Zero Rss

"Deepening Dark Trend" Emerges On Hormuz As Ship Traffic Slows

The US military has struck Iranian targets for a second straight day, while Tehran has responded with ballistic missile and drone attacks targeting Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and even faraway Jordan. While our overnight wrap focused on the latest war developments, the focus here is what energy traders are watching most closely: vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

Bloomberg cites new shipping data showing that the Hormuz chokepoint slowed to a near standstill on Thursday.

More color from the report:

Among larger vessels, only a US-sanctioned supertanker heading out of the Persian Gulf was seen in the strait, alongside an Iranian-flagged container ship. It's possible that some vessels may be crossing with their transponders turned off, however.

The slowdown marks a sharp reversal from the partial recovery that followed the mid-June interim US-Iran peace deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Commodity-vessel transits averaged 34 a day over the past three weeks and peaked at 59 on June 24, according to Kpler data. That compares with just 14 crossings Wednesday, the lowest since the deal and near wartime levels.

Maritime research firm Windward also commented on the Hormuz slowdown:

Additional overnight signal: one inbound vessel made a sharp U-turn near the strait entrance off Khasab. Watching for what happens next. pic.twitter.com/uGefTl5cG7

— Windward (@WindwardAI) July 9, 2026

Earlier, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy Command stated that it has taken control of managing security and vessel routing through the Hormuz chokepoint.

Here's the translated statement:

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy Command

In the name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.

Peace be upon the insightful and honorable nation, whose astonishing presence and tens-of-millions-strong funeral processions for their martyred leader in Iran and Iraq showed that this is the era of the end of the bullying of powers, and the century of the triumph of nations' will.

And peace be upon the brave warriors of Islam, who, with their crushing response to the aggressions of the child-killing American army, proved that the outcome of battle is determined not by the abundance of weapons, but by the power of faith.

These warriors, by stabilizing management of the Strait of Hormuz, establishing its security over the past two weeks, and gradually reopening it, have increased passage capacity to about 50% of prewar traffic. They are also increasing the transit capacity of vessels that, while observing the security regulations with discipline, obtain permission from the IRGC Navy to pass through the routes designated by the Islamic Republic.

Once again, we declare that foreigners have no stake in this land or in the Strait of Hormuz. The adventurism of the terrorist American army and its interference in determining traffic routes will not only bring our crushing response, but will also seriously disrupt the process of gradual reopening and seriously endanger the interests of countries that benefit from the Strait of Hormuz.

🇮🇷 The IRGC Navy issued a statement declaring that Iran has established control over the Strait of Hormuz.

It stated that shipping traffic has gradually increased to nearly 50% of pre-war levels, and warned that any foreign interference or attempts to dictate shipping routes… pic.twitter.com/0fKkz9vqmW

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) July 9, 2026

On Tuesday, following three separate Iranian attacks on commercial vessels, the Joint Maritime Information Center raised the threat level of the Hormuz chokepoint to "severe."

The unwinding of diplomatic efforts will complicate the normalization process of reopening the Hormuz.

Goldman analyst Chris Hussey commented on this:

Hormuz recovery stalls. Oil has rebounded as renewed fighting around the Strait of Hormuz has interrupted the post-reopening recovery in Persian Gulf flows, while refined products markets remain even tighter than crude, writes Yulia Grigsby in "Oil Tracker: Negative Supply News From Gulf and Russia." Persian Gulf oil flows initially recovered to above 80% of pre-war levels after reopening, but recent tanker attacks pushed them back to the low-70% range, with exports through Hormuz falling from about 10 mb/d to 8.3 mb/d on a 7-day average basis. This supports our view that the key constraint is now Iran's willingness to allow flows, not tanker capacity.

Polymarket:

Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by August 31?
Yes 18% · No 83%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

Brent crude futures were trading around $79 a barrel early Thursday, while WTI hovered near $74, signaling that traders were pricing in renewed geopolitical war risk premium as Hormuz vessel traffic slowed and the US-Iran conflict flared up.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/09/2026 - 12:40

The Low VIX Hides Fierce Undercurrents

Via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Goldman Sachs’ volatility desk made the following comment:

“With the VIX back to its lowest levels in more than a month, our Vol desk is focused on hedging opportunities as 1-month S&P implied correlation is near its lowest level in 20 years.” 

Simply, a low VIX can convey a sense of market calm on the surface, yet implied correlation tells a different story.

The VIX, based on option trading data, measures the implied volatility of the S&P 500 index.

A low VIX means traders expect the market to be relatively calm with not much volatility.

Conversely, a higher VIX reflects expectations for high levels of volatility.

Today, the VIX is relatively low with a 16 handle today, as S&P 500 index option trades appear complacent.

Implied correlation measures how much S&P 500 stocks are expected to move together.

When implied correlation is high, as it was during COVID, the 2022 interest rate shock, and more recently at the beginning of the Iran conflict, macro forces dominate trading activity, and stocks tend to go up or down together.

When correlation is low, stocks decouple. Individual company fundamentals, technical setups, and momentum chasing drive returns.

As we see in the chart below, the implied correlation is at a 20-year low.

The low VIX implies smooth sailing ahead, while a record-low implied correlation suggests the market could be at risk.

Goldman is hedging the risk of a correction, i.e., an implied correlation spike.

Often, when implied correlation rises sharply from extreme lows, as it did in August 2024 during the yen carry trade unwind, the divergences that kept the index calm disappear.

Stocks start moving together again, and most of the time they move down.

This condition is not a warning to expect a market downdraft, but it does suggest that risk awareness is critical.  

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/09/2026 - 12:20

NYC Tower Owner Prepares To Rebuild 15 Floors After I-Beam Failure

Fears of a possible collapse at a condo tower under construction near Grand Central Terminal had abated by the end of the week, but the incident only signals the massive engineering challenges tied to Manhattan's office-to-apartment conversion boom.

The former Pfizer headquarters at 235 East 42nd Street, being converted by David Werner and Nathan Berman's Metro Loft Management into more than 1,600 residential units, has become a high-profile example of the risks of repurposing aging office towers into housing at scale to achieve socialist NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani's strategy to address the metro area's housing shortage.

Engineer: “The concrete beams in our residential conversion of the Pfizer Building are buckling. The building could collapse! Did you correctly account for the weight of the additional floors we added?”

ChatGPT: “You’re absolutely right! I see the issue now—in using the Euler… pic.twitter.com/Wh3pABw84f

— tedfrank (@tedfrank) July 8, 2026

Metro Loft CEO Nathan Berman told Bloomberg in an interview that 15 stories were added to part of the building, and that two columns beneath were insufficiently reinforced, leading to a failure that caused some of the 15 cantilevered floors above to sag.

Via Bloomberg

Berman said Metro Loft now plans to replace the facade, slabs, and steel on those floors: "We are prepared to rebuild that portion of the building."

"It will be reskinned, everything will be leveled, fixed in place, and it will be brand new," he said.

Tuesday morning's column failure prompted evaluations of the building and surrounding structures, as well as street closures for fear the building would collapse. Since then, crews have been working to install temporary supports.

New York City's Department of Buildings has released a new image showing the emergency works to stablise the 37-storey tower at 235 East 42nd Street after structural beams were seen buckling on its 21st floor.

In a statement, the Department said: "Crews working through the night… pic.twitter.com/R1U5su2h2r

— The B1M (@TheB1M) July 8, 2026

James LaFave, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, told the outlet, "Engineers rationally overestimate what they think the loads would be, underestimate how strong they think elements would be to simplify it, and therefore you would end up with a substantial margin of safety."

LaFave noted, "For something to have caused the level of buckling seen in that column there, it's not some small perturbation from expectation that would make that happen. It's something substantial."

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/09/2026 - 12:00

Tennessee Congressman Demands FBI Unseal Everything On Seth Rich

Authored by José Niño via Headline USA,

Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn, has thrown a fresh spotlight on one of Washington’s most stubborn cold cases. 

On July 7, 2026, the Tennessee Republican posted on X that he had formally pressed FBI Director Kash Patel to surrender every document the bureau holds on the 2016 killing of DNC staffer Seth Rich.

“I have called for @FBIDirectorKash to release all records related to the death of Seth Rich,” Burchett wrote.

His press office added, “Today, I sent a letter to FBI Director Kash Patel asking for the release of all records related to the death of Seth Rich. The American people deserve answers.”

I have called for @FBIDirectorKash to release all records related to the death of Seth Rich. pic.twitter.com/8Lt7Vm10Mk

— Tim Burchett (@timburchett) July 7, 2026

The letter itself, dated on Tuesday, opens plainly.

“I write to request the release of all Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) records related to the death of Seth Rich,” Burchett states.

He then leans on the White House, urging, “Given the Administration’s commitment to transparency, I strongly urge the full release of these records, as permitted by law.”

Rich, 27, was shot and killed while walking home in Washington during the early morning hours of July 10, 2016.

Police treated the case as a botched robbery, and it stays unsolved.

Rich’s death later fueled a viral theory that he leaked DNC emails to WikiLeaks and was silenced for it. 

Burchett’s demand follows years of FOIA warfare waged by attorney Ty Clevenger on behalf of plaintiff Brian Huddleston. The FBI first claimed it held no relevant files, then conceded it possessed more than 20,000 pages of potentially relevant material, Rich’s work laptop, and an image of his personal one.

According to Radar, this week Clevenger said a government lawyer told him he would soon receive confirmation that several hundred more Rich pages had surfaced inside a previously concealed room at FBI headquarters—the same unmapped SCIF where “burn bags” of Russia-probe files marked for destruction were reportedly found. 

That connection remains Clevenger’s account.  The FBI has not confirmed it, and the separate burn-bags report never established that Rich records were among those files.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/09/2026 - 11:40

Qatar Halts Push To Ramp Up LNG Production After Hormuz Tanker Strikes

Less than a month after Reuters reported that QatarEnergy was ready to resume LNG production ​at its Ras Laffan LNG plant "very quickly" ‌and expected to reach within a month full output of facilities unaffected by Iranian strikes, this morning Bloomberg reports that Qatar is pausing efforts to rapidly revive production at the world’s largest LNG facility, after an attack on one of its tankers in the Strait of Hormuz raised fears that transit through the crucial waterway is still too risky.

According to the report, QatarEnergy officials held a series of meetings following the attack on Tuesday, with CEO Saad Al-Kaabi deciding to cease plans to increase output at the Ras Laffan complex. Operations will be kept at a minimum for safety reasons and the number of vessels scheduled to dock at the plant in the coming days will be reduced/

The pause is one of the most high-profile fallouts to date of the heightened tensions this week with attacks on a number of ships near Hormuz and the US striking Iran for two consecutive days. President Trump on Wednesday even raised the prospect of a return to all-out war, a worst-case scenario for energy producers in the region who were gradually recovering from the impact of the conflict.

Delaying the Ras Laffan’s ramp-up threatens to further tighten the global gas market, risking more intense competition between Asia and Europe for spare supply as they restock for the coming winter. According to analyst calculations, Europe is badly behind in its winter stockpiling, and absent new sources, it risks a major price surge should the European winter be cold. It also explains why Asian LNG spot prices are more than 80% higher than pre-war levels, highlighting anxiety surrounding the restart of Qatar, which supplied about a fifth of the world’s LNG last year.

According to Bloomberg, since the US and Iran signed an interim peace deal in June, Qatar had been pushing ahead with plans to revive most of its LNG production within two months. It has been running some of Ras Laffan’s production trains at reduced capacity to be ready for a quickly ramp-up when the time was right. That’s likely to continue as the company still aims to boost exports as fast as possible following the safe opening of Hormuz.

As part of its restart prep, Qatar had increased loadings and brought back empty tankers to take on more fuel. Eleven empty LNG vessels are currently sitting outside Ras Laffan, according to ship-tracking data. But those efforts will now be temporarily paused as the world’s second-largest LNG exporter waits for tensions to ease.

The giant facility had been largely shut since early March after an Iranian drone attack, and about 17% of the plant’s production capacity was damaged in a separate missile strike weeks later. As we reported at the time, repairs to that part of the project is estimated to take at least three years.

Last week, QatarEnergy extended force majeure notices on LNG supply for some of its Asian customers to August, causing some uncertainty in the market about when the company would restart production, Bloomberg reported. In Europe, Italian utility Edison SpA said the clause will now be in place until early September for its imports.

The confusion about Qatar’s timelines heightened further after the country said its Al Rekayyat LNG tanker was struck by Iran on Tuesday. The ship was disabled, with the crew abandoning it shortly after, Bloomberg reported. This was the first time a Qatari LNG tanker was targeted since the war in Iran began in late February.

Two other vessels were also attacked, and Iran has fired projectiles on some Gulf countries as it came under attack from the US this week. The tensions brought maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to a near standstill on Thursday.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/09/2026 - 10:50

Leaked Meta Memo Shows AI Capacity Doubling To 14 Gigawatts

Meta shares fell 4.3% at Thursday's open after Reuters reported the contents of an internal memo laying out the next phase of the company's AI infrastructure program.

