Trump Blasts Oil Majors: “Get Gas Prices Down Now!” President Trump blasted oil companies on Monday morning for high gasoline pump prices, telling them: That goes for other Oil Companies as well…and get your consumer (retail!) Oil Prices DOWN, NOW! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT As of Monday morning, the national average for 87-octane gasoline at the pump stood at $4.09 a gallon, according to AAA […]

Trump Unloads On ‘Duplicitous’ Iran, Claims Secret Talks Despite Tehran’s Public Rejection Summary Trump claims Iran wants talks; Tehran again denies any US negotiations. Trump says Gulf allies halted planned US strikes in favor of diplomacy. Iran says Hormuz talks with Oman are progressing, but US actions remain the obstacle. Oil prices still falling on optimism over Hormuz negotiations & uptick in transit. Tehran is […]

China’s AI Knife Fight: DeepSeek’s New Model Runs 100x Cheaper Than Anthropic’s Flagship The price of artificial intelligence just printed a new low. DeepSeek’s V4-Flash, officially released Friday, costs roughly three cents to run through a standard battery of benchmark tests, according to San Francisco research firm Artificial Analysis. Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3 costs 86 cents; OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol, $1.86; and Anthropic’s Claude Fable […]

Groundhog Day By Benjamin Picton, senior market strategist at Rabobank It’s Monday morning again and it feels like Groundhog Day as I sit down to write that the US President has (again) halted strikes on Iran and teased that a diplomatic breakthrough is close. Brent crude prices have dutifully fallen in early trade, risk currencies are rallying and equity markets are poised to extend the gains posted late last week. In his […]

“Really Only One Thing Worries Us A Lot”: Here’s What Keeps Goldman’s Commodities Guru Up At Night Samantha Dart, co-head of global commodities research at Goldman, joined Bloomberg TV on Monday morning and warned that diesel sits at the epicenter of a worsening global fuel supply squeeze, as Ukrainian drone and missile strikes disrupt Russian refining and the US-Iran war disrupts tanker flows through the Strait of Hormuz. Dart […]

Here’s Why the US Manufacturing Surveys Are Diverging So Dramatically… Update (1015ET): As we noted below, there was a significant divergence between the two manufacturing surveys for July… which is not that unusual, and also an odd divergence between falling inflation expectations and universally rising commodity prices. Based on the responses to the ISM survey, we may have found the answer… and it’s a familiar one in this […]

Coldcard Losses Near $114M As Small Bitcoin Transfers Spike Via Decrypt.co, Small Bitcoin holders moved coins on July 31 at a rate not seen since the collapse of FTX, according to CryptoQuant, as news spread that Coldcard hardware wallets had been generating guessable keys for five years. Transfers of less than 1 BTC totaled 39,600 BTC (around $2.5 billion) that day, the firm’s Head of Research Julio Moreno tweeted. The last […]

Key Events This Week: Jobs, ISMs, Fed Speakers And More Earnings On Deck The week ahead will be dominated by the US labor market, with the JOLTS report tomorrow, the ADP employment survey on Wednesday, and building up to Friday’s July employment report. Beyond the US, investors will be watching Swiss inflation today, Swedish inflation on Thursday, German activity data throughout the week (culminating in trade and industrial […]

Saylor’s Strategy Shores Up Capital Structure With More Bitcoin, Stock Sales Michael Saylor’s Strategy Inc. is plowing ahead with its pivot from relentlessly buying Bitcoin to focusing on shoring up its capital structure by raising its reserve via sales of the token and its own shares. The company that grew to prominence with its years-long Bitcoin-accumulation tactic on Monday announced that it had last week completed a roughly […]

Kamikaze Drone Slams Into Crowded Russian Black Sea Beach, Killing 3 The Russia-Ukraine war has dangerously spilled over into the Black Sea, with cargo ships, tankers, and oil and gas infrastructure being targeted by both sides. The sharp escalation in fighting across the region has also come at a cost to civilians. Shocking video circulating on X Monday morning appears to show a Ukrainian suicide drone striking a crowded beach in […]

GameStop Shares Plunge As $1.4 Billion Debt-For-Equity Swap Threatens Dilution GameStop shares fell in premarket trading after the company announced it had agreed to exchange about $1.4 billion of zero-coupon convertible notes for Class A shares, allowing the video game retailer to reduce long-term debt without using cash. The press release stated that the transactions were privately negotiated and cover $400 million of notes due […]

Futures Rise As Oil Plunge Helps Yields Ease From Nosebleed Highs; All Eyes On Yentervention Futures are higher with both tech and small caps outperforming as Trump points to a deal/advanded discussions with Iran (which Iran is naturally denying), which is helping push energy prices and bond yields lower as the USD depreciates. As of 8:00am ET, S&P futures are up 0.5% while Nasdaq futures rise 0.4% led by Mag 7 stocks higher […]

