Collateral Damage By Molly Schwartz, Cross-ASset Macro Strategist at Rabobank Negotiations between the US and Iran are going nowhere. In fact, they’re not really even happening at all. Over the weekend, Axios reported that Iran gave the US a proposal to reopen the Strait — not to end the war. The proposal includes extending the ceasefire and an assertion that any conversations about Iran’s nuclear program are off the table […]

Conference Board Confidence Unexpectedly Jumps To Highest In 2026 Despite war (and rising gas prices) now fully embedded in respondents’ minds, it is perhaps surprising that The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence rose considerably more than expected to 92.8 in April (89.0 exp) from an upwardly revised 92.2. Present Situation dipped very modestly from 124.1 to 123.8 (120.1 exp) while Expectations rose from 71.0 to 72.2 (69.2 […]

‘Quality Learing Center’ And 20 Other Somali-Linked Businesses Raided By FBI, Homeland Security In Minnesota Federal agents from the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) executed court-authorized search warrants at more than 20 locations across the Minneapolis area early Tuesday morning, targeting businesses primarily linked to the Somali-American community as part of an ongoing criminal fraud investigation. Fox News […]

Trump Not Open To Tehran’s Latest Proposal As ‘Tank Tops’ Loom, Claims Iran “Informed Us They Are In State Of Collapse” Summary Trump TS claim: Tehran has informed Washington they are in a “state of collapse” and that the Iranians want the US to “open the Hormuz Strait” – as ‘tank tops’ loom. Trump doesn’t appear open to Iran’s proposal which hinges on US naval blockade ending & nuclear issue being pushed to future […]

Chaos, Black Rain, Evacuations: Tuapse Oil Facility Struck For Third Time This Month Rosneft’s sprawling oil refinery in southern port town of Tuapse has been struck by Ukrainian drones once again, unleashing a huge fire and significant destruction, in what marks the third such attack just this month. “Another serious incident has occurred in Tuapse. A large-scale fire broke out at an oil refinery due to an enemy drone attack,” […]

OpenAI Misses Revenue, User Targets As CFO Fears $1.5 Trillion In Commitments Can’t Be Paid Earlier today, when previewing this week’s earnings by the Mag 7 which account for over $10 trillion in market cap set to report Q1 results after the close on Wednesday, Goldman’s Delta-One head Rich Privorotsky said that “Equities are being driven by one thing…AI spend”, and warned that “it’s hard not to respect the strength of the AI […]

US Home Prices Dipped In February For First Time Since June 2025 For the first time since June 2025, US home prices (in the largest 20 cities) fell in February (by 0.05% MoM) according to the latest (admittedly lagging and smoothed) Case-Shiller data. The decline comes after prices surged into the turn of year and has now dragged the YoY gain in prices down to just +0.9% – the weakest since July 2023.  The trend is clear across […]

Trump, First Lady Demand Jimmy Kimmel Be Fired Over ‘Widow’ Joke Days Before Assassination Attempt President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump sharply escalated their long-running feud with late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel on Monday, publicly demanding that the ABC host be immediately fired by Disney and the network over a joke he made days before a shooting incident at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. The […]

First Of Many? UAE Exits OPEC As Iran Chaos Triggers Nationalistic Realignment Among Producers Just days after the UAE publicly signaled liquidity concerns by requesting swap lines from the Federal Reserve to ease pressures on the country’s banks, major Gulf oil producer, the UAE, has decided to exit the oil cartel – an unexpected development that crossed Bloomberg headlines on Tuesday morning around 0822 ET. OPEC finished […]

Futures Tumble On AI Spending Fears As Brent Hits 2 Week High US equity futures are lower, dragged by tech, following a report that OpenAI missed revenue and user targets and there growing internal pushback against Sam Altman’s notorious aggressive spending (the company has $1.5 trillion in commitment it won’t be able to meet), which is hitting semiconductors and the broader supply chain. AS of 8:15am ET, S&P futures are down […]

The Dollar’s Funeral Keeps Getting Rescheduled Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com, 💰 The Dollar’s Funeral Nobody Attended Open any finance corner of social media this week, and you will be hit with some version of the same obituary. ZeroHedge declared in December that the dollar’s death in 2026 is now a mainstream talking point, citing a WIRED piece arguing that this is the year “dollar […]

First Loaded LNG Tanker Clears Hormuz; First Crude Supertanker Attempts Exit While all the attention has been focused on President Trump’s national security team reviewing an Iranian peace deal that would end the two-month war and reopen the Hormuz chokepoint, while deferring nuclear negotiations to a later date, new vessel-tracking data show that the first loaded LNG tanker has exited the critical waterway since the conflict began, […]