The stock has clawed back part of the loss through the morning but stayed solidly red while the tape digested the same question it has been chewing on for nine days: is Meta the hyperscaler that just started exercising capex discipline, or the one that just committed to doubling?

Three things to note from today's news. The first is silicon. Iris, Meta's in-house AI accelerator and one of four planned MTIA generations unveiled in March, enters production at TSMC in September after clearing bug validation in six weeks with no major issues - an unusually clean result for a program that has stumbled for more than half a decade. Broadcom is the design partner under an agreement extended through 2029, and Meta plans to ship a new chip roughly every six months through 2027, against an industry norm of annual-or-slower cadences. The chips are meant to augment, not replace, externally sourced GPUs - Meta separately holds a multiyear agreement with AMD covering up to six gigawatts of Instinct accelerators - but the internal memo is very blunt about why the program matters - as adopting the latest external GPUs at Meta's scale "has been a heavy lift, and it has cost us time."

The second is scale. Meta plans to deploy seven gigawatts of computing infrastructure this year and to double overall capacity to fourteen gigawatts in 2027, with 2026 spending running as high as $145 billion - the very top of the range guided in April, and a meaningful slice of the more than $700 billion Big Tech is projected to pour into AI this year.

The third is supply. The memo reveals long-term contracts for memory from Samsung, flash storage from Sandisk and fiber-optic equipment from Sumitomo Electric - multi-year lock-ins struck in the middle of a memory shortage severe enough to be raising consumer hardware prices.

On its face the chip news is bullish: faster, cheaper, more independent compute is exactly what a company spending $145 billion a year should want. But the market has spent the past week and a half developing a very specific allergy, and the memo triggered it.

When Bloomberg reported at the start of the month that Meta was standing up a cloud business - internally, Meta Compute - to sell surplus capacity and token-metered API access to outsiders, the stock ripped nearly 9% higher in a session while CoreWeave and Nebius fell double digits. We suggested this might be a potential first crack in the AI capex boom: hoarding compute stops making sense the moment you admit you have extra, and if management appears willing to monetize idle infrastructure, the market reads capital discipline and pays for it. Days later, leaked town-hall remarks in which Zuckerberg conceded that agent development "hasn't accelerated in the way we expected" knocked the stock back down - the July 2 drop that Thursday's open just eclipsed.

Against that backdrop, a memo describing a doubling of capacity, a six-month silicon cadence and years of locked-in component supply looks rather - undisciplined when it comes to capex. Companies do not sign multi-year memory contracts in the middle of a shortage in order to stand still. As we noted earlier this month - the pivot to rewarding CapEx cutters - has, for now, been a driving force: up on plans to sell capacity, down on plans to double it, with the same infrastructure underneath both headlines.

What Doubling Actually Costs

Here's the math. Fourteen gigawatts against seven implies roughly seven incremental gigawatts next year. The long-standing rule of thumb - which Jensen Huang himself used last fall around the Nvidia-OpenAI deal - is that a one-gigawatt AI data center runs about $50-60 billion of capex, roughly $35 billion of it Nvidia GPUs, and implies on the order of half a million chips drawing as much power as 750,000 homes.

It was $50 billion in September 2025. How exactly is anyone meant to afford this at this point? https://t.co/N8skNRNP9I pic.twitter.com/fng1hb21eo

— Ed Zitron (@edzitron) July 5, 2026

On that math, Meta's incremental seven gigawatts carry a bill in the $350-400 billion range.

Some context:

1GW energy = enough power for 750,000 homes
1GW data center = $50-$60BN in capex spend
1GW = 500,000 GPUs

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 12, 2025

Keep in mind that the per-gigawatt price is moving up, not down. Vera Rubin - Nvidia's next data-center GPU platform - draws far more power per chip than the generation before it, so a gigawatt of capacity now holds fewer GPUs, each more expensive than the last. That is why Huang has lately floated build costs of up to $100 billion per gigawatt - a price at which Meta's seven incremental gigawatts would run roughly $700 billion. Treat the top-end number with suspicion - Jim Chanos has argued since last September that Nvidia's per-gigawatt math sits well above what operators tell their own investors - but even the old $50 billion rule of thumb prices the expansion near $350 billion, roughly two and a half times Meta's entire full-year capex guide.

So how does a company guiding to $145 billion double its capacity when the street math says the addition alone costs $350–700 billion? There are three ways to square that circle, and each tells a different story.

First: Meta builds for less - partly for real, partly on paper. Divide this year's capex by this year's deployments and the implied cost lands near $20 billion per gigawatt. Some of that discount is genuine engineering: Iris, the AMD gigawatts, self-built data centers and locked-in components all cut the cost of owned compute, at Nvidia's expense. But some of it is accounting. As Morgan Stanley detailed in June, headline capex understates the real commitment: purchase obligations, leases that haven't yet commenced, and rented third-party compute all keep costs off the books until delivery. Part of Meta's apparent bargain is simply the bill sitting on someone else's balance sheet - or parked in construction-in-progress, waiting to land as depreciation. And the rented slice doesn't dent Nvidia at all: the multi-billion-dollar CoreWeave and Nebius deals Meta signed are Nvidia GPUs on somebody else's books.

Second: the guide just keeps ratcheting. It has already moved from $115-135 billion in January to $125-145 billion in April, when CFO Susan Li blamed "higher component pricing" - and doubling capacity into a memory shortage is a standing invitation for hike number three.

Third: "fourteen gigawatts" turns out to be an elastic unit - contracted versus energized versus deployed - and the memo never says which.

The first path erodes Nvidia's claim on every AI dollar while confirming the off-balance-sheet worry; the second erodes Meta's free-cash-flow story; the third merely defers the question to the earnings call. There is no version in which the memo is unambiguously bullish for the whole complex at once - which is how a chip milestone nets out to a red open.

The memo also comes after the market spent mid-June mapping how any of this gets paid for. Two weeks ago we noted Goldman's argument that 2027 hyperscaler capex estimates are "too conservative" - Goldman's base case is roughly $1.1 trillion, its upside case $1.4 trillion - alongside Morgan Stanley's tally of the financing underneath: some $570 billion of AI-related debt issuance expected this year, hyperscaler gross leverage doubling from 0.9x to 1.8x in two quarters (past the entire energy sector), and Meta credit now trading wider than the investment-grade CDX index. Morgan Stanley already models Meta's 2026 free cash flow as flat to negative. Beneath the disclosed capex sits roughly $1.8 trillion of off-balance-sheet purchase and lease commitments across the complex, with Meta among the less forthcoming - it has declined to quantify the cloud-capacity portion of its $238 billion in commitments - while stretched payables and swelling construction-in-progress balances defer a depreciation load Morgan Stanley sees taking Meta from about 9% to about 19% of revenue by fiscal 2028. That leverage is migrating into the supplier and private-credit layer - vividly illustrated by the $35 billion chip-backed Anthropic SPV Apollo and Blackstone raised in June - precisely where disclosure is thinnest. A fourteen-gigawatt target stacks on top of every one of those trends.

At the high end of its capex forecast ($135BN), META free cash flow in 2026 will be $0 pic.twitter.com/xgOeHnGEZS

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 28, 2026

 

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/09/2026 - 10:35

US Existing Home Sales Unexpectedly Dropped In June, Just Off Record Lows

After an ugly Spring selling season, existing home sales have rebounded in Q2 (so far) with expectations for another 1.0% MoM increase in June.

However, that was not to be with US existing home sales tumbling 2.4% MoM in June (although May was revised up to a +3.7% MoM gain from +3.2%). That slowed the annual improvement in sales to +2.75% YoY...

Overall, existing home sales SAAR remains just off record lows...

“The back-and-forth in monthly home sales activity, driven by mild fluctuations in mortgage rates, shows how sensitive home buyers are to affordability conditions,” NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in a statement. But recent job gains will continue to provide support to the housing market, he added.

NAR’s Housing Affordability Index, which measures whether typical families can qualify for a mortgage for a median-priced home, has improved somewhat from a year ago but is at its lowest since August 2025.

Inventories of new homes for sale remain high (and are thus pressuring homebuilders to choke back on additional supply)...

But, the inventory of existing homes for sale climbed 1.3% from a year earlier to 1.56 million. From a month earlier, however, it fell slightly for the first time this year.

Yun called the annual gain “minuscule.”

“We need to see 30%, 40%,” he said. “We’re not seeing that.”

Last month, the median sales price of a previously owned home rose 1.8% from a year ago to a record high of $440,600, NAR data show.

While prices continue to climb, the advance is far smaller than the gains seen a couple years ago.

Weakness in the US South, the nation’s biggest home-selling region, helped drag down the national results, with sales there declining 3.6% to an annualized 1.89 million. Sales also slipped in the Midwest and West, though they gained in the Northeast.

First-time buyers accounted for 33% of sales in June, compared with 35% in May.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/09/2026 - 10:09

The Choice To Go Up Or Down The Escalation Ladder Now Lies With Iran

By Michael Every of Rabobank

“It ain't over till it's over, but..."

The US hit Iran for a second night along Hormuz, in southern cities, near a nuclear site, and a railway bridge in the northwest. The message from VP Vance was to stop striking ships in Hormuz or get hit back harder. From Trump, it was that Iran are “liars” and “scum” and the MOU is “over,” repeating threats to reimpose the US blockade of Iranian oil --showing why few (save China) were keen to buy it with a temporary sanctions waiver that lapsed before shipments arrived -- and to hit electricity and desalination plants and/or take Kharg Island, it’s key oil facility.

Even Axios, purveyor of ‘world peace(fire)’ headlines, is reporting the US is preparing for an extended confrontation --from 1-2 days to a month-- and that the ‘Battle of Hormuz’ may be about to begin.

Trump did add negotiators could keep talking if they wanted to; and on Air Force One (the old one: that just gifted by Qatar was left in the UK, speaking to a security problem) he stated Iranian officials "called a little while ago. They want to make a deal so badly."

So, the immediate choice to go up or down the escalation ladder lies with Iran. If Tehran deescalates, they cede control of Hormuz. If they escalate, their options are to hit Hormuz more – triggering more US counter strikes; or GCC energy - triggering a larger war; to use (battered) proxies like Hezbollah - triggering wider war; or perhaps to rush for a nuclear weapon - which would mean far worse war. The New York Times reports Iran’s president and foreign minister were physically attacked this week by supporters of a hard-line faction that vehemently opposes any deal with the US: it remains to be seen if the streets, IRGC, clerics, or politicians will decide what happens next – but both the politicians and the IRGC benefit from talks going on and oil flowing.

The US would also have to decide if it can afford to cede Hormuz or will fight to keep it open when the SPR is seen near a tank bottom- was this discussed at the NATO summit, perhaps?

A tell for stepped up military statecraft would be a matching step-up in economic statecraft. Note the White House’s launch of ‘Freedom Fuel’ gas stations offering lower prices (via lower profit margins; or, at $3.67 a gallon, possible federal subsidies). If that scheme expands past an initial 25 sites it suggests more disruption in Hormuz ahead. However, that’s just a stepping stone to the NAPHTHA closed-loop energy system we’ve flagged the US might need to consider.

There are also longer term moves to avoid Hormuz. The UAE’s pipeline to Fujairah is underway; the Saudis may expand their East-West Red Sea pipeline by 2m barrels per day, allowing themselves and other GCC states to benefit; and Riyadh is exploring an IMEC route through Syria and Turkey - as Trump informed Congress of his intent to remove Syria from the state sponsor of terror list and was nice to Erdogan at the Ankara NATO summit; and following a state visit to Damascus by Macron and Erdogan literally giving the EU’s Von der Leyen and Costa guns.

For now, we stick with our base case that Hormuz tension blows over rather than blowing up. However, the odds of the latter happening sooner, rather than post-midterms as expected, have increased.

In energy markets, oil is up, but not hugely, with Brent at $79: but crack spreads are near record highs. Yes, lots of oil just flooded out of Hormuz, but global refineries already couldn’t process the backlog easily – add a new war there and things look far worse.

Crack spreads have also been driven by Russia banning exports of diesel until end-July in response to the devastating strikes against its oil refineries by Ukrainian drones: these are causing fuel shortages and have turned Russia from a net exporter to a net importer of refined products.

At the NATO summit -- besides Trump threatening Spain with a trade boycott for being peaceniks -- there was US backing for Ukraine‘s strikes deep into Russia and against energy facilities; Ukraine was also given permission to manufacture Patriot missiles itself to boost its air defences. Expect a lot more damage to Russian energy ahead, unless Russia comes to the table.

In related geoeconomic developments, the FT reports Trump-backed US rare earth mines are selling to Japan and South Korea – then again, South Korea and Japan might build US weapons and navy vessels in the near future.

