Zero Rss

'Situational Bewareness': Star AI Investor Dumps Assets To Citadel After Massive Levered Bets Blow Up Summary:

• In echoes of Archegos chaos from 2021, Situational Awareness - a once $45BN tech fund - has been forced to liquidate its public share holdings due to margin calls from TRS

• Ken Griffin's Citadel scooped up the portfolio (at a health discount we are sure) as counterparties forced the liquidation.

• The fund is now around $10BN (all private holdings)

• Leopold - the fund manager - is getting married this weekend to Anthropic's Chief of Staff

*  *  *

Update (1500ET): Wondering who was involved? Below we highlight the holdings of Sandisk and circled bank/dealer positions (Morgan Stanley, Goldman, Jane Street, JPM, BNP, UBS, Deutsche, BofA etc.) who are all typical total return swap counterparties. 

As a reminder, they hold the physical shares; clients get the economic exposure and leverage synthetically.

*  *  *

Update (1130ET): The Wall Street Journal reports that Situational Awareness, the highflying artificial-intelligence-focused hedge-fund firm, sold the bulk of its stock portfolio to Ken Griffin's investment firm Citadel after suffering deep losses, according to people familiar with the matter.

There were other bidders for the firm's public equities book, which included large positions in AI hardware stocks such as Nebius and Sandisk.

Citadel rival Millennium and Situational Awareness investor Jane Street both put in their own offers, people familiar with the situation said.

But, 'Big Ken' saved the market again (and his own book).

According to the same 'people familiar', Situational Awareness did not sell its private portfolio of AI companies, which includes a significant stake in Anthropic.

Aschenbrenner's fiancée also works for the leading AI company.

The Dario curse:

SBF invested in Anthropic. Stake now worth billions, but fund blows up (SBF in prison)

Leopold invested in Anthropic. Stake now worth billions, but fund blows up (Leopold getting married)

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 30, 2026

From assets under management above $45 billion less than a month ago, Situational Awareness's AUM is reportedly now back below $10 billion...

Not so wunderkind after all?

Perhaps Leopold should have listened to Ken Griffin's warnings from a couple of years ago?

As @GoshawkTrades wrote on X:

A 24-year-old ex-openai researcher ran a fund to $45 billion with eight people, was up 439% net through june, and by the end of july had sold his entire public stock portfolio to ken griffin in a single block trade.

griffin described this exact failure mode two years ago, asked why portfolio managers wash out at citadel:

"you have a portfolio that is extraordinarily highly concentrated, you have large positions, you cannot demonstrate a clear and concise competitive advantage in why you own those positions."

"and there are some people that just, with full information, are unable to help themselves and get to a better portfolio construction."

he was also asked the opposite question in the same interview, why citadel keeps working, his third and final answer was this:

"it's experience. it's the price paid in losses and pain that converts into wisdom. my leadership team, we've been through a lot of very difficult moments of the markets together. we've learned some very bitter lessons. but it makes us much more effective as investors in periods of turmoil and crisis."

citadel started in november 1990. situational awareness started in 2024, long AI infrastructure and short software at roughly 4x leverage. both legs went against it in the same three weeks.

there was no bitter lesson priced into that book yet.

that's what got bought.

he wasn't wrong about AI. he was wrong about the construction of his book.

Here's Ken...

a 24-year-old ex-openai researcher ran a fund to $45 billion with eight people, was up 439% net through june, and by the end of july had sold his entire public stock portfolio to ken griffin in a single block trade.

griffin described this exact failure mode two years ago, asked… https://t.co/kVNwitYcmx pic.twitter.com/Ob7EeXIvUv

— Goshawk Trades (@GoshawkTrades) July 30, 2026

*  *  *

Update (1000ET): Situational Awareness has exited all of their public investments, CNBC’s David Faber reports on air, citing people familiar with the situation.

Faber reports that the liquidation was done “through one enormous trade."

Roughly two-thirds of the assets under management at Situational Awareness were public equities, both that he owned on the long side and that he was shorting, Faber says.

That could help explain the panic bid in Nasdaq this morning, as investors may believe the overhang from this unwind is over...

...do you really think that Leopold was the only 'smartest man in the room' that was using TRS to massively lever into momentum?

*  *  *

In 2020/2021, one fund almost single-handedly used massive amounts of leverage to drive several big media and tech stocks dramatically higher.

That fund - Archegos - run by the now infamous Bill Hwang - used Total Return Swaps (TRS) to build massive levered positions on the back of de minimus capital (and even more notably, without everyone seeing how much he really owns because these were 'off-balance-sheet' swaps).

For a while, everything was awesome.

The prime brokers were earning their interest and Archegos was making bank, Hwang was a genius, as the shares rose on the back of their own virtuous buying circle.

But then, one day in March 2021, one of his big stocks (ViacomCBS) suddenly drops a lot because the company sold more shares.

The banks came knocking for some more collateral to cover the losses (which were huge due to the leverage), but Archegos didn't have the cash (and they had been using TRS from a number of brokers - none of which knew about - creating a systemic crisis). 

The prime brokers were forced to liquidate the holdings (first one to sell wins), and the result was the escalator up in shares became an elevator down (see chart above) in a number of the names that Archegos was holding.

Since then we have had a few scares, but in general, banks have improved their risk management process (a number of risk managers were fired over Archegos).

But, the money that primes can make from the interest and the incessant momentum of the AI bubble perhaps became too much to miss out on... especially when you know other competitors are doing 'the thing'.

All of which brings us to the last month...

About six weeks ago, we raised a big red flag that something was going on as soaring funding costs suggested the banks were offering significant leverage...

Unprecedented surge in S&P funding costs by dealers lending out futures and Total Return Swaps (remember Archegos) to institutional clients. Think of it as lending costs for long positions. pic.twitter.com/x9KQu4r9MK

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 15, 2026

The last few weeks have seen dramatic unwinds of a number of the highest-flying AI-related names (and the total collapse of momentum)...

Put those two things together and we smelled a TRS-Tantrum.

Overnight, we may have found the first culprit caught in this over-levered trap.

Situational Awareness, a hedge fund launched by former OpenAI employee Leopold Aschenbrenner that manages around $20 billion, is seeking new money after facing losses linked to declining AI stocks, the Financial Times reported.

Situational Awareness (SA) said in an investor letter dated July 24 outlining its half-year performance that it had "not been immune" to the market moves, including in Asia, but added that the dynamic had created opportunities for investment, the FT reported. The hedge fund was up 439% on a net basis this year through the end of June, the paper said. 

The fund engaged existing investors and lenders in discussions on raising capital, according to the FT, which cited unidentified people briefed on the matter.

“PS. At times we call out opportunities that seem like a particularly good time to add funds, if you have been waiting for one,” he said in the investor letter, seen by the FT, which was sent in recent days and offered the ability to invest new cash on August 1.

Some investors have been offered the option to purchase assets in its portfolio, the newspaper added.

The talks were described as ad-hoc by one of the people.

As Bloomberg reports, some of the fund’s largest holdings have slumped in recent weeks.

Shares of AI-focused cloud platform Nebius Group NV, in which the fund disclosed a multi-billion-dollar position in May, have dropped 48% from a peak last month, wiping around $35 billion from the company’s market value.

In March, Situational reported a large position in Sandisk Corp., which has fallen 56% in just over a month, and another in SharonAI Holdings Inc., which is down by a similar margin since mid-June.

Do those charts look familiar?

Look again at the PARA chart at the top - pumped and dumped by Archegos.

CNBC's David Faber reported this morning that several of the firm’s prime brokers - including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase - have been working with the fund as it seeks to meet margin requirements or reduce positions in an orderly fashion, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The brokers have been marketing a group of the firm’s holdings on both the long and short side for sale prior to today’s start of trading, according to people familiar with the situation.

These reports have been denied by the fund.

Martin Shkreli (consider the source), confirms that SA is down 50% MTD and that Goldman is liquidating...

Rumors:
SALP down more than 50% MTD
SALP was up 200% YTD and is now down more than 30%
GSCO has liquidated some SALP positions

Source: Godel News
*want to be clear we wish SALP well and hope all of our clients and non-clients do great. just reporting what we're hearing. https://t.co/zcmVNNCK94

— Martin Shkreli (@MartinShkreli) July 29, 2026

In around 15 days, the next set of 13Fs will drop and we will discover which dealers have the most TRS exposure on their books.

As a reminder, Bill Hwang was sentenced to 18 years in prison...

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/30/2026 - 20:00

Musk's America PAC Reportedly Plans $120 Million Midterm Blitz, Setting Stage For Renewed Left-Wing War On Elon

The New York Times reports that Elon Musk's America PAC plans to spend as much as $120 million to help Republicans in November's midterm elections, signaling that the world's richest man is preparing to reenter the political game with fewer than 100 days until voters head to the polls.

America PAC's spending surge will likely spark a coordinated opposition campaign from Democratic groups and left-wing NGOs, ranging from protests and activist pressure to sustained negative press coverage of Musk, as well as attempts to damage his brands, including Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI.

The Democrats' playbook could resemble their coordinated pressure campaign against Musk when he was involved with DOGE and the dismantling of most of USAID. This sparked street demonstrations by left-wing and far-left activist networks supported by left-wing NGOs, along with an aggressive left-leaning media campaign that sought to make him the public face of the administration's agenda.

The NYT report is based on "two people briefed on the plans," and like many stories run by left-leaning corporate media. Musk usually denies the reports on X, but if this report is correct, it says Musk authorized America PAC to build a field operation across at least eight states, targeting Senate races in Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, and Ohio, while considering contests in North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas.

