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B-52 Bomber Crashes After Take-Off From Edwards Air Force Base In California

A U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber aircraft crashed shortly after taking off from Edwards Air Force Base in California, the base said in a statement Monday.

“A United States Air Force B-52 Stratofortress crashed shortly after takeoff on the Edwards airfield at 11:20 a.m.,” the base said in a post on Facebook.

“Emergency crews immediately responded to the scene and the situation is ongoing.”

It’s unclear if there were any injuries or what caused the crash.

The base did not provide any further details in its statement, adding that more information will be provided when it becomes available.

“Please join me in praying for the B-52 crew at Edwards Air Force Base and the entire Edwards community,” said Rep. Vince Fong (R-Calif.) in a post on X.

Video footage of the incident showed the smoldering wreckage of the plane at the base, which is located in both Kern and San Bernardino counties.

BREAKING: Initial reports indicate a U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress crashed shortly after takeoff from Edwards Air Force Base. Emergency crews are responding to the scene. Details remain limited. pic.twitter.com/3NT4P06Mph

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) June 15, 2026

As Jack Phillips reports for The Epoch Times, the B-52 Stratofortress is a long-range bomber that was introduced in the 1950s as a central part of U.S. air power.

The planes are capable of carrying conventional and nuclear weapons, and they have been used in a range of U.S. military confrontations, most recently in the war with Iran.

The bomber usually has a crew of five, including a commander, pilot, radar navigator, navigator, and electronic warfare officer. It also can carry a payload of up to 70,000 pounds and has a range of 8,800 miles, the Air Force says.

The Air Force says it is expecting to operate B-52s until the year 2050.

Both the Air Force and NASA carry out test flights of new and experimental aircraft at the air base, which is located in the Mojave Desert, according to its website.

Earlier this month, NASA’s X-59 experimental aircraft flew faster than the speed of sound in a milestone event at Edwards Air Force Base, the space agency said.

The crash is one of several involving the U.S. military that have occurred in the past few weeks. 

On May 17, two Navy EA-18G Growlers collided with one another in midair in an air show at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho, the military said. 

Over the past weekend, a military plane crashed near Mount Rainier in Washington state during a training flight, local officials said.

Before the crash on Monday, the most recent fatal incident involving a B-52 occurred in 2008, when six Air Force members died when a bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean after taking off from a base in Guam. The plane was due to take part in a parade flyover.

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/15/2026 - 16:40

Monsters Far And Near

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

“We used to say that we don’t know what 2050 will look like. Now it’s more like we don’t know what 2030 will look like.”

- Jesus Enrique Rosas

You must be thinking that reality is pushing its luck with the president bringing this Iran business - a war, actually, let’s face it - to a favorable conclusion around dinner time Sunday evening (yawn) and then Mr. DJT sliding directly into his seat on the White House lawn to enjoy the special 80th birthday edition of Testosterone Gone Wild, that is, a full card of tattoo-bedizend savages beating the crap out of each other UFC style, like it was a Hooters parking lot on wife-swap night. . . why, it just doesn’t get more surreal than that.

Imagine what Victoria Nuland, Robert Reich, George Stephanopoulis, Elizabeth Warren, and other good folks of that ilk must be thinking. The. . . (Sputter sputter) indelicacy of it all! A freaking peace deal, and now this low-rent spectacle of ultra-violence! Like their whole world had turned out to be the meanest, lowest, most sordid backwater of the Marvel Comics universe where no one has ever heard of chardonney. The ape-men slugging, kicking, gouging, and head-butting each other half to death is one thing. . . but to let the slip the opportunity to continue the Iran War with its downstream emoluments for another nineteen years. . . well, now that is an affront to all that is holy in the sub-basements of Foggy Bottom and the broom closets of Langley. As you read this on Monday morning the cries for impeachment will be ringing across the District of Columbia like calls to prayer in Mamdani’s Caliphate on the Hudson.

Surely, you’ll get more details on the Iran deal as Monday spins out, but the terms look not bad at all for Western Civ in the news media’s early shorthand reports:

Teheran pledges no nukes, ever, no how, no way. They will allow their cache of super-enriched uranium to be destroyed.

The Strait of Hormuz will reopen promptly, free to international shipping, no tolls, no piratical monkey-business.

No more Iran funding terrorist proxy groups. That means you Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and sundry cadres of jihadi maniacs ‘out there’ in the world’s hotspots.

Speaking of which, Mr. Netanyahu felt the president’s wrath earlier on Sunday (once again) when he replied to a Hezbollah rocket salvo out of Lebanon with air strikes. But, hey, everybody knows that Israel always and ever answers every attack against it no matter what, because Never Again. Even Mr. Trump knows that, so the whole flap was a sort of mummery. Obviously, Hezbollah must be anxious to wreck the peace deal, since without Iran’s ongoing largess they will not know where their next meal is coming from, not to mention their next shipment of missiles. If Iran actually complies with the deal, Hezbollah can have no more support. There may soon be no more Hezbollah. (Boo-hoo.)

Which raises the next obvious concern, namely, Iran is not known for keeping its word with The Great Satan (us). There is every reason to believe that the vaunted deal is just another sorry episode of them stringing the USA along, playing us. But Mr. Trump has made it clear he reserves the option to rev up the bombers and “do a number on” the Islamic Republic if they pull a fast one on this.

For its part, Iran is crowing in its own state-controlled press that it has won the war. Iran can say whatever it wants to — world opinion will probably not be fooled — if it makes the people running the joint feel good about themselves losing a war. It’ll be Iran’s actions that matter. There’s a chance, perhaps a low-percentage chance, but a chance nonetheless, that Iran has been persuaded to stop being insane.

They do have an opportunity to put jihad aside, sell oil and pistachios to the world, and try being a normal nation for a change.

It’s asking a lot, I’m sure, but there’s a lot in it for them. If they actually showed a serious attitude adjustment, you can bet that Mr. Trump would offer help setting up bigly capital investments there, enabling new trade relations, and easing them back into a world of non-insane, sovereign polities with reality-based interests.

He already invited them to join the Abraham Accords, to establish full diplomatic relations with the other signers, embassies, direct flights, trade, tourism, and security cooperation.

So, let’s stand by and see if the Memorandum of Understanding gets signed later this week. The president is winging to Geneva for the G-7 as I write. The other parties to the deal are on their way there, too.

The face to face meet-up between the American President and whoever Iran sends to the ceremony will be more thrillingly momentous than any pairing of UFC cage fighters on the White House lawn.

In fact, I’m awfully glad that over-the-top extravaganza is done with.

The triumphalism is disconcerting.

We still have a very serious cold civil war to deal with here in the Homeyland, and a national mental health crisis that turns US daily life into a real time horror movie from sea to shining sea.

The party of “our democracy” still works avidly to overthrow the republic, and extravagant sports entertainments will not avail to make that stop.

We need perp walks and trials. . .sober business. . .a cold reckoning with our own monsters.

 

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/15/2026 - 16:20

Saylor's Strategy Buys Another $100 Million Of Bitcoin

Authored by Helen Partz via CoinTelegraph.com,

Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the world’s largest public Bitcoin holder, added to its cryptocurrency reserves last week as BTC continued to trade below the company’s average cost basis of about $75,700.

Strategy acquired 1,587 Bitcoin (BTC) for $100 million between June 8 and Sunday, according to Monday's 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Source: SEC

The purchase was made at an average price of $63,024 per Bitcoin, bringing the company’s overall average cost basis slightly lower to $75,656.

With the latest buy, Strategy now holds 846,842 BTC, accumulated at a total cost of $64.07 billion.

At the current price of about $66,216 per bitcoin, those holdings are worth roughly $56.1 billion, according to CoinGecko data.

MSTR sales behind the purchase

Similar to the previous 1,550 BTC acquisition announced last Monday, Strategy funded the latest acquisition through sales of its Class A common stock (MSTR).

In the filing, the company said it raised about $209 million by selling 1.73 million MSTR shares during the period. Preferred share programs, including STRC, STRF, STRK and STRD, showed no activity during the week.

According to STRC.live, a tracker of Strategy’s preferred stock programs, STRC traded below its $100 par value for a fourth consecutive week as of June 12. The stock remained in the mid-$96 range, marking its longest stretch below par since launch.

STRC closed at $94.80 on Friday, down around 1%, according to TradingView data.

Source: STRC.live

Strategy executive chairman Saylor hinted at the latest purchase in a post on X on Sunday, writing, “Still adding dots,” a phrase investors have come to associate with the company’s upcoming Bitcoin acquisitions.

Source: Michael Saylor

The latest buy comes about two weeks after Strategy disclosed the sale of 32 BTC on June 1, its first reported Bitcoin sale in years. While the transaction represented only a tiny fraction of the company’s holdings, the sale ignited debate in the community, with some industry observers questioning whether the company was moving away from its long-standing buy-and-hold approach.

Saylor recently defended the sale, telling Cointelegraph that Bitcoin treasury companies must retain the ability to sell holdings to support dividend-paying securities.

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/15/2026 - 15:45

US Property Foreclosure Filings Increase 14% Year Over Year

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

There were a total of 40,355 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings in May—down 5 percent month-over-month but up by 14 percent compared to the same period in 2025.

“The increase marks the continuation of a trend of rising foreclosure activity on an annual basis,” real estate analytics company ATTOM said in a June 11 statement.

In April, foreclosure filings were up 18 percent from a year back. And in the first quarter of 2026, filings were up 26 percent compared to Q1 of 2025.

“Lenders repossessed 4,092 U.S. properties through completed foreclosures (REOs) in May 2026, down 20 percent from the previous month but up 6 percent from a year ago,” ATTOM said.

Foreclosure is a legal process by which a mortgage lender repossesses a property due to borrower’s failure to make mortgage payments. The lender initially issues a notice of default when payments are missed for 90 days. If the borrower does not settle payments within 30 days, the property is repossessed and eventually sold to new buyers.

In May, one in every 3,562 U.S. housing units had a foreclosure filing, ATTOM reported. Florida had the highest foreclosure rate, with one in 2,110 units. This was followed by South Carolina, Maryland, Nevada, and Indiana.

Among metro areas with a population of at least 2 million, Cleveland, Ohio, had the highest foreclosure rate last month, with one in 1,524 housing properties. This was followed by Baltimore, Maryland; Tampa, Florida; Riverside, California; and Orlando, Florida.

As for states with the highest number of completed foreclosures, Texas ranked at the top with 519, followed by California, Florida, Illinois, and Michigan.

“Foreclosure starts and completed foreclosures both increased compared to last year, reflecting ongoing pressure on some homeowners as elevated mortgage rates, rising ownership costs, and affordability constraints persist,” CEO at ATTOM Rob Barber said.

“At the same time, foreclosure volumes remain well below historical norms, indicating that the housing market continues to show resilience despite these challenges.”

In a June 12 post, legal services company Nolo predicted foreclosure rates to gradually rise in the latter part of this year.