In Europe, a leaked report has revealed France is seeking to widen Brussels’ Made-in-Europe policy: Paris wants such measures extended to shipbuilding and trains. Buy local schemes are even more effective economic statecraft than tariffs. The FT also carries an op-ed from former Italian PM Letta arguing ‘Europe must have the financial power to match its economic heft,’ and the continent’s savings should be used to invest in its own future, not someone else’s. Are we also going to see capital controls for the beating heart of the ‘liberal world order’?

Yet Rutte’s ‘Made in NATO’ weapons push collides with EU’s ‘Buy European’ drive, as Politico puts it, where “The NATO chief wants to build the transatlantic military industrial complex, but the EU is backing its own companies.” Who will win that battle given Europe still needs LNG, which the US has and where Turkey may soon play a key role too, and given the US holds the cards on tech and, relatively, on rare earths?

Spain, while making the peace sign, is also pushing the European Commission to borrow an additional €850bn per year on behalf of EU countries to get lower yields – which may not get a ‘Made in Europe’ response from northern member states. That’s as the UK government is warned by the OBR that another £120 of tax hikes are needed as debt is on an unsustainable trajectory.

Political news matches this geopolitical and geoeconomic drama: the Democratic Party Maine Senate candidate Platner has dropped out over allegations of sexual assault (not his Nazi tattoo); the Democratic Governor of Kentucky has, in so many words, requested that Republican Senator McConnell show that he’s still with us, when rumour is that he isn’t; and in the UK, Reform UK’s Farage is likely to contest a 6 August by-election solely against a man who wears a dustbin on his head, with the key policy pledge of building “at least one affordable home.”

Lastly, and deliberately last, the Fed minutes headline was that ‘a few’ members saw the case for a June hike. And?

• First, it may not be long until we don’t get much information about what the Fed is thinking under the Warsh Doctrine.
• Second, backwards-looking reports can’t keep up with the speed and scale of geopolitical developments.
• Third, the economic models of those who write those reports can’t predict geopolitical outcomes.

As this Global Daily’s title says, “It ain't over till it's over, but...” – and that covers the usefulness of central-bank ‘he said, she said’ just as much as it does the US-Iran ‘he said, he said’ MoU.  

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/09/2026 - 10:00

Bloom Energy Defends Supply Chain, Calls Hunterbrook Report "False And Misleading"

Bloom Energy is responding forcefully against allegations made by short seller Hunterbrook Capital, rejecting the firm's claims about its accounting, supply chain and growth prospects a day after a report sent shares sharply lower.

The clean energy company said Thursday that Hunterbrook's assertions regarding its financial reporting and access to critical raw materials are "false and misleading," according to a statement reported by Bloomberg.

The response comes after Hunterbrook published an investigation on July 8 that questioned Bloom's independence from Chinese suppliers and argued that the company's long-term manufacturing ambitions may be constrained by global scandium availability. Hunterbrook disclosed that it stands to benefit if Bloom's shares decline through a short position.

Bloom specifically defended its financial reporting, saying allegations concerning its accounting are contradicted by its audited financial statements. The company also disputed Hunterbrook's central thesis surrounding scandium oxide, the specialty material used in Bloom's solid oxide fuel cells.

Bloom said it has sufficient scandium oxide supply to meet both current production needs and its existing customer backlog. It added that its scandium supply is not dependent on China, either for current operations or future demand growth. Looking further ahead, Bloom said it has visibility across its supply chain sufficient to support production capacity of 25 gigawatts of fuel cells annually, adding that it expects to continue expanding that capacity over time.

Hunterbrook's report, published Wednesday under the title Bloom's Big Lie, argued that Bloom's public messaging about its supply chain conflicts with trade data and supplier relationships. According to the investigation, multiple international trade routes appear to connect Bloom's supply chain to Chinese sources of scandium despite repeated statements from CEO K.R. Sridhar that the company has "no China supply chain."

Hunterbrook said its research relied on global shipping records, corporate filings and satellite imagery. The report also cited a representative from Chinese producer Hunan Oriental Scandium who allegedly identified Bloom as one of its largest customers.

The report further argued that Bloom's long-term manufacturing targets face a fundamental resource constraint. Hunterbrook estimated that producing five gigawatts of fuel cells annually would require roughly 220 tons of scandium oxide each year, nearly the entire projected global supply of approximately 240 tons, raising questions about whether the company's expansion plans are feasible.

Hunterbrook also challenged Bloom's reported order backlog. The firm argued that while Bloom has discussed an approximately $20 billion backlog, audited contractual performance obligations are substantially smaller, at roughly $492 million, suggesting investors may be overstating the visibility of future revenue.

The report helped send Bloom shares down roughly 6% on Wednesday. Bloom's Thursday response marks its formal rebuttal to the allegations, with the company maintaining that its audited financial statements, supply chain and access to scandium fully support its current operations and future growth plans.

Recall, back in 2019 now-defunct short seller Hindenburg Research also took on Bloom, highlighting "trick accounting", claiming "Bloom’s technology is not sustainable, clean, green, or remotely profitable" and raising a question to the company about how important the price and supply of scandium was to the company's supply chain. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/09/2026 - 09:40

Porsche Sales Tumble To Weakest In Six Years As Chinese Demand Plummets

Days after Germany's top financial newspaper, Handelsblatt, reported that Porsche AG is planning more than 4,000 job cuts, the sports-car maker on Thursday revealed first-half sales figures that were the weakest in six years, with its China business falling off a cliff.

For the January to June period, Porsche reported 122,306 vehicle deliveries across global markets, a 16% decline from the same period a year earlier.

The first-half slump marked Porsche's weakest sales performance since 2020, with its top market, North America, seeing a 13% decline in vehicle sales, while China suffered an outright 32% decline.

Softening luxury demand in the West and China's deepening slowdown are increasingly concerning for the high-end automaker.

"With around 122,000 customer deliveries in the first half of 2026, we are below the same period last year but in line with our expectations," Matthias Becker, Member of the Executive Board for Sales and Marketing at Porsche AG, wrote in a statement.

Porsche blamed the slowdown in North America on several issues:

Among the sales regions, North America remains at the top with 37,712 deliveries. The decline of around 13 per cent can be attributed, among other factors, to the expiration of tax incentives for electric and hybrid vehicles as well as the end of production of the combustion-engined 718.

Dismal delivery figures follow a report by Handelsblatt that said Porsche was considering eliminating as many as 4,000.

Porsche's profit eroded further in the first quarter as the automaker faced mounting pressure from tariffs, geopolitical turmoil, and gaps in its model lineup. The emergence of Chinese EV giants like BYD and Chery in Europe has been a troubling development not just for Porsche but other legacy EU automakers.

Porsche is part of the Volkswagen Group, where the VW CEO recently warned that more than 100,000 jobs could be eliminated as part of a massive overhaul.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/09/2026 - 09:20

Canada Just Admitted Justin Trudeau's Climate Agenda Was A Scam

Authored by Andrew Moran via LibertyNation.com,

Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave Canada a lost decade. A key contributor to the country’s stagnation was the Liberal government’s obsession with climate change and its ushering in of green energy policies that were disastrous for a nation rich in natural resources. To make Canada great again, Prime Minister Mark Carney is abandoning climate alarmism and embracing what made the country wealthy in the first place: crude oil.

Canada Loves Oil Again

On June 30, the prime minister published a 17-minute YouTube video, focused exclusively on his predecessor's climate agenda. He used words like "expensive" and "divisive" to describe Trudeau's environmental endeavors. Carney essentially admitted that Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives were right.

For right-wing political pundits, this was a rare win for the incumbent. Indeed, in a bid to resuscitate the ailing Canadian economy, Carney is trying to make the country fall back in love with fossil fuels – and appease Alberta – despite years of climate doomerism.

Ottawa announced earlier this month a new West Coast pipeline that will ship up to one million barrels of crude oil per day from Alberta to Asian markets. The federal government gave its blessing to a new west-east crude oil pipeline that will run from Alberta to Ontario. This comes as the Carney Liberals begin to expand liquefied natural gas exports, scrap the consumer carbon tax, and remove the cap on the oil and gas sector's pollution levels.

Carney already accepted that Canada's emissions will be higher in the coming years, a fact that was inevitable. Various models currently indicate that the Great White North has been missing its emissions targets, even before the current government's reforms. Canada lags behind other G7 countries in emissions reductions, and even the United States is outperforming its northern neighbor.

"The certainties of the world of 2015 are long gone. Our neighborhood hasn't been this hostile since Canada was founded," the prime minister said. "The world hasn't been this unstable geopolitically since the end of the Second World War."

Of course, skepticism is warranted because Carney has spent much of his tenure just talking with his elbows up. From housing to pipelines, it has been all talk and no action. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Germany surprisingly sprang into action and constructed Floating Storage and Regasification Units (FSRUs) to import seaborne liquefied natural gas in fewer than 200 days.

The prime minister has been in office for 15 months with nothing to show for it. Still, capital might be optimistic about Canadian energy moving forward, having been hesitant to invest in various projects across the country over the last 11 years.

What About America?

America's decision last week not to renew the USMCA could be a major blow to the Canadian economy. The post-NAFTA trade deal will now be subject to annual reviews as the United States raises grievances over production quotas, supply management, rules of origin, and other provisions.

Despite Ottawa's efforts to diversify its trade by importing more students from India and exporting more oil to Asia, the country still needs its southern neighbor. More than 90 percent of its energy is shipped to the United States, making it an extremely difficult market to replace, even if Canada desires to become an energy superpower.

If the numbers are accurate, the United States has about 300 billion barrels of heavy crude sitting in its backyard (Venezuela). It also produces about 14 million barrels of oil per day. The current administration is a close ally of the United Arab Emirates, which withdrew from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and is seeking to expand crude production. Add in control of the Strait of Malacca, and the United States is building upon its reputation as an energy superpower.

To be fair, Carney is situated between an igloo and Trumpism. He has to appease the White House (and appear tough to older Canadian voters who blame President Trump for everything) while also finding economic opportunities elsewhere. It is not an easy task.

Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

Trillions of dollars worldwide have been invested in green energy. And yet, every crisis over the last several years has proven these vanity projects to be entirely unreliable. Countries keep turning to crude oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear power to meet their energy needs. The United States realized it. Europe is starting to come around. Asia always knew it. Canada was the last nation to finally understand that oil and gas are the answer, not a windmill.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/09/2026 - 08:40

'Slow Hire, No Fire' Economy Continues As Jobless Claims Remain Near Record Lows

The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the first time fell to to 215k last week (versus 217k exp), remaining near multi-decade lows...

California and Missouri saw the biggest increase in initial claims while New Jersey and Connecticut saw the largest decline...

Continuing jobless claims ticked higher (highest since March) but remains well off cycle highs from Q4...

Despite disappointing payrolls (though jobs are still being added, though at a slower pace)...

...jobless claims data suggests there is no labor market stress as the economy has morphed into 'slow hire, no fire' regime

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/09/2026 - 08:37

Futures Rise, Oil Drops As Markets Ignore Latest Middle East Airstrikes

Futures are higher (although off session highs), and oil erased overnight gains as the market moved past the latest Middle-East flare up which saw the US military strike 90 Iranian targets for a second day and Tehran retaliated against American allies in the Persian Gulf. And like during previous escalations, this time nobody believes it will last. As of 8:00am ET S&P 500 futures rose 0.2% and Nasdaq 100 contracts gained 0.6% as semiconductor stocks advanced in Asia, Europe and US premarket trading after SK Hynix drew strong demand for its offering of ADRs. Mag7 stocks are mixed, with META tumbling on a Reuters report the company has signed long-term contracts for memory, networking gear and flash storage, refuting the market's expectation that the company is starting to ease back on capex spending. The FTSE 100 lags and is down 0.8% as AstraZeneca shares slump 9% after its Wainua drug failed to prevent heart problems. . Cyclicals, ex-Energy, are rebounding led by Fins and Industrials. Momentum is poised for another strong day, this time with Beta. Brent traded near $79 a barrel after swinging between gains and losses. Bond yields are down 2bps to up 1bps as the curve twists steeper ahead of today’s 30Y auction; the 10Y yield trades at 4.59%, near a one-month high. Commodities are weaker with Ags and Energy selling off but there is a bid to metals led by Precious. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index is also little changed. The kiwi is the strongest of the G-10 currencies, rising 0.6% against the greenback after some hawkish remarks from RBNZ Governor Breman. Precious metals advance along with Bitcoin. Today’s macro data focus is on jobless data and existing home sales with the macro focus shifting to next week’s CPI / PPI, Retail Sales prints as earnings season kicks off. 

