US Services Surveys Disappoint In April Amid Stench Of Stagflation Despite Manufacturing surveys solid (and US factory orders surging), expectations are for the Services sector surveys today to show stagflationary signals (weak growth, surging prices). S&P Global’s Services PMI disappointed in April (final), falling from its flash print of 51.3 to 51.0, but still up from multi-year lows below 50 in March, showing just marginal […]

Shale Giant Diamondback Is Boosting Oil Output “Immediately” On Soaring Prices With oil prices soaring to multi-year highs, it was only a matter of time: Diamondback Energy, one of the largest shale oil producers, announced it is boosting crude output in response to rising prices caused by the Iran war. The company that operates in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico is pumping more than 520,000 barrels a day, 3% more […]

Ford Sales Post Sharp 14.4% Decline In April As EV & Hybrid Sales Plunge Ford Motor Company posted a sharp sales decline in April as demand for new vehicles cooled across much of the auto industry, with the company reporting a 14.4% drop year over year to 178,667 vehicles sold, according to Autoevolution. The weaker month pushed Ford’s year-to-date total to roughly 636,000 deliveries — still ahead of Hyundai Motor Company […]

Romanian Pro-EU Government Collapses After No-Confidence Vote, Currency Tumbles To Record Low Lawmakers toppled Romanian Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan’s pro-EU ​government in a no-confidence vote on Tuesday, putting at risk the country’s sovereign debt ratings, its access to ‌EU funds and the stability of its currency. Of the valid votes cast in the parliament, 285 voted for the motion of censure and four against, exceeds the 251 […]

Elon Musk Reaches $1.5 Million Settlement With SEC Over Twitter Stake Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times, Tech billionaire Elon Musk on May 4 agreed to pay $1.5 million to resolve a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit alleging he violated securities laws over the delayed disclosure of his Twitter stake. A filing dated May 4 states that Musk’s revocable trust will pay a civil penalty of $1.5 million to […]

US Navy Destroyers Transit Hormuz Strait As Iranian Factions Reportedly Clash Over UAE Attacks; Pentagon Insists Ceasefire Still On Summary Pentagon addresses whether ceasefire over or violated: Caine says Iran’s Monday operations were “all below the threshold of restarting major combat operations at this point.” Contradictory statements out of Tehran on UAE attack, amid reports of division between IRGC & civilian […]

Coinbase CEO Cuts Workforce By 14% As AI Agents Take Over, Accelerate White-Collar Job Apocalypse Coinbase employees woke up Tuesday morning to an email from the CEO announcing a workforce reduction of up to 14% as part of a broader push to make the crypto firm “leaner, faster, and AI-native.” CEO Brian Armstrong also released the letter on X, starting off the letter by saying: Today I”ve made the difficult decision to reduce the […]

Futures Jump As Dip-Buyers Return After After Iran Truce Holds Stock futures are higher, completely reversing yesterday’s drop with dip-buyers out in force as a fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran held after a day of clashes and sentiment is helped by a pullback in oil prices, with Brent crude futures down 1.4% as well as the US move to return 22 Iranian crew from a seized vessel. The conflict “might need to escalate in […]

After Bizarre CEO Interview On CNBC, Michael Burry Exits GameStop Position Michael Burry has exited his position in GameStop Corp., saying the retailer’s reported bid for eBay Inc. changed the investment case, according to Bloomberg. In a Monday post to his Substack subscribers, Burry said a potential $56 billion cash-and-stock acquisition would likely require too much debt and no longer aligned with his original thesis for […]

DC Judge ‘Apologizes’ To Alleged Trump Assassin Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, A federal magistrate judge in Washington, D.C., has come under fire after expressing deep concern – described by multiple outlets as an apology – over the custody conditions of Cole Tomas Allen, the 31-year-old accused of attempting to assassinate President Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on April 25. […]

USAF Stratotanker Squawks 7700 Emergency Near Doha The fight for control of the Strait of Hormuz flared up Monday and into the overnight hours, with IRGC forces reportedly striking multiple commercial vessels and a UAE oil refinery. The one positive development: with U.S. forces on heightened alert, two U.S.-flagged merchant ships successfully transited the maritime chokepoint as Project Freedom began, marking the first visible […]

Dell Board Unanimously Backs Redomiciliation To Texas As Delaware Exodus Accelerates Dell Technologies’ Board of Directors unanimously approved a proposal to move the company’s state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas. This adds to the growing trend of redomiciliation, with companies such as Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, Coinbase, Affirm, TripAdvisor, eXp World Holdings, and others moving from Delaware to business-friendly states. […]

Is Europe Sliding Towards Stagflation? Authored by Daniel Lacalle, Europe is not yet in recession, but the latest business and consumer surveys show that the risk is no longer remote. The euro area’s flash composite PMI fell to 48.6 in April from 50.7 in March, moving below the 50 threshold that separates expansion from contraction and signalling a quarterly GDP decline of around 0.1 per cent after a 0.2 per cent gain in […]

