bessent Says Hormuz Will Be “Worthless Piece of Water” In Two Years Iran offers conditional ceasefire: Pezeshkian says Iran will return to talks if the US honors prior commitments, which Tehran says it has violated. Tankers hit in Strait of Hormuz: Two supertankers […]

‘Barbaric’: Children Under Five Being Subjected To Forced Marriage In Britain Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News, Britain now has children aged five and under on the books of the Forced Marriage Unit. Home Office figures obtained through Freedom of Information requests show at least 27 children five or younger were referred between 2021 and 2025. They sit inside a wider total of more than 100 children aged 12 or under. […]

Shein IPO Flops As Fast-Fashion Empire Sees Growth Slowdown Chinese online fast-fashion retailer Shein made its long-awaited Hong Kong market debut Tuesday, only to fall flat in what can only be viewed as a disappointing IPO plagued by investor concerns about slowing growth, rising costs and an increasingly challenged international business model. “Shein’s many challenges are well known to investors and likely behind the sharp […]

Trump Admin Asks Appeals Court To Halt Block On USPS Mail-In Ballot Rule Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times, The Trump administration filed an emergency motion on Aug. 31 seeking a stay of a judge’s ruling that blocked the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) from enforcing its requirements to tighten rules around mail-in voting. The motion was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit shortly after U.S. District […]

Times Square Stabbing Victim Was Bank of America VP One of the two victims of a Midtown Manhattan stabbing yesterday has been identified as a vice president in Bank of America’s global corporate and investment bank division, the WSJ reports.  Erin Piacenti, 32, of New Jersey was in Times Square when an unhinged woman armed with knives attacked both Piacenti and a man shortly after 4:20 p.m. “We are shocked and deeply saddened […]

“Worse Under The Hood”: Goldman Warns Consumer Stocks Cracking As Hedge Fund Exposure Tanks With the US national average for gasoline above the politically sensitive $4-per-gallon level and the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index signaling waning household confidence as summer enters its final innings, pressure is building across the consumer complex. Goldman Sachs’ Scott Feiler warned Tuesday that consumer stocks have […]

OpenAI Stops Providing AI Models To Cursor Amid Feud With Elon Musk Authored by Dylan Morgan via The Epoch Times, OpenAI said Friday that it plans to stop providing AI models to Cursor, the coding startup now owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. This continues a years-long public feud between OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk, who was a cofounder and board member of OpenAI but left in 2018. SpaceX purchased Cursor for $60 billion in […]

Tropical Storm Edouard Takes Aim At America’s Largest Refinery Hub The National Hurricane Center has issued a hurricane watch for parts of the Texas and Louisiana coasts as Tropical Storm Edouard strengthens in the Gulf of America and tracks directly toward one of America’s most critical refining and LNG corridors. Edouard was approximately 90 miles southeast of Port Arthur, Texas, early Tuesday, with maximum sustained winds of 40 […]

Ugly JOLTs Report Hints At Another Negative Payrolls Print On Friday After five straight months of JOLTS beats, including two blowout prints for April and May and zero misses since 2025, last month’s JOLTS report was a surprising miss (despite the previously discussed surge in government job openings). Fast forward to today when the latest JOLTS report made it two misses for two, with the BLS announcing moments ago that in July, […]

G20 Plans “Death By A Thousand Cuts” For China’s Economy By Benjamin Picton, senior market strategist at Rabobank The Natural Equilibrium G20 finance ministers, central bank governors and a handful of high-profile CEOs gathered in Asheville, North Carolina, yesterday. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent held court, telling allies that the only way out of heavy debt loads is growth, and that they needed to do more to confront China on […]

Russia Turns Up The Heat On Ukraine’s Odesa As Port Strikes Intensify Throughout most of the more than four-year long Russia-Ukraine war, Russian forces have largely held off from any sustained and large-scale attack against the key southern port city of Odesa, but this restraint has clearly changed. Odesa since Monday has been getting pounded, with Ukrainian officials describing that Ukrainian port infrastructure and a border […]

New Orders Drop But US Manufacturing Surveys Still Signal ‘Solid’ Growth In August Despite sustained relative weakness in US ‘hard data’, US manufacturing operating conditions improved solidly again in August, according to the latest PMI data from S&P Global, but it’s not all rainbows and unicorns… August S&P Global US Manufacturing PMI beat, flat at 53.9 from July’s print, but up from the flash print of 53.2 and better […]