In premarket trading, Mag 7 stocks are mixed (Meta Platforms -0.1%, Microsoft -1%, Tesla +0.2%, Nvidia +0.2%, Amazon -0.6%, Apple -0.2%, Alphabet -0.3%)

• Ceco Environmental (CECO) rises 3% after JPMorgan initiated coverage of the air-purification equipment provider with a recommendation of overweight, citing its acquisition of Thermon.
• IBM (IBM) slips 3% as Starbucks is developing in-house tools with the help of artificial intelligence that could replace some software applications it now buys from the company.
• Ionis Pharmaceuticals (IONS) slumps 19%, while AstraZeneca falls in London, after a late-stage trial of the companies’ gene silencer drug Wainua showed a failure to help prevent heart problems in patients with a rare and potentially fatal disease of the organ.
• Developers of rival cardiomyopathy drugs gain: Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (ALNY) +17%, Bridgebio (BBIO) +13%.
• Levi Strauss (LEVI) falls 4% after after the apparel company’s increase to its forecast underwhelmed investors.
• Mattel (MAT) slips 2% after Goldman Sachs analyst Stephen Laszczyk cut his recommendation on the toy maker to sell from neutral, and cut his price target to a Street-low $12 from $15.
• Salesforce (CRM) falls 4% after KeyBanc downgraded the software company to sector weight, noting a lack of momentum in the the company’s Agentforce AI product.
• Simply Good Foods (SMPL) rises 13% after the packaged-food company reported adjusted earnings per share for the third quarter that beat the average analyst estimate.

In other news, PepsiCo narrowly missed estimated for second-quarter organic sales growth as the earnings season for the June quarter got underway. Bain Capital has sold its entire stake in flash memory chipmaker Kioxia. AstraZeneca and Ionis Pharmaceuticals’s gene silencer drug Wainua failed to help prevent heart problems in patients with a rare and potentially fatal disease of the organ, sending Ionis shares plunging in premarket trading. Porsche deliveries slumped 16% in the first half, dragged down by weak demand in North America and a decline in China.

The calmer mood in markets comes despite an escalation of violence in the Middle East that is threatening efforts to reach a permanent US-Iran peace deal. The US military hit about 90 Iranian targets Wednesday to degrade Tehran’s ability to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Traders say that while the tensions reflect the fragile nature of the truce between the sides, neither government would want a full-scale return to war and that the parties would likely return to negotiations.

“This is the new status quo; it’s an uneasy equilibrium, but an equilibrium nonetheless,” said Geoff Yu, a senior macro strategist at BNY. “You just need to factor in the volatility in your asset allocation.”

Global bonds were modestly higher as two days of an oil-driven selloff came to an end. The yield on two-year Treasuries eased two basis points to 4.20%. The dollar was little changed.

After Wednesday’s minutes of the Federal Reserve’s June meeting showed that some committee members saw a case for a rate increase, traders will now wait for next week’s inflation data and Chair Kevin Warsh’s testimony to lawmakers for another steer on the path for interest rates. New York Fed President John Williams will take part in a moderated discussion later on Thursday.

“The only reason the July meeting wasn’t live was because oil prices were basically where they started the war,” Bob Elliott, chief investment officer at Unlimited Funds, told Bloomberg TV. “That’s changed. The conflict in Iran and the Hormuz problem has not really been resolved.”

In tech, SK Hynix’s US listing is said to be more than seven times oversubscribed, as the South Korean memory chipmaker prepares to price its offering later today. With its ADRs set to trade for the first time on Friday, arbitrage investors are without a historical benchmark for what constitutes a normal premium, making it far harder to judge when a spread is attractive or stretched. On the subject of memory, the knock-on effects of ongoing component price inflation could dampen hardware growth expectations, with Citi forecasting 2026 PC units to fall 15% in 2026, and smartphones to decline 12%. 

As Bloomberg notes, an interesting divergence is emerging under the surface of volatility. While the VIX Index continues to exhibit placid price moves, single stock volatility, expressed through the S&P 500 Dispersion Index, closed at a one-year high on Wednesday.

When it comes to AI, massive spending commitments are set to sustain the investment theme around the technology for two to three years, according to BlackRock Inc.’s Helen Jewell, even as tech giants gradually turn cash-flow negative and start raising debt to fund their buildouts. 

“From an investment perspective, you lean into the AI theme, you do the secondary beneficiaries of that, but you need to diversify those portfolios,” Jewell told Bloomberg TV. “Healthcare, Latam, even the UK.”

Consumer stocks are in focus with Costco reporting a deceleration in June comps relative to May, while Levi Strauss is lower in premarket trading after a decent beat and raise report fell short of some expectations for a more punchy forecast. It follows BofA noting that clients had put the most money into consumer discretionary stocks ever last week. 

In politics, Graham Platner suspended his Senate campaign in Maine following a sexual assault allegation that caused his support from fellow Democrats to collapse. And Democratic infighting is threatening to undermine the party’s midterm targets.

Europe's Stoxx 600 rises 0.4% after its worst day since March. Miners and banks are the best performers while healthcare lags its sector peers.The FTSE 100 lags and is down 0.8% as AstraZeneca shares slump after its Wainua drug failed to prevent heart problems. Here are some of the biggest movers on Thursday:

• Glencore rises as much as 3.9% after Goldman Sachs raised the diversified miner to buy from neutral, citing commodity leverage, earnings upside and valuation support.
• Nordex shares gain as much as 5.2% after the German wind turbine maker said it recorded 3,054MW of orders in the second quarter, above expectations.
• Computacenter shares rise as much as 14% to a record high after the UK IT reseller tipped full-year results to be “comfortably ahead” of market expectations, showing it continues to benefit from US hyperscalers’ data center buildout.
• Admiral Group rallies as much as 2.2% after Goldman Sachs upgraded the car insurance provider to neutral from sell and set a Street-high price target, citing an upturn in UK motor market pricing.
• Schott Pharma shares jump by a record 22% after the company improved its guidance for the full year, prompting an upgrade at RBC Capital Markets. The stock is trading at its highest level since October.
• Wolters Kluwer shares rise as much as 7.3% as JP Morgan upgrades its rating on the IT firm to overweight from neutral and lifts its price target, citing a “compelling” valuation and the potential for interest from private equity.
• Sampo gains as much as 2.3% after the insurer was upgraded to buy from neutral at Goldman Sachs, which sees Nordic markets and an upturn in UK motor pricing driving operating earnings growth through 2029.
• Erste shares rise as much as 3.4% after Goldman Sachs resumed analyst coverage with a buy rating and a €150 price target.
• Deutz shares rise as much as 10% after the German engine manufacturer said it agreed to buy closely held military-vehicle maker FFG Flensburger Fahrzeugbau Gesellschaft.
• Pepco gains as much as 5.2% after the discount retailer reported acceleration of like-for-like sales during the 3Q period ended in June.
• Playtech shares rally as much as 20% after the maker of gaming software said its performance in the first half was materially ahead of expectations and lifted its full year guidance.
• Suedzucker shares rise as much as 4% after the German food company raised its revenue outlook for the year.
• AstraZeneca shares slump as much as 9.9% after a late-stage trial showed the gene silencer drug Wainua failed to help prevent heart problems in patients with a rare and potentially fatal disease of the organ.
• Capita shares plunge as much as 20% after the outsourcing company warned issues with a contract will hit 2026 profit, leading analysts at RBC Capital Markets to cut their forecasts and price target.

Asian stocks swung between gains and losses as concern over renewed Middle East tensions was countered by optimism toward the artificial intelligence trade.  The MSCI Asia Pacific Index was 0.1% higher after earlier climbing as much as 1% and falling 0.5%. Most technology shares gained, with SK Hynix and Kioxia Holdings among the major contributors to the gauge’s advance. Mainland China’s CSI 300 Index jumped more than 2% as chip stocks advanced. Shares in Japan and South Korea also rose, while those in Hong Kong and Taiwan fell.  Oil fluctuated as traders assessed the outlook for Middle Eastern crude supplies after fresh hostilities between the US and Iran, raising concerns for global energy supplies and posing a fresh challenge Asian economies that are mainly oil importers. Investors are reassessing the sustainability of AI-driven rally, as investors looked to earnings season for the next catalyst. 

In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index is also little changed. The kiwi is the strongest of the G-10 currencies, rising 0.6% against the greenback after some hawkish remarks from RBNZ Governor Breman.

In rates, treasuries are mixed with the curve steeper, pivoting around little-changed 10-year sector, as front-end tenors unwind some of their oil-driven losses of the past two sessions. Long-end tenors lag with WTI crude futures extending recent gains after IRNA report that the perimeter of Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant was hit by US projectiles. US front-end yields are about 2bp richer on the day, long-end yields 1.5bp cheaper, steepening 2s10s and 5s30s spreads by 2bp and 2.5bp respectively. 10-year, little changed around 4.58%, trails bunds and gilts in the sector by around 3bp. European government bonds rise with UK and German 10-year yields falling 2-3 bps each. US 10-year borrowing costs are flat.This week’s Treasury auctions conclude with $22 billion 30-year reopening at 1pm, following strong demand for Wednesday’s 10-year note sale; WI 30-year yield near 5.09% is 7bp cheaper than last month’s auction, which tailed by 1.2bp. Focal points of Thursday’s US session include weekly jobless claims data and 30-year bond reopening, on the heels of good demand for Wednesday’s 10-year note sale. .

In commodities, brent crude futures are little changed near $78 a barrel having erased earlier gains seen after the US military struck Iran for a second straight day. Precious metals advance along with Bitcoin.

US economic data calendar includes weekly jobless claims (8:30am) and June existing home sales (10am). Fed calendar includes Williams (9am) and Logan (1:30pm).

Market snapshot

Top Overnight News

• US, Iran Trade Airstrikes as Fears Grow of a Return to War: BBG
• The Iran War threatened a food crisis. The next Gulf conflict could do the same: RTRS
• The Red Flag That Led to Graham Platner’s Implosion Was Hiding in Plain Sight: WSJ
• Meta to put AI chip into production in September as it looks to double computing capacity, memo shows: RTRS
• An Impending IPO Boom Has Sparked FOMO Among San Francisco Home Buyers: WSJ
• China consumer price growth weakens in June while producer inflation rises to near 4-year high, squeezing manufacturers: RTRS
• U.S. Targets One of Cuba’s Last Lifelines: Its Army of Overseas Doctors: WSJ
• Ukraine’s Six-Part Strategy to Survive the Global Run on Patriot Missiles. Kyiv is trying to mitigate the shortage of missile interceptors that has left its cities exposed to Russia’s ballistic missiles: WSJ
• The US Senate committee will reportedly vote next week on a bill to toughen the US government ban on Chinese automakers from entering the US market.
• Counterfeit Air-Bag Parts Are Killing U.S. Drivers—and the Government Can’t Stop It: WSJ
• Trump said he is a bigger fan of SAVE America than the housing bill; Trump said he will be asking for a rehearing by the Supreme Court on birthright citizenship: Truth Social

Iran War

• US CENTCOM announced the completion of its most recent round of strikes against Iran, in which forces struck around 90 Iranian military targets. There were reports of fresh explosions in Bandar Abbas, Sirik and Hormozgan. There have also been reports of explosions in Abu Musa Island and Bushehr. Nour news reported that the attack on Bushehr did not cause any damage to the nuclear power plant.
• The IRGC later announced that two US bases in Kuwait and two base in Bahrain were attacked and threatened that response will be extended to other US bases in the region if the US repeats its attacks.
• Trump said Iran was just hit very hard and we have many ways to win. He added that he do not know if Iran will honor a deal but Iran wants to make a deal badly.

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

Asia-Pac stocks initially proved resilient to the recent US-Iran strikes, with the majority of indices opening with decent gains. However, as the session progressed, market reversed, with the Nikkei 225 the only index printed gains. The reversal came without a clear driver, which highlights the extreme volatility in equity markets. ASX 200 began trade with losses and continued to trade in the red, however stabilised above 8,700. Energy was the sector outperformer, while Metals & Mining lagged for a fourth straight session.
Nikkei 225 was the only index printing gains, helped by gains in Kioxia, after Bain Capital announced the sale of its entire stake, and  Tokyo Election, as it highlighted the ability to cut chip gear delivery times by 50%. KOSPI initially surged at the open, following on from the tech-led gains stateside, with Samsung and SK Hynix printing gains of over 5% at one point. However, the index reversed, driven by the losses in the two tech giants, highlighting the extreme volatility in the South Korean benchmark. The KOSPI volatility index currently stands at 87.41, compared to Nasdaq’s 27.86. Shanghai Comp. and Hang Seng opened with modest gains but gave back slightly. It was another day of IPOs for the Hang Seng, with the introduction of Luxshare Precision Industry, which didn't start as hoped.

Top Asian News

• Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Kiara said they are watching markets with a high sense of urgency.
• China announces issuance of guidelines to promote the retail sector.
• South Korean official said Won weakness is temporary.

