Negotiators Make ‘Progress’ Toward 2nd Round Of Pakistan Talks, While More US Troops Prepped To Deploy Near Iran Summary The Iran war is “very close to over” with authorities in Tehran eager to agree a peace deal, Trump says, adding: “We’ve beaten them militarily.” Axios cites ‘progress’ toward framework to end war. AP/Bloomberg reporting the two sides have an “in principle agreement” to pursue further diplomacy; however, […]

Foggy, Foggy War By Michael Every of Rabobank With US stocks up, the Nasdaq with its longest winning streak since 2021, and screen oil down for a second day in a row, markets continue to price the starkly binary physical outcomes smack in front of us on the side that’s full of stardust. The IMF just warned of a potential world recession ahead if Hormuz stays shut. Its latest three global growth scenarios are ‘weaker’, […]

Eos Energy Soars As Investors Focus On Zinc Batteries And AI-Driven Demand Eos Energy Enterprises’ stock jumped over 60% in the last few days as investor enthusiasm grew around its scaling production and role in powering AI-driven infrastructure demand, according to the International Business Times. The company designs, develops, manufactures, and markets energy storage solutions for utility-scale, microgrid, and commercial and […]

BofA Sees Customer Gas Spending Jump 16%, But Discretionary Spending Holds Up The national average for 87-octane gasoline has remained above the politically sensitive $4-a-gallon level for two straight weeks after the largest monthly jump in AAA data going back two decades. The fuel shock has Wall Street analysts focused on whether surging pump prices will begin crowding out discretionary spending. Bank of America CFO Alastair […]

OpenAI’s Stratospheric Valuation Draws Investor Scrutiny As It Scrambles To Capture Enterprise Market OpenAI, fresh off the largest private fundraising round in history, is facing mounting questions from some of its own backers over its $852 billion valuation and a whiplash-inducing pivot in strategy that prioritizes the higher-margin enterprise market at the expense of its consumer crown jewel – all because Anthropic is starting […]

Jet-Ski Maker Crashes Most On Record As “Mind-Blowing” Tariff-Hit Sparks Worst-Case Scenario Fears BRP’s US-listed shares crashed the most on record as the US cash session began, after the jet ski and snowmobile maker withdrew its financial outlook. The company warned that changes in the US tariff environment surrounding steel, aluminum, and copper could result in a $500 million hit before any mitigation efforts. BRP wrote in a […]

WTI Rises After Big Inventory Drawdowns Across Energy Complex, Huge SPR Drop, Record Exports Oil largely held onto a sharp drop from this week’s highs as the US and Iran seek further talks to end a war that has brought the vital Strait of Hormuz waterway to a near-halt. President Trump told a Fox Business anchor he sees the war “very close to over” and told ABC “you’re going to be watching an amazing two days ahead.” […]

Good Riddance, Pattern Day Trade Rule  Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance The Pattern Day Trader rule was one of those regulations that managed to sound official, responsible, and protective while being, in practice, deeply confusing and almost comically out of touch with how people actually learn to trade. And now, it looks like it’s finally on its way out the exit. Crypto News wrote today: The U.S. Securities and Exchange […]

Bank of America Jumps On Record Equity Trading Revenue, Net Interest Income Forecast Increase, Offset By FICC Miss Following stellar equity trading results from Goldman and JPMorgan, this morning Bank of America reported that its traders also pulled in the business’s highest quarterly revenue in more than a decade, riding a wave of volatility that pushed the firm’s stock-trading desk to an all-time record. Bank of America said […]

US Prosecutors Make Surprise Visit To Fed HQ Renovation Project Federal prosecutors on Tuesday made a surprise visit to the Federal Reserve headquarters building that’s undergoing a $2.5 billion renovation, as they continue to investigate whether Fed Chair Jerome Powell lied to Congress about the cost and scope of the project. Construction workers told the prosecutors they couldn’t come on the site without prior authorization, the […]

Shoe Brand Allbirds Pivots To AI, Changes Name To NewBird AI, Stock Rips More Than 360% Just when you thought you’d seen the last of the AI pivot idiocy… Allbirds (yes, the wool sneaker people) is mooning—up as much as 360%—after announcing it’s ditching shoes and pivoting to, of course, AI. This comes just weeks after agreeing to sell off its brand and footwear business for $39 million, according to Sherwood News. The […]

Is The Iran War Good For The Petrodollar? Diana Choyleva wrote an excellent editorial for the Wall Street Journal entitled “The Iran War Is A Boon For The Petrodollar.” She pushes back against claims that the Iran conflict is accelerating the death of the petrodollar. Instead, RealInvestmentAdvice.com points out that she argues the opposite: between Iran and Venezuela, the U.S. is defending and bolstering dollar dominance in […]