“Factors such as surging insurance premiums, elevated interest rates, climbing HOA fees, and reduced buyer demand are contributing to a growing housing crisis,” Nolo said. “Also, markets with high property taxes or economies that rely on volatile sectors (like Las Vegas, Nevada) are at risk of seeing an increase in foreclosures during tough economic times.”

The average weekly mortgage rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has remained above 6 percent for every single week since mid-September 2022, except for a brief dip in late February this year, according to data from Freddie Mac.

Meanwhile, the housing market slowed down in May after improving in April due to the increase in mortgage rates, real estate brokerage Redfin said in a June 3 statement.

The trend of rising foreclosures is likely to continue unless there is significant relief or intervention, Nolo said.

In February, a group of lawmakers reintroduced the Preserving Homes and Communities Act to protect homeowners from foreclosures, according to a Feb. 4 statement from the office of Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.).

The bill seeks to ensure that local entities with public missions, such as municipalities, states, and nonprofits, have the “first opportunity” to buy nonperforming and reperforming mortgages from the Federal Housing Administration, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. Typically, such loans are sold at a discount to institutional investors and private equity companies via note sale programs.

The bill also seeks to make sure that borrowers receive a notice of at least 90 days before their mortgages are placed in note sales.

“Housing costs are higher than ever before and we need to make it easier for working families to keep a roof over their heads. The national data clearly shows that the current note sales system is not working properly and is prioritizing the wants of investors over the needs of homeowners,” Reed said.

The bill “will implement key reforms to strengthen foreclosure protections and better protect homeowners and communities,” the senator said.

The bill has been referred to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/15/2026 - 15:05

Three Factors Leave Salty-Snack Demand Stale

UBS analyst Peter Grom, who covers U.S. consumer staples including packaged food, beverages, and household products, served up a sour outlook for the salty-snack category, warning that the recovery investors had hoped for remains further out than expected.

"Despite recent optimism around a potential recovery in salty snacks, our analysis would suggest the category remains challenged. While tracked channel growth has turned positive relative to prior periods, we have observed momentum beginning to moderate with L13W $ takeaway growth decelerating to +1.2% vs. the +3.4% peak growth seen earlier in the year," Grom began the note.

Grom pointed out that the salty-snack category remains under pressure from a confluence of headwinds, including rapid GLP-1 adoption, potential SNAP benefit reductions, and mounting macroeconomic challenges faced by cash-strapped consumers.

"The combination of GLP-1 adoption, potential SNAP benefit reductions, and broader consumer spending pressures tied to the current geopolitical conflict has weighed on snack demand," the analyst said.

Grom noted that the Nielsen data show little evidence of a robust recovery, with buy rates, purchase frequency, spending per trip, units per trip, and overall projected sales all slowing. The category is also losing share to "better-for-you" options. 

A Recovery Remains Uncertain

Snack trend down

He pointed out that competitive pressure has greatly intensified, adding that Pepsi remains the junk food king, with nearly half of category sales, but most large incumbents are generating flat-to-negative growth across tracked channels.

Pepsi's Frito-Lay North America food unit has experienced negative sales growth for much of the past year and continues to lose share despite investments in pricing, promotions, merchandising, and shelf space.

Another pressure point has been declining sales at convenience stores. He said C-store salty-snack sales, historically a strong growth engine, fell 3.5% in the latest 13 weeks as higher pump prices weighed on traffic and impulse purchases. Another headwind at C-stores has been the decline in SNAP sales.

Related consumer trend coverage:

• Here's What Happened Inside Convenience Stores When Gas Hit $4

• Here's What Happened Inside Gas Stations When Gas Hit $4

• Beer Demand Goes Flat As Even Alcoholics Pull Back With Gas Above $4

• Energy Drinks Become Latest Casualty As Fuel Shock Shifts Consumer Behavior

One takeaway from Grom's note is that the confluence of pressures mentioned above has collided across the salty-snack aisle, derailing the recovery investors had hoped would take shape this year.

Professional subscribers can read more about consumer trends at our new Marketdesk.ai portal. 

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/15/2026 - 14:45

Trump Details Iran Deal At G7: No Nukes, Conditional Sanctions Relief

Summary:

• Iran will not have a nuclear weapon under the new deal.
• The agreement includes strong policing and enforcement powers.
• Trump: Obama’s JCPOA was a horrible deal that led toward a bomb.
• Past U.S. payments to Iran were a failed bribe attempt.
• Sanctions relief will only happen if Iran complies with terms.
• Iran gets no money or relief just for signing the deal.
• A deal has been electronically signed by Iran's Ghalibaf, according to US officials cited by CNBC
• Opening the strait will take time due to mines, and to expect an increase in traffic in 1-2 weeks
• Details to be released in 24-48 hours
• Trump: Ships starting to move through strait or Hormuz
• Vice President JD Vance Begins Optics Roadshow to Boost Investor Confidence On Deal 
• Iran Offers 60-Day Toll-Free Hormuz Transit As 100s Of Ships Await Reopening

Deal Done

CNBC is reporting that a deal between the US and Iran has been electronically signed by Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. According to an unnamed US official, the US-Iran MOU provides for the 'immediate' reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, however - while President Trump said earlier that ships were beginning to move, the US official then said that reopening the strait would 'take time' due to mines, and that we can expect an increase in strait traffic over the next 1-2 weeks. 

Trump addressed reporters and allies at the G7 summit in France on Monday, just hours after a major interim agreement with Iran that includes a 60-day ceasefire, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and strict limits on Tehran’s nuclear program. Speaking alongside French President Emmanuel Macron, he repeatedly underscored that preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon was the central achievement of the deal.

“The main thing is that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. “They fully agreed to that with strong policing powers.”

🚨 PRESIDENT TRUMP JUST NOW: "The main thing is that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon!"

"They fully agreed to that with strong POLICING powers and they won't have a nuclear weapon, which is what it was all about because they probably would have used it if they had it."

"So… pic.twitter.com/izXsxj7vkE

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) June 15, 2026

He then compared it to the Obama-era JCPOA, calling the earlier agreement “a horrible deal for the United States” that had put Iran on “a road to a nuclear weapon” while sending billions of dollars to Tehran. Trump was also sharply critical of past U.S. cash payments to Iran, describing the $1.7 billion withdrawal from banks plus tens of billions in additional spending as a failed attempt to “bribe them to make a deal that didn’t work.”

🚨 BOOM! President Trump is now publicly OBLITERATING Barack Hussein Obama trying to "BRIBE" Iran with CASH to no success

"$1.7 billion was taken out of the banks and given to Iran and on top of that tens of billions of dollars was spent. So they tried to bribe them to make a… pic.twitter.com/uzp1r070kg

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) June 15, 2026

On the current arrangement, Trump stressed that any sanctions relief would be strictly behavioral and tied to compliance rather than granted simply for signing. He noted improved relations with Iran’s current leadership and reported that the Strait of Hormuz is already partially open, with mines being cleared and commercial shipping set to resume fully by Friday. Markets reacted immediately, with stocks surging and oil prices posting their biggest drop in some time.

🚨 JUST IN: Overseas, President Trump says he's GETTING ALONG WITH IRAN, the market is SURGING and oil prices are DROPPING

47 just made massive history!

"The Strait is already partially open, as you know they're doing a little hunting for a couple of mines that they've already… pic.twitter.com/UAHoCs1JBn

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) June 15, 2026

Trump also called for an end to fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, saying the long-running conflict “should NOT be tough” to address and that “we have to have a little talk with them.” Less than 24 hours after the Iran developments, he revealed he had already spoken with both President Zelensky and President Putin, describing the conversations as “very good” and expressing optimism that progress could be made to stop the bloodshed in Ukraine, where he noted roughly 25,000 people are dying each month.

🚨 HOLY CRAP! President Trump not even 24 HOURS after ending the Iran war just spoke with Putin and Zelensky to try and end the UKRAINE war

This man is going all-out for peace!

"Very good conversation yesterday with President Zelensky and President Putin. And I see maybe we can… pic.twitter.com/XDrhgQgyuT

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) June 15, 2026

Details of the MOU will be released over the next 24-48 hours, though one US official said that the MOU contains 'possible' $300 billion in reconstruction funding. 

Ghalibaf notably came into public view for the first time in weeks in April to lead the Iranian delegation in talks in Islamabad with US Vice President DJ Vance - marking the highest-level contact between the two foes since before the 1979 Islamic revolution. 

Trump

President Trump on Monday claimed on Truth Social that commercial ships loaded with oil are transiting the Strait of Hormuz followinmg an announced deal to end hostilities with Iran.

"Ships are starting to move, many loaded up with Oil, out of the Strait of Hormuz," he wrote. "They are going along the Southern ‘Highway,’ which is totally safe, secure, and pristine. There are other areas of travel, also!!!"

Keep an eye on it here. 

https://hormuzstraitmonitor.com/

Sunday evening Trump announced that the US and Iran had reached a tentative deal to end the war which was started by the Trump adminisgration and Israel on Feb. 28. 

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said it had agreed to the memorandum of understanding (MOU) - according to state-run outelt IRNA.

VP Vance

Not even 24 hours after President Trump declared a peace deal with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and just 30 minutes before New York futures opened Sunday evening, the administration already had Vice President JD Vance beginning a media roadshow to calm investor nerves and boost confidence.

Vance began the Monday roadshow on CNBC, providing more details on the U.S.-Iran deal, as uncertainty is the market's worst fear.

Vance said the U.S.-Iran deal is moving ahead despite what he called MSM "misreporting."

"The agreement is fundamentally built around a two-step verification process," Vance told the outlet, adding that Israel will have a seat at the table. Vance also stated that all Iranian government factions are represented in the talks, with several Iranian representatives expected at Friday's signing ceremony.

On the Hormuz maritime chokepoint, Vance said the strait is already seeing increased traffic and is expected to remain open toll-free over the long term, not just temporarily. He added that Iran would need resources to rebuild, but those resources would not be available without a nuclear deal.

Summary of discussion via CNBC: 

Vice President JD Vance on Monday said after the U.S. and Iran struck a preliminary deal that there are "a lot" of details that remain to be ironed out, but he expressed confidence that America has "all the cards" in subsequent talks.

The agreement reached Sunday would extend the U.S.-Iran ceasefire for 60 days and set up a framework for future negotiations about Tehran's nuclear program and other key issues.

The text of the preliminary deal has yet to be released. Vance, on CNBC's "Squawk Box" Monday morning, said the deal's two major prongs are reopening the Strait of Hormuz and clinching a long-term commitment that Iran will never develop a nuclear weapon.

He indicated that if Iran abides by the deal's commitments, it will be rewarded with loosened economic sanctions or other barriers, allowing Tehran "to be reinvited into the world economy." 

Vance is also expected to join CBS Mornings to discuss the U.S.-Iran peace deal. It is likely that Fox Business and other outlets will follow, as the administration must repair any political damage from four months of war with Iran, which created uncertainty on Wall Street and sent the national average for gasoline prices above $4 per gallon for 2.5 months.