European bourses (STOXX 600 +0.6%) opened with gains as markets generally look through the geopolitical escalation. FTSE 100 is the laggard as energy majors pull back and AstraZeneca slumps, IBEX 35 is the clear outperformer after US-Spain trade-related underperformance on Wednesday. To briefly recap events overnight, tit-for-tat strikes were conducted by the US on around 90 Iranian targets, and the IRGC fired on military bases in Bahrain and Kuwait. Markets remain optimistic, focusing on remarks from US President Trump, who said he spoke with Iran, and that they want to make a deal. European sectors opened with a positive, risk-on bias and continue this way in quiet EU trade. Tech and Basic Resources outperform, while Energy and Utilities are the laggards. Stock specifics include: AstraZeneca (-9%) CARDIO-TTRansform Phase III trial did not meet the primary endpoint of efficacy around CV mortality; Deutz (5.5%), To acquire FFG Flensburger Fahrzeugbau Gesellschaft for EUR 1.6bln.

Top European News

• Andy Burnham has pledged to rebuild the country's hard power by ensuring that billions of pounds of additional defence spending is focused on the UK rather than given to American or European companies, according to the Times' Swinford.

FX

• In short, the USD is a touch softer at the expense of G10s across the board ex-CAD which has been hit by the energy pullback. Kiwi continues to lead post-RBNZ.
• NZD continues to climb, as high as 0.5739 against the USD, approaching the 22nd of June peak at 0.5741 and numerous levels thereafter. The narrative for the Kiwi is a continuation of the move seen following the RBNZ, and as the last session or two's worth of energy action adds to, and arguably brings forward, the tentative hawkish guidance from the Bank. As a reminder, the statement said “While further OCR increases appear likely at upcoming meetings, their timing is highly uncertain.”
• CAD lags. USD/CAD at a 1.4188 peak and threatening to move higher despite energy lifting off lows, but with WTI and Brent still lower by around USD 0.40/bbl on the day. Numerous levels are in focus on either side, with the direction likely to remain firmly and almost exclusively at the whim of energy, barring a trade or similar development.
• EUR and GBP both benefit from the USD downside. EUR/USD as high as 1.1449 and Cable to 1.3431. However, the last 30 minutes or so have seen a bit of a bounce in energy, still in the red but only by around USD 0.40/bbl vs downside of c. USD 1.10/bbl at most. Action that has allowed the USD to fight back a touch, and weighed on peers with GBP/USD down to a 1.3413 low and EUR/USD back towards the overnight 1.1416 base. Given this, the DXY remains in the red and below 101.00, but only just and is eyeing a return into the green.
• For the EUR, we look to the ECB Minutes for June. However, the significant amount of developments on the geopolitical front since then mean the account is even more stale than typical. UK participants await the formal start of the Labour leadership process, though it is not expected to be a contest with just Burnham to enter.
• USD/JPY under modest pressure, broadly in-fitting with the action seen in other G10s as the USD dictates. At the mid-point of narrow 162.24-62 parameters. Specifics include Chief Cabinet Secretary Kihara saying they are watching markets with a high sense of urgency.

Fixed Income

• A firmer start to the day for fixed income, after a relatively rangebound APAC session on account of the lack of energy follow-through to the tit-for-tat strikes by the US and Iran overnight, with the narrative potentially being that the strikes are no more of an escalation than what we saw on Tuesday night.
• Overnight, USTs held around 108-30 and were near-enough flat, Bunds similar between 125.20-30, firmer by around 10 ticks. Thereafter, in the early European morning, US President Trump said Iran “called a while ago” and they “want to make a deal”, in-fitting with his overnight language; however, the indication that contacts, likely via mediators but unconfirmed, have occurred allowed energy to pull back and lifted fixed. This was enough to bring USTs to a 109-03+ peak. However, in recent trade, as the energy complex comes off worst levels US paper has flicked slightly into the red.
• Bunds as high as 125.40, firmer by 26 ticks at best but well shy of the week’s opening level just below 127.00. Specifics for the bloc light, aside from ECB Minutes for the June meeting, which are likely more stale than usual given the MoU and more recent flare up.
• Gilts opened with gains of 28 ticks, reacting to the early-morning pickup in peers. Since, it has extended to an 87.62 peak with gains of just over 50 ticks; albeit, as is the case with peers, the benchmark remains well shy of Monday’s 88.93 opening level. For the UK, BoE’s Breeden is on the docket and may well provide further insight on Gilt-related reform. Additionally, the Labour leadership nomination process formally opens, if as expected only Burnham contends then he will be PM around the 20th of July.
• Japan sold JPY 2.5tln 5-year JGBs; b/c 3.43x (prev. 3.11x), average yield 2.020% (prev. 1.905%). Lowest accepted price 99.88 (prev. 100.35). Weighted average price 99.91 (prev. 100.41). Tail in price 0.03 (prev. 0.06).
• China Interbank bond market regulator is to reportedly curb short-term bond issuance by local government financing vehicles.
• Australia sold AUD 150mln 0.25% November 2032 I/L AGBs: b/c 3.23x (prev. 4.42x), average yield 2.1808% (prev. 2.2373%).

Commodities

• Focus remains on the turbulent geopolitical situation. Overnight, the US struck various regions in Iran, aiming to degrade the IRGC’s ability to attack commercial ships. Iran responded with its own attacks on US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain.
• Following the strikes, US President Trump said that Iran called a short while ago, and that they want to make a deal. Details are light at this stage, and it remains to be seen whether a call actually took place, and whether Trump was truthful of Iran seeking a deal. For now, market sentiment is positive, with traders focusing in on: a) Trump’s deal comments, b) no large-scale war so far, c) the Strait remaining open. On the latter point, whilst ships continue to traverse the Strait of Hormuz, Reuters reported that that some war insurers advised shipowners to pause Hormuz voyages after the latest attacks.
• Crude benchmarks extended lower this morning, after trading with mild strength overnight. However, the complex now trades flat on the session, as markets digest the overnight strikes.
• Spot gold (+0.9%) trades slightly firmer this morning, thanks to the softer USD and lower energy prices. Currently holding above the USD 4.1k/oz mark, and trades within a USD 4,054-4,118/oz range. Elsewhere, base metals are entirely in the green, following the positive risk tone. 3M LME copper trades at the upper end of a USD 13,241-13,447/t range. Elsewhere, for Lithium markets, reports have suggested that Chile’s lithium exports have almost tripled Y/Y.
• Stavropol governor said a fire at the industrial site in Stavropol has intensified, reaching fuel tanks, Interfax reported.
• UK announces issuance of electricity supply warning as heat wave strains grid.

Trade/Tariffs

• US President Trump said a lot of good trade deals were made with Turkey; Spain was very generous today as they honoured a request for lots of payment.
• A US official said that the US Treasury will work with USTR and the Commerce Department to present President Trump with a menu of Spanish products that may be subject to a trade embargo in the coming days.

Central Banks

• BoJ Osaka branch manager said many companies in the region expect solid earnings and share the need for further wage increases to secure workers amid labour shortages; expect significant price rises ahead.
• BoJ maintains its assessment for all 9 of Japan's regions. Many regions said the risk of sharp drop in exports and output has declined somewhat. Many regions said firms were maintaining robust capex plans, increasing chip equipment and chip orders due to expanding global AI demand. Many regions said firms, including smaller ones, offered high wage increases this year, though some said it could be difficult to keep a hiking pay.
• RBNZ Governor Breman reiterates that the neutral OCR range is centred around 3%, need to read the economy to assess where the neutral rate is.
• PBoC set USD/CNY mid-point at 6.8036 vs exp. 6.7978 (prev. 6.8077).
• BoK Governor Shin said they are in talks with other central banks all the time to discuss markets, sees a strong chance of a stronger KRW.
• Taiwan Central Bank Governor said concerns remain about the possibility of an AI bubble.
• BoK Governor Shin said interest rates need to be raised at an appropriate time.
• BoK said KRW weakness is sharper than other major currencies, will continue making market stabilising efforts, inflation seen exceeding target with demand-side pressure growing gradually.

Geopolitics: Overnight strikes:

• At the direction of the Commander in Chief, US Central Command forces have started conducting additional strikes against Iran to further degrade their ability to threaten freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. The United States is holding Iran accountable for recent unjustified aggression against commercial shipping and civilian crews freely navigating a vital international waterway.
• US military base in Kuwait was hit in an Iranian retaliatory attack, while explosions heard at the US Fifth fleet HQ in Bahrain.
• Iranian missiles targeted the Azraq base in eastern Jordan, Fars reported.
• Iranian opposition sources report that maritime industries, shipyards, and the Revolutionary Guards' naval base in Bandar Abbas were attacked, report Kan News.

Geopolitics: US Commentary:

• US President Trump said Iran called a while ago, they want to make a deal.
• US President Trump's frustration with Iran was due in part to his anger over the Strait not being fully open yet and that Iran hit ships transiting the Strait, CNN reported citing a US official. The official added that Trump is losing patience with the pace of negotiations, specifically Iran's appearing to slow walk Washington on the nuclear talks.
• US President Trump posted "This is in retribution for yesterday’s bombing of ships by Iran. If it happens again, it will get much worse!".
• US President Trump said Iran was just hit very hard, we have many ways to win; do not know if Iran will honour a deal but Iran wants to make a deal badly. Europe wants to help on Iran.
• A US official said the ceasefire with Iran has been halted, at least temporarily, CNN reported.
• "Everything depends on Iran's response - if they continue to shoot, the night's events could become a daily, weekly event. We are prepared," i24News reported citing a US source.
• The length and severity of the new campaign depends entirely on Tehran's next moves, Axios reported citing a US official; The White House is preparing for a multi-day or multi-week exchange of fire with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz.
• Israel has no connection to the US strikes on Iran, Al Arabiya reported citing an Israeli military source. Any attempt to target Israel will be met with a swift, decisive and strong response.

Geopolitics: Iran Commentary:

• Iran's Bushehr Governor said that US attacks on a nuclear plant in the region are not true.
• Iran's advisor to the Supreme Leader Rezaei said "martyr Khamenei taught us not to fear American and showed that falsehood will perish. Await the hard slap from the Iranians".
• Iran's IRGC said they will respond to the targeting of a bridge in Aqqala, Al Arabiya reported.
• Iran's IRGC said two US bases in Kuwait and two base in Bahrain were attacked, response will be extended to other US bases in the region if the US repeats its attacks.
• Iranian Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf said America has not yet learned that bullying and breach of promise are no longer free, adds the Strait of Hormuz will only open with Iranian arrangements, not American threats.
• The US attack on Bushehr did not cause any damage to the nuclear power plant, Nour news reported citing a source.

Geopolitics: Lebanon:

• "The US ambassador in Beirut: Negotiations between Lebanon and Israel have moved to Rome for technical reasons", via Al Arabiya. Preparations are underway regarding the start of work in the pilot areas.
• Israeli Defence Minister Katz said they will remain within the Lebanon security zone and will operate within it until Hezbollah is disarmed.

Geopolitics: Ukraine:

• Ukraine's Military said it struck 12 Russian tankers in the Sea of Azov.
• Ukrainian President Zelensky said the military has struck Russian oil depots in the Tver and Stavropol Regions; also strikes on a Russian oil pumping Station in Ufa and oil terminal in the Rostov region.
• reported of explosions in Dnipro, Ukraine.
• A Russian official said two tankers were attacked by drones in the Sea of Azov.
• A Russian governor said a fire has occurred in one tank of the Tverskaya oil deposit enterprise as a result of a UAV attack and all districts of the Kershon region are partially or completely depowered, Interfax reported.
• Russian governor said a UAV raid caused a fire at an industrial facility in Stavropol, Interfax reported.

Geopolitics: Others

• EU reportedly puts trade ban with Israeli settlements on the table, Euronews reported.
• US President Trump said have not decided on pulling troops out of Greenland.
• Wednesday's strikes were broader in scope than the strikes the day before, targeting IRGC coastal radars, anti-ship missile sites and air defence systems, Axios' Ravid reported citing a senior US official.

US Event Calendar

• 8:30 am: Jul 4 Initial Jobless Claims, est. 217k, prior 215k
• 8:30 am: Jun 27 Continuing Claims, est. 1814k, prior 1814k
• 10:00 am: Jun Existing Home Sales, est. 4.2m, prior 4.17m
• 9:00 am: United States Fed’s Williams in Moderated Discussion
• 1:30 pm: United States Fed’s Logan Moderates Panel on Market Liquidity

DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

The US has now conducted a second consecutive day of strikes on Iran, reportedly targeting around 90 sites including air defence systems, missile and drone facilities, and coastal surveillance infrastructure. This marks a clear escalation, with Washington signalling it is prepared to sustain operations to protect shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. In response, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has reportedly struck US-linked bases in the Gulf and warned of further retaliation, raising the risk of a broader regional conflict. President Trump said that he would not stop negotiations but that “I just don’t know if they’re worthy of making a deal. I don’t know that they’re going to honor the deal.” 