Yet Another Historic Church Torched In Canada Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, Another historic church lies in ashes after a major fire tore through Saint-Romain, Quebec, last night. The building, whose construction began in 1893, is the latest casualty in a relentless campaign against Canada’s Christian institutions that has seen arsons more than double since 2021. A historic church, originally built in 1893 and […]

Futures Unchanged Just Shy Of All Time High On Peace Hopes, Solid Earnings US equity futures are flat following yesterday’s rally as market awaits news on the Iran war resolution and as we traverse earnings season. As of 8:15am ET, S&P 500 futures are little changed after the benchmark closed within a whisker of a record. Risk sentiment took a small knock in recent trade after Iran cautioned that it will not allow shipments […]

Nvidia Unveils New AI Open Model, Sparking Rally In Quantum Stocks Nvidia unveiled the world’s first open-source AI models to accelerate the development of quantum computing. The news sent shares of several Asian software and cybersecurity firms soaring and sparked a rally in U.S.-listed quantum stocks in premarket trading. Nvidia’s Ising open-model family is designed to improve two critical areas: quantum processor calibration and […]

Tether Launches Self-Custodial Wallet Supporting USDT, Bitcoin, & Tokenized Gold Authored by Naga Avan-Nomayo via TheBlock.co, Tether, issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin USDT, is stepping further out from behind the rails with the launch of its self-custodial wallet, which it says is designed to put its payments infrastructure directly in the hands of users, rather than operating solely as a backend layer for crypto […]

Kering And Hermès Sink As War Batters Earnings; Goldman Warns Luxury Dip-Buying Is “Premature” Goldman’s Natasha de la Grense summed it up well this morning: “Money was waiting on the sidelines to buy luxury for a de-escalation play – that feels premature with three misses in three days.”  Disappointments from Kering and Hermès, both of which fell short of analyst estimates, reinforced the view that the industry of fine wine, […]

Goldman Highlights Global Nuclear Progress Across SMRs And The Fuel Chain March saw the submission of multiple construction permits for new reactors, while new designs like India’s thorium reactor, obtained their first criticality. Microreactors in the US also progressed through DOE regulatory pathways as they approach a criticality deadline in July.  Last month also saw multiple headlines in the US across the nuclear fuel chain. […]

Roblox Rolls Out Restricted Accounts For Under-16 Users Amid Lawsuit, Social Media Ban Authored by Rex Widerstrom via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), While managing to avoid Australia’s under-16 social media ban, the global game creation platform Roblox has moved to introduce restricted accounts for children and teenagers. A 7-year-old teenage boy looks at a photo screen with Roblox, a social media networking app that will not […]

Europe Drafts Pie In The Sky Plan To Free Up Hormuz Without ‘Belligerent’ Parties This is quite the ambitious headline revealing the latest ‘plan’ for Hormuz to come out of Europe, as it sits on the sidelines watching the US get potentially bogged down in the region following a month of heavy airstrikes on Iran: Europe drafts postwar plan to free up Strait of Hormuz without US, WSJ reports. This is apparently a plan for after the […]

Rolls-Royce 470-Megawatt Nuclear Reactors To Power 3 Million UK Homes For 60 Years Authored by Mrigakshi Dixit via Interesting Engineering, The UK’s new nuclear approval at Wylfa officially kicks off what the government calls a “golden age” for the nation’s energy sector. Depiction of Rolls-Royce SMR site at Wylfa on Anglesey, North Wales. On April 13, the government approved the development of three Small Modular Reactors […]

Twin Suicide Attacks Rock Algerian City Near Where Pope Is Visiting Algeria has been hit by two terror attacks during Pope Leo XIV’s visit, officials say – though at this point there doesn’t appear to have been any direct effort at targeting the Pope or his accompanying officials. Twin suicide attacks rocked a city outside Algeria’s capital Monday, just as the American-born Pontiff began his historic visit to the country, AFP […]

Is The EU’s €90 Billion Loan To Ukraine Meant To Buy Time For The Return Of Democrats Authored by Andrew Korybko, Orban’s “democratic ouster” is expected to remove Hungary’s procedural opposition to the EU’s planned €90 billion loan to Ukraine that’ll be financed by members raising common debt. RT published a detailed article about this plan here last December, which was a compromise for financing this loan […]

Italy’s Anti-Israel Opposition Declares ‘Victory’ After Meloni Suspends Defense Pact Italy has suspended the automatic renewal of its defense agreement with Israel amid the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran, now ‘paused’ as a two-week ceasefire holds in order to give a chance for talks. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced the significant status change following weeks of tensions over the Israel question, and after other European […]

After Orbán Loss, Polish MEP Warns EU Set To “Subjugate Everything And Everyone” As VDL Moves Quickly To Abolish Veto Power Via Remix News, On the back of Péter Magyar’s victory in Hungary, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says the EU needs to work on getting rid of member states’ veto powers. For many who backed Viktor Orbán, one of their greatest fears was exactly what von der Leyen is now advancing: […]