VIEWER ALERT: @VP Vance joins @CBSMornings 🌞 just after 8am ET to discuss the emerging U.S.-Iran deal.

— Ed O'Keefe (@edokeefe) June 15, 2026

Let the roadshow begin... 

Iran Offers 60-Day Toll-Free Hormuz Transit As 100s Of Ships Await Reopening

The U.S. and Iran reached an interim agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday evening, just 30 minutes before New York futures opened, with officials from both countries set to meet in Switzerland on Friday to formally sign the peace deal.

According to Iranian outlet Fars, the U.S.-Iran deal reportedly includes a 60-day toll-free window for vessels. After that period, if a more permanent deal is agreed upon, Tehran may seek to monetize the Hormuz chokepoint by charging commercial vessels for "services" tied to safety, navigation, environmental protection, and insurance.

Traffic on the Strait remains light on Monday morning, with hundreds of tankers waiting for the Hormuz waterway to officially reopen by the end of the week. But LNG tanker Disha did not wait for the formal opening and made a dash to exit the strait early Monday.

There are nearly 300 loaded vessels idling in the Persian Gulf, while a similar number of empty ships are waiting in the Gulf of Oman to return to export terminals. Another 250 ballast vessels inside the Gulf are ready to pick up cargoes if outbound flows resume.

The reopening could release millions of barrels of trapped oil and restart LNG flows, but normalization of energy flows back to pre-war levels could take many months, if not quarters, and for Qatar's sake, years.

"From the bridge and the engine room where we're sitting, right now it looks very different to what the headlines may say," said Angad Banga, CEO of maritime conglomerate The Caravel Group, which owns Fleet Management Limited, one of the world's largest ship management companies.

Banga told Bloomberg that it has several crews trapped in the Persian Gulf area, adding, "We've seen positive signals before, and I think ultimately what matters is what holds."

Anoop Singh, global head of shipping research at Oil Brokerage Ltd, told the outlet, "Shipowners are on a risk spectrum — the Japanese, Koreans and Chinese are less open to high risk, while the Greeks have a different appetite — so we may see some people gearing up."

Singh noted, "But by and large the rest of the market is still seeking more details and assurance before proceeding."

Beyond the shipping industry, on Wall Street, UBS economist Arend Kapteyn told clients earlier this morning that "the test will be how quickly and to what extent the Strait of Hormuz reopens. Early indications suggest this may depend on Iran clearing naval mines over an initial 30-day period. But taken at face value, the news should be supportive for risk assets, pushing yields, oil and the US dollar lower, while equities move higher."

Latest Hormuz trends via Kepler Cheuvreux shipping analyst Axel Styrman:

Daily arrivals at the Strait of Hormuz in 2026

Global trade & capacity trapped/waiting as of 22 May

Daily arrivals, Strait of Hormuz, # of ships per segment

Crude Exports and destination via the Strait of Hormuz

LNG Exports and destination via the Strait of Hormuz

LPG exports and destination via the Strait of Hormuz

Shipping Stocks To Watch

Professional subscribers can read much more about the Hormuz chokepoint on our new Marketdesk.ai portal. 

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/15/2026 - 14:30

"Dangerous Precedent Of Censorship And Sanitization": Biden-Appointed Judge Enjoins Removal Of Slavery And Climate Displays

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

George Santayana famously said that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. The same is true for judicial overreach. Those judges who yield to the temptation to counter policies that are not to their liking are likely to repeat such excesses of power. That is why the recent decision of U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley in Boston is so concerning. While there are good-faith reasons why some have objected to the removal of slavery and climate change exhibits from national parks and monuments, this is not about the merits but the authority to make such changes. Kelley’s recent injunction smacks of judicial excess rather than measured review.

Judge Kelley, a Biden appointee, issued a preliminary injunction at the behest of groups representing park conservationists, historians and scientists, who argued that the U.S. Department of the Interior has been engaged in a “sustained campaign to erase history and undermine science.”

The complaint is heavily laden with subjective views of historical relevance that are obviously not shared by the Administration. These interpretations were installed under the discretion of the Biden Administration. They were removed under the same inherent discretion of the Trump Administration.

In March 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order reversing his predecessor on what he viewed as a “revisionist movement” that portrayed the U.S. as “inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.”

He ordered the Interior Department to make changes to parks, monuments and memorials to address any “false revision of history” that the White House said had occurred in recent years.

Some of the displays discuss the abuses of indigenous populations or the enslavement of persons at these sites. I happen to agree with the Court that such context is important for citizens to fully appreciate our history. The issue, however, is who legally decides on such interpretive displays.

For example, I strongly disagreed with the African American Museum in the exclusion Justice Clarence Thomas from displays of great African Americans.  While I supported those in Congress seeking answers from the Smithsonian, I never viewed the material as a violation of federal law or worthy of judicial intervention. Notably, these historical groups and experts did not file actions in federal court to force his inclusion.

That was, of course, the individual decision of one museum. However, the question is why the Administration can make such individual decisions rather than department-wide or branch-wide decisions. Likewise, it is difficult to see the limiting principle here. If President Trump said that he wanted to emphasize certain elements like patriotism and these displays were substituted, would that also be a violation of federal law?

The challengers invoked federal law to argue that the Trump Administration was wrong and that the action was therefore arbitrary and capricious. The action is based on loose interpretations of the National Park Service Organic Act, the National Park Service Centennial Act, and the National Parks Omnibus Management Act, as well as the Administrative Procedure Act.

Judge Kelley chastises the Administration for removing displays that “do not align with its preferred narrative.” However, the original displays were themselves a preferred narrative by the prior Administration.

Judge Kelley invokes generally worded federal laws to require the Administration to seek out and heed the wisdom of historical experts on such questions, despite the views of other experts who agree with the action.

She declared that the removal of the displays not only undermines “the integrity of the National Parks; it sets a dangerous precedent of censorship and sanitization.”

The court notes that “the Secretary’s Order fails to provide any reasoned justification for its directive to review and remove interpretive material.” Yet, that would seem abundantly obvious from the cited Executive Order and the purpose of the change. The real question is whether this type of action requires more than the exercise of discretion. Agencies and offices routinely make such decisions on displays. The only difference is a branch-wide order.

The court’s cited authority is itself vague and undefined. For example, Judge Kelley holds that “The Order mentions the Organic Act and the FLPMA as ‘Authority’ but does not explain its relationship to those statutes, such as how the removal of interpretive materials comports with the Organic Act’s mandate to ‘conserve’ and to ‘provide for the enjoyment’ of park resources. 54 U.S.C. § 100101(a).”

The Administration is citing the sweeping discretion afforded under federal law.

However, the Court suggests it can micromanage the branch in making decisions about interpretative displays under this language.

Once again, I may agree with these historians on some of this material but it is immaterial — as immaterial as Judge Kelley’s qualms.

In my view, the court’s analysis is deeply flawed and should be reversed.

Here is the decision: National Park Conservation Association v. Department of the Interior

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/15/2026 - 14:25

Could Trump's Fable 5 Export Curbs Slow China's AI Model Race

The biggest AI story to start the week is the Trump administration's decision to place export controls on Anthropic's Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models, forcing Dario Amodei's frontier AI lab to restrict foreign access.

The move comes as Chinese open-source models have been rapidly closing the compute gap with U.S. labs. Anthropic's latest release appears to have widened that gap again, particularly in frontier reasoning, coding, and cybersecurity use cases.

Export controls could have second-order effects on the global AI race, according to analysts at Jefferies. By limiting access to Anthropic's most advanced models, Trump officials may slow the pace at which foreign developers, particularly in China, can study, benchmark, or distill these advanced frontier models into cheaper open-source systems.

"US models are improving at a faster pace, likely due to computational advantage, but anti- distillation and US export control are new negatives for China AI," the analysts wrote in a note on Sunday.

The key question now is whether Fable 5 and Mythos 5 include stronger anti-distillation safeguards to prevent Chinese labs from replicating or compressing Anthropic's advances into open-source models. If so, the export curbs may not just be about access. They may represent a broader effort to protect America's AI lead.

To understand the full AI model landscape, not just in the West but also in the East, Bank of America analysts, led by Alex Liu, penned an insightful note on Monday morning about leading Chinese models.

Liu wrote that China's AI model market is moving into a two-speed global structure, with U.S. labs likely to retain the lead in frontier capabilities while Chinese players gain share in lower-cost, high-volume use cases.

She noted that Chinese models are narrowing the gap through efficiency gains, architecture optimization, distillation, and lower-cost inference, making them increasingly affordable.

Liu said AI labs at Alibaba, ByteDance, Tencent, and Baidu are racing against independent labs, such as DeepSeek, Zhipu, MiniMax, and Moonshot AI.

Who's who in the China AI model market

Incumbents

• Major internet companies such as ByteDance, Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent—many of which have established cloud businesses—have developed proprietary AI foundation models in-house.

Independent AI labs

• DeepSeek, MiniMax, Zhipu, and Moonshot AI are independent AI labs

China AI model landscape is intensely competitive

Investing landscape of Chinese AI labs  

Liu's view is that China AI has shifted from a frontier story to an affordability story. But with the U.S. government now able to halt foreign access to advanced models, as it just did with Anthropic's Fable 5, it appears increasingly difficult for Chinese labs to copy, distill, or reverse-engineer U.S. frontier models.

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/15/2026 - 14:05

What Could Break The Bull Market This Summer

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Key Takeaways

• After nine straight up weeks, the bull market pullback we flagged finally arrived, and it stopped cold at the 50-day moving average.

• The selloff reset an overbought tape without breaking trend. RSI fell from above 70 to the low 40s, and Thursday’s bounce came on broad participation.

• Our Money Flow Breadth Ratio ticked up to 60%, back in buy territory, and we’re holding equity exposure at 100%.

• The bigger risks haven’t gone anywhere: record margin debt, fading retail demand, and a 10-year Treasury that now out-yields the S&P 500.

• This sets up more upside for now. It does not erase the odds of a deeper correction this summer if forward earnings expectations crack.

Two weeks ago, after the S&P 500 logged its ninth consecutive weekly gain, we discussed that a bull market pullback was coming. It came. From the May 27 record near 7,621, the index slid 4.5% and bottomed almost exactly on its 50-day moving average before ripping back to close Friday at 7,431.46. That is not the opening act of a bear market. That is the kind of bull market pullback that resets sentiment and, more often than not, clears the runway for the next leg higher. The harder question is what happens after the bounce.

The Correction We Told You To Expect

Make no mistake, I have been warning about the potential for a pullback over the last few weeks and repeatedly discussed taking profits and rebalancing risk. As I wrote in “Two-Month Market Rally: What Comes Next,” a market that climbs for 9 straight weeks gets stretched, and stretched markets tend to mean-revert. The only real questions were the “when” and “how much.” We suggested a bull-market pullback of 3% to 5%; toward the 50-day moving average, would be most likely. However, a larger correction is still possible. As noted, the actual decline ran 4.5% peak to trough and found its floor exactly where trend-followers add rather than abandon.