Asian equity markets are mixed overnight, with the renewed US military action against Iran and higher oil prices (+1.03% at around $78/bbl but under yesterday's peak above $80) weighing on risk appetite. Japan’s Nikkei (+1.55%) is the standout performer, supported by chip-related buying. Elsewhere, the KOSPI (-0.16%) is rebounding from an earlier drop of close to 2 percent even if it had moved positive when I started writing this paragraph! Chinese markets are mostly lower, with the Hang Seng (-0.78%) and Shanghai Composite (-0.89%) declining after soft inflation data. The S&P/ASX 200 is also down (-0.45%). S&P 500 (+0.17%) and Nasdaq (+0.18%) futures are up alongside Stoxx futures (+1.03%) which is being helped by a late US recovery last night after the European close.  

Japan’s five-year government bond auction saw solid demand, supported by elevated yields. The bid-to-cover ratio came in at 3.43, above the previous auction's 3.11 and the 12-month average of 3.35.

The US-Iran conflict and associated oil concerns had built up through the day yesterday, amidst growing fears that last month’s interim deal was coming apart. Oil prices immediately jumped in the London morning by around $2/bbl after President Trump said on the ceasefire that “For me, I think it’s over”. Then later on, Trump said that the US would “probably hit them hard again tonight”, and that “We may put it back, the blockade, and it’ll only be a blockade for Iran”. Meanwhile on the Iranian side, an aide to the Supreme Leader said in a post that “We have proven time and again that adventures will receive an immediate response”. So collectively it felt like the most serious escalation since the deal was agreed last month.  

All that led to a clear reaction for oil prices, with Brent crude (+5.20%) posting its biggest daily gain since May 4th, peaking at $80.59/bbl but closing a couple of dollars lower. For reference, that’s still a long way beneath its recent peak in absolute terms, having approached $120/bbl during the initial phase of the conflict. But it’s a clear shift away from the downward trajectory for oil back in Q2, and the various headlines revived fears about a more persistent inflationary shock. Indeed, the 1yr Euro inflation swap surged +26.8bps yesterday to 2.14%.  

With stagflation concerns back on the agenda, that led investors to price back in more rate hikes. For instance, the probability of a Fed hike as soon as this month was up +3.2bps to 30.5% by the close, and the amount of hikes priced by December was up +4.8bps on the day to 42.2bps. Meanwhile at the ECB, there was an even bigger hawkish repricing, with the amount of hikes by December up +12.7bps on the day to 39.5bps. And given the ECB already hiked in June, that pricing implies a growing chance that they might end up hiking 3 times by the end of the year.  

Just like when the conflict began, yesterday’s re-escalation caused significant damage to sovereign bonds, particularly in Europe given the region’s exposure to the energy shock. So 10yr bund yields (+9.9bps) surged back up to 3.09%, marking its biggest daily jump since May. And over in France, there was an even bigger milestone, as the 10yr OAT yield (+13.5bps) closed at 3.93%, marking its highest level since 2009. Then in the US, the moves weren’t quite as aggressive, but the 10yr Treasury yield (+2.8bps) still rose to 4.58%, and the 10yr real yield (+2.4bps) closed at a 17-month high of 2.31%.  

Later on, we also had the minutes from last month’s FOMC meeting, which was the first with new Chair Kevin Warsh. The minutes added further credence to the hawkish market pricing seen since the meeting last month. While much of the committee agreed that inflation would cool as energy prices fell and one-off tariff impacts subsided, there were some worries of persistent underlying price pressures. Artificial Intelligence and the corresponding build out seemed top of mind for the committee, as “many participants noted that ongoing strong demand for AI infrastructure would likely sustain upward pressure on prices for technology products and electricity.” There is also greater concern amongst the committee that consumers and businesses are increasingly expecting higher prices.

However, most Fed officials said in the minutes that they put more weight on financial market measures of inflation expectations rather than surveyed responses.   

Given the stagflationary backdrop, this meant equities took a big hit on both sides of the Atlantic. So the S&P 500 fell -0.28%, with a broad-based decline that saw 78% of the index lose ground. Once again, the move in chip stocks was against the overall market as the Philly semiconductor index (+2.23%) outperformed. The outperformance was bolstered by two large news stories. First, SK Hynix’s US offering was more than seven times oversubscribed, with the ADR set to raise nearly $24.5bn and become the second largest debut for a foreign company after Alibaba ($25bn). Second, it was reported that China had plans to allow some domestic AI companies to purchase Nvidia’s H200 chips. Outside of the semiconductor rally, the only other S&P 500 industry groups to gain yesterday were Tech Hardware (+1.52%), Energy (+1.45%), and Consumer Staples (+1.15%) – the other 21 industry groups were lower on the day.   

Over in Europe, those declines were even more severe, with Spain seeing the worst of the declines after Trump renewed his calls to end trade with Spain. This was at the NATO summit, where he said “Spain is a wasted cause” and that “We don’t want to do any trade business with Spain anymore.” Moreover, WSJ reporter Brian Schwartz posted that US officials would provide Trump a list of Spanish products that could be embargoed in the coming days. So that meant the IBEX 35 (-2.73%) posted a significant decline, sharply underperforming the Europe-wide STOXX 600 (-1.61%). That said, there wasn’t much good news anywhere in Europe, with the DAX (-2.23%), the CAC 40 (-2.18%) and the FTSE MIB (-1.22%) all posting significant declines as well. 

Coming back to China, June inflation data revealed a diverging trend, highlighting uneven price pressures in the economy. CPI eased more than expected, rising +1.0% year-over-year (vs. +1.1% consensus) and slowing from May's +1.2% reading. In contrast, factory-gate inflation (PPI) accelerated to a four-year high of +4.1% year-over-year, matching forecasts. On a month-over-month basis, however, producer prices fell -0.3%, the first such decline since July 2025.  

Looking at the day ahead now, data releases include US existing home sales for June, and the weekly initial jobless claims. Meanwhile from central banks, we’ll get the ECB’s account of their June meeting, and hear from the ECB’s Escriva, the Fed’s Williams and Logan, and the BoE’s Breeden.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/09/2026 - 08:26

SK Hynix's US Offering Reportedly Seven Times Oversubscribed

The KOSPI struggled for direction overnight, erasing most of an opening rally that briefly pushed the South Korean main equity index up as much as 4.1%. The real strength was in memory stocks, with SK Hynix surging as much as 10% as investors piled back in. This move comes as Bloomberg reports the company's US ADR listing is more than seven times oversubscribed, underscoring strong institutional demand.

The report said SK Hynix is selling 177.9 million American depositary receipts, with each ADR equal to one-tenth of a common share. Based on the memory giant's Wednesday close in Seoul, the offering could raise about $24.5 billion, putting it among one of the largest US debuts by a foreign company and just behind Alibaba Group's record $25 billion listing.

Demand for the ADR listing has mostly come from global long-only funds, technology-focused investors, sovereign wealth funds, and Asia-focused funds, the report said, adding that Baillie Gifford, Coatue Management, and Situational Awareness Partners have indicated interest in buying $7 billion of the ADRs.

Banks leading the deal stopped taking orders late Wednesday, with pricing slated for Thursday. Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase are leading the offer along with nine other firms.

ADRs are expected to begin trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on Friday under the symbol SKHYV, before switching to regular-way trading on SKHY the following Monday.

Shares in South Korea rebounded on Thursday, surging more than 10%. However, shares remain down 25% since peaking last month.

Barclays analyst Mitul Kotecha noted, "The US ADR listing of SK Hynix could provide some further near-term support for the KRW, but much is in the price. Foreign selling of Korean stocks remains relentless and a likely major headwind further out. Our impulse-response analysis decomposes the different factors driving the selling."

The ADR deal comes amid a broader pullback in AI-linked memory names.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/09/2026 - 07:45

Biden Defender JB Pritzker Now Claims Trump Has 'Dementia'

Authored by Luis Cornelio via Headline USA,

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, one of President Joe Biden’s most vocal defenders when the former president faced questions about his mental acuity, is now claiming President Donald Trump has dementia.

Pritzker made the remarks during a June 29 interview with CNN host Caitlin Collins while discussing Trump’s criticism of democratic socialism.

Trump had argued that socialism represents a similar threat to the country than historical crises.

“The man is continually suffering from dementia. I don’t think he really understands what he’s saying,” Pritzker stated, providing no evidence for his claim.

Gov. JB Pritzker says he thinks President Trump has dementia. "I really think that there's something genuinely wrong with him," he says, while adding, "I'm not a doctor." pic.twitter.com/Y2vrFvScz8

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) July 1, 2026

Pritzker’s comments mark a stark contrast from how he defended Biden during the 2024 presidential campaign, when questions about the former president’s mental fitness intensified.

Pritzker served as one of Biden’s fiercest campaign surrogates and even sat on his national advisory board.

For instance, when Special Counsel Robert Hur raised concerns about Biden’s memory, Pritzker quickly went on the defensive, going as far as accusing Hur of being politically motivated.

“I’ve been with the President of the United States many times. He is on the ball. The man knows more than most of us have forgotten,” Pritzker claimed in February 2024.

"Joe Biden is on the ball. The man knows more than most of us have forgotten."

- JB Pritzker in 2024. https://t.co/wBEn8sWFOP pic.twitter.com/pUCJRd0T2t

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) April 8, 2026

In 2023, ahead of the presidential election, Pritzker downplayed questions about Biden’s fitness for office, praising him as “a gem of a human” while describing Trump as “cruel, cowardly and small.”

Pritzker doubled down on his backing of Biden even after the former president’s disastrous performance in the 2024 presidential debate.

What do Illinois Democrats think of Joe Biden looking for a dead Congresswoman in a crowd yesterday?

JB Pritzker: “President Biden is doing the job that we asked him to do. He rescued us with the American Rescue Plan… I’m happy to support President Biden when he runs in 2024.” pic.twitter.com/0YP5cHfPg6

— Mark Maxwell (@MarkMaxwellTV) September 30, 2022

“Listen: Joe Biden is our nominee. I am for Joe Biden,” the Illinois governor claimed. “I’ve been campaigning for Joe Biden. I think you’ve seen I’ve got dates scheduled to go to Indiana, to Ohio for Joe Biden.”

Illinois Gov JB Pritzker told CNN's Kasie Hunt this week that Joe Biden either needed to stay in the 2024 race or he should've dropped out a lot sooner to allow for a primary. I asked him why he didn't say that when it mattered. pic.twitter.com/p2jqwDITtP

— Mark Maxwell (@MarkMaxwellTV) May 15, 2025

Pritzker’s attacks are in line with a broader Democratic strategy of weaponizing Trump’s age after years of dismissing concerns about Biden, despite mounting video evidence.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/09/2026 - 07:20

"We're Gonna Win Someday": Graham Platner Suspends His Senate Campaign

Update: Graham Platner, the Democratic Party nominee for U.S. Senate in Maine, announced Wednesday that he's suspending his campaign. The move comes two days after Politico reported allegations of rape against him by a former girlfriend. He posted an emotional video explaining his decision.

"And I just want to make it clear this is all false," Platner said.

"The things that have been claimed did not happen; it's not real."

He described the past few days as an ordeal no regular person should have to survive, a normal guy suddenly thrust into a spotlight he says he never wanted. He accused the media and the political establishment of skipping the investigation entirely and jumping straight to a verdict.

"I learned about this through press inquiries with no time to truly respond, no time for investigations before a corporate media system and the political establishment got to act as judge, jury and executioner," he said.

"Accusations are supposed to be the beginning of things, not the end."

Platner claimed the allegations surfaced now for a specific reason. His official nomination locks in on July 13, and he says this was the last window anyone had to knock him off the ballot before that happened.

"I only have until July 13th until I am officially the nominee. This was the last week to try to get me off of the ballot, and that's why this is occurring," he said.

He argued the real threat was never the allegations themselves, but what the political establishment plans to do with them. Cut off his fundraising. Cut off his voter data. Starve the campaign of everything it needs simply to function. He made his read on their real preference painfully clear.

"They would rather see Susan Collins win than have me be the next senator from Maine," he said.

He leaned heavily on his June 9 primary win, in which he pulled in more votes than any primary candidate in Maine's history, to argue that whatever happens next should be decided by voters, not party insiders in Washington.

"It needs to be open, transparent, and Democratic," he said.

"Party apparatchiks are not the ones to make these decisions."

Then, the announcement itself.

"We are suspending campaign operations," Platner said, adding that he intends to file paperwork to formally withdraw from the race.

He framed the decision as anything but an admission of guilt; instead, he blamed outside forces for making it impossible for the campaign to continue functioning, even after beating what he called one of the most entrenched political systems in the world just weeks earlier.

"We went toe-to-toe with one of the most entrenched political systems in the history of the world, and we won," Platner said.

"We beat them on June 9th in overwhelming numbers."

Before signing off, he insisted the movement, and the ballot line his name currently occupies, still belongs to the voters who built it, not to party leadership in Washington.

"But now the ball is in the court of the democratic establishment," Platner said.

"My name might be on the ballot right now, but that ballot line belongs to the people of Maine."

Platner closed by thanking his supporters.

"From the bottom of my heart, thank you," Platner said. "Thank all of you and keep fighting. We're gonna win someday."