America PAC is also gearing up to support House candidates in California, Wisconsin, and Washington, according to those people.

Musk's nearly $300 million bet on the 2024 campaign proved politically successful. Still, it came at a steep cost to his brands, which became targets of information warfare operations with coordinated pressure from left-wing journalists and NGO-backed activist groups.

Remember when MSM outlets ramped up stories portraying Musk as a Nazi while he was at DOGE, dismantling the left's USAID slush fund?

This is how the information operations game is played, and the ones being played were the American people.

Remember, the far-left even launched a firebomb campaign against Tesla service centers, as the left fringe rules through intimidation, violence, and terrorism.

JUST IN: Tesla firebomb attacker indicted by federal grand jury, facing 20 years in prison. pic.twitter.com/uj94L8ym6t

— Remarks (@remarks) April 1, 2025

Judging by Musk's X posts and the broader Republican Party's increasingly new messaging, the GOP appears to be converging on a single marketing platform ahead of the midterms: Democrats serve as the political vehicle for a socialist and Marxist takeover. It's that simple.

That narrative is not being manufactured from nothing. The Democratic Socialists of America's own rhetoric about dismantling the American "empire" from within gives Republican strategists a political gift in the market while establishment Democrats fret over their party fracturing in a far-left revolutionary takeover.

The emerging theme for America PAC and Republican candidates will likely focus on anti-communism, framing the election as a choice between capitalism vs. socialism, national sovereignty vs. border abolition, and law and order vs. violent crime and revolution.

DSA has effectively handed Republicans the advertising material to connect illegal alien invasion, violent crime, attacks on law enforcement, street unrest, and all other failed globalist policies under a single ideological threat narrative. That is precisely the political branding that establishment Democrats fear and are melting down over (read here & here).

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/30/2026 - 19:40

Biden's Pardon Can't Protect Fauci From Legal Consequences

Dr. Anthony Fauci may have believed his Fifth Amendment marathon at the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday would shield him from prosecution, but he miscalculated.

Before he refused to answer questions from the committee, Fauci did deliver an opening statement, during which he attacked Committee Chairman Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and explained his decision not to answer any questions.

"Given Senator Paul's obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me, and, recently, his publicly releasing my unredacted personal diary aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me, the only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something - anything - that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, 'behind bars,'" Fauci said. "Therefore, although it pains me to do so because of the respect I have for the legislative branch of government and my decades-long record of cooperating with Congress, under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions."

And so he did, an estimated 111 times, but it won't protect him completely.

On Jan. 20, 2025, his last day in office, Biden granted Fauci a full and unconditional pardon covering any offenses he may have "committed or taken part in" tied to his government roles between Jan. 1, 2014, and Jan. 19, 2025. The broad preemptive pardon Joe Biden handed him on the way out the door covers federal charges alone, and it leaves him exposed to the state charges that may arrive sooner than his lawyers expected.

Florida wasted no time proving the point. State Attorney General James Uthmeier announced an investigation into the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) after Fauci declined to answer lawmakers' questions on Wednesday.

Fauci's lack of candor to Congress is unbelievable. My office is launching an investigation into Dr. Fauci. It's past time we get the truth of what happened during COVID.

— Attorney General James Uthmeier (@AGJamesUthmeier) July 29, 2026

This makes Uthmeier the first state attorney general to formally investigate Fauci since the pandemic, and likely not the last.

But Fauci may still face federal consequences as well. During the hearing, Sen Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) informed Fauci that the Supreme Court says that he has no Fifth Amendment privileges.

"As you very well know, as the Supreme Court has been clear for a century and more, Brown v. Walker, 1896. When he has been pardoned, he may not stand upon his privilege," Hawley explained.

To that point, Chairman Paul also revealed that Fauci's refusal to testify could result in the committee voting to hold him in contempt.

"The committee will have to consider after this hearing what appropriate action should be taken against you for the failure to testify after being directed to do so," Paul said. "It's against the law to obstruct an investigation of Congress. There will be repercussions to your refusal to testify today."

Whether Senate Republicans convert the contempt vote into an actual referral remains uncertain, and anyone who has watched congressional Republicans handle accountability fights over the past decade has earned the right to skepticism.

But, clearly, Fauci's legal troubles are not over.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/30/2026 - 18:50

Cocaine Valued At Roughly $20 Million Seized From Truck At US Border

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

Federal authorities have seized more than 1,000 pounds of cocaine from a commercial truck at a southern border entry point, estimated to be worth at least $20 million, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Federal law enforcement officers seized more than half a ton of cocaine worth more than $20 million hidden in a truck at the Calexico Port of Entry in California. Courtesy of the DOJ

The drugs were hidden in the floorboards of the truck and the attached flatbed trailer, the DOJ said in a July 29 statement. The cocaine was seized at the Calexico Port of Entry, the border crossing linking California with Mexico.

This is the "second-largest cocaine seizure" made this year in the Southern District of California, the department said. The biggest single seizure for the year was recorded in May when more than 2,000 pounds of cocaine worth an estimated $45 million was confiscated.

When the truck arrived at the port of entry, officers from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other agencies X-rayed the trailer and identified anomalies with the floorboards. After the rebar aboard the trailer was unloaded, officers lifted the wooden floor to discover the hidden drugs.

In total, 366 packages of cocaine weighing 1,002.13 pounds were seized.

The driver of the truck, Jose Manuel Lopez Lopez, 44, Mexico, was arrested by authorities and charged with illegally importing cocaine into the United States.

Lopez has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, with a minimum of 10 years in jail.

The amount of confiscated cocaine is a "tremendous amount of drugs, even by the standards of this district," the government said in a motion to detain the defendant, according to the DOJ.

The Epoch Times was unable to reach Lopez's legal representative for comment.

The case was investigated by the California Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) as part of Operation Take Back America.

The task force was set up following a January 2025 executive order signed by President Donald Trump, tasking it with ending the presence of criminal cartels and foreign gangs in the United States.

Operation Take Back America was established in March 2025 through a memorandum issued by then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. One of the operations' objectives is to establish HSTFs.

The CBP has seen a surge in drug seizures, including cocaine, according to a July 16 statement from the agency.

In June, the total amount of cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, fentanyl, and marijuana seized nationwide was 49 percent higher than in June 2024 under the previous administration. Cocaine seizures alone rose by 71 percent in June from the previous month.

"CBP is preventing dangerous criminal aliens and illicit narcotics from entering our communities, enhancing the safety of every American for generations to come," CBP Commissioner Rodney S. Scott said in the statement.

The robust seizure numbers come amid concerns about the drug's use in the country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned in a report in August 2025 that overdose deaths involving stimulants, mainly cocaine and psychostimulants with abuse potential, "increased substantially" since 2011.

In 2011, a total of 4,681 cocaine-related overdose deaths were reported, which surged to 29,449 deaths by 2023, according to the report.

Among 309,274 overdose deaths between January 2021 and June 2024 in 49 states and Washington, D.C., 30 percent were found to involve cocaine.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/30/2026 - 18:25

See The Hilarious AI Ads That Furious California Democrats Want Banned

Two California Democrats are moving to outlaw AI-generated campaign ads at the federal level, just days after a Republican rival for the governor's mansion used the technology to hammer their party.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) on Monday reintroduced the AI Ads Act, which would make it a federal violation to use artificial intelligence to impersonate candidates or committees in federal races.

This is the satire Ro Khanna and Adam Schiff want to make illegal so democrats aren't the butt of jokes.

— Charles Curran (@charliebcurran) July 30, 2026

The push comes on the heels of two AI-generated spots from GOP gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, who went after Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrat gubernatorial nominee Xavier Becerra.

Enough Is Enough. Let's Fix California.

— Charles Curran (@charliebcurran) July 23, 2026

Of course, Hilton isn't the only one having fun with the technology. The campaign of Spencer Pratt, the reality television star turned Los Angeles mayoral candidate, made waves with his creative and side-splitting ads from Los Angeles-based director Charles Curran.

Be the Hero LA needs. Vote Spencer Pratt. pic.twitter.com/VTskAwynpB

— Charles Curran (@charliebcurran) May 20, 2026

LA is worth saving. Vote Spencer Pratt. pic.twitter.com/sQQQUjN9YY

— Charles Curran (@charliebcurran) June 1, 2026

Unsurprisingly, Schiff claims his bill isn't about politics, but about protecting against a so-called "serious threat to our democracy."

"AI-generated fraudulent advertising which uses the likeness or voices of candidates to misrepresent their positions, campaigns, or causes, or otherwise misrepresents a candidate's point of view is not only wrong - it poses a serious threat to our democracy that should concern all Americans regardless of their party," said Schiff. "Fraudulent AI advertising has already proliferated in races across the country, and if Congress does not act, this runaway challenge will only get worse as AI becomes increasingly capable of blurring the lines between fact and fiction. With November elections around the corner, time is of the essence to reign in false political advertising."

Groups that support the bill include Common Cause, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the Campaign Legal Center, Protect Democracy and Public Citizen, according to the New York Post.

"AI will transform our lives and our society in many ways, but it can't be used to mislead voters or undermine our democracy. I'm proud to lead the AI Ads Act with Senator Schiff to ban AI-generated content that deceives the public about candidates or elections," Khanna said in a statement.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/30/2026 - 18:00

Federal Judge Rules Race-Based Portion Of Houston Program Unconstitutional

Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times,

A federal judge on Tuesday permanently barred the city of Houston from enforcing the race-based parts of a program that includes numerical goals for awarding public contracts to minority-owned businesses, ruling that doing so is in violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

A judge's gavel, in this file photo. Andrew Kelly/Reuters

U.S. District Judge David Hittner described his decision as the first to extend the U.S. Supreme Court's 2023 ruling against race-conscious college admissions to municipal public contracting programs. He found Houston could not justify treating businesses differently due to the race of their owners.