Notably, the dip buyers showed up on cue. When the S&P probed the mid-7,200s on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, the same crowd that has bought every dip since the April 2025 low stepped in again, and by Friday the index had clawed back roughly a quarter of the prior week’s 2.64% drubbing. That close at 7,431.46 leaves the larger uptrend fully intact, sitting about 2.5% below the high rather than careening away from it.

Crucially, the setup still favors the bulls, at least for now.

First, the damage was technical, not structural. The 14-day RSI ran above 70 at the late-May high and fell to the low 40s at this month’s lows before settling back near 53. In plain terms, the market burned off its overbought condition without violating the trend, which is textbook.

Second, the quality of the bounce mattered. Thursday’s 1.75% surge came on broad participation rather than three megacaps doing all the lifting, and broad thrusts off support tend to mark real lows instead of dead-cat bounces.

Third, our own money-flow work agrees. The Money Flow Breadth Ratio (MFBR) is a rules-based model that “systematically adjusts portfolio equity exposure in response to the direction and persistence of institutional capital flows.” We use this analysis to size equity exposure in portfolios, and the MFBR ticked up to 60% as of June 12 and sits back in buy territory after sliding to 55% the prior week. The trailing four-week net flow has swung sharply positive following a deeply negative stretch, which historically reads as a contrarian buy. We’ve held exposure at 100% since April 17, and this signal keeps us there.

“As of June 12, 2026, with the S&P 500 at 7,431.46, the Money Flow Breadth Ratio (MFBR) stands at 60% and rising. This places the indicator in BUY territory (60-70%), triggering a NEUTRAL signal. The prior week reading was 55%, representing a 10% decline over the trailing four weeks. The model currently recommends HOLDING exposure at 100%, a level that has remained since April 17, 2026 (8 weeks). This reflects a FLOW-OVERLAY OVERRIDE: the trailing 4-week net dollar flow has swung sharply positive (>$300B) after a deeply negative prior 4 weeks, a historically strong contrarian buy signal.” – Bull Bear Report June 13th

The map from here is simple. Overhead, the 20-DMA at 7,466 is the first hurdle, then the round 7,500 mark, then the 7,621 record. Below, the 50-DMA at 7,248 is the line in the sand, with the 38.2% retracement at 7,118 and the rising 200-DMA at 6,882 beneath it. Hold 7,248 through Wednesday’s Fed meeting, and this stays a routine shakeout inside an uptrend.

What Could Break The Trade This Summer

None of that means you switch off your risk management. As we warned in “Leadership Is Narrow” and again in “Market Correction Risk,” the ingredients for a deeper drawdown are quietly building underneath a rising tape. Three of them deserve your attention.

Start with leverage. FINRA margin debt hit a record $1.30 trillion in April, up better than a third in a year, and now runs near 4% of GDP against a long-run median closer to 1.5%. Measured against M2, it’s back near the peaks that preceded the 2000 and 2007 tops. Borrowed money cuts both ways. It is an accelerant, not a cushion.

Next, watch the retail bid. Vanda’s flow data shows single-stock retail net turnover rolling over into negative territory in recent sessions, even as prices grind higher. That divergence matters. When the buyer who powered this rally starts selling into strength, the marginal source of demand thins out right as the supply picture gets heavier.

Then there’s the cold math on bonds versus stocks. The 10-year Treasury now yields about 4.45%, while the S&P 500’s trailing earnings yield sits near 3.7%. For the first time in this cycle, a risk-free Treasury pays you MORE than the index earns. That flips the equity risk premium negative and hands every allocator a credible, paid-to-wait reason to trim equities into bonds.

Layer on the supply story as detailed in “Equity Supply Surge”: Alphabet’s $80 billion secondary, SpaceX’s $75 billion IPO, and a queue of mega-raises from OpenAI, Anthropic, and the hyperscalers mean the market has to absorb a wall of new paper. More shares chasing the same dollars is a persistent headwind, not a one-day shock. As we noted in “Parabolic Semiconductor Rally,” when the most prized names all rush the exit at once, it pays to ask who is selling.

How We’re Positioning

So how do we square a buy signal with a real list of worries? We hold exposure and manage risk simultaneously. Those two things aren’t in conflict. The MFBR keeps us invested because the weight of the evidence and a clean test of support still point higher. Bob Farrell’s fourth rule reminds us that exponential moves tend to run further than anyone expects and then correct violently. Markets like that never correct gently. Therefore, we keep trailing stops disciplined, we refuse to chase the SpaceX-fueled enthusiasm at the highs, and we watch 7,248 like a hawk.

The calendar adds a second reason for that discipline. We’re walking into the weakest stretch of the year. As I detailed in “Market Correction Risk: Why Summer 2026 Looks Risky,” the May-through-October window has produced an average S&P 500 gain of just 1.7% since 1950, compared with better than 7% in November through April. The old “sell in May” line gets mocked every spring by people who haven’t looked at the data. The data is one-sided.

Then stack the election cycle on top. 2026 is a midterm year, and midterm years are the weakest and most volatile leg of the four-year presidential cycle. Jeff Hirsch’s Stock Trader’s Almanac has tracked the pattern for decades, and the numbers are sobering. Going back to the early 1960s, the average intra-year drawdown in a midterm year runs around 17% to 18%. That is well above the roughly 13% you see in the other three years. Notably, volatility tends to build up ahead of the November vote as investors handicap the balance of power in Congress.

Here’s the part that keeps me constructive, though. That midterm weakness has historically been a setup, not an ending. The 12 months after a midterm election have delivered an average S&P 500 gain of more than 12%. Furthermore, the Dow has climbed by more than 45% on average from its midterm-year low to its pre-election-year high. So the same seasonal soft patch that turns a routine bull market pullback into a deeper summer correction has, time and again, been the launchpad for the next leg up. We manage risk now, NOT because the bull market is over. We do it because we want dry powder and a steady hand when the seasonal low shows up.

None of this is about going to cash and hiding. It’s about tilting the book so you can sit through a noisy summer and still have ammunition for the fall. Here’s the playbook we’re running.

Howard Marks said it best.

“The riskiest thing in markets is the belief that there is no risk.”

With high-yield spreads pinned near 300 basis points, the market is pricing almost none. That’s exactly the backdrop where this kind of playbook earns its keep. Stay invested, but keep one hand on the exit.

The catalyst that turns a healthy pullback into something deeper won’t be a single oil-soaked CPI print. It’ll be the moment forward earnings expectations start to roll over while valuations sit at the high end of history. We aren’t there yet. Watch the Fed on Wednesday, watch wages, and watch whether second-half earnings estimates hold. The trend is your friend right up until the day it isn’t. Our job between now and then is to stay invested without going blind.

What’s your read? Are you adding to this dip or trimming into strength? Does the gap between a bullish tape and a long list of risks have you second-guessing your own positioning? If so, that’s exactly the conversation worth having. Connect with our team, and let’s pressure-test your portfolio before the summer does it for you.

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/15/2026 - 13:45

Apollo Picks Austin Over New York As Wall Street's Migration South Continues

It's not just Citadel that's moving out of New York.

Apollo Global Management has chosen Austin, Texas, as its second headquarters, according to sources familiar with the decision. The firm, which manages about $1 trillion in assets, evaluated Austin, Miami, Palm Beach, and Nashville before CEO Marc Rowan selected Austin, according to Financial Times.

The new office is expected to host most future hiring as Apollo expands beyond its longtime New York base. While the decision has been communicated internally, it is not yet final.

Austin's appeal includes its strong talent pipeline, growing tech ecosystem, quality of life, and business-friendly environment. Texas has increasingly attracted major financial and corporate employers, including JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, SpaceX, and ExxonMobil.

FT writes that Apollo has been broadening its U.S. footprint since the pandemic, opening major offices in Connecticut and Florida. The firm now employs more than 4,000 people, over double its 2020 headcount.

Although New York remains Apollo's primary headquarters, the company has stated that most future growth is expected to occur in its second HQ. Austin reportedly also benefited from concerns among employees about limited private-school options in Miami.

Apollo's decision highlights a broader trend reshaping the financial industry. As taxes, regulatory costs, and political uncertainty continue to rise in New York, firms are increasingly looking elsewhere for growth. Critics argue that Mayor Zohran Mamdani's antagonistic rhetoric toward business and his support for higher taxes have reinforced concerns among executives and investors, accelerating the migration of talent and capital to states such as Texas and Florida.

For companies weighing where to expand, Austin's pro-business environment and lower tax burden are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/15/2026 - 13:25

America's Largest Wind Farm To Begin Operations This Month

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The SunZia Wind Project, the largest wind farm in the United States, is scheduled to kick off operations this month, roughly three years after construction activities began on the project, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in a June 12 statement.

“The wind farm, located in New Mexico, has a total net summer generating capacity of 3,650 megawatts (MW) and is composed of 916 wind turbines,” the EIA said.

“SunZia’s capacity is more than three times larger than the next two largest wind farms, Alta Wind in Southern California (1,098 MW) and Great Prairie in northern Texas (1,027 MW).”

Some of the turbines had already begun producing power and contributing to the electricity grid by April this year, during a testing phase. The wind farm, spread across three counties, is coming online after almost two decades of permitting and planning.

Once operational, much of the wind farm’s power will be exported to Southern California and Arizona.

According to Pattern Energy, which built the project, the wind farm and electricity transmission projects are estimated to generate $20.5 billion in economic benefits throughout the project’s life.

Local governments, private landowners, schools, and communities are estimated to receive $1.3 billion in direct payments.

In terms of employment, the project is calculated to have created more than 2,000 construction jobs.

The EIA said that once SunZia comes online, it will push up New Mexico’s net summer wind generating capacity from 3,997 to 7,647 MW. Wind power will account for 45 percent of the state’s energy capacity mix, followed by 19 percent each from solar and natural gas.

“To be able to export the power generated by this project, Pattern Energy also built the SunZia Transmission Project—a 550-mile high-voltage direct current transmission line that goes from the SunZia Wind Project site in central New Mexico to south-central Arizona,” the EIA said.

“Of the SunZia transmission line’s 3,021 MW of power capacity, 2,131 MW will be delivered and consumed in Southern California.”

According to a fact sheet from Pattern Energy, the SunZia wind farm was developed with a “deep commitment to environmental stewardship” and involved discussions with local, regional, and national conservation stakeholders.

The project will provide “clean power” to 3 million Americans annually. It will save more than 7 billion gallons of water per year compared to coal-fired power and avoid more than 13 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to removing roughly 3 million cars from the road.

Curtailing Wind Power

The Trump administration has actively worked to remove incentives for wind power projects, citing concerns about energy security.

In July 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the administration to end federal subsidies for wind and solar energy facilities.

Trump said in the order that these renewable energy sources make America dependent on foreign-controlled supply chains and threaten national security.