My name might be on the ballot right now, but that ballot line belongs to the people of Maine. pic.twitter.com/RKVyLU76tm

— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 9, 2026

*  *  *

As we detailed earlier, Graham Platner is supposed to be finished. The Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine faces a rape allegation, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have pulled their endorsements, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has told him they won't spend any money on his campaign if he stays on the ballot. He has until Monday to withdraw before Maine law locks Democrats into running him in November, whether they like it or not.

By every conventional measure, Platner should be packing his bags.

Instead, he is negotiating. Platner has reportedly told the Maine Democratic Party that any replacement must match his own ideological commitments, a demand that has left party strategists sputtering. So far, Rep. Valli Geiger (D-Rockland) says Platner is urging her to try and take his place on the ballot. Dan Pfeiffer, once a senior adviser to Barack Obama, wrote on his Substack that continuing the race is not an option for Platner and predicted a "zombie campaign marching on to certain defeat with no support and no resources." Chris Cillizza was blunter on X, telling Platner he has "zero leverage."

Platner trying to negotiate who will replace him suggests he has a deep misunderstanding of his current situation.

You have zero leverage, dude.

— Chris Cillizza (@ChrisCillizza) July 7, 2026

Pfeiffer and Cillizza are wrong, and the reason exposes something uncomfortable about the position Democrats have put themselves in.

Platner does not have to withdraw, and the reason he holds most of the cards is simple: the party has nothing it can offer him to leave quietly. The traditional exit ramp for a troubled nominee involves some quiet exchange, a future appointment, a promise of support down the road, and a graceful landing somewhere else. None of that works for Platner because dropping out after winning the nomination, with his baggage, makes him too damaged.

His campaign has also functioned as a vehicle for the Democratic Socialists of America, an organization working methodically to take over the Democratic Party from the inside rather than build a third option outside it.

The other detail Pfeiffer and Cillizza skip past is that Platner won his primary fair and square, and voters knew what they were getting. The Nazi tattoo, the self-described communism, the sexting with multiple women, his old presence on a site associated with child predators, a credible accusation that he abused a former girlfriend: all of it was public before the primary.

When the first abuse allegation surfaced during the campaign, Democratic officials rallied around him, and his campaign posted its best single fundraising day of the race. Sanders campaigned with him at "Fight Oligarchy" rallies. Rep. Ro Khanna flew to Portland to stand beside him. The New York Times even sat on a rape accusation against Platner despite believing the allegation was credible. None of that was a secret to the people now demanding his exit. What changed was the polling.

Platner had already gone from +6 in the polls to +1 after the sexting allocations. And today's allegations are a magnitude of order more serious. pic.twitter.com/MAxGoSuslc

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) July 6, 2026

Democrats spent months rationalizing their support for a candidate they now describe in private as a liability, largely because he looked like their best shot at unseating Sen. Susan Collins, a race the party repeatedly said was central to retaking the Senate majority. For Platner, as long as the numbers held, concerns about his character were excused. Now that the race has tightened, the establishment wants him gone, and it is dressing up a polling problem as a moral awakening.

The Maine Democratic Party is even starting to develop a process to replace Platner, if he withdraws.

"While the Platner campaign remains focused on distracting from the job of defeating Susan Collins in November with false accusations against us, the Maine Democratic Party remains hyper focused on developing a representative, transparent and inclusive process to select a new nominee when he chooses to withdraw from the race," Devon Murphy-Anderson, Executive Director of the Maine Democratic Party, said in a statement. "While we may be frustrated with Graham Platner's continued efforts to manipulate this process, we are so thankful for his supporters and all of their efforts to defeat Susan Collins - they are a vital part of our Party and deserve to participate in an open process to select Platner's replacement."

Congratulations to national media on politically assassinating Graham Platner. If he drops out and Democratic Party tries to give us two candidates who are both for Israel and corporate pacs, they'll face a revolt like they've never seen. Days of bullshit false choices are over.

— Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) July 7, 2026

But, Platner understands the mechanics of his own situation better than his critics do. He has every reason to believe he can either insist on the candidate of his choice to replace him (he’s reportedly urging Maine State Representative Valli Geiger, (D-Rockland) to take his place, but there’s no guarantee the party will back her) or stay in and carry on by simply denying the allegations, and his DSA-aligned supporters are already framing the pressure campaign as a hit job

If Platner drops out, his political career ends with him.

He knows that.

If he stays, national Democrats face an unpleasant choice: abandon a Senate seat they have spent a year calling essential, or hold their noses and back a nominee they cannot control and increasingly cannot defend.

Maine primary voters already absorbed most of what is now scandalizing Washington, and forcing Platner off the ballot risks convincing his base that the accusations are simply the latest excuse from a party establishment that never wanted him in the first place. Platner's defiance is a clear sign that he knows he has all the leverage here, and the establishment must decide what to do about it.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/09/2026 - 06:58

Canada Just Unleashed Its Fastest-Growing Oil Boom In A Decade

Who says price isn't a rationing mechanism?

Rather than sink billions into long-term oil sands projects, Alberta energy companies are increasingly chasing the Clearwater formation, a conventional heavy oil field that allows producers to capitalize on rising crude prices far more quickly, according to Bloomberg.

The surge in activity has been significant. Alberta approved 1,764 drilling licenses between Jan. 1 and June 12, the busiest start to a year since 2014. Roughly one-fifth of those permits were for Clearwater wells, marking the highest proportion ever recorded.

The formation is increasingly changing how producers respond to higher oil prices. Traditional oil sands projects often require years of planning, construction, and billions of dollars before generating a single barrel of crude. Clearwater, by contrast, produces a similar heavy grade of oil using horizontal multilateral wells, eliminating the need for expensive steam-assisted extraction and allowing companies to ramp up output much faster.

According to Tamarack Valley Energy CEO Brian Schmidt, the economics are hard to beat. "It doesn't take a whole bunch of capital to get started," he said, calling the play one with no equal among conventional oil fields.

Bloomberg writes that Clearwater's rapid growth has helped elevate several smaller companies into major players. Tamarack Valley and privately owned Spur Petroleum now rank among Alberta's largest oil producers, despite competing against companies with far larger oil sands operations.

Tamarack has been one of the most aggressive operators this year, securing 89 drilling approvals through mid-June, including 80 in the Clearwater. The company recently sold assets outside the region for C$804 million to concentrate entirely on the play while modestly increasing its capital spending plans.

Headwater Exploration has also stepped up investment after lifting its oil price assumptions in the wake of geopolitical tensions involving Iran. The company now expects production growth of about 10% this year, helped by expanded water-flooding operations that improve recovery rates from existing wells.

Once considered a little-known resource, the Clearwater has emerged as one of Canada's fastest-growing oil regions since attracting industry attention in 2017. Output has climbed from roughly 30,000 barrels per day to more than 230,000 barrels daily, while provincial estimates suggest the formation contains about 1.6 billion barrels of recoverable oil.

Schmidt believes the next phase of the play will be driven by acquisitions as larger operators absorb smaller rivals. "There'll be more consolidation in the Clearwater," he said.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/09/2026 - 06:55

Cocoa Prices Rally As Jefferies Warns Of "Perfect Storm" In West Africa

Cocoa futures in New York have doubled since the start of March and have now climbed back toward levels not seen since late 2025, around $6,000 a ton, as Jefferies analysts warn that a "perfect storm's a-brewing" across West Africa, the world's top cocoa-farming region.

Jefferies analyst Scott Marks wrote in a note on Tuesday that new weather concerns center on Ivory Coast and Ghana, the world's top cocoa-growing regions.

He said that temperatures in both countries have been about 2F below five-year averages since March, while rainfall in June ran about 46% above average in Ivory Coast and 52% above average in Ghana. Excess rain increases the risk of black pod and brown rot. 

Early surveys of Ivory Coast's 2026/27 crop point to below-average cherelle formation and poor pod development.

Industry estimates now show around 1.7 to 1.8 million metric tons, down about 18% from roughly 2.2 million tons in 2025/26, the analyst noted.

Global cocoa market snapshot still dire:

A 2024/2025 estimated global cocoa surplus of ~48 thousand tons is now expected according to ICCO reports published May'26, below prior estimates of ~75 thousand tons

With the global cocoa stock-to-grinding ratio still below the historical avg, but an improvement from the 2023/24 season

Beyond the current adverse weather conditions in Ivory Coast and Ghana, traders are also monitoring the risk of an El Niño later this year, which could produce hot, dry winds that sweep across West Africa and further damage cocoa output.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/09/2026 - 05:45

Iran Hits Back, Launching Missiles On Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar - Ignoring Trump's Warning Of "Much Worse" Bombing Summary

• Iran retaliates: air defenses reportedly active over Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait.
• Trump threatens "it will get much worse" after Wednesday night US attack wave commences along Iran's coast.
• Trump tells NATO summit that Iran wants to assassinate him: "on every single one of their list."
• Iran threatens to reclose the Strait of Hormuz and suspended final talks with the US.
• The US earlier revoked an Iranian oil waiver & now signals readiness to restore a maritime blockade.
• Trump said the ceasefire is over and warned of fresh US strikes on Iran, probably "tonight".
• Oil jumps above $80 as fears of renewed conflict & return to Hormuz Strait closure intensifies.

//--> //--> Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by August 31?
Yes 19% · No 82%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

*  *  *

Iranian Retaliation: Air Defenses Active Over Bahrain, Kuwait

Nearing 5am Tehran time, and there are incoming reports of Iranian retaliation against Gulf states, which it seems is set to become a predictable pattern - after hours ago the US launched fresh airstrikes on Iranian island and coastal areas near the Hormuz Strait. According to developing reports via AFP and other sources:

• Explosions heard in Bahrain after air raid sirens: AFP
• Kuwait says responding to 'hostile' missile, drone attacks
• U.S. forces struck two railway bridges in northern Iran with cruise missiles—the first U.S. attack on Iranian infrastructure since the April 8 ceasefire.

Reports (unconfirmed) also suggest that missiles are being fired on Qatar - which hasn't happened in quite a while. Iran has reportedly launched ballistic missiles at the US Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, in a first since early March. 

🇮🇷🇶🇦⚡️BREAKING: Iran has also launched ballistic missiles towards Qatar, for the first time in months. pic.twitter.com/h73hDqc6Ef

— MonitorX (@MonitorX99800) July 9, 2026

Meanwhile, the view from Russia on two war theatres escalating once again, and at the same time...

MoU is over. The new phase of the war begins. The escalation with Russia is going to grow.

— Alexander Dugin (@AGDugin) July 8, 2026 Trump Threatens "Much Worse" Bombing If Iran Doesn't Stop Attacks

Following the earlier (threatened) strikes. President Trump has taken to his Truth Social account to explain to Iran what happens next:

"This is in retribution for yesterday’s bombing of ships by Iran. If it happens again, it will get much worse!"

His post also included the following image of an alleged explosion in Chabahar (though it is unclear if this is a current photo)...

We suspect this will only serve to further bolster whatever group is actually attacking the tankers.

Another US Strike Wave On Iran Commences

After 11pm Tehran time, there are fresh reports of explosions across multiple locations along Iran's coast, coming from several regional sources:

• Explosions heard in Bandar Abbas and Sirik in the south of the country
• Explosions heard in several areas of Hormozgan, Al Jazeera reports;
• Air defenses activated on Sirik Island
• Explosions reported in Bandar Abbas, Iran, Jerusalem post reports

This has come within hours of Iran having announced the suspension of talks on a final settlement with the United States. Also, President Trump earlier during the NATO summit warned that more US strikes would be forthcoming tonight - it appears he's making good on this threat. "I'll give a little warning: We're going to hit them hard tonight," he told reporters just before his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Reports of IRGC base targeted & struck:

U.S. strikes targeted a base operated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in the Southern Iranian city of Bushehr, on the coast of the Persian Gulf. pic.twitter.com/Lt7wW6JAuL

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) July 8, 2026

More images emerging from the nighttime raids:

ARMAGEDDON-LIKE MOMENT in Iran's southern port city of Chabahar as Trump's DEVASTATING STRIKES LIGHT UP NIGHT SKY

Maritime traffic control tower REPORTEDLY DESTROYED

Reports of CITYWIDE POWER OUTAGES pic.twitter.com/dp7hush6dh

— RT (@RT_com) July 8, 2026

Like last night, Iran's military is expected to respond, after the following warning: Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister says recent actions by US won't stay without response, IRIB reports. Below is confirmation that the attacks are indeed underway:

• The US has informed Tel Aviv that it will launch powerful strikes against Iran tonight, Al Arabiya reports citing an Israeli source
• Iranian opposition sources report that maritime industries, shipyards, and the Revolutionary Guards' naval base in Bandar Abbas were attacked, report Kan News
• Wednesday's strikes were broader in scope than the strikes the day before, targeting IRGC coastal radars, anti-ship missile sites and air defense systems, Axios' Ravid reports citing a senior US official

Trump Tells NATO Summit Iranians Want To Assassinate Him

President Trump while giving a closing address at the end of the NATO summit in Ankara repeatedly claimed that Iran was plotting to assassinate him, saying he was "on every single one of their list." He claimed: "They want to take out the US Leader. I'm on every single one of their list. So far, I've had a bit of luck, but maybe it won't last. They're evil and sick people, and we must get rid of this cancer."