"The public interest favors a permanent injunction because there is no public interest in permitting the government to continue enforcing an unconstitutional race-based policy," Hittner wrote in his findings of fact and conclusions of law.

Landscape Consultants of Texas Inc. and Metropolitan Landscape Management Inc., two Spring-based landscaping firms owned by Jerry and Theresa Thompson, a white married couple, filed the original lawsuit in September 2023. They were represented by Pacific Legal Foundation. In their filing, they argued Houston's Minority, Women, and Small Business Enterprise Program, as well as a similar policy at the Midtown Management District, precluded them from opportunities due to their race.

"Equal protection means equal protection for everyone, not preferential treatment for some," Erin Wilcox, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the Pacific Legal Foundation, said in a statement. "The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees every business owner the same shot at a government contract, regardless of race."

Houston City Attorney Arturo Michel said the city may appeal.

"The city will abide by the court's decision regarding existing contracts and recently awarded contracts pending any further court order," Michel said.

The program requires the city to establish annual goals for contracts going to minority-owned businesses. It also allows departments to impose contract-specific goals.

Non-minority firms were often required to subcontract a percentage of work to certified minority-owned businesses even if they had no operational need to subcontract. Minority-owned firms could fulfill the requirement with their own workers.

Hittner held a four-day bench trial in December 2025, ultimately concluding that under the Supreme Court's framework in Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. Harvard, government may use race only to remedy specific, identified past discrimination.

"Houston is required to identify concrete, particularized discrimination and demonstrate that its use of race is necessary to remedy that discrimination," Hittner said. "Houston has not done so."

Hittner noted the city's own expert witness testified that a 2024 disparity study commissioned by the city identified no specific instances of intentional discrimination by Houston officials or employees in recent years. The city had not disciplined anyone for contracting discrimination in the previous five years and found no particular constitutional or statutory violations.

Hittner limited the injunction to the race-conscious guidelines. Preferences based on gender or small-business status were not struck down. The order also applies to the Midtown Management District's parallel policy.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/30/2026 - 17:40

Apple Tumbles On China, Service Revenue Miss

The Thursday rebound in the Nasdaq 100 - largely on the coattails of Microsoft and the expectations that further liquidations by that 25 year old Leopold guy are over - has been powerful, though much of the urgency has come from the same high-beta corners punished hardest during the semiconductor rout. That helps stabilize the tape, but it doesn’t resolve concerns around capex spend or Chinese chip capabilities. Amazon speaks directly to the hyperscaler debate through AWS and spending plans. And while Apple is not at the center of concerns about hyperscaler spreads, at nearly $5 trillion in market cap, its results carry enough weight to shape sentiment across a market short on conviction.

Consensus looks for Apple revenue growth of roughly 16% to nearly $109 billion, with the iPhone cycle and services doing the heavy lifting. The broader read-through is whether consumer demand remains firm, whether margins can absorb tariff and chip-cost pressure, and whether one of the world’s largest companies can still generate enough growth to support the premium embedded across mega-cap tech. A set of strong reports would give the rebound something more credible than short covering, even if it leaves the sector’s structural concerns intact.

There’s also some ceremony to the moment. Tim Cook’s final earnings call closes an extraordinary chapter before John Ternus takes the baton, but as Bloomberg's Brendan Fagan notes, nostalgia will not carry the stock or the broader sentiment. 

With that in mind, here is what Apple reported for the recently concluded June 30 (fiscal Q3) quarter:

• EPS $2.02 vs. $1.57 y/y, beating estimates of $1.89
• Revenue $109.42 billion, +16% y/y, beating estimates of $108.85 billion
  • Products revenue $78.68 billion, +18% y/y, beating estimate $77.25 billion
  • IPhone revenue $54.25 billion, +22% y/y, beating estimate $53.6 billion
  • Mac revenue $10.35 billion, +29% y/y, beating estimate $8.62 billion
  • IPad revenue $6.19 billion, -5.9% y/y, missing estimate $6.89 billion
  • Wearables, home and accessories $7.88 billion, +6.5% y/y, beating estimate $7.87 billion
• Services revenue $30.74 billion, +12% y/y, missing estimate $31.36 billion

Broken down by product:

... we see that Apple is in desperate need of a new revenue stream: even Services is now rolling over while the rest is a melting ice cube mess, and once AAPL's price hikes kick in, sales will crater. 

Mac sales beat expectations as pent up demand for the M5 MacBook Air, M5 Pro/Max MacBook Pro and of course the hot-selling MacBook Neo, should resulted in a big beat. The question is what is the margin on these products now that their components as much, much more expensive. 

Yet one place where revenue unexpectedly missed was Apple's heretofore Golden calf, namely Services, which unexpectedly came light by almost $1 billion to estimates, rising just 12% to $30.74 billion, and missing estimate $31.36 billion. Since this is the highest margin product line, any slowdown here will set off alarm bells for the bulls. 

Taking a closer look at the Geographic breakdown, China stood out because after several quarters of solid growth (after several years of disappointment) revenues missed again (along with Japan this time):

• Greater China rev. $18.82 billion, +22% y/y, missing estimate $19.58 billion
• Americas rev. $45.78 billion, +11% y/y, beating estimate $45.42 billion
• Europe revenue $29.40 billion, +22% y/y, beating estimate $27.58 billion
• Japan revenue $6.55 billion, +13% y/y, missing estimate $7.49 billion
• Rest of Asia Pacific revenue $8.87 billion, +16% y/y, beating estimate $8.71 billion

Here results were a mirror image of last quarter, when the US missed but was more than offset by Chinese sales; this time it's China (and Japan) that missed, in what appears to be another major slowdown in Chinese sales growth. 

Putting it all together, it appears that the stock which in recent weeks was priced to perfection - and as a FCF positive substitute to the rest of the AI complex - is getting hit on the Service revenue and China miss. As Bloomberg puts it, "though total revenue topped estimates, the China sales amounted to $18.8 billion in the fiscal third quarter, well short of the $19.6 billion estimated by analysts. Revenue from services was $30.7 billion, compared with a $31.4 billion projection."

Apple’s progress in China has been closely watched by investors and analysts as it recovers from a downturn in that country. The company is still growing in the market, but hasn’t bounced back as quickly as some were looking for, and as shown above, the growth rate is rapidly slowing... again.  

Apple also has been struggling with shortages of memory chips and computer processors, a situation that forced the company to raise prices on Macs and iPads last month. The supply crunch has led to extended wait times on key computers like the Mac mini and Mac Studio. Once the new iPhone hits the street with a price some 20% higher, watch for total sales to tumble. 

Elsewhere, this quarter serves as a swan song of sorts for CEO Tim Cook, who will hand the reins to hardware head John Ternus on Sept. 1. Cook, Apple’s leader since 2011, diversified the product lineup and increased annual sales to nearly half a trillion dollars. 

AAPL stock had been up 23% this year heading into the results, outpacing many tech peers. Apple reclaimed its title as the world’s most valuable company in recent days - overtaking Nvidia -  in part because it’s seen as a safe haven from runaway AI spending. The company has a current market value of almost $5 trillion, although it is now again below that after the slide after hours.

The company also is making some changes to how it offers products. On Tuesday, it rolled out a device leasing program called Apple Upgrade, allowing users to essentially subscribe to iPhones, iPads and Macs and trade them in at the end of their lease terms. The program, which resembles car leasing, will likely mitigate the recent price increases for many buyers.

Apple stock slumped more than 4% in after hours action, offsetting some of the surge in Amazon stock.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/30/2026 - 17:25

'We Won Completely': Weinstein Says COVID 'Conspiracy Theorists' Were Totally Vindicated

Not so long ago, everything below was a bannable offense - usually based on the vapid logic of some 24-year-old "trust & safety" associate. In a clip circulating Thursday, evolutionary biologist Bret Weinstein takes stock of what the dissidents actually won for their trouble, Vigilant Fox reports.

WEINSTEIN: "We live in two worlds simultaneously at the moment. I remember conversations that I had with people I cared deeply about at the beginning of COVID right as the lab leak story was beginning to crack."

Bret Weinstein explains how the COVID conspiracy theorists were proven right about everything and it doesn't matter.

WEINSTEIN: "We live in two worlds simultaneously at the moment. I remember conversations that I had with people I cared deeply about at the beginning of COVID... pic.twitter.com/DFyBy6i2DH

— The Vigilant Fox (@VigilantFox) July 30, 2026

"What I saw was, actually, I think we're going to win the lab leak story. We're not yet winning the vaccine story, and we're way behind on the repurposed drug story.

"In 2026, here's what we see. We actually won. Completely. All of these things are now visible to anybody who wishes to see them.

Yet, while hearts and minds were won and 'conspiracy theorists' vindicated, we have a limp dicked government that won't hold anyone's feet to the fire. 

"And we've lost completely. Our capacity to do anything about this is now on full display. We have none."

"Your ability to simply get the story clear enough and enough evidence on the table does not have an impact on what happens next.

"We're still apparently dispensing these frickin shots. How crazy is that? Right after all that we have unearthed, after all the people who lost their careers to unearth this stuff, they're still dispensing the frickin shots."

WEINSTEIN: "We need to figure out now how to talk to the people who actually have goodness in their hearts, but are still so desperately confused.