Wind and solar power tech rely on materials whose supply chains are controlled by China; for instance, lithium, graphite, cobalt, and manganese are critical to the storage batteries used in wind and solar projects. These rare-earth elements are crucial for the development of wind turbines.

The same month, the Department of the Interior implemented policy measures, such as restoring the congressional mandate to consider all uses of public land and waters equally, to end what it termed “special treatment” accorded to “unreliable energy sources” such as wind power. While fossil fuels can generate power at any time, sources such as wind depend on the weather.

In August 2025, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum signed an order to rein in wind and solar power projects. 

“One advanced nuclear plant ... produces 33.17 megawatts (MW) per acre, while one offshore wind farm produces approximately 0.006 MW/acre, which is approximately 5,500 times less efficient than one nuclear plant,” the department said at the time.

Earlier this month, seven states, including New York and New Jersey, sued the Trump administration over a deal the federal government made with a French wind farm developer. The deal led to the cancellation of an offshore lease intended to develop wind farms and stalled New York’s offshore wind power plans.

“For more than a year, offshore wind has faced an unprecedented and unrelenting campaign of political interference despite billions in private investment, state commitments, and court rulings,” Liz Burdock, president of industry group Oceantic Network, said in a statement.

Meanwhile, solar power overtook coal in the United States’ electricity mix for the first ever month on record in May, energy think tank Ember said in a June 10 statement.

“Solar supplied a record 12.8 percent of US electricity, while coal fell to 12.2 percent, its fourth-lowest monthly share ever,” the company said.

“The share of coal generation in the US mix has nearly halved in the last five years, falling from 19.7 percent in May 2021 to 12.2 percent in May 2026. In contrast, solar power’s share of the mix more than doubled from 5.4 percent to 12.8 percent over the same period.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/15/2026 - 13:05

U.S.-Iran Deal Doesn't Mean A Swift Return Of Oil And Gas Flows

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

• A U.S.-Iran agreement could reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but shipping and production will not immediately return to normal.
• More than 10 million bpd of Middle Eastern oil production has been shut in, and some fields may take months to restart fully.
• Iraq faces a slower recovery than Saudi Arabia or the UAE because its southern exports depend heavily on access through Basrah.

The U.S.-Iran deal and the potentially imminent reopening of the Strait of Hormuz do not mean that oil and gas trade will quickly return to its previous levels. The announcement of the deal is just the first step, and it could take months for oil and gas shipments in the region to return to pre-war levels.

Middle Eastern producers have been forced to shut in more than 10 million barrels per day of oil production since the Strait of Hormuz was closed three and a half months ago. Producers will need months to fully ramp up wells to previous output levels, while the status of the Strait of Hormuz - even if it re-opens on Friday as expected - is still unclear.

"We don't know what open means or what the speed of evacuation of trapped material is going to be," Daniel Sternoff, senior fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, told AP late on Sunday.

Some producers like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates would be quicker to restore output compared to Iraq, for example, which had to curtail the highest proportion of its production due to its inability to move the crude out of its southern fields through Basrah.

"Places like Iraq could be much more challenged because they've had a much bigger shut-in, their fields are more difficult," Alan Gelder, senior vice president of refining, chemicals, and oil markets at Wood Mackenzie, said.

"It may well take about a year before they get back," the expert told AP.

At the end of May, WoodMac's analysts said that assuming operators choose a measured and controlled ramp-up, the fields affected by the Strait of Hormuz closure could get back to 70% of prior production within three months and to 90% within six months. The last 1 million bpd or so will take considerably longer, according to the energy consultancy.

According to Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank, "The speed at which supply chains normalise and export flows recover will also play a key role in determining how much of the geopolitical risk premium remains embedded in the market."

Already, some shipping companies have made it clear that they will wait until the deal is formalized on Friday before attempting to cross the Strait. Even for shipowners who are willing to make the crossing, organizing insurance and other practical issues could further delay the recovery.

The agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz could well mark the end of the war between Iran and the U.S., but it marks only the beginning of what will likely be a long road to recovery for the oil and gas industry.

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/15/2026 - 12:25

First LNG Tanker Crosses Hormuz After Deal Announcement As Most Ship Managers Remain Cautious

An LNG carrier successfully passed through the Strait of Hormuz early on Monday, the first tanker carrying energy products to clear the chokepoint since the U.S. and Iran announced a deal to reopen the Strait later this week, according to OilPrice.com

While tanker owners and operators remain cautious about rushing to send vessels to the area or having the ones inside the Persian Gulf move quickly toward Hormuz, one LNG tanker passed through the Strait today, carrying LNG to India.

The LNG tanker Disha cleared Hormuz and is currently in the Gulf of Oman, ship-tracking data on MarineTraffic showed. The tanker had loaded LNG from Qatar’s Ras Laffan in early March, just when the Gulf state halted LNG production and exports amid the closed Strait of Hormuz and Iranian missile hits on its LNG infrastructure at Ras Laffan.

The first LNG carrier to transit the Strait of Hormuz following the announcement of the US-Iran MOU.

Qatari LNG cargo is heading to India

Map form @Kpler https://t.co/b3t6IWgbGx pic.twitter.com/W44b8SgYSS

— Anas Alhajji (@anasalhajji) June 15, 2026

The tanker is now en route to India, a source close to the matter told Reuters on Monday. 

India has had several LNG tankers from Qatar move through the Strait of Hormuz in the past months, after securing and negotiating corridors with Iran. 

Now the tentative U.S.-Iran deal and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz could ease the traffic congestion and allow more tankers to head to the Middle East to pick up supplies. If the deal holds.

That said, tanker owners and operators await clearance to proceed and are not rushing to test the passage until they have assurances it is safe to do so.

“While we are aware of signs of progress towards a ceasefire, our policy remains unchanged; we will only resume navigation once safety has been fully confirmed,” a spokesperson for Japan’s Mitsui O.S.K. Lines told Reuters on Monday. 

According to MarineTraffic, vessel activity through the Strait of Hormuz continues, but traffic patterns remain uneven and visibility remains limited: 29 verified vessel crossings were recorded between 10 and 14 June, covering crude, refined products, LPG, chemicals, methanol, and general cargo movements. Activity was concentrated on 11 and 12 June, while directional flows remained imbalanced: 23 crossings moved west-to-east, compared with six in the opposite direction.

Additionally, route transparency also remains a key issue, with 18 crossings, or around 62%, classified as Dark or Unknown Route. Two sanctioned vessels were also identified during the period.

Strait of Hormuz traffic remains uneven

Vessel activity through the Strait of Hormuz continues, but traffic patterns remain uneven and visibility remains limited. According to #MarineTraffic data, 29 verified vessel crossings were recorded between 10 and 14 June, covering crude,… pic.twitter.com/SXkofITV5Y

— MarineTraffic (@MarineTraffic) June 15, 2026

As Bloomberg notes, two major oil product shippers and a large vessel management firm remain cautious about sailing in the Middle East, even with the US and Iran reaching an interim peace agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Tanker owner Hafnia said the situation remains fluid, and that “to prepare transits, any alleged reopening must be supported by verified security conditions on the ground”

“Hafnia will only resume transits once there is sufficient confidence in the security environment”

Ship owner Torm meanwhile said it will “carefully assess the situation and resume transits when we consider it safe and responsible to do so”
Jesper Kristensen, CEO of Synergy Marine Group, which manages more than 700 vessels, said that “while the announcement is encouraging, sustained stability and predictability over the coming days will matter.”

“It remains too early to draw firm conclusions,” he added.

Finally, as Lloyds List notes, shipowners rushing to reposition vessels and markets are rallying, yet insurers for now are holding firm on high war‑risk premiums, insisting on ‘solid evidence’ of lasting safety before lowering rates.

Industry bodies warn that mine clearance and a return to the formal Traffic Separation Scheme are essential, as Iran’s blockade has permanently altered regional risk and demonstrated its leverage over the strait.

While a pause in hostilities will free stranded mariners and boost tanker and bulk markets, the sector sees this as a fragile reprieve rather than a return to normality, with elevated risk now embedded in long‑term decision‑making.

Commenting on the situation, a senior US official said that traffic in the Strait of Hormuz will see a significant increase in one to two weeks from now, adding that "the flow of traffic will take some time to improve due to mines in the strait."

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/15/2026 - 12:19

White House Suspects NY Times Reporters Have Situation Room Recordings

Senior Trump administration officials are convinced that two New York Times reporters have somehow obtained recordings of White House Situation Room meetings, which would represent an astounding breach of security, Axios reported on Sunday. 

"We're afraid some of our most sensitive conversations were being recorded," a White House official told Axios. "And we have no idea which ones." 

The White House Situation Room hosts some of the most consequential conversations on Earth 

The two journalists are Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, and the officials are convinced that verbatim Situation Room conversations reproduced in their soon-to-be-released book must have come from recordings of deliberations inside what should be the most secure conference room in the world. The book -- Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump -- will be released on June 23rd, but excerpts already posted by the Times included detailed quotes from conversations that took place in the Situation Room. 

Some of those direct quotes first appeared in an April 7 Times article on the deliberations that took place in the run-up to Trump's decision to team up with Israel in launching a major war on Iran. That report, also by Haberman and Swan, described how administration officials reacted to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's aggressive campaign to convince Trump to betray his campaign pledge to avoid regime-change wars.

Netanyahu was said to have assured Trump that Iran's ballistic missile arsenal could be destroyed in just a few weeks, that Iran wouldn't be able to stop traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, that Iran wasn't likely to attack other countries in the region, that a huge protest movement could be sparked into seizing power, and that Kurdish fighters from Iraq might be enticed into attacking. 

Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's book is touted as providing "unprecedented reporting from deep within the administration's most closely guarded rooms"

Of course, like his infamous 2002 assurance that an invasion of Iraq would have "enormous positive reverberations on the region," all of Netanyahu's assurances about a war on Iran proved spectacularly wrong. At the time, according to Haberman and Swan's reporting, some Trump administration officials were rightly skeptical. The day after Netanyahu's presentation, CIA Director John Ratcliffe was said to have called Netanyahu's pitch "farcical." Secretary of State Marco Rubio was quoted as bluntly restating Ratcliffe's characterization: "In other words, it's bullshit." 

When Trump asked Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dan Caine to weigh in, he's quoted as saying, "Sir, this is, in my experience, standard operating procedure for the Israelis. They oversell, and their plans are not always well-developed. They know they need us, and that’s why they’re hard-selling." 

Axios notes that the use of quotations doesn't necessarily indicate an audio recording was obtained: "Bob Woodward pioneered contemporary historical political journalism by including dialogue in his books that was reconstructed from the memories of people in the rooms where things happened." However, the fact that senior White House officials are concerned about what they've seen so far suggests that Haberman and Swan's quotes may not be mere reconstructions. What's more, the promotional descriptions of the book tout "unprecedented reporting from deep within the administration’s most closely guarded rooms." 