He suggested that it's time to "finish the job" and yet at other times while fielding questions from reporters shied away from laying out anything that sounds like regime change. Instead he opted to again talk about how the US can never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. He again stressed that "lunatics" can never have a nuclear weapon.

On the claimed assassination plot, it's unclear whether he has something specific in mind, in terms of a recent statement from the Iranian government. He could be referencing media reports from earlier this week quoting mourners and speakers at Khamenei's funeral. For example the following was in a Tuesday Reuters report:

As they passed under a bridge, mourners hurled stones at a billboard hung from above ​showing U.S. President Donald Trump with a bullet aimed at his head.

"The U.S. killed our father," it read. "We won't let you go!"

As demonstrators set fire ​to U.S. and British flags, women in black chadors held aloft red placards with the English words "KILL TRUMP" in black letters.

Others held ⁠aloft posters with the faces of Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, each depicted in the crosshairs of a ​gunsight, with the words "There will be blood".

Ahead of more potential renewed strikes on Iran tonight, CENTCOM is saying its forces are at the ready:

Today, more than 20 U.S. Navy warships are patrolling waters across the Middle East as CENTCOM forces continue promoting regional security and stability. Last month, U.S. naval warships and aircraft transited the Arabian Sea in close formation, demonstrating unmatched American… pic.twitter.com/gnfRIKAYJl

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) July 8, 2026 Iran Threatens To Reclose Strait, as US Military 'Ready' to Restart Blockade

Iran has once again threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, according to state broadcaster Press TV on Wednesday, citing an Iranian official. Iran is of course planning strait only under its own arrangements, or a protocol involving collection of fees and utilizing a designated route close to its coast, "as per the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)."

The Iranian official further warned the military stands ready to "strike at least twice the number of targets hit" in response to any strikes by the United States. "The developments of the past 48 hours show Iran won't back down from managing the Hormuz," the source noted.

• "The U.S. military stands ready to restart the blockade of ships to and from Iranian ports if ordered to do so, a U.S. official tells Fox News", Fox's Friden reports.
• "Iran suspends talks on a final settlement with the United States", TASS reports citing an Iranian source.

"Any threat will receive a powerful response," the official was quoted in Press TV as saying, and warned further that the Islamic Republic's armed forces do "not distinguish between the United States and its partners in the region." The official warned Trump that the US "will gain nothing" from making such threats.

"He (Trump) will certainly lose both the Strait of Hormuz and the negotiations over a final agreement," said the source. "The choice is now his." Meanwhile...

OIL EXTENDS GAINS, BRENT CRUDE RISES ABOVE $80 A BARREL

And WTI...

Trump: "Probably Hit Iran Tonight"

After earlier saying from the NATO summit in Ankara that the Iran ceasefire is "over" - and amid fears of renewal of full-scale war given that Tehran has launched drone and missile attacks on nearby American allies Kuwait and Bahrain once again, President Trump said on Wednesday that he would "probably hit Iran tonight".

He issued the major threat and warning during a press conference at the NATO summit: "I'll give a little warning: We're going to hit them hard tonight," he told reporters just before his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He later lambasted Iran for "killing soldiers, killing people for 47 years," and that because of that, the US has "a score to settle." He added: "We may just do it without a deal." He also sought to once again explain his view that it's not about regime change, but about the nuclear issue.

Geopolitical news source DropSite is pushing back against some of Trump's newest claims, particularly that Iranians security services gunned down "54,000 protesters" during the January economic protests, commenting:

Trump today claimed Iran’s revolutionary regime killed 54,000 protesters at the start of the year, inflating the 40,000 figure he repeated through much of the US-Israeli war to justify and build support for U.S. action. There is no evidence for either figure.

HRANA, which has received U.S. funding, documented about 7,000 deaths, including many Iranian security and police. Iran puts the death toll just above 3,100 and says rioters killed civilians during protests that were overtaken by Israel- and U.S.-backed armed elements. Scores of videos from the January 2026 riots show armed men destroying mosques and government buildings and carrying out vigilante killings of security personnel.

Meanwhile, it's not a war, Trump has repeated... but what's next and what is the ultimate endgame here? Is there a coherent strategy yet? Trump further on Wednesday, while speaking alongside Zelensky and fielding questions, floated that "if we have to we will take out higher level targets" - and that "we may take over Kharg Island". He again admitted the Iran deal may not stick, after the US "knocked out 28 boats last night". He further warned that US forces will probably take out more boats tonight.

• TRUMP, ON ATTACKS TONIGHT: NOT A THING IRAN CAN DO ABOUT IT
• TRUMP:WOULD HATE TO STRIKE DESALINATION PLANTS, BUT MAY HAVE TO
• TRUMP: WE MAY PUT DOWN THE BLOCKADE ON IRAN
• TRUMP: BLOCKADE WOULD ONLY APPLY TO IRAN

Trump on Iran War:

This is not a war. It's the denuclearization of Iran. pic.twitter.com/k51XHDATXF

— Clash Report (@clashreport) July 8, 2026 Trump on Ceasefire, MoU Deal: "I think it's over; they're scum."

Brent crude futures jumped more than 6% in London after President Trump told reporters at a press conference in Ankara that the tentative ceasefire with Iran is over.

"To me, I think it's over. I don't want to deal with them anymore; they're scum," Trump told reporters. 

Trump says the ceasefire between U.S. and Iran is over.

"To me, I think it's over. I don't want to deal with them anymore; they're scum", the U.S. president says.

Live updates: https://t.co/l9KwsXPz0p pic.twitter.com/mqfE5qKOHe

— Sky News (@SkyNews) July 8, 2026

Trump's remarks came after Iran launched missiles and kamikaze drones at several merchant vessels in the Hormuz chokepoint on Tuesday. This was countered by overnight US strikes, as fears of conflict erupting once more are on the rise.

However, Trump stopped short of saying the U.S. would restart the war and said he would let talks continue if the parties were willing.

Crude Update

In European trade, front-month Brent crude futures jumped 6% to $78.63 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate rose 6.2% to $74.85 a barrel. Natural gas prices rose as well, with the benchmark Dutch TTF contract up 4.8% to 49.04 euros per megawatt-hour.

Hours before the strikes, the US Treasury revoked a sanctions waiver that had allowed Tehran to sell oil, reversing a key element of the interim deal.

Trump also told reporters that he would continue to let his negotiators talk to Tehran, though he thought "they're wasting their time."

Eroding Confidence in Strait's Reopening

On Tuesday afternoon, the Joint Maritime Information Center upgraded the Hormuz risk rating to "Severe" after three tankers were targeted by Iran. This renewed uncertainty in the critical waterway will only pressure the normalization of vessel flows.

"Every renewed attack on commercial shipping further erodes confidence in the Strait's reopening, making each future recovery more fragile than the last," said Michelle Brouhard, head of policy and geopolitical risk at Kpler. "If every reopening is assumed to be temporary, freight rates remain elevated, insurance costs remain high and fewer vessels are willing to re-enter the Gulf."

Dominic Ellis, UBS equity analyst covering oil and gas, wrote in a note:

The US carried out a new round of strikes against Iran in response to recent Iranian attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran in turn launched missile and drone attacks on US assets in Kuwait and Bahrain. While this latest escalation does not mean an end to the diplomatic progress made in recent weeks, it underscores the challenges of diplomacy when both sides believe they have the upper hand.

Markets were too quick to buy into the de-escalation narrative in my view, and while there has been evidence of progress and of a rebound in vessel flows via the Strait of Hormuz, the latest developments may lead to more realistic expectations on the return to normalcy and a slightly higher range for oil in the near term.

The likelihood of a spike above $100/b remains low, however, even in the event of further tit-for-tat strikes in the Middle East, given the surprise sustained drop in Chinese crude imports.

Latest Bloomberg data tracking ships transiting the Hormuz chokepoint with transponders on remain elevated, but the number of vessels making the East-West route has fallen dramatically, while West-East remains steady.

Also, note that the oil market's forward curve has shifted into backwardation. This occurs when near-term futures trade at a premium to longer-dated contracts. The shift shows traders are once again willing to pay up for immediate crude supplies.

More Geopolitical Headlines

via Newsquawk...

Iran Commentary

• Iranian Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf said the US has violated major parts of the MoU, citing US attacks on southern Iran, reinstating oil sanctions and threats of further strikes as MoU violations.
• Iran's Foreign Ministry states that the US activity overnight has "rendered important and fundamental parts of the Memorandum of Understanding on the End of the War ineffective".
• Iranian President Pezeshkian said the US, whether as World Cup host or in its foreign policy, manipulates the rules and resorts to deception, and that Iran rejects such tactics.
• Iran's top joint miliary command said Iran will give a crushing response to America's aggression and terrorist action, and under no circumstances will they allow them to interfere in the affairs of the Strait of Hormuz and its management.
• Advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader said US President Trump intends to attack again and we are fully prepared.
• Iran's Foreign Ministry condemns the US Treasury's move to revoke the temporary suspension of sanctions on Iranian oil sales, will take any measure it deems necessary to safeguard its interests and national security. Iran holds the US government responsible for the consequences of the breach of the Memorandum of Understanding.

Overnight Attacks

• Several explosions have been heard in Bushehr, Iran, according to Mehr news; Mehr's journalist on Kharg Island denies reported of an attack on Kharg, despite some reported of an incident being published. Elsewhere, sirens were reported in Bahrain once again.
• Renewed explosions sounds heard around Iran's Qeshm and Sirik, Mehr reported.
• Iran's army said it targeted the Sheikh Isa Base in Bahrain and warns of more attacks if the US repeats strikes on Iran, Mehr reported.
• Iran's IRGC said that, in response to the US aggression, they hit 85 important US military installations in Port Salman, Bahrain's 5th Maritime Zone and Kuwait's Ali Salem Air Base.
• Iran's IRGC said they downed a US Mq9 drone in the south of Iran, Press TV reported.
• Iran fires several anti-ship missiles and drones towards US Navy warships in the Sea of Oman, Fars reported citing the Middle East Spectator.
• A US official said the strike on Iran was a punitive action, not a proportional response, and that the operation will not end in the short term, CNN reported.

US Commentary

• US President Trump said the Iran ceasefire is over "I think"; as far as I am concerned, it is a waste of time dealing with Iran. On the MoU, "think it is over". Adds, "I do not want to deal with Iran", they are a "bunch of liars".
• US President Trump said (on Iran) he will allow US negotiators to continue to talk if they want. But, "I think this is a waste of time".
• US President Trump said have had some great meetings; attacked very powerfully against Iran last night. Have wasted a lot of time with Iran. Iran does not know what it is doing. Iran shot rockets at the ships, which is why the US shot back. Iran is a "dirty" player, "are scum".
• US President Trump approved the Iran strike plan and ordered it while in Turkey, a US official tells Axios' Ravid; the official said it is still unclear how long the strikes are going to continue.
• US Secretary of Defence Hegseth has cancelled his visit to Israel, N12/Ynet report.

Others

• Turkish President Erdogan said Europe must take more responsibility when it comes to NATO.
• US President Trump said China is attempting to takeover the Panama Canal, will not let this happen. China has been treating the US right. Big fan of Chinese President Xi.
• Ukrainian Armed Forces said Kyiv is under missile attack.
• Israeli fighter jets carried out attacks in Barachit and Beit Yahoun in southern Lebanon.
• A Pakistani Boeing (BA) plane flying to Karachi has crashed, with sources stating the plane was mistakenly targeted by the US, IRIB reported.
• Chevron’s (CVX) Yasa Polaris oil tanker, used for CPC shipments, was attacked by drones off Russia’s Black Sea coast, according to sources.
• Russia’s Gazprom said Ukraine attacked facilities of gas exports to Turkey; supplies not affected.
• Ukraine's Military said it struck two oil refineries, six tankers, bridges and the Borisoglebsk airfield; AIF-NK oil refinery in Nizhny Kamsk was also damaged.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/09/2026 - 05:30

Europe's Utility Sector Is 'On The Brink Of A New Regime'

Authored by Gregor Morris via BondVigilantes.com,

Europe’s utilities sector is on the brink of a generational shift. After more than a decade of subdued demand, the system is being forced to modernize, rebuild and expand. Electrification, datacentres, renewable integration and ageing infrastructure are converging into what can only be described as unprecedented capital expenditure programmes across the sector. 

Simplistically, the bullish narrative is a convergence of rising electricity demand, visible investment pipelines, increase in regulated investments and improving returns. However, the same forces driving growth are also set to reshape balance sheets, funding needs, and elevate execution risk.

A step change in capital intensity

The scale of investment required is extraordinary and though we have seen