"You have to figure out how to approach them with enough generosity of spirit that you can get them over the line to just seeing. You can get them to take off the blindfold."

h/t Modernity.news

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/30/2026 - 17:20

House Democrats Expand Midterm 'Red To Blue' Target Map To 30 Seats

Authored by Chase Smith via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) added five more seats to its Red to Blue program on July 28, and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) responded the same day with a separate statement criticizing each of the five Democratic candidates.

The U.S. Capitol on June 16, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

The expansion brings the program to 30 seats. Red to Blue candidates receive strategic guidance, staff resources, training, and fundraising support from the committee, according to the DCCC’s announcement. The committee said candidates qualify by surpassing goals for grassroots engagement, local support, campaign organization, and fundraising.

“In less than 100 days, Democrats will take back the House majority and it will be powered by our incredible candidates such as the five named to Red to Blue today,” DCCC Chair Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) said in the release.

“Whether in suburban, rural, or redistricted seats, the American people have soured on Republicans’ broken promises and failure to lower costs. Voters are outraged by higher prices on everything and a war of choice spiraling out of control. They are eager for change and new leaders who will fight for them, not be a rubberstamp for Donald Trump.”

The five are Amish Shah in Arizona’s First District, Pia Dandiya in Florida’s 22nd, Lindsay James in Iowa’s Second District, Jake Johnson in Minnesota’s First, and Sam Forstag in Montana’s First.

The DCCC described Shah as an emergency room physician and former state representative who has already represented part of the district in the Arizona House.

Dandiya is a former teacher and high school principal from Palm Beach County. Both parties hold their Florida primaries on Aug. 18. Dandiya faces a contested Democratic field, with a challenge from Kaysia Earley. The DCCC’s endorsement puts the committee behind her before the election.

Florida’s 22nd District is currently held by Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.), who is running in the new 23rd District this fall following redistricting.

James is a Presbyterian minister, former chaplain, and Iowa state representative running for an open seat against Republican Joe Mitchell, whom the DCCC release called a career politician and lobbyist.

Johnson is a public school math teacher and union leader challenging Rep. Brad Finstad (R-Minn.).

Forstag is a U.S. Forest Service smokejumper and vice president of National Federation of Federal Employees Local 60, running for the seat Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) is leaving.

The DCCC release said Forstag organized against staffing cuts at public land agencies and described Republican nominee Aaron Flint as Zinke’s hand-picked successor.

The NRCC issued five statements within hours, one for each candidate. The statements largely characterized the candidates as too liberal for their districts.

NRCC spokesperson Ben Petersen noted for the Arizona race that the DCCC backed Shah’s opponent in the primary and that Republicans there are consolidating behind nominee Jay Feely. The DCCC did back Shah’s opponent in the Arizona primary but later endorsed Shah after he won.

NRCC spokeswoman Emily Tuttle referenced a Fox News report that James missed more than half of her votes in the Iowa House over the past year. Her campaign responded to that report at the time in a statement saying, “Lindsay has always fought for Iowa families, taking on corporate greed and predatory landlords and writing the bill to cap the cost of insulin.”

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/30/2026 - 17:00

Bank Of Japan Confirms Yen Intervention, Fed Conducted 'Rate Check'

Update (1645ET): Nikkei reports that market participants learned that the Japanese government and the Bank of Japan intervened in the foreign exchange market by buying yen and selling dollars.

Additionally, Nikkei confirmed that the US monetary authorities conducted a "rate check," a preliminary step before intervention.

This indicates that Japan and the US worked together to curb the yen's depreciation.

*  *  *

Having collapsed to its weakest relative to the dollar in 40 years, it appears the Ministry of Finance and Bank of Japan has had enough and intervened.

Having tagged 164/USD, the Japanese currency suddenly exploded stronger (below 160/USD, which was the prior level of intervention)...

The scale of the move is commensurate with the last large intervention in April.

Obviously, there is no confirmation, yet, but the timing, coming after the Fed and after Japan markets have closed, would certainly fit what we know about the MoF’s tactics, and that’s why there’s renewed speculation over official action. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/30/2026 - 16:45

Amazon Jumps On Solid AWS Growth And Profit, Even As Outlook Disappoints And Free Cash Flow Turns Negative

As Bloomberg notes, "Microsoft’s solid earnings breathed new life into the tech sector Thursday, but Amazon’s report after the bell this evening could deflate the optimism again." To be sure, there’s a lot riding on Amazon results. The longevity of the AI spending boom is in doubt as shareholders punish ambitious capex plans, which has taken away some of the support away from the chipmaker stocks. 

Before Microsoft’s earnings, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index had fallen 27% this month. It bounced more than 7% Thursday. Chipmaker Sandisk rose 23%, Micron and Microsoft itself both climbed more than 16%. The Seattle-based software giant announced better-than-expected results, emphasized its clear roadmap to AI monetization and refrained from increasing its capex plans. Amazon is going to have to produce something pretty special to keep the party going.  

In terms of expectations, analysts expect Amazon profits to rise 8.8% from a year earlier, based on revenue growth of 17.5%. Free cash flow is expected to come in negative for a second straight quarter. Revenue in the key Amazon Web Services business is expected to grow 31% from a year earlier to $40.6 billion.

While free cash flow for the AI hyperscalers as a group is expected to turn negative, for Amazon, it’s seen fluctuating, dipping below zero before recovering. Amazon was an early starter in the world of cloud computing. That has sometimes looked like a disadvantage. It’s among the cheapest of the big tech stocks, trading at a price to blended forward earnings ratio that’s 1.6 standard deviations below the 10-year average. Nevertheless, as Bloomberg's Sebastian Boyd writes, the tone from analysts has been largely positive. Estimates have been revised slightly higher, and climbed to $1.83 from $1.8 at the end of April. 

With all that in mind, this is what Amazon just reported for the recently concluded Q2:

• EPS of $5.75, beating exp of $1.81 (including a one-time profit on its holdings in Anthropic)

Revenue was stronger across the board (except for another modest miss in the small physical store sales category, and a new miss in subscription services).

• Net sales $200.61 billion, beating estimates of $197.01 billion
• Online stores net sales $70.43 billion, beating estimates of $69.92 billion
• Physical Stores net sales $5.79 billion, missing estimate $5.87 billion
• Third-Party Seller Services net sales $46.78 billion, beating estimates of $46.15 billion
• Subscription Services net sales $13.73 billion, missing estimates of $13.75 billion
• Advertising services net sales $19.81 billion, beating estimates of $19.32 billion

However, the most important revenue item, AWS, smashed smashed the sellside estimate...

• AWS net sales $42.23 billion, beating estimates of $40.57 billion, and rising a whopping 37%, the fastest pace of growth since the fourth quarter of 2021. 

Geographically the results were focused on North America beating again by more than $2 billion, even as international was a modest miss:

• North America net sales $116.18 billion, estimate $113.94 billion
• International net sales $42.20 billion, estimate $42.71 billion

Going down the line: 

• Operating income $27.46 billion, beating estimate $23.61 billion
• Operating margin 13.7%, beating estimate 12%
• North America operating margin +7.9%, beating estimate +7.48%
• International operating margin 4.1%, beating estimate 3.76%
• Fulfillment expense $29.63 billion, below the estimate $29.79 billion
• Seller unit mix 61%, beating estimates of 60.2%

While AWS sales growth was solid, just as impressive was the the margin for the segment also increased from 37.68% to 39.36%, just shy of the highest on record, and again beating the median Wall Street estimate of 33.52%. Elsewhere, North American profit unexpectedly jumped to $9.123 billion, resulting in a profit margin of 7.83%, down from 7.94% a quarter ago, while international margins rose to 4.07% from 3.58%, the highest since Q2 2025.

As a result of the rise in AWS profits, and generally solid sales margins, Amazon's consolidated operating margin posted a notable jump and in Q1 increased 9.7% to 11.7%, just shy of an all time high. 

Looking ahead, the company's guidance was unexpectedly weak: 

• Net sales for Q3 are expected to be between $197 billion and $202 billion; the midpoint of $197.5 billion was a big miss compared to the median estimate of $203.93 billion.
• Operating income for Q3 is expected between $22.0 billion to $26.40 billion, the midpoint also falling below the estimate of $25.07

The projected 10.7% revenue growth was the lowest since March 2025.

And while we wait to get some sense of what happened to AMZNs capex guidance, and whether it was revised higher again, here is a less than flattering view of the company's free cash flow: the company's LTM free cash flow plunged to $7.6 billion negative for the trailing twelve months, vs $18.2 billion for the trailing twelve months ended June 30, 2025.

And so, to fund its impressive AWS growth, where competition is becoming more fierce by the day, AMZN will need to issue stock or issue much more new debt to fund further capex growth. Indicatively, AMZN's debt soared to $129 billion in Q2, doubling from $65.6 billion at the end of 2025.

Amazon reported spending more than $53 billion on capex, including proceeds from some sales, in the period ended June 30. The company has said it expects to spend $200 billion — a 56% increase from 2025 — mostly on data centers, including those customized for AI services, prompting investors to focus on any signs of overspending.

After all that, AMZN shares were sharply higher this time - unlike last quarter - up about 8% higher largely on the AWS revenue growth and margin, as the market ignores the negative free cash flow... for now. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/30/2026 - 16:40

US Intel Chiefs Back Trump's Claim China Interfered In American Elections

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

The heads of four U.S. intelligence and national security agencies have backed key elements of President Donald Trump’s claim that China engaged in election interference by targeting American voter-registration data.