Ceasefire Over? Trump Downplays ‘Mini-War’ After US & Iranians Trade Shots, Missiles Target UAE Summary Trump employs interesting new term: “We’re in, I call it a mini-war.” Fujairah says 3 injured in Iranian attack on Oil Industry Zone, UAE confirms “air defenses are now dealing with a missile threat”, we have gotten reports of explosions in Dubai, which has sent oil higher and Emini futures into the red. UAE […]

Caught Off Guard: Stunned EU Leaders React To Trump’s Troop Reduction In Germany European officials have expressed dismay, disappointment, and surprise in the wake of the weekend announcement by the Trump administration that the US will be withdrawing some 5,000 troops from Germany over the coming months. “There has been talk about withdrawing US troops from Europe for a long time. But of course, the timing of this announcement […]

Germany’s Silent Shift: From Entrepreneurs To State Dependence Submitted by Thomas Kolbe Germany affords itself a state bureaucracy that functions like an artificial labor market placed upstream of the private sector. The flight of hundreds of thousands into the arms of the state corresponds with the shrinking number of self-employed in the country. And policymakers are actively promoting this trend. Let us begin with a piece of […]

EU Going To War With VPNs In Bid To “Save The Children” Western European governments and EU bureaucrats are advancing tighter regulations on VPNs as part of a broader push for “online age verification” and their ‘Chat Control’ agenda.  Privacy advocates and digital rights groups warn that Europe is drifting towards a surveillance and censorship regime similar to internet restrictions and firewalls used by Russia and China. […]

EU Crime Report: Spanish Rape Reports Surge 322% Over Last Decade, EU Sees 150% Increase Via Remix News, New data released by Eurostat on Wednesday reveals a staggering rise in reported sexual crimes across the European Union, with Spain showing an increase far beyond the continental average. Spain has seen one of the most significant shifts in reporting, according to Spain’s La Razon outlet. In 2024, the country registered […]

Big Shake-Up: Putin Fires Head Of Aerospace Forces After Devastating Ukrainian Drone Attacks There are reports out of Russia of another high level firing within the defense ministry. This time, President Putin has reportedly sacked the head of Russia’s Aerospace Forces, which is the armed services branch responsible for the country’s air defenses. Moscow-based news outlet RBC reports that General Viktor Afzalov has been replaced […]

Germany’s Inflation Scapegoat: Why Hormuz Is A Convenient Cover Story Submitted by Thomas Kolbe Over the weekend, economist Gerrit Heinemann warned in Bild of a drastic increase in food prices in Germany. The scholar from Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences focused his analysis on the massive rise in fertilizer prices. A significant share of these—estimated at roughly one third of global production—is transported through […]

Horrifying “Rape Festival” Sparks Worldwide Outrage Videos circulating on social media out of Nigeria have ignited shock and horror after appearing to show groups of men chasing, stripping and sexually assaulting women in broad daylight during a traditional “fertility” festival in the country’s southern Delta State, according to news.com.au. The incidents unfolded on March 19 during the Alue-Do festival in Ozoro, a triennial […]

Meta Raising $13 Billion SPV For Texas Data Center As Its CDS Hits Record Back in January, just days before the latest private crash swept across markets, we reminded readers that one of the biggest abusers of private credit SPVs was none other than Meta which as of 2025 was “already neck deep in off-balance sheet debt.” We then showed a schematic of its $27.3 billion SPV with private credit ground zero – Blue Owl – titled “Project […]

Trump’s “Project Vault” Plans To Initially Buy Rare Earths From China As we reported in February, the US Export-Import Bank’s proposed rare earth stockpiling initiative would initially source critical minerals from anywhere in the world – including China, an official involved in the project revealed to Bloomberg. The $12 billion Project Vault would later shift to a replenishment model that prioritizes domestic production first, […]

“Rare Sight”: USAF C-17 Jets Land In Beijing Ahead Of Trump-Xi Summit As the Strait of Hormuz takes center stage Monday morning, Iran is threatening to attack any ship that attempts to transit the critical waterway. This directly challenges President Trump’s plan for the U.S. Navy to “guide” tankers and container ships through the chokepoint. Looking beyond the ongoing Hormuz crisis, the China topic is next: Trump is still expected […]

Iran War Threatens China’s 4.5 Percent Growth Target: Analysts Authored by Jarvis Lim via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), China’s already-strained economy faces mounting pressure as the Iran war threatens to choke export growth and suppress domestic demand, putting its 4.5 percent growth target at risk, experts say. A woman takes a photo of the Lujiazui financial district across the Huangpu River on the Bund promenade in […]