$400 Billion Pharma Megadeal? Jefferies Calls Potential AstraZeneca-Bristol Myers Merger A “Head Scratcher” The Financial Times reported overnight that AstraZeneca has explored acquiring Bristol Myers Squibb in a potential megadeal that would create one of the world’s largest drugmakers, with a combined market capitalization of nearly $400 billion. The report cited people familiar with the matter, while both pharmaceutical giants […]

Pentagon Plans AI Data Centers At Military Bases Across Multiple Branches By Adam Gramegna of Military.com At Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, on ground the Army’s own contracting documents describe as previously used for grazing, a company owned by two of the largest investment firms in the world is preparing to build a data center. That site sits about an hour’s drive from the nearest community, on the installation where the U.S. […]

Exelon “High Probability” Data Center Load Falls 40% By Ethan Howland, senior reporter at UtilityDive Exelon’s “high probability” data center load fell nearly 40%, to about 11 GW, in the second quarter from 18 GW at the end of last year, the Chicago-based utility company said Thursday. The decline comes as Exelon utilities have been entering into “transmission security agreements” with potential data center customers, […]

Armor, Ammunition And Battlefield Adaptation Goldman Sachs analyst Sam Burgess, who covers European defense companies including Airbus, BAE Systems, Rheinmetall, Renk, Rolls-Royce, Safran, Leonardo, Thales, and Dassault Aviation, held a call with retired German Lieutenant General Andreas Marlow to provide clients with greater color on the rapidly evolving modern battlefield and its implications for defense-sector investment […]

US Raises Travel Advisory For Spanish Area Amid Illegal Immigrant Influx Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times, The U.S. Department of State on Saturday increased a travel advisory for Ceuta, Spain, to a higher level due to unrest caused by a recent mass influx of illegal immigrants. The agency said it updated its travel advisory for Americans to Ceuta to Level 3, or “reconsider travel,” due to “massive and […]

No, The Spanish Invaders Have Not All Just ‘Gone Home’ Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News, Spanish authorities and their leftist allies are pushing the line that the tens of thousands of migrants who stormed Ceuta have mostly “gone home.” The claim is pure fantasy. Fresh video from the streets shows the city still under siege, with invaders assaulting facilities, smashing graves, clashing with locals, and turning a Spanish […]

Trump Says “Perimeters Of A Deal Reached” With Iran To Reopen Hormuz After Call With Saudi Crown Prince The past few days have been tense. Although no US strikes were launched from Friday night into Saturday morning and the Gulf region remained quiet early Sunday, anticipation surrounding President Trump’s next move is keeping energy traders and Gulf governments on edge. The big concern is that another round of strikes could trigger […]

Trump’s Venezuela Oil Push Hits A Roadblock Venezuela’s long-awaited oil revival has been slower than many in Washington anticipated., according to the Wall Street Journal. Seven months after Nicolás Maduro’s removal, negotiations between the interim government and major U.S. energy companies remain bogged down, with no landmark investment deals despite the country’s vast crude reserves. Rather than rushing back into the country, […]

Operation Blackout Takes Down 4 Of The ‘Largest Scam Compounds On Earth’: FBI Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times, The FBI announced on July 31 that it dismantled four of the “largest scam compounds on Earth” under Operation Blackout, seizing $15.2 billion in assets and freeing thousands of forced laborers. Scam compounds provide the infrastructure to carry out large-scale online fraud operations and typically […]

Logistical Nightmare Unfolds As Rhine Plunges Toward Record Low The Rhine, one of Europe’s most vital arteries for transporting industrial goods, has fallen to one of its owest level since the drought-stricken summer of 2018. The resulting loss of shipping capacity is driving up freight costs and raising the risk of supply disruptions for iron ore, coal, chemicals, petroleum products and other commodities moving through Europe’s […]

Saudi Arabia Has Five Points Of Leverage Over The US Authored by Andrew Korybko, It probably won’t ever muster up the political will to use them, however, but the possibility always remains. Trump recently surprised the Saudis by demanding that they recognize Israel as the precondition for the US implementing their newly signed nuclear energy deal, which wasn’t part of the agreement. This follows him humiliating Crown […]

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Atomic Bomb, & The Perils Of Power Authored by Jonathan Miltimore via The Epoch Times, On Aug. 6, 1945, the Enola Gay dropped “Little Boy” on Hiroshima, instantly killing tens of thousands and marking the first use of a nuclear weapon in warfare. Three days later, a second bomb, “Fat Man,” was dropped on Nagasaki. Within days, Japan surrendered, bringing World War II to an end. For most Americans, […]

How China Is Using Its Coast Guard To Assert Control At Sea Over the past decade, China’s Coast Guard (CCG) has evolved from a conventional maritime law enforcement agency into a central instrument of Beijing’s strategy to reinforce its territorial claims, according to Bloomberg. Now operating a fleet of roughly 680 vessels, it continues to conduct routine missions such as search and rescue, anti-smuggling operations, and fisheries […]