A fact sheet released July 30 by the White House Government Transparency Task Force says China and its proxies bought, stole, or hacked voter data belonging to as many as 220 million Americans, including some information that was not publicly available.

The fact sheet pairs that finding with the intelligence community’s official definition of election interference, which includes a foreign power’s targeting of voter data.

It notes that, for a foreign country’s actions to amount to “election interference,” they do not have to change the actual results.

“That definition includes a foreign power’s targeting of voter registration infrastructure or data,” the task force states, citing declassified documents produced by the U.S. intelligence community.

The fact sheet was approved by the heads of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Department of Homeland Security, according to the White House.

Representatives from those agencies—as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation—also coordinated with the White House before Trump’s July 16 address and “approved the factual statements” drawn from intelligence documents used in the speech, the task force states.

Election Interference Defined

In his speech, Trump said China has long been meddling in U.S. elections, including that it was “working to influence” the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which President Joe Biden was ultimately declared the winner.

Trump did not explicitly claim that China managed to change the 2020 result, and neither did the heads of U.S. intelligence agencies.

The spy chiefs did say in the fact sheet that voter-registration data is itself part of election infrastructure and could be manipulated in ways that affect election results, for instance by preventing groups of voters from casting their ballots.

“Adversaries could alter data to potentially prevent individual voters or groups of voters from voting, causing delays on election day or forcing voters to use provisional ballots,” the task force states, citing intelligence community documents.

A voter walks to a polling place in Milwaukee, Wis., on July 28, 2026. Nam Y. Huh/AP

“Adversaries could also use the registration data which in some cases is also available publicly or for purchase—to tailor other interference or influence efforts,” it adds.

Election interference “is a subset of election influence targeted at the technical aspects of the election, including voter registration, casting and counting of ballots, and reporting of results,” according to the task force.

The release of the fact sheet marks the clearest institutional backing yet for central parts of Trump’s allegations, which were challenged by some Democrats who cited an earlier intelligence assessment that China did not interfere in the 2020 election.

Trump Orders Investigation

During his July 16 address, Trump described China’s acquisition of the voter data as “the largest compromise of election data in history” and an “unprecedented election security nightmare.”

Trump said U.S. intelligence had found that “China was working to influence the results of the U.S. midterm elections, and later the results of the 2020 presidential election itself.”

He also said U.S. intelligence agencies began learning in 2020 that China had bought, stolen, or hacked tens of millions of voter records across 18 states but that some officials withheld or downplayed the information.

Trump directed the Department of Justice, CIA, FBI, and ODNI to investigate why the intelligence was withheld and, where appropriate, to seek criminal charges.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, accused Trump of using the disclosures to influence the approaching midterm elections. Warner cited the intelligence community’s previous assessment that China did not attempt to interfere in the 2020 election.

“China is a serious strategic competitor, and it absolutely seeks to advance its interests at America’s expense,” Warner said.

“The Intelligence Community … concluded that China considered—but ultimately did not deploy—an influence campaign intended to affect the outcome of the 2020 election, and that no foreign government altered vote totals, hacked voting machines, or compromised the integrity of our election infrastructure,” he added.

Trump, in his speech, called the U.S. election system “so broken and so vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it.”

“It is not defensible,” Trump said.

The president also said that many previously classified documents spanning from January 2020 to June 2026 that support his claims would be declassified and released to the public.

“This is a cyber threat aimed at the very heart of our democracy,” he said.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/30/2026 - 16:20

58% Against, Both Parties Scrambling: Data-Center Revolt Hits The Midterms

A "booming backlash" against AI data centers is shaping the midterm election - candidates cutting ads touting their anti-data-center credentials, protesters showing up at campaign events, industry players taking note - which will come as genuinely useful news to anyone who has spent the past year getting their information exclusively from NBC News.

The network's framing is that last year's elections in a handful of states revealed the hyperscale buildout as a major tension point up and down the ballot, and that the fight has now intensified into a full midterm issue - with demonstrators displaying "Stop Data Centers" signs at President Trump's Michigan appearance on Sunday - the protest movement having now reached the point where it greets the president of the United States at his own events.

The anti-data center protest during President Trump’s speech in Michigan: pic.twitter.com/EjsuS7yn7g

— Craig Mauger (@CraigDMauger) July 27, 2026

According to the report, Republicans, Trump included, have shifted toward ensuring data centers do not drive up voters' power bills, which is what happens when the polling gets loud enough to be heard over the donor calls.

A June Yale Program on Climate Communication poll cited by CNBC found 58% of registered voters oppose data-center construction in their own area - including 53% of conservative Republicans, which is not a demographic famous for agreeing with the 74% of liberal Democrats who feel the same way. More than 300 cities, towns and counties have enacted bans or moratoriums on hyperscale construction, per a count by The Information, and Data Center Watch tallied 75 major projects worth more than $130 billion delayed or canceled in the first quarter of 2026 alone - roughly matching the damage from all twelve months of 2025. New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed the nation's first statewide moratorium this month, voters in Monterey Park, California passed a permanent ban at the ballot box, and in April an unknown attacker fired 13 shots into the home of an Indianapolis councilman who had voted for an AI facility, leaving a note reading "No Data Centers," per The Week - the point at which a land-use dispute stops being a land-use dispute.

This is what it sounds like living next to a data center. The video below was recorded at midnight, and the data center is situated next to 100s of residential homes. pic.twitter.com/BHGqt3vKfb

— Merissa Hansen (@merissahansen17) May 10, 2026

The issue is bipartisan in the most literal sense: nobody knows which party owns the issue. In Wisconsin, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong is campaigning on a pledge to "tax the rich, fund our schools and stop AI data centers," per AP, while Pennsylvania's Josh Shapiro takes fire from his own rural base for welcoming the buildout onto prime farmland. In deep-red west Texas - which JLL projects will overtake northern Virginia as the world's largest data-center market by 2030 - protest groups led by Republicans are springing up in Lubbock, some of whose founders say they may not vote for Governor Abbott at all, and Abbott has responded by ordering regulators to make sure Texans are not paying higher electricity bills for the privilege of hosting Google. When the same issue is simultaneously a Democratic socialist's headline pledge and a Republican rancher's reason to stay home, the consultants have a problem no ad buy fixes.

None Of This Will Surprise Regular Readers

We've been tracking this revolt since it was a smattering of county fights. Earlier this month - in one day, there were 142 coordinated protests across 42 states under Tea Party veteran Amy Kremer, who declared that America is not for sale and predicted data centers on the ballot in November and again in 2028.

Today was incredible!

142 protests. 42 states. One message: ONE NATION UNITED AGAINST DATA CENTERS!

Communities across America showed up today for a National Day of Protest Against AI Data Centers to say that We The People deserve a voice before massive data centers are… pic.twitter.com/TwE7oRjR6V

— Kylie Jane Kremer (@KylieJaneKremer) July 18, 2026

The prediction is aging well - and now the mainstream media is catching up, four months before midterms. Meanwhile the enforcement arm of the buildout keeps generating its own coverage - this week's example being the Kansas physics teacher jailed for clapping at a data-center hearing while the commission passed the zoning anyway.

A high school teacher in Kansas was arrested for clapping in opposition to a proposed data center during a city council meeting. pic.twitter.com/yWRy5P0NHP

— FactPost (@factpostnews) July 28, 2026

Needless to say, the pitchforks are out...

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/30/2026 - 15:45

The Facts Behind China's "Gold Reset"

Authored by Peter Reagan,

The internet loves a reset.

A “reset” takes an impossibly complicated subject and boils it down to a date, a decision and one big red button.

China’s recent gold market announcements launched a veritable cottage industry of dire warnings and hysterical predictions.

Over the past few weeks, my feeds have been absolutely flooded with claims that China’s brought back the gold standard. And that Beijing built a machine designed to “collapse the dollar.” Some warned that July 24 would mark “the end of gold trading” – somehow eliminating manipulation and revealing gold’s “real” price.

(One popular video managed to make nearly all those claims at once!)

Listen: I understand why people are getting worked up.

China is the world’s top gold-mining nation. In 2023, China surpassed India to become the world’s #1 gold-buying nation (and its consumption substantially exceeds domestic mining). Its central bank, the People’s Bank of China or PBoC has been steadily adding to its official gold reserves for the last 20 consecutive months.

Now China and Hong Kong are building new vaults, clearing systems and delivery connections around the precious metal.

That sounds significant because it is significant.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

This isn’t a gold standard. It is not a ban on paper gold.

And there is no evidence that China flipped a switch that will suddenly “reset” gold’s global price.

As is often the case in real life, the real story is more complicated.

I think it’s important though, because I expect it will have a much bigger impact over the long run…

China is building more than a bigger vault

Let’s begin with what actually happened.

On July 7, Hong Kong began trial operations of a new central clearing and settlement system for gold.

Clearing and settlement are two of those phrases that make most people’s eyes glaze over. In plain English, the new system is designed to help institutions complete gold transactions more efficiently – matching buyers and sellers, transferring payments and confirming who owns what.

Hong Kong also launched the first phase of a new “Delivery Connect” program with the Shanghai Gold Exchange. This is intended to make it easier to settle cross-border gold transactions and move physical metal between the two markets.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong wants to expand its gold storage capacity to more than 2,000 metric tons within three years. That would be roughly 10 times its current reported capacity.

Officials describe the goal as building a complete gold ecosystem incorporating trading, clearing, storage, delivery, insurance and logistics.

Think of it this way:

Owning a large pile of gold is one thing.

Building the roads, warehouses, scales, security systems and payment networks required to move that gold is something else entirely.