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/15/2026 - 12:05

Nvidia To Raise $20BN In Debt From First Bond Sale Since 2021, As AI Debt Frenzy Goes Parabolic

Over the weekend, we published a length report analyzing what we dubbed "the $1.8 trillion off-balance sheet time bomb at the heart of the AI supercycle",  which focused on the recent surge in popularity of off-balance sheet SPVs, as well as $1 trillion in long-term purchase commitments, and $800bn in lease commitments, which support the AI buildout, and do so by masking the true funding costs of the AI buildout, yet which add significantly to off-BS operating leverage. Additionally, when one adds billions in variable lease payments, over $100BN in embedded capex inside accounts payable, as well as the Construction-in-Progress pipeline which reflect capacity built but not yet expensed - and the $520bn cumulative depreciation estimate is where it eventually lands - and one gets a far more ominous picture of the capital stack that is backstopping the biggest infrastructure buildout in US history, which according to Goldman will translate into as much as $1.4 trillion in 2027 capex, and much more in the following years.

We summarized the complex funding picture which is effectively a series of circular financings across the entire AI ecosystem, "vendor financing and repurchase-style arrangements mean a single counterparty's stress can propagate through several balance sheets at once. Think of it as rehypothecated leverage. Concentration compounds it: the >$2tn of remaining performance obligations across major AI players is built on a handful of very large, long-duration contracts, so the backlog that justifies the spending is also a concentrated counterparty exposure."

But even without focusing on the potentially dire consequences of this off-balance sheet funding unwinding, there is a more mundane risk propagating from the AI buildout, and it has to do with the massive leverage unleashed in public debt markets. We spent the first part of our post discussing just that, but the punchline was captured by the following three charts, the first of which shows that YTD, some $236BN in AI-linked debt has been issued, a 357% increase from the same period last year. By year-end, MS expect this number to more than double to $570 billion.

The second, and perhaps most important chart, is the one showing the dramatic increase in hyperscaler gross leverage, which has surged from 0.9x in Q3 '25 to 1.8x currently, doubling in just over two quarters, and surpassing the gross leverage of the entire energy sector. At this rate, hyperscaler debt is growing at about 0.3x turn per quarter.

Not surprisingly, as a result of the surge in combined leverage, hyperscalers are drifting wider, and after trading inside AA spreads for much of 2025, are now on top of A, and as MS warns, "may widen further on supply." And it's not just outlier Oracle: META is now trading wider to CDX IG. 

Putting it all together, what the above indicates is that hyperscalers, and the broader AI ecosystem, has gong into an all-out debt expansion mode, using both on and off-balance sheet vehicles, to fund as much of the infrastructure buildout (now that the price of 1GW of data center has increased from $50BN most recently to as much as $100BN, due to the jump in silicon density with NVDA Rubin-class racks approaching 600kW and every gigawatt carrying far more GPU and HBM content) while the window is open, and - well - while they can.

Today Nvidia could, and according to Bloomberg, Nvidia became the latest company seeking to raise at least $20 billion from its first corporate bond sale since 2021. 

The chipmaker is marketing bonds in seven tranches, with maturities spanning two to 30 years, Bloomberg reports. Price talk on the longest tenor of the Aa1/AA-rated company is a spread of about 0.9% above Treasuries, while the FT adds that "the 10-year portion of the bond was expected to yield 0.75 percentage points above US Treasuries during initial price discussions."

As Bloomberg writes, picking up where we left off, "the deal is extending a relentless wave of borrowing for companies spearheading the artificial intelligence boom. Firms such as Alphabet Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. have been tapping every corner of the debt market to build the computing capacity needed for AI’s rapid expansion, having raised hundreds of billions of dollars since last year. Investors have readily absorbed the supply."

Nvidia said that it intends "to use the net proceeds from this offering for general corporate purposes, including repayment and refinancing of outstanding notes."

Nvidia last tapped the investment-grade bond market in June 2021, when it raised $5 billion. Its ambitions now are far greater.

And yet, as the FT cautions echoing our own warning, "early signs of market fatigue have prompted some tech companies to find alternative avenues for financing."

Anthropic has turned to private credit investors to seal a $35bn deal backed by Broadcom. Google’s parent Alphabet decided to issue equity for the first time in more than two decades, bringing in $85bn in fresh capital earlier this month.

In any case, the bond market clearly remains open for now; however with leverage within the AI space exploding at the fastest pace on record, it may not take much for the window to close at which point the question will again re-emerge: how will the handful of AI-leading companies fund the trillions in unfunded future obligations.

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/15/2026 - 11:25

US Gas Prices Slip Below Politically Sensitive $4 Level For First Time In Months

Summary:

• GasBuddy's U.S. Gas National Avg. Falls Below $4 per gallon 
• AAA's U.S. Gas National Avg. still slightly Above $4 per gallon (expected to fall) 
• US-Iran Peace Deal Sends Brent and WTI Tumbling 

Patrick De Haan, a petroleum analyst at GasBuddy, wrote on X that the national average price of gasoline has finally slipped below the politically sensitive $4-a-gallon level for the first time in many months.

Per De Haan:

The nation's average price of gasoline has fallen 9.3 cents over the last week and stands at $3.99 per gallon, according to GasBuddy data compiled from more than 12 million individual price reports covering over 150,000 gas stations across the country.

The national average is down 52.4 cents from a month ago and is 91.1 cents per gallon higher than a year ago. The national average price of diesel fell 11.7 cents in the last week and stands at $5.182 per gallon.

GasBuddy tracking 26 states where average #gasprices are below $4/gal, with more likely to join in the days ahead, so long as the Strait does reopen. pic.twitter.com/tduDAoGLKX

— Patrick De Haan (@GasBuddyGuy) June 15, 2026

"Average gasoline prices fell in 47 states over the last week, with the national average dropping below $4 per gallon late Sunday for the first time since mid-April," said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.

De Haan continued, "The decline came as oil prices moved sharply lower in reaction to news of a potential deal between the United States and Iran, though it remains to be seen whether the agreement will hold. A handful of price-cycling states saw averages jump before joining the broader downward trend. The real test now shifts to the Strait of Hormuz, where any reopening and resumption of normal oil flows would be the clearest signal that this relief is durable. For now, the national average could continue falling, provided there isn't a drastic reversal and the U.S. and Iran continue moving in a positive direction."

Looking at WTI crude futures and the AAA national average for gasoline, the implied decline suggests gas prices at the pump could tumble toward $3.75 by mid-summer.

Great news ahead of midterm elections. 

Pump Pain Relief? Gas Above $4 May End Soon As U.S.-Iran Peace Deal Sends Oil Lower

The national average for U.S. gasoline prices has hovered above the politically sensitive $4-per-gallon level for 76 days, or roughly 2.5 months, as the Gulf energy shock tightened physical markets and forced emergency SPR draws.

But with President Trump declaring late Sunday, just 30 minutes before NY futures opened, that a US-Iran peace deal has been secured, and with WTI and Brent futures tumbling, pressure at the pump could begin to ease in the very near term.

National gasoline prices could slip back below $4 in the coming days or weeks if the crude selloff holds and traders begin pricing in a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Still, normalization of crude energy flows will likely take months, if not longer, to return to pre-war levels.

As of Sunday evening, AAA data show the national average for 87-octane gasoline stands at around $4.074.

Patrick De Haan, a petroleum analyst at GasBuddy, wrote on X shortly after Trump announced the peace deal that the national average for gas could fall to $3.75 by July 4.

De Haan wrote:

The U.S. and Iran signaling a deal has been struck. The next few days will be key to see if the agreement sticks, and if traffic begins moving in the Strait. WTI crude down 5%, as more confirmations come in days ahead, national average price of gasoline may continue to fade.

Beyond that, the national average could fall below $3.75/gal by July 4, under a optimistic timeline, but hurricane season could be a major wildcard for the rest of summer- tight global inventories mean it will take months or beyond to fully restore global oil inventories.

The next several weeks will be key- one major slip up could impact greatly prices moving forward. And with so many speedbumps in this situation, it may be foolish to think this problem is now completely over. Time will tell.

Surging gas and diesel prices over the last 2.5 months have added downward pressure on consumers, especially working-class households, who were hit with sticker shock at the pump. This shift in spending patterns is a concerning trend we have meticulously detailed:

• Here's What Happened Inside Convenience Stores When Gas Hit $4

• Here's What Happened Inside Gas Stations When Gas Hit $4

• Beer Demand Goes Flat As Even Alcoholics Pull Back With Gas Above $4

• Energy Drinks Become Latest Casualty As Fuel Shock Shifts Consumer Behavior

• Three Factors Leave Salty-Snack Demand Stale

The combination of elevated gas prices and fading tax-refund tailwinds had already begun to expose cracks in the consumer economy, particularly among lower- and middle-income households. That likely served as a warning signal for the Trump administration: resolve the Middle East conflict before worsening consumer sentiment and pain at the pump become much larger political liabilities heading into the midterms.

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/15/2026 - 11:25

Protests In Los Angeles As Iranian Soccer Team Arrives For 1st World Cup Match

Iranian Americans protested against the regime in Tehran as the Iranian soccer team arrived in Los Angeles for their first World Cup match against New Zealand on June 15.

As the team arrived at the Los Angeles Galaxy’s training ground in Carson, a small group of Iranian Americans shouted, “Down with terrorists!”

The Iranian national team, which traveled to Los Angeles for a #2026WorldCup match, was protested by a group of Iranians in the diaspora carrying US and Israeli flags.

The same group had celebrated while the US and Israel were carrying out military attacks on Iran, and also… pic.twitter.com/XSiciM9tiN

— Antifa_Ultras (@ultras_antifaa) June 15, 2026

As Chris Summers reports via The Epoch Times, the protesters were holding the pre-1979 Iranian flag—emblazoned with a lion and a sun—which is widely used by the Iranian opposition, and some of them also held the flags of the United States and Israel.

FIFA has banned the lion-and-sun standard under a rule that forbids the flying of political flags or banners inside stadiums during the World Cup.

The match against New Zealand takes place as Iran and the United States seek to finalize a deal to end the conflict that began on Feb. 28, when U.S. President Donald Trump launched Operation Epic Fury.

Mojgan Ramezani, 56, an Iranian American at a rally outside the stadium in Inglewood, California, which will host the match, said, “They’re holding hostage their own people.”

Pictures of athletes who allegedly died in custody ​after being arrested by the Iranian regime lined a nearby street corner during a rally organized by the local Iranian American community.

One of the protesters, 70-year-old Hassan Haddadi, said he was frustrated that there had been no regime change in Iran.

“We’re hoping to bring awareness to the Western world, to somehow do something beyond just condemning, to bring an end to this regime,” Haddadi said.

Players ‘Not Political People’

The Iranian team’s coach, Amir Ghalenoei, said he and his players were “not political people.”

The Iranian team captain, Mehdi Taremi, said they were at the World Cup to bring joy to all Iranians and the millions in the diaspora.

“People have different opinions, but we are here to unite people, and we will try to bring joy to all Iranians wherever they live,” Taremi said at a press conference on June 14.

