China’s Tungsten Chokehold Turns Almonty Into The West’s Critical-Metal Lifeline Almonty Industries has evolved from a junior miner into an established tungsten producer and a pure play on the China decoupling theme, the incoming defense rearmament supercycle in the West, AI infrastructure, and, of course, critical-mineral scarcity. As Western governments race to rebuild a tungsten supply chain outside China, Almonty’s producing […]

200,000 Fake AI ‘Victims’ Deployed To Scam-Bait Online Fraudsters Authored by Andrew Fenton via CoinTelegraph.com, Australian tech firm Apate deploys a vast array of AI-bot characters worldwide that play the role of gullible scam victims to waste millions of hours of con artists’ time each month. Hilariously, one of the company’s monthly performance metrics is how many times frustrated scammers swear at the idiot […]

Media Accuses Hegseth Of Covering Up USS Lincoln Supply Crisis The scandal and controversy over the USS Lincoln aircraft carrier continues, despite the Trump administration and top military brass reiterating this week that the issues have been hugely overblown. It’s long been reported that the supercarrier which is front line in the war against Iran has suffered resupply problems, low morale, sub-standard conditions, and mental […]

Here Comes QE Lite: Yields, Dollar Tumble, Gold Spikes After Treasury Unexpectedly Doubles Size Of Long-End Treasury Buybacks Over the past several years, one of the more amusing debates gripping the market’s Fed-watchers was whether the Fed’s treasury buyback auctions were a form of soft QE, with this website consistently arguing that – contrary to what washed out ex-Bridgewater traders with a newsletter to sell may tell you – […]

Texas Hits New Peak Demand Record, Faces 80% Supply Shortfall By 2030 By Marlene Wilden of UtilityDive Peak demand in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas territory could reach 120 GW by 2030 – incredible growth of more than 30% above the new, unofficial all-time peak reached on July 22, but notably lower than ERCOT’s own forecasts, according to a market report from Ascend Analytics that was provided to Utility Dive. The […]

FOMC Minutes Tilt Hawkish: ‘Inflation Risks Skewed To The Upside’ Due To AI While today’s market moves (post-Bessent’s OpTwist bailout) are changing things rapidly, since the last FOMC meeting, on July 19th, where Warsh held rates (hawkishly) unchanged (in the biggest surprise to market expectations in decades) amid multiple dissents, gold, bitcoin, and oil have outperformed, the dollar and bonds have lagged, with stocks solidly […]

US May Halve Canada Metals Tariffs As Friday Deal Deadline Looms Summary: US-Canada Trade Deal Would Cut Metals Tariffs to 25%: Report Trump: “It’s good for everybody, but our farmers are going to be thrilled. Our manufacturers are going to be thrilled.” Trump Pauses 50% Canada Tariffs At 11th Hour, Declares “We Have A Deal” US-Canada Trade Deal Would Cut Metals Tariffs to 25%: Report Sources told Bloomberg that a tentative […]

Prosecutors In Charlie Kirk Slaying Case Say Evidence Supports Death Penalty Authored by Janice Hisle via The Epoch Times, Prosecutors on Aug. 18 urged a Utah judge to uphold all charges, including one carrying a potential death sentence, in the case against Charlie Kirk’s accused killer. In their 19-page filing in Utah County’s Fourth District Court, prosecutors rebutted an Aug. 11 memo from lawyers representing the […]

Ugly, Tailing 20Y Auction Prices At 2nd Highest Yield On Record; Would Have Been Highest If Bessent Hadn’t Panicked After today’s stunning announcement by the Treasury it was doubling the size of long-end buyback operations to boost liquidity in the space, many were closely watching today’s 20Y auction – which is viewed as the proximal catalyst to trigger Bessent’s panic as it was going to price at the highest yield in the history […]

Another Top Zelensky Aide Fired Amid Corruption Probe, House Raid Another top official has been dismissed in Ukraine’s government, accompanied with the usual police raids on homes amid fresh corruption probes… but this time the scandal once again runs straight through Zelensky’s office. “Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau said it had launched an operation linked to an alleged criminal organization involving current and […]

Why Are White Liberal Women Identifying With A Child Murderer? Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News, Three innocent children are dead. Their mother has admitted killing them. And yet a growing chorus of white liberal women on TikTok and beyond is racing to cast her as the real victim, pouring money into her family’s fundraiser and filming themselves relating to the confessed killer while cradling their own babies. Lindsay […]

Jeffrey Tucker Reveals The Insidious Reason For The Lockdowns Jeffrey Tucker – founder and president of the Brownstone Institute, says top FDA and NIH officials told him that the purpose of the COVID-19 lockdowns were “to delay the onset of natural immunity… until after the shots were online.” Tucker sat down for an hour-long conversation with Dr. Jessica Rose, where he says that ‘multiple sources’ who were involved in the […]