China has already accumulated substantial quantities of physical gold. Now it is developing more of the infrastructure needed to make that gold useful across institutions and borders.

That does not make the yuan a gold-backed currency.

But it could make gold easier to hold, trade and deliver within a financial system centered more closely on China and the yuan.

China’s banks are closing one retail door

The second development is what gave rise to the July 24 “China reset” story.

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, or ICBC, announced that it would stop acting as an intermediary for individual customers trading precious-metals contracts through the Shanghai Gold Exchange after end-of-day settlement on Friday, July 24.

ICBC’s notice covered several kinds of contracts.

Some represented spot gold products eligible for physical delivery. Others were deferred-delivery contracts that allowed customers to use leverage – controlling a larger gold position with a smaller amount of money.

ICBC advised customers with existing positions to sell, close their trades or arrange physical delivery before the service was shut down. Other major Chinese banks have announced similar withdrawals from individual Shanghai Gold Exchange trading, although not all of them used the same deadline.

For example, China Construction Bank announced a similar July 24 closure and warned that remaining inventories or positions could subsequently be sold or forcibly closed. (They’d already raised collateral requirements on precious metals contracts to 120%.)

The banks’ stated reason was risk management.

That makes sense in light of gold’s extraordinary volatility this year. Gold climbed to an intraday high near $5,600 in January before briefly retreating below $4,000 in June. Chinese banks responded by tightening trading requirements, with some collateral requirements reportedly reaching as high as 140%.

In other words, a customer had to deposit more collateral than the value of the position itself! At the same time, CME Group’s COMEX requires a 40% margin for gold futures.

At that point, the appeal of offering the service presumably became rather difficult for the banks to justify.

This was not a nationwide prohibition on gold ownership. Chinese citizens can still own physical gold, buy bars and coins and use other non-leveraged gold products.

Nor did China shut down the Shanghai Gold Exchange.

A more accurate description would be:

China is not closing the gold vault. Its largest banks are closing part of the speculative trading counter attached to the vault.

That is noteworthy. But it is not a monetary reset.

Here’s what China did not do

China did not restore the gold standard.

Under a traditional gold standard, a nation defines its currency in terms of a specific quantity of gold and promises conversion between the two. China made no such promise.

The yuan is not redeemable for a fixed weight of gold. Beijing has not announced that every yuan will be backed by gold reserves. Nor has it limited its ability to create more currency according to the amount of gold in its vaults.

China also did not ban futures or derivatives trading.

In fact, Hong Kong is doing nearly the opposite.

As part of its effort to become a larger gold-trading hub, Hong Kong has revived gold futures denominated in both U.S. dollars and “offshore yuan,” with physical delivery services available through participating institutions. The goal of all these changes? To strengthen Hong Kong as an offshore yuan center and a regional gold-trading, clearing and reserve hub – not to make the yuan convertible into gold.

China isn’t systematically eliminating paper gold. It looks more like they’re reducing access to certain volatile, bank-operated retail products – meanwhile, expanding institutional gold trading, clearing, delivery and storage.

Those two policies are not necessarily contradictory.

Beijing may want gold to play a larger strategic role without encouraging ordinary households to make highly leveraged short-term bets on its price.

That is a far more plausible explanation than the idea that China secretly scheduled the destruction of the global monetary system for a Friday afternoon in July.

Why people are paying attention anyway

The hype may be overblown, but it did not appear out of thin air.

China occupies a unique position in the gold market.

It is the world’s largest gold producer, accounting for roughly 10% of global mine output in recent years. It is also the largest consumer – which means the nation uses more gold than it produces and must import substantial quantities to meet domestic demand.

Chinese gold demand is also changing.

In 2025, purchases of bars and coins rose more than 35% to approximately 504 metric tons. For the first time, Chinese demand for investment bars and coins exceeded demand for gold jewelry. Domestic mine production reached approximately 381 metric tons.

Then there is China’s central bank.

The People’s Bank of China reported adding approximately 15 metric tons of gold in June, its largest monthly increase since October 2023. That extended its reported purchasing streak to 20 consecutive months and brought official holdings to approximately 2,346 metric tons.

Put the pieces together:

• China mines lots of gold.

• Chinese households and institutions buy gold.

• China imports additional gold.

• The PBoC accumulates gold.

• Hong Kong is expanding gold storage.

• New systems are being built to clear, settle and deliver gold across borders.

That is not a gold standard. But neither is it meaningless.

China is building a financial neighborhood in which physical gold is easier to store, trade and use – while reducing reliance on institutions and payment systems outside its control.

We have discussed before why central banks increasingly regard physical gold as a vital reserve asset in a world of rising government debt, geopolitical friction and currency uncertainty.

China’s latest moves fit that broader pattern.

Could China reshape gold’s global price?

This is where we have to be especially careful.

Gold does not have one market or one price-making machine.

Its global price emerges from a complicated network of physical bars, wholesale spot transactions, futures contracts, currency movements, central-bank activity and buying by households and institutions around the world.

London and New York remain enormously influential. Shanghai has become increasingly important. Prices move between these markets through arbitrage – traders responding whenever gold becomes meaningfully cheaper in one location than another.

A popular argument says futures trading creates an artificial gold price because vastly more contracts trade than physical bars change hands.

There is a grain of truth here.

Leverage allows traders to control large positions without paying the full value upfront. During extreme market moves, margin calls and forced liquidations can amplify price swings. Recent metals volatility has offered plenty of examples of speculative activity accelerating both rallies and selloffs.

But it would be a mistake to conclude that all futures trading is fake or that eliminating it would automatically reveal gold’s “true” price.

Futures also provide liquidity and help buyers and sellers discover prices. Research on China’s own gold market has found that futures trading has historically played a significant role in price discovery. The World Gold Council likewise notes that futures concentrate trading activity, add liquidity and contribute to the process by which new information becomes reflected in prices.

Less leverage may reduce forced selling and speculative excess. In fact, the Bank of International Settlements claims that leverage and margin-triggered liquidations amplified the abrupt reversal in gold’s price back in January.

It can also mean fewer buyers and sellers, thinner trading and greater volatility.

So I would not claim that China’s bank closures will automatically produce a more honest gold price – especially because those closures affect only certain retail trading channels, while Hong Kong is simultaneously expanding other forms of futures trading.

The potentially more important development is the growth of physical infrastructure.

If more gold is stored in Hong Kong…

And if more trades result in physical delivery…

And if Delivery Connect attracts substantial cross-border activity…

And if Asian institutions increasingly use those systems rather than merely referencing prices established elsewhere…

…then physical demand from China and the rest of Asia could exert more direct influence over gold’s global price.

That would not happen on one deadline.

It would happen gradually, transaction by transaction. Gold bar by gold bar.

What to watch next

The best way to judge China’s gold ambitions is not to watch social media predictions or stare at gold’s price on the morning after July 24.

Watch what China actually builds.

Does Hong Kong’s storage capacity begin moving toward its 2,000-ton goal?

How much gold passes through the new clearing system?

Do international banks, central banks and large commercial buyers use Delivery Connect?

Do Hong Kong’s new gold contracts attract enough trading to become meaningful?

Does more gold move into allocated storage and physical settlement rather than remaining merely a contractual promise?

Those numbers will tell us whether China has created a genuine alternative gold center – or merely another ambitious financial project that never attracts sufficient use.

Infrastructure matters. But infrastructure must be used.

An empty highway does not reshape trade simply because someone poured the concrete.

Only physical gold is gold itself

Although China did not launch a gold-backed currency, ban derivatives or reset the global price of gold, its recent decisions illustrate something I discuss frequently:

Physical gold and a financial claim tied to gold are not the same thing.

A futures contract is an agreement.

It has rules, expiration dates, collateral requirements and counterparties. The exchange can change its terms. A bank can increase margin requirements. A financial institution can decide it no longer wants to sell a product.

That does not make every contract fraudulent or useless. These instruments serve legitimate commercial purposes (as well as speculation). It simply means the contract is not the gold itself.

ICBC customers discovered that distinction firsthand. Their bank-operated access to the Shanghai Gold Exchange existed only as long as the bank chose to provide it. When the bank changed its policy, customers had to sell, close their positions or take delivery.

The rules around a promise can change.

An ounce of physical gold remains an ounce of physical gold.

That does not mean physical gold’s price cannot fall. Gold experienced a severe decline this year, and anyone who says its price moves in only one direction is ignoring history.

Nor do I know whether China’s new systems will push gold higher next week, next year or at all. Anyone promising a dramatic price explosion because of a single deadline is selling certainty that does not exist.

Here is what we do know:

China is investing serious resources in the storage, clearing and delivery of physical gold. Its central bank continues to accumulate the metal. At the same time, some of its largest banks are effectively outlawing leveraged retail speculation on gold’s price.

China is not abandoning paper markets entirely. But it is making physical gold bullion a larger and more important part of its financial system.

For Americans concerned about their long-term savings, that distinction is worth understanding. Because there is a big difference between owning an asset and owning a promise based on the price of an asset.

China isn’t about to reset gold’s price on July 24.

Instead, what it’s really doing is reminding the world what gold actually is. They’re reminding everyone who’s forgotten why physical gold matters.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/30/2026 - 15:25

Jim Rickards Slams Tech Bros Running The Marxist Playbook

Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

Can Marxism offer a framework for understanding artificial intelligence (AI) and the tech bros behind it?

This is not to suggest that Marxism is a viable economic system or a practical alternative to capitalism. It’s not. But Karl Marx was a heterodox economist before he became an ideologue, and some of his ideas are powerful tools for understanding economics, even if his overall program was a failure.