“We are here to bring joy to Iranian people. We do not get involved in politics. We are here to play football.”

Last week, the U.S. Department of ‌Homeland Security announced that the Iranian team—who are based in Tijuana, Mexico—would be allowed to arrive in the United States on the day before their matches.

Los Angeles is home to the largest Iranian community outside Iran—it is sometimes dubbed “Tehrangeles”—and there are plans for a rally against the Tehran regime outside the stadium in Inglewood before the match.

People carry a giant Iranian flag during a protest in response to FIFA's ban on Iran's pre-revolutionary flag inside World Cup stadiums in Inglewood, Calif., on June 7, 2026. Benjamin Hanson/AP

During the initial group stage of the World Cup, 12 groups of four teams will each play three matches in a round-robin format for a chance to advance to the later stages of competition.

Iran is in Group G, along with New Zealand, Belgium, and Egypt.

Belgium is ranked 10th in the world by FIFA, while Iran is ranked 20th, above Egypt (29th) and New Zealand (85th).

Iran is the favorite to beat New Zealand, whose team includes Tim Payne, a defender whose Instagram following went from 5,000 to 5.7 million after influencer Valen Scarsini encouraged people to make Payne famous.

All three of Iran’s group stage matches are taking place in the United States.

Iran plays Belgium on June 21, again in Los Angeles, and then travels to Seattle to face Egypt on June ​26.

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/15/2026 - 11:05

So, What Do We Know?

By Benjamin Picton, Senior Market Strategist At Rabobank

A deal is struck and the parties are reportedly set to sign on Friday of this week. Markets are jubilant after an agreement was confirmed by US, Iranian and Pakistani sources, but not without first being threatened by Israeli strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon which prompted a telling-off by Donald Trump on Truth Social where he told everyone “don’t blow it”.

Brent crude is down more than 4% this morning to be dealing around $83.72 at time of writing and a rally in bonds late last week has carried over to this morning with Aussie and Kiwi sovereign curves both seeing notable bull steepening.

US equity futures portend the printing of a healthy green candle when markets open later today, but there’s still a lingering sense that we’re not out of the woods yet. Aside from the Israeli strikes on Hezbollah over the weekend, and the lesson of experience that the IRGC doesn’t need much convincing to return to fighting, we learned this morning that despite Donald Trump’s declaration that the strait is now open the strait will actually remain closed until the official signing occurs on Friday – ostensibly to provide time for mine clearing operations. Needless to say, a week is a long time in Middle East geopolitics.

Nevertheless, markets are rallying on the vibe right now but what is actually in the deal will be the critical points – and there is still plenty of fog of war surrounding terms. So, what do we know?

Firstly, the agreement is not really a ‘deal’ at all, or even a deal to have a deal, but rather a memorandum of understanding staking out a framework to discuss a deal over the next 60 days.

War is supposed to cease on all fronts – including Lebanon, Hormuz is supposed to open and the US blockade lifted within 30 days in a kind of oil-for-oil exchange that we have flagged here many times. Iranian sources are claiming that Hormuz transits will occur under Iranian auspices, whereas the US side is still saying no tolls. Axios reports comments from US sources that sanctions relief will follow the re-opening of Hormuz, but there seems to be disagreement over the release of frozen funds and Iranian sources are claiming reparations of some form up to $300bn in value would be payable. If true, that really would be the full enchilada of TACOs and would see the US agreeing to a set of terms that had it restart bombing only a few weeks ago. On the other hand, it could be the case that the terms are actually much more favorable to the US and that the Iranians are simply trying to save face.

#URGENT US Vice President Vance says $24B frozen funds figure 'doesn't appear anywhere' in text US discussed with Iranians, calls claim 'misrepresentation by hardliners'

— Anadolu English (@anadoluagency) June 15, 2026

Crucially, there appear to be no guarantees on the nuclear issues aside from a promise from Iran not to seek a nuclear weapon and to engage in talks over the next 60 days. Given that the nuclear program was the entire casus belli in the first place, we still see plenty of scope for this to all fall in a heap. The US midterm elections are 81 days after the expiry of the 60 day negotiating period. Could we see a few more can-kick extensions over that time? Announcing the conclusion of the deal, Donald Trump posted to Truth Social “Ships of the world, start your engines. Let the oil flow!” Start your engines indeed, because the race is now on to restock the global energy supply chain while we can.

So, at the risk of being a party pooper, could this be one of those instances of buy the rumor sell the fact? Perhaps there is no greater bear indicator than the fact that the New York Knicks just won the NBA playoffs. The last time they did that was in *checks notes* 1973, just before the Yom Kippur oil embargoes became the biggest energy shock in history up to that point. The Knicks basically top-ticked the market back then with one of the deepest bear markets of modern history (down more than 40% peak to trough) following their victory.

That brings us to SpaceX, where the largest IPO in history just raised $75 billion at a hefty valuation last week and minted another $2trillion market cap company after the stock rallied almost 20% in its first day of trading. His 42% ownership stake combined with other holdings now makes Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire, a financial milestone event that feels a bit like the topping out of the Sears Tower as the world’s tallest building in – ahem – 1973.

Personal wealth milestones don’t have as tight a correlation with major market drawdowns as the Skyscraper Curse, but the logic follows a similar pattern: market exuberance causes asset prices to rise, minting a new cohort of billionaires, decabillionaires, centibillionaires or even trillionaires. Then reflexivity kicks in and the popular conception of whether or not it is moral for one person to hold so much wealth leads to policy changes to discourage it. Sentiment then erodes, discounted cash flows get discounted further, and eyewatering valuations start to look more dubious. That’s how we ended up with anti-trust laws in the USA, and how Australia is now seeing capital gains tax rules fiddled with to discourage real estate speculation. A cursory perusal of recent social media posts from prominent Democrats regarding Musk’s personal wealth is instructive in this regard.

That isn’t to say that a correction is imminent. Reversals take time, and a clear catalyst is yet to present itself. Perhaps it lies in the expectations of Fed rate tightening? Or perhaps in the repeated warnings of approaching tank bottom from oil market insiders, and what that might mean for the petrochemical complex, plastics, fertilizers and much of the rest of our hydrocarbon-based 21st century existence as we know it? While there is a sense this morning that a bullet has been dodged and that the “deal” renders the Hormuz black swan a shot duck, to labor the avian metaphor further we really can’t count our chickens until the ships resume transit, factories restore production, and the nuclear issue is settled.

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/15/2026 - 10:45

Drinking The Court-Packing Kool-Aid: Buttigieg Joins The Calls To Take Over Supreme Court

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg apparently got the message this week that he cannot hope to win the Democratic nomination without promising radical measures, including the packing of the Supreme Court. After denouncing the current Court as “rogue” for not ruling as the left has demanded, Buttigieg endorsed the plan of Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren to pack the Court to reverse adverse constitutional interpretations.

For years, the Supreme Court had a liberal majority that overturned dozens of long-standing cases. That was not viewed as the work of a rogue court. Yet, even as President Donald Trump attacks this Court for ruling repeatedly against him, liberals are now demanding court packing. As the party becomes more radicalized, any candidate expressing doubts over radical demands like court packing is unlikely to make it out of the primaries.

Accordingly, “Mayor Pete” is reaching for Court-Packing Kool-Aid.

In making his pitch to the Rainbow PUSH Coalition convention, Buttigieg knew that he had to offer some radical bona fides. He decided to offer up the Supreme Court:

“We have to do [something] with the Supreme Court, that is now a rogue Supreme Court. To see them eviscerate the Voting Rights Act is to see them reverse some of the most important progress this country ever made, wiping out Black political representation, but also wiping out part of what actually is great within the complex American story.”

That description is part of a campaign of disinformation about the Court’s recent decision to end racial gerrymandering. The Court reaffirmed that the Voting Rights Act would be used to prevent any intentional racial discrimination. It banned states (almost entirely Democratic states) from engaging in racial discrimination to guarantee election results based on the race of the candidates.

He then thrilled the crowd by promising to pack the Court to guarantee the results that he and they are demanding. Declaring that it is “time to think big,” Buttigieg explained:

“Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that there have to be nine Supreme Court justices. That one doesn’t even take a constitutional amendment. It just takes a readiness to set up a court that fits this country. We could have 13 seats matching the district structure of the federal judiciary, but also a process that makes it less partisan.”

Buttigieg appears to be referring to the circuit system, not the district court system.

What is most striking is that he promises to reverse decisions on issues like racial gerrymandering by packing the Court, but then says it will make the Court “less partisan.”

The whole point of adding four new justices selected by the Democrats is to create an instant majority to their liking and to reverse past rulings.

Years ago, I wrote an academic piece on the possible expansion of the Supreme Court, but there is a world of difference between that and a court-packing plan. Under my proposal, the court’s expansion would take almost two decades to ensure that no president could pack the court.

Various Democrats have been pledging to not only impeach Trump (and a long list of other figures), but to pack the Supreme Court as soon as they regain power.

James Carville declared, “If the Democrats win the presidency and both houses of Congress, I think on day one, they should expand the Supreme Court to 13. F— it. Eat our dust. Don’t run on it. Don’t talk about it. Just do it.”

This Nike School of Constitutional Law is catching on with a wide array of pundits and professors. Just do it.

Years ago, Harvard professor Michael Klarman laid out a radical agenda to change the system to guarantee Republicans “will never win another election.” However, he warned that “the Supreme Court could strike down everything I just described.” Therefore, the court must be packed in advance to allow these changes to occur.

Former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder has put packing the Supreme Court front and center, explaining, “[We’re] talking about the acquisition and the use of power if there is a Democratic trifecta in 2028.”

At base is a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the Court. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) not only renewed her previous call to pack the court but said the court was illegitimate for rendering decisions against “widely held public opinion.” Former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) said the court “defies the will of the people.” Reporter John Haltiwanger insisted that “the court is clearly not representative of the U.S. public. It’s supposed to be the people’s court.”

In reality, the court was never meant to be that. It was meant to be the Constitution’s court, designed to stand against everyone and everything except the Constitution. In a system designed to protect the minority, the court (like the Constitution) is counter-majoritarian in much of what it does.

With the Supreme Court removed as a barrier to the left’s radical agenda, Democrats could indeed fulfill the objectives laid out by figures like Klarman to ensure they never lose power again.

That will make the 2028 election the most consequential election for our constitutional history in decades. The outcome will most immediately decide the fate of an institution that has been a stabilizing force for centuries. Even though this Court has ruled against the Trump Administration on a variety of key issues, the left is still demanding that it either yield to all of their demands or face a hostile takeover.

On our 250th anniversary, these reckless and radical voices remind us that (as Benjamin Franklin warned us) this is our Republic if we can keep it.

Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/15/2026 - 10:25

Key Events This Week: First Warsh FOMC, Iran Deal Signing, Retail Sales And More

After 107 days and a seemingly endless number of false dawns, we finally have a deal between the US and Iran to end the war and open the Strait of Hormuz. It was announced on Sunday afternoon - Trump's birthday, shortly before futures opened for trading and ahead of today's Iran game in the World Cup - and the MoU will be signed in Switzerland on Friday.