Cherokee Nation In The US Bans Data Center Development By Jason Ma of DataCenterDynamics The Cherokee Nation in the US has banned data center development on its lands, according to an announcement made by its Chief Chuck Hoskin on August 5, Thursday. “It’s clear that our Cherokee Nation Administration, Council, and citizens have serious concerns about the construction of hyperscale data centers on our tribal lands, which […]

UAE Cuts Ties As Iran Warns Gulf States Against Helping Washington; Kpler Says US Navy Gaining Ground In Hormuz Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf is visiting Baghdad while at the same time US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has spoken UAE National Security Adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan to discuss the Hormuz situation and security. Except of course the two sides aren’t talking with each other. President […]

“This Is Huge!”: Trump Hails Ibogaine Application Gift Aimed At Helping Veterans With Mental Illness Authored by Kimberley Hayek via The Epoch Times, President Donald Trump said that the University of Miami has given its original 1994 investigational new drug application for ibogaine to the federal government, a move he said would accelerate development of the psychedelic substance as a treatment for serious mental illness. The […]

La-Z-Boy Crashes Most Since 2022 As Frozen Housing Market Crushes Sofa Demand La-Z-Boy shares suffered their steepest decline in 4.5 years on Wednesday after the furniture maker’s second-quarter guidance missed expectations, providing even more evidence that weak housing turnover has suppressed demand for big-ticket discretionary goods such as sofas and recliners. With mortgage rates elevated and home prices near record levels, […]

WTI Rises As Distillate Stocks Draw, Cushing Back Near ‘Tank Bottoms’, SPR At 43-Year Lows Oil prices are chopping sideways (to modestly higher) for the second day in a row as traders weighed the ‘dark fleet’ transits with renewed tensions in the Middle East further clouding the outlook for flows through the vital Strait of Hormuz. “A combination of the escalation between the UAE and Iran, coupled with a market increasingly […]

Fuel Rationing Reaches Moscow Amid ‘Second Wave’ National Shortages Already Russia has been subject to many months of a ramped-up long-range drone campaign out of Ukraine, chiefly targeting oil refineries as well as industrial sites – and most recently expanding to online retail companies and attacks on private sector businesses.  Tuesday saw one of the single biggest drone waves on Moscow of the war, for example, with at least […]

SK Hynix Unleashes South Korea’s Biggest-Ever ‘Buyback Bazooka’ To Halt Stock Rout Asian equities fell sharply overnight as the regional semiconductor rout intensified following another downdraft in US chipmakers on Tuesday (read morning wrap). Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan led the regional declines, while Chinese stocks also weakened despite the blockbuster IPO of humanoid robotics maker Unitree. Against that bearish backdrop, SK […]

DOE Cancels 3 National Transmission Corridors, Citing “Green New Scam” By Diana DiGangi of UtilityDive Summary The U.S. Department of Energy will not move forward with the designation of three proposed National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors that the Biden administration selected for review in 2024, saying in a Wednesday release that the corridors were selected as a “means to advance” that administration’s […]

Another AI Reacharound? Marvell Shares Rip On Chips-For-Warrants Deal With Google The circular financing circus rolls on… Marvell shares are soaring this morning after fabless chip designer announced an expanded chip-development partnership with Google that includes a warrant from Marvell allowing the search giant to buy as much as $12.2 billion in shares. The two firms will collaborate on custom AI chips. “The expanded […]

Futures Flat With All Eyes On Interest Rates And Oil Futures are flat but off their lows as Tech gets a boost from a huge Hynix buyback, which erased ~8% decline to trade up as much as 2% and reversed a 5.8% drop in the Nikkei; the ADRs are +5.6% pre-mkt boosting both Memory and Korea ETFs. As of 8:15am ET, S&P futures are fractionally in the green, with Nasdaq futures down 0.1% even as momentum looks to retrace some of […]

Hellish: Ceuta Mothers Weep In Streets; Rapes Force Women To Flee; Kids’ Parks Smeared In Shit Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News, Spanish mothers in Ceuta are in tears on live television. Hospitals are overflowing. Beaches and parks that once hosted families are now open-air camps of garbage, feces and makeshift shacks. And the Civil Guard has confirmed at least 15 rapes since the late-July mass migrant invasion – […]

Buying Bullsh*t In “4 Easy Payments”  Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance I have been gently touching on what a horrible idea one sector has been since the inception of this blog. And just this week, it looks like cracks are starting to form in the space via one of its largest and most well-known publicly traded companies. As savings finally dry up, rates remain higher and auto loan/credit card delinquencies start rising, I […]

Holy Grail In Cancer Treatment? Moderna Erupts After Melanoma Vaccine Late-Stage Trial Success Moderna’s shares soared as much as 83% in premarket trading in New York after its personalized cancer vaccine, developed in collaboration with Merck & Co., reduced the risk of melanoma returning in a large, late-stage trial. The result marks the first positive Phase 3 trial for a personalized cancer vaccine by any company.  The study […]