Let’s use some of those tools to understand the rise of AI oligarchs and the future of AI.

We begin with Marx’s main idea: the abolition of private property. How do tech bros feel about private property? They steal it. If you can simply take private property, then it’s not private. Marx would approve.

The AI gang does this by scraping vast amounts of internet content for use in training their large language models (LLMs). That material includes copyrighted books, magazine articles, academic papers, images, music and countless other forms of intellectual property (IP).

Do tech bros pay royalties? Do they pay licensing fees? Sometimes, but often they don’t. They take what they want like internet pirates, or the Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution in 1917.

In fact, AI models have used my nine books in their training sets. Google, Apple, Microsoft, OpenAI and Meta have paid me nothing. Anthropic offered to pay me $37,000 for some (not all) of my books. I accepted the offer, but I still haven’t received the payment. Maybe I’ll call my lawyer about that before their IPO.

The point is that much of the AI crowd behaves no differently than the imperialists of the 19th and early 20th centuries, who exploited land, resources and human capital, including slavery, while paying little or nothing in return.

V. I. Lenin called imperialism “the highest stage of capitalism.” But Lenin never met a tech bro. They put imperialists to shame.

YOU Are Paying for the Boom

Marx’s theory was based on the idea that the owners of the means of production (capitalists) used labor but did not pay workers a fair share of the surplus created by the production process. There are a lot of flaws in this theory.

But the tech bros have a better idea: Get rid of human labor completely.

AI allows companies to pay some workers less because a growing share of productivity comes from software rather than labor. More to the point, AI is eliminating certain jobs entirely, as seen in layoffs among software developers and in industries such as healthcare and customer service that are increasingly using AI to perform repetitive or administrative tasks.

In the AI world, capitalists don’t just take more than their share; they take the entire buffet table. The tech bros’ solution to mass unemployment is guaranteed basic income, a handout. This ignores the dignity of the individual, which is achieved largely through productive work.

Other examples of taking public assets for private use include massive demands placed on the electric grid to power hyperscale data centers. Towns and counties around the country could face higher electric bills as hyperscalers compete with residents and businesses for available electricity.

It’s another case of extracting wealth from everyday Americans to feed the AI beast.

Even that’s not enough. AI applications are being crammed into our laptops, tablets and smartphones whether we know it or not and whether we like it or not. This is forcing manufacturers to build more powerful devices, which can increase costs for consumers while requiring additional processing power to handle AI features.

Many of these AI features operate by default, even if users never intentionally engage with them. That means you may be using AI without realizing it.

Never mind that AI output can be inaccurate and, at times, dangerous. The problem is compounded as AI-generated content increasingly circulates online and becomes part of future training data. Meanwhile, many AI features collect large amounts of user data from the devices they run on.

Individual AI users also provide fresh inputs to LLMs through prompts, interactions and, in some cases, data collected from their devices. AI operators are hungry for this kind of information because they have already consumed vast amounts of publicly available internet content, while the quality of that content continues to deteriorate as more AI-generated material floods the web.

Are you getting paid for information that may be collected from your device? Do you even know it’s happening? Almost certainly not. This is just another form of digital extraction that enriches the tech bros while helping fuel trillion-dollar valuations.

In addition to authors, artists, local communities and everyday Americans, the AI mafia is also feeding off the government. Subsidies include streamlined permitting for massive data centers, tax incentives and abatements in many jurisdictions, favorable regulatory treatment in some areas and enormous government contracts.

There are costs associated with all of these government benefits, but they are not borne by the AI companies themselves.

They’re borne by everyday citizens in the form of taxes, higher electricity rates, reduced quality of life as data centers reshape small communities and the risk that increasingly capable AI systems could create serious disruptions in sectors such as banking, telecommunications and healthcare if they malfunction or are misused.

The Extraction Economy… And New Revolutionaries

The Chinese are no better. The success of Chinese AI models such as DeepSeek and Moonshot has been aided by their ability to build on advances made by leading U.S. AI labs. It’s a case of one group of pirates raiding another group of pirates.

Both thrive on information they did not create, but the Chinese have become especially adept at turning those advances into low-cost competitors.

This predatory behavior can be likened to imperialism or piracy. The technical economic term for it is externality. That means the profits and benefits of extracting information are kept by AI firms, while many of the costs are pushed onto the public.

It’s no different than a gold mine that keeps the gold but dumps the cyanide used in refining into public waterways. The miner gets the gold and the public gets poisoned. The fact that AI is digital does not make the behavior any more acceptable from a social perspective.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Silicon Valley’s extractive culture is that many CEOs are not only aware of it; they thrive on it. They have perfected the art of turning their own customers into unwilling guinea pigs. A culture of short-termism, disdain for the public and pure greed keeps the extraction racket going.

If there’s one ray of sunshine, it’s that some members of Gen Z appear to be turning their backs on AI, autonomous agents and endless screen time.

There’s growing fatigue with the amount of time people spend online, along with increasing concern about the pervasive nature of AI. This shift also reflects widespread frustration that much AI output is bland, repetitive or simply wrong.

Some Gen Zers are doing something that now seems almost radical: They’re reading books.

There are many reasons why the AI bubble could burst, but the Gen Z revolt may be one of the least appreciated and most unexpected.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/30/2026 - 14:45

OpenAI Slashes GPT-5.6 Luna Price By 80% As China's Cheaper Models Close In

OpenAI just cut the price of its cheapest GPT-5.6 model by 80 percent, three weeks after launch - the clearest signal yet that the company that kicked off the generative AI boom is being dragged into a price war it did not start.

On Thursday the company said GPT-5.6 Luna, its speed-focused model, now costs 20 cents per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens, down from $1 and $6. GPT-5.6 Terra, the mid-tier model, gets a 20 percent trim to $2 per million input tokens and $12 per million output. Pricing for the flagship GPT-5.6 Sol remains unchanged.

"Our strategy remains focused on advancing both capability and efficiency so each generation of intelligence can accomplish more work at a lower cost," OpenAI said in its announcement.

The move arrives as companies that once encouraged unconstrained "tokenmaxxing" have started looking hard at AI bills that sometimes run into the billions. Enterprises want clearer returns before committing to the most expensive models, and they now have more alternatives than they did in the early ChatGPT era.

OpenAI is framing the cuts as the fruit of efficiency work rather than a margin sacrifice - a day earlier the company said GPT-5.6 had helped make itself cheaper to run, and it is passing those gains through to how usage is counted in Codex and ChatGPT Work subscriptions, with the lower prices rolling out on AWS as well.

Chinese open-weight models have closed the gap quickly. Moonshot AI's Kimi K3, released earlier this month, has beaten some leading proprietary systems on industry benchmarks and can be run on a company's own infrastructure. That development helped spur a round of competitive responses.

The scale of the challenge is hard to overstate. At 2.8 trillion parameters, K3 is the largest open-weight model ever released, and blind developer testing put it in first place in LMArena's front-end coding arena, ahead of Anthropic's frontier Claude Fable 5. Demand has been heavy enough that Moonshot has capped new subscriptions and API access over capacity constraints, and the company's daily revenue has grown roughly sixfold since launch as it seeks a $50 billion valuation ahead of a potential Hong Kong IPO. The economics underneath are brutal: on Artificial Analysis's cost-per-task index, K3 completes a task for 94 cents and DeepSeek V4 Pro for four cents, versus $1.04 for OpenAI's flagship Sol and $1.80 for Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.8 - and Moonshot reports cache-hit rates above 90 percent in coding workloads that cut K3's effective input cost to 30 cents per million.

Anthropic followed with Claude Opus 5, which it pitches as approaching the performance of its top-tier Fable 5 model at half the price - and beating it outright on some knowledge-work benchmarks - while holding the same rate card as its Opus 4.8 predecessor. Microsoft has been loudly promoting its own cheaper models, including MAI-Cyber-1-Flash, a new cybersecurity-focused offering that AI chief Mustafa Suleyman says delivers "world-leading performance at 50% of the cost." Google, meanwhile, launched a trio of new Gemini Flash models this month and claimed its top Flash model undercuts Kimi K3 and other Chinese systems on a per-task basis.

OpenAI's GPT-5.6 family consists of three tiers: Sol (highest capability), Terra (balanced), and Luna (fastest). By aggressively discounting the middle and low ends while leaving the top model alone, the company is trying to keep volume customers from migrating to open-weight or rival proprietary systems without fully abandoning the premium pricing that funds frontier research.

Whether the cuts are enough to slow the shift toward cheaper alternatives remains to be seen. What is clear is that the era of unconstrained AI spending is giving way to a more pragmatic one - one in which even OpenAI has to compete on price.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/30/2026 - 14:25

Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis Slams Democrat Lawmakers For Dragging Their Feet Over Clarity Act

Authored by Mathew Di Salvo via BitcoinMagazine.com,

Pro-crypto Senator Cynthia Lummis on Wednesday slammed Democrats for holding back the Clarity Act. 

Speaking on the Senate floor, Senator Lummis, of Wyoming, spoke of the bipartisan work that had gone into the bill — but questioned why it was stalling. 

Lawmakers are hoping the Clarity Act gets passed before Congress departs for August recess.

While the bill has been drafted bipartisanly, some Democrats are unhappy with the current version. 

JUST IN: 🇺🇸 Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis calls out the Democrats for holding up the Clarity Act:

"After nearly 11 months of giving almost everything asked of us, I genuinely don't know what else my Democrat colleagues need before we act." 👀
pic.twitter.com/1SMzfkNVfQ

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 29, 2026

“This is a very good bill: good for the country, good for consumers, and good for the people we all represent on both sides of this aisle,” said Senator Lummis. 