According to statements carried by Iranian state-affiliated media, the agreement includes a phased lifting of US sanctions on Iranian oil exports, the unfreezing of roughly $12bn in overseas assets, and a commitment to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 30 days (after mine clearing) alongside the removal of the US naval blockade. The deal also sets out a 60-day negotiation window on a broader accord, including constraints around Iran’s nuclear programme, where Tehran is expected to commit to maintaining its current status and not pursuing nuclear weapons. The US hasn’t been so explicit and whilst the deal is very good news for markets it looks like tough conversations will have occur in the 60-day window to ensure the peace is sustainable. As an example, the Senate needs to approve any extensive sanction relief for Iran. 

The other major story is the decision late on Friday from the US government to issue an export control directive forcing Anthropic to restrict access to its most advanced models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, released to great global acclaim last week, to US nationals only, citing undefined national security concerns. In practice, because it is operationally difficult to separate users by nationality, Anthropic opted to suspend access to these models entirely on a global basis. The move marks one of the first instances of the US applying export controls not just to AI hardware (e.g. semiconductors) but directly to frontier models themselves, reflecting a growing view of AI as a strategic, dual use asset.

Clearly the export control may only be temporary as the cited jailbreak risk is examined and rectified quickly. This is probably the most likely outcome. However, if it longer-term, and more strategic from the US government, it's not great news for US tech firms or for those assuming breakneck speed of AI adoption. US tech firms require a global marketplace to justify their huge investments so far. In addition, global enterprise would want to ensure any models they purchase are usable, especially for business-critical operations. You can't rely on something that could be switched off. So all eyes on what Anthropic and the US government agree as the next step.

Outside of Iran and AI, central banks will dominate the global agenda in the coming week, with key policy decisions across the Fed, BoJ and BoE alongside important inflation and activity data.

The primary focus will be the United States and Wednesday’s FOMC meeting, which marks the first under new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh. The leadership transition introduces a higher-than-usual degree of uncertainty around both policy signalling and communication style. While an immediate policy shift is unlikely, the meeting will be closely scrutinized for early indications of how Warsh intends to reshape the Fed’s framework, particularly given his stated ambition for a broader “regime change”.

In terms of the statement, a modest upgrade to the labor market assessment appears likely, reflecting steady job growth and a broadly stable unemployment rate. More importantly, the guidance language could shift meaningfully. Warsh has been openly critical of heavy reliance on forward guidance, so the Committee may lean towards a more neutral, data-dependent formulation. This would effectively remove any residual easing bias and reopen the possibility of further tightening should inflation dynamics warrant it. Any such adjustment would be interpreted as a recalibration towards optionality rather than a firm directional signal.

Beyond the headline statement, attention will turn to the Summary of Economic Projections. The distribution of rate expectations may shift upwards, with 4 or 5 policymakers signalling the potential for hikes into 2026 and beyond. This would likely nudge the median path higher across the projection horizon and reinforce the idea that the Fed is not yet comfortable declaring victory on inflation. DB's economists note that Warsh may not submit dots which would reflect his views on forward guidance. Revisions to inflation forecasts, particularly for the outer years, will also be closely examined for evidence of more persistent price pressures. At the moment DB  economists expect core PCE for 2027 to be raised by a tenth to 2.3%.

However, the most revealing element of the meeting may be Warsh’s press conference. His prior remarks suggest he will likely place less emphasis on near-term data fluctuations and explicit forward guidance, instead favoring a broader narrative around structural forces such as productivity and technological change. While this could temper the immediate hawkish interpretation, markets may test whether this framing is sufficient to justify patience in the face of still-elevated inflation. Just as important will be any early signals on communication reform—whether through changes to the dot plot, adjustments to the SEP, or a broader rethink of how the Fed conveys uncertainty. So a fascinating meeting to look forward to.

In terms of US data, the focus will be on May retail sales due Wednesday, and our US economists expect a +0.5% MoM rise in the headline (same as in April). Industrial production is due today (DB forecast is a +0.1% MoM increase, down from +0.7% in April) and there will be several housing indicators out this week as well. US markets will be on holiday for the Juneteenth National Independence Day on Friday.

Outside the US, central bank activity remains heavy. In Europe, decisions are due from the Riksbank and a cluster of Thursday meetings including the Bank of England, Swiss National Bank and Norges Bank. In the UK, the BoE is expected to keep rates unchanged, with attention focused on the vote split (expectations for 7-2) and any evolution in guidance against a backdrop of still-sticky inflation. Incoming UK data, particularly CPI (Wednesday), labour market indicators (Thursday) and retail sales (Friday), will provide important context for the policy outlook. Meanwhile, euro area attention will also be shaped by ongoing commentary from ECB officials and sentiment indicators such as the German ZEW survey (tomorrow).

Political developments will also be in focus, with the G7 leaders meeting early in the week (today through Wednesday) followed by the European Council summit (Thursday-Friday).

In Asia, the Bank of Japan meeting (tomorrow) stands out, with expectations for a further rate increase as part of its gradual normalization process. Japanese inflation data later in the week (Friday) will help gauge whether underlying price momentum continues to justify policy tightening. In China, their monthly activity data tomorrow covering industrial production and retail sales will provide an updated read on the growth trajectory, with expectations for a modest improvement after recent softness.

Elsewhere in the region, the Reserve Bank of Australia is likely to remain on hold (tomorrow), while New Zealand’s GDP release (Wednesday) will offer further insight into the strength of its economic recovery.

Courtesy of DB, here is a day-by-day snapshot of key events

Monday June 15

• Data: US June Empire manufacturing index, NAHB housing market index, May industrial production, manufacturing production, capacity utilisation, Germany May wholesale price index, Italy April trade balance, general government debt, Eurozone April industrial production, trade balance, Canada May housing starts, April manufacturing sales
• Central banks: ECB’s Lagarde, Cipollone, Nagel, Pereira and Kocher speak
• Other: G7 leaders’ summit (through June 17)

Tuesday June 16

• Data: US May housing starts, building permits, import price index, export price index, June New York Fed services business activity, China May retail sales, industrial production, investment, home prices, Germany June Zew survey, Eurozone June Zew survey, Canada May existing home sales, April international securities transactions
• Central banks: BoJ decision, RBA decision, ECB’s Lane, Sleijpen and Escriva speak
• Auctions: US 20-yr Bond (reopening, $13bn)

Wednesday June 17

• Data: US May retail sales, pending home sales, April business inventories, UK May CPI, RPI, PPI, April house price index, Japan May trade balance, April core machine orders, New Zealand Q1 GDP
• Central banks: Fed decision, Riksbank decision, ECB’s Sleijpen speaks

Thursday June 18

• Data: US June Philadelphia Fed business outlook, May leading index, April total net TIC flows, initial jobless claims, UK April average weekly earnings, unemployment rate, May jobless claims change, Italy April current account balance, ECB April current account, Eurozone April construction output, Canada May industrial product price index, raw materials price index
• Central banks: BoE decision, SNB decision, Norges Bank decision, ECB’s Kocher, Nagel, Cipollone, Lane and Escriva speak
• Auctions: US 5-yr TIPS (reopening, $24bn)
• Other: European Council summit (through June 19)

Friday June 19

• Data: UK June GfK consumer confidence, May retail sales, public finances, Japan May national CPI, Germany May PPI, Canada April retail sales
• Central banks: ECB’s Lane, Escriva and Cipollone speak, BoJ minutes of the April meeting
• Other: US Juneteenth holiday

* * *

Looking at just the US, the key economic data releases this week are the import prices report on Tuesday and the retail sales report on Wednesday. The June FOMC meeting is on Wednesday. The post-meeting statement will be released at 2:00 PM ET, followed by Chairman Warsh’s press conference at 2:30 PM.

Monday, June 15 

• 08:30 AM Empire State manufacturing index, May (consensus 13.2, last 19.6)
• 09:15 AM Industrial production, May (GS +0.1%, consensus +0.3%, last +0.7%); Manufacturing production, May (GS +0.1%, consensus +0.3%, last +0.6%); Capacity utilization, May (GS 76.1%, consensus 76.2%, last 76.1%): We estimate industrial production edged up by 0.1% in May, reflecting increases in auto and oil and gas production, but a decline in natural gas production. We estimate capacity utilization was unchanged at 76.1%.
• 10:00 AM NAHB housing market index, June (consensus 37, last 37)

Tuesday, June 16 

• 08:30 AM Import price index, May (consensus +0.8%, last +1.9%); Export price index, May (consensus +0.6%, last +3.3%)
• 08:30 AM Housing starts, May (GS -1.5%, consensus -2.0%, last -2.8%) ; Building permits, May (consensus -0.2%, last +4.4%)

Wednesday, June 17 

• 08:30 AM Retail sales, May (GS +0.4%, consensus +0.5%, last +0.5%); Retail sales ex-auto, May (GS +0.4%, consensus +0.5%, last +0.7%); Retail sales ex-auto & gas, May (GS +0.2%, consensus +0.3%, last +0.5%);Core retail sales, May (GS +0.2%, consensus +0.3%, last +0.5%): We estimate nominal core retail sales increased 0.2% in May (ex-autos, gasoline, and building materials; month-over-month SA), reflecting a continued solid signal from alternative data but potential payback after several months of outsized increases. On an inflation-adjusted basis, we forecast a 0.3% increase in the core; the relevant deflator in the PCE price index likely declined 0.1% in May. We estimate nominal headline retail sales increased 0.4%, reflecting higher gasoline prices.
• 10:00 AM Pending home sales, May (GS +2.0%, consensus +1.0%, last +1.4%)
• 02:00 PM FOMC statement, June 16-17 meeting: As discussed in our FOMC preview, at its June meeting, the first under new Chairman Kevin Warsh, the FOMC is likely to keep the funds rate unchanged at 3.50-3.75% and drop the previous forward guidance suggesting cuts. We expect the median dot to show no change to the funds rate in 2026, with three participants projecting a hike this year. We expect the median dot to still show two cuts eventually, most likely one in each of 2027 and 2028. We assume that Chairman Warsh will not submit dots in light of his past criticism of forward guidance, but we are not sure. The economic projections for 2026 are likely to show slightly lower GDP growth and unemployment, and much higher headline and core inflation, but we only expect a small increase in the inflation projections for 2027.

Thursday, June 18 

• 08:30 AM Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index, June (GS 5.0, consensus 10.0, last -0.4)
• 08:30 AM Initial jobless claims, week ended June 13 (GS 225k, consensus 225k, last 229k); Continuing jobless claims, week ended June 6 (consensus 1,785k, last 1,795k)

Friday, June 19 

• Juneteenth National Independence Day. NYSE will be closed. SIFMA recommends bond markets also remain closed.

Source: DB, Goldman

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/15/2026 - 10:00