Israel Just Became Germany’s Largest Arms Partner Authored by Andrew Korybko, The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which is regarded as the top authority on the international arms trade, released its latest report about related trends from 2021-2025 last month. The top takeaway is that “Europe was the region with the largest share of total global arms imports (33 per cent) for the first time since […]

40,000 U.S. Retail Stores Could Close By 2030 UBS consumer analyst Michael Lasser told clients that a further rise in e-commerce penetration, from about 22% today to as high as 27%, could force the closure of 40,000 U.S. retail stores by 2030. The warning comes as more than 10,000 stores have closed since late 2023, and shows how the shift to e-commerce is pressuring brick-and-mortar retail footprints nationwide. Lasser’s […]

Bessent: IRGC Leaders ‘Trapped’ Like ‘Drowning Rats’ By US Blockade, Will Soon Face Uprising Over Coming ‘Gasoline Shortages Next’ Summary Bessent describes IRGC leaders as now “trapped like drowning rats” amid the enduring US naval blockade of Iranian ports, which will soon result in gasoline shortages, anger & uprising Putin tells FM Araghchi that he’s been in contact with the new Supreme Leader, and says Iran […]

Iran Already Scrambling For Oil Storage After Two Weeks Of US Blockade Trump’s blockade is having a predictable effect on Iran’s economy and oil industry, with reports that the regime is scrambling to repurpose old and rusty tankers as floating storage.  Kharg Island is hitting capacity and the results could lead to disaster for Iran’s oil wells.  The regime is reportedly moving to expand crude storage at the island, where around […]

12-Year-Old French Girl Collapses After Judge Releases Men Arrested For Gang Raping Her In Airbnb Via Remix News, Two young men, both adults, suspected of gang rape in an Airbnb in the France’s Décines-Charpieu (Rhône), have been released from custody, shocking the family of one of the victims. The victim’s lawyer, David Metaxas, spoke on behalf of the victim’s relatives, who told LyonMag that the judge’s decision was […]

Pentagon Investigates Mystery Fire At UK Base Used For Bombing Iran The US Air Force has reportedly opened an investigation into a fire that broke out over the weekend at RAF Fairford in the UK. Crucially, it is a key US-allied base hosting a US bomber unit carrying out strikes on Iran as part of Trump’s Operation Epic Fury. The fire started early Sunday inside an “old or disused building” at the airbase, a UK defense ministry […]

NATO Minus US: European Militaries Won’t Add Up To Deter Russia Authored by John Haughey via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s European nations would need to bolster standing militaries by at least 300,000 troops and significantly boost defense spending beyond 3.5 percent of gross domestic product – at least 250 billion euros – while reviving and integrating their industrial base to defend […]

Zelensky Charges Russia With ‘Nuclear Terrorism’ On 40th Chernobyl Anniversary President Volodymyr Zelensky led Ukraine in a Sunday ceremony marking the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and used the occasion to call on the international community to take decisive action against what he called ongoing Russian “nuclear terrorism”. There were various candlelight remembrance ceremonies in cities across Ukraine, and […]

Orbán Vs Magyar: Did The EU Get Played? Authored by Arthur Schaper via American Greatness, Viktor Orbán, the valiant populist, the restorer of the Christian faith in Hungary, the welcome thorn in the side of the EU establishment, and the strong ally of President Trump since his first bid for office, has lost his own re-election bid. I had a feeling it would come to this. Sixteen years of uninterrupted administration as a strong […]

America: Land Of The (Not Really) Free Authored by Ron Paul via the Ron Paul Institute, Two weeks ago, President Donald Trump commemorated income tax payments being due by having DoorDash deliver food from McDonald’s to the White House. The delivery was intended to highlight the first year of tax-free tips. Removing tax on tips was part of the 2025 Big Beautiful Bill (BBB). As the sponsor of the first No Tax on Tips […]

“Racial-Profiling” Or Race-Baiting? Tom Steyer’s Illiterate Take On English Proficiency Authored by Jonathan Turley, If you go to NASCAR to watch the cars crash, the Democratic gubernatorial race in California has been a thrilling pile-up. The recent debate saw all the Democratic candidates play the race card over a curious issue. When asked if they supported the move to rescind at least 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses […]

Kim Jong Un Opens Museum Commemorating Troops Killed Fighting For Russia, Blasts US ‘Hegemony’ North Korea has continued its surprising level of public acknowledgement of troop deaths in the Russia-Ukraine war, where it has maintained some 10,000 or more troops in support of Moscow. Starting last summer North Korea began issuing footage of coffins of slain DPRK troops being flown into Pyongyang, with Kim Jong Un in attendance. Now […]

SEC Issues Warning For US Investors On Phishing, Smishing, & Vishing Scams Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times, The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) warned investors recently that fraudsters use phishing, smishing, and vishing scams to attempt to compromise their financial, investment, or personal accounts. “Phishing, smishing, and vishing are types of scams where a fraudster tries to trick you […]