“And after 11 months of giving nearly everything that was asked of us, I am genuinely struggling to understand what else my colleagues across the aisle think it needs before we act.” 

Major financial institutions, lawmakers and companies have thrown their weight behind the new bill, but a group of Democrats last week said in a statement that the bill in its current form falls short.  

A number of lawmakers are hoping the bill gets passed before Congress departs for August recess. 

Despite being passed in the house of representatives last year with strong bipartisan support, the Clarity Act has been in a deadlock for much of 2026, partially due to the banking lobby raising concerns over stablecoin yield. 

An updated bill of the Clarity Act was introduced last week that addressed ethics concerns - banning government officials and their families from issuing or promoting crypto. 

Republicans are hoping to gain bipartisan support for the bill this week to advance the legislation. If passed, the long-awaited bill would create a regulatory framework for the cryptocurrency market.

Conservative Lummis earned the name “Bitcoin Senator” over the years for her pro-crypto approach on Capitol Hill.

The 71-year-old senator has admitted owning the leading cryptocurrency since 2013 and has been vital in pro-crypto legislation, including by helping draft the Bitcoin Act for a Bitcoin strategic reserve, and co-sponsoring the 2025’s GENIUS Act to regulate stablecoins.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/30/2026 - 14:05

"Diesel Is At Epicenter Of Supply Squeeze,": Goldman

Goldman analysts are out with an eye-opening note showing that global refinery runs have plunged to their lowest seasonal level since the Covid era as conflict-related outages hammer Russia and the Gulf while Chinese processing remains subdued.

Analysts, including Yulia Zhestkova Grigsby and Daan Struyven, introduced a new global refinery-runs nowcast, estimating that global runs declined by 6.5 million barrels per day from a year earlier in late July.

Non-OECD throughput dropped by 7 million barrels per day, led by the Middle East, Russia, and China. Higher utilization in the Americas and Africa offset only about 30% of the weakness elsewhere, even as U.S. refinery utilization exceeded 97%, the highest since 2018.

The decline in global refinery runs is tightening fuel supplies just as demand heads toward the fourth-quarter peak season. The analysts said diesel inventories remain below seasonal norms while exports continue to slide, leaving the fuel especially vulnerable to further supply disruptions.

"Diesel is at the epicenter of the supply squeeze," the analysts warned.

Europe's benchmark diesel futures have surged this week to the highest level in almost three months. Global diesel exports have fallen by about 2.6 million barrels per day, or 35%, from a year earlier, while jet fuel exports have also slumped, further tightening middle-distillate markets.

We pointed out on Wednesday just how tight the products market is.

The European gasoil crack has surged above $70 a barrel as refiners run near capacity, with diesel and jet supplies constrained by outages, shipping risks, and reduced Russian exports.

Related:

• WTI Holds Spike After Big Crude Draw, SPR Drain Continues As Cushing Stocks Stuck At 'Tank Bottoms'

The analysts recommended clients seeking to hedge ongoing geopolitical turmoil to take a long position in the December 2026–March 2027 European diesel timespread:

Hedging escalation with diesel length. Given the extreme tightness in refined products supply, which we think can linger for longer, we still recommend that investors and consumers seeking to hedge persistent geopolitical shocks in the Mideast and Russia go long the Dec26-March27 European diesel (gasoil) timespread.

Readers should revisit Struyven's note from earlier this month outlining three reasons gas prices are likely to remain elevated (here).

Professional subscribers can read more on energy markets our new Marketdesk.ai portal

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/30/2026 - 13:45

The Latest Wildfire Panic Is Refuted By Data

Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

Wildfires are in the news. With a hot, dry summer it was bound to happen. And, naturally, this is bringing with it talk of climate change.

The Independent is screaming and rending its garments:

Europe is on fire – will the continent’s climate change deniers finally wake up?

The Guardian has an opinion piece calling for prosecutions for climate crimes. Twitter experts are calling for changes to the way we live our lives.

Prince William is saying stuff:

Wildfires ‘stark reminder’ of extreme climate challenge, says William

I suppose we should make the usual point, that wildfires are a natural phenomenon that are an important part of the life cycle of many ecosystems. And that some years are bound to be worse than others.

But there’s just one issue, wildfire activity is actually down.

A new study from the University of East Anglia, published in May, found that 2025 was 16% below the average in terms of burnt area, and that’s despite policies known to increase both the chance of wildfires starting and the area they will burn.

But that was last year, this year must be different given the coverage, right?

Wrong.

Data from the EU’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service shows that, to the end of June, this year had substantially lower wildfire activity – across every continent – than any year since they began collecting data in 2003.

Of course, this data does not yet include the fires from the past couple of weeks, and there is a chance that 2026 will not remain a record-breaking low in fire terms, but this is largely due to the known effect of El Nino years.

The authors note in the conclusion [emphasis added]:

The record low total biomass burning emissions for the first half of 2026 continues the overall downward trend related to changes in savanna fires in tropical Africa and Asia. However, the observed onset of many large-scale wildfires across Eurasia and North America in the last couple of weeks of June, could increase the global total emissions through the rest of the summer. Looking further ahead, the predicted El Niño conditions have the potential to increase global fire emissions, as we observed during the previous El Niño years of 2015 and 2019 when persistent biomass burning in Indonesia caused widespread regional haze and severely degraded air quality.

In fact, the yearly global area burnt by wildfires has been steadily decreasing for over a century (we recommend following Bjorn Lomborg on X, a great source of data):

So, why the panic?

The caveat here – according to the University of East Anglia paper – is that while the number of fires, and total area burnt is down, “severity” is up.

In short, less overall wildfire activity seems to be somehow translating to greater human cost, both in lives and money. Evacuations are allegedly up, insurance costs are allegedly up, and fatalities are allegedly up:

A new analysis of global wildfire activity in 2025 reveals the world experienced some of the most destructive and deadly fire events in recent history, despite the second lowest area burned since 2002. It highlights a continued trend toward fires becoming increasingly extreme, costly, and disastrous—both economically and in lives lost.

Now, first instinct would be this is either linguistic or statistical manipulation designed to camouflage research that failed to correctly serve the climate change agenda.

A case of cope to cover misbehaving data: 

“Fine, wildfires are down, but the ones we’ve had are SO much more DESTRUCTIVE!”.

That’s entirely possible. But supposing the stated data is accurate, what does this mean?

Well, there are several potential explanations

It could be the predictable result expanding human habitation and growing population.

It could be that the areas of fire activity shifting to more populated areas by some as yet not understood natural process.

It could be that fires being deliberately started close to inhabited areas in order to create fear.

It could be that these statistics are manipulated or fabricated.

…Or it could be any or all or a mixture of several.

We don’t know, but we can’t rule anything out at this stage.

The data is clear though, there’s no need to panic. No matter what the press says.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/30/2026 - 13:25

IRGC Boasts Of Fully Intact Speedboat Fleet For 'Swarm Attacks' In Hormuz

Via Middle East Eye

As renewed attacks between Iran and the US expand into Iraq and Yemen, the Hamshahri daily, which has close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has dedicated its front page to a report on the force's speedboats in the Gulf.

On Wednesday, the daily described the boats as the "winning card in the Persian Gulf" and said they are one of the main elements of Iran's deterrence against an expansion of US attacks. "The fleet has become one of the most complex challenges facing American forces in the Persian Gulf over the past two decades by relying on the 'swarm attack' tactic. It has also served as Iran's strategic tool in the Strait of Hormuz over the past five months," Hamshahri wrote.

via Reuters

According to the report, Iran's naval strategy is based on developing small, high-speed, low-cost boats in large numbers. Rather than competing directly with larger fleets, the strategy aims to increase the enemy's costs and limit its freedom of action.

On the role of the boats in keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed, Hamshahri added: "The combination of speedboats, naval mines, cruise and ballistic missiles, and drones has completed the puzzle of Iran's strategic encirclement of the Strait of Hormuz."

Brigadier General Hossein Alaei, the first commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy and a former Iranian defence official, has joined political figures calling for an end to the war with the United States, saying Iran's true victory lies in restoring peace and stability.

Alaei, who served as a senior IRGC commander during the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988), commented on the conflicts launched against Iran by the United States and Israel since June 2025.

"In war, while it is true that Iran defends itself, stands firm, and strikes back at its enemy, the very existence of war is to the detriment of the Iranian people," he said.

The former IRGC commander also criticized the collapse of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Iran and the United States. He described the agreement as a complete victory for Iran and a defeat for Israel. "In this agreement, we gave up virtually nothing," Alaei said.

"The US believes it has stripped, damaged and destroyed Iran's nuclear program. The maximum we have conceded is that we will discuss the nuclear issue in the future, while from the beginning Iran's position was not to possess nuclear weapons."

Iranians sing "Bella Ciao" to mock the Americans while cruising through the Strait of Hormuz, as a vessel waits in the background for permission from the IRGC to pass. pic.twitter.com/C08QEKkFWn

— The Saviour (@TheSaviour) July 26, 2026

He also said the agreement had put pressure on Israel to halt its military strikes on Lebanon. "Israel wanted to strike Lebanon every day; through this agreement, we stopped Israel's daily attacks on Lebanon. This is a very big victory," he said.

While hardline factions in Iran have called for an end to all negotiations with the United States and for the war to continue since military clashes resumed on July 7, some figures from the older generation of the IRGC, including Alaei, are advocating an end to the fighting.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/30/2026 - 12:05