Europeans Blindsided By Russian Finance Minister’s Presence At G20 In Asheville Amid two days of talks among G20 finance ministers and central bank heads gathered in Asheville, North Carolina, an unexpected and deeply awkward issue (for some) has emerged. The whole session is being overshadowed by the fact that the White House welcomed Russia to the meeting, which has set off anger and frustration among the Europeans. Also, some […]

Judge To Rule Today On Whether Alleged Charlie Kirk Assassin Will Stand Trial Authored by Janice Hisle via The Epoch Times, A Utah judge has set a hearing for Sept. 1 to consider whether the high-profile case against conservative commentator Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin, Tyler James Robinson, 23, should go to trial. Judge Tony Graf Jr. also must weigh whether to uphold seven charges against Robinson, including one carrying a […]

Futures Tumble As Global Yields Hit Multi-Year HIgh, Oil Jumps On Iran Escalation Stock futures are set to start the new month on the backfoot – having weathered a variety of challenges to post a gain for August – with tech lagging as a global selloff pushes yields to the highest level since 2008. As of 8:00am ET, S&P futures are down 0.6%, while Nasdaq futures slide 1.2% following a reports of a strike by Micron’s labor […]

Cyber Group Finds Surveillance Backdoors In Routers Sold In US Authored by Arthur Zhang via The Epoch Times, Cybersecurity researchers have found surveillance backdoors in Chinese carrier routers made by Zbtlink and the same software in a different Zbtlink-made router sold through Amazon. Ethernet cables are connected to the back of a wireless router. Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images Chinese law requires telecom and internet companies […]

What Happens When A Metal The West Can’t Live Without Runs Short At the end of last week, the Trump administration’s halt to tungsten scrap exports took effect, as the U.S. and its allies confront a deepening supply crisis and race to find new supplies.  China’s export restrictions are accelerating the West’s campaign to secure ex-China supplies, reinforcing our U.S.-China decoupling theme and placing a major spotlight on the […]

Trump’s Venezuela Energy Gambit A ‘Major Problem’ For Europe Submitted by Thomas Kolbe In the end, it happened as it had to: The United States will likely play a decisive role in the future development and marketing of Venezuela’s oil and gas reserves. On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a corresponding deal on his Truth Social platform, describing it himself as “THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY.” According to […]

Restaurants Face GLP-1 Squeeze As Adopt-Or-Die Inflection Arrives Bernstein’s latest GLP-1 tracker has Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro leading script growth, with downstream effects compounding pressure on the restaurant industry already facing weakening consumer confidence, as gas prices nationwide remain above a politically sensitive $4 a gallon in late summer. Turning to UBS’s latest note on the restaurant industry, Dennis Geiger, who […]

Lavrov Says NATO Military Activity In Arctic Threatens Russia’s Security Authored by Chris Summers via The Epoch Times, NATO military activity in the Arctic poses a direct threat to Russia’s security and could lead to disastrous consequences, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov wrote in an article published by the Russian Foreign Ministry on Monday. A Russian soldier stands guard beside a Pansyr-S1 air defense system on Kotelny […]

Merz Warns Right-Wing Victory Will Hurt Germany, But Nomura Says Investors Aren’t Buying It German Chancellor Friedrich Merz spent Sunday fearmongering on public broadcaster ARD, warning that a potential victory for Alternative for Germany in next Sunday’s Saxony-Anhalt election could inflict economic damage on the region. Deutschland kann viel. Die Potenziale unseres Landes sind groß – und diese müssen wir nutzen. […]

Former US Intel Officials: Dangerous Talk Of Putin’s ‘Loss’ In Ukraine Authored by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity MEMORANDUM FOR: The President FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) SUBJECT: Dangerous Talk of Putin’s ‘Loss’ in Ukraine VIPS tells President Trump that once apprised of the reality on the ground (and in the air) by his intelligence advisors, he might choose to do what is in […]

Le Pen Would Beat Every Rival In 2027, Major French Poll Finds Marine Le Pen would win France’s 2027 presidential election against every major rival now being measured, according to a major survey by Elabe published on August 29 for BFMTV and La Tribune Dimanche. Marine Le Pen, 2022. Albert Gea / Reuters France elects its president in two rounds: a crowded first round on April 18 cuts the field to the top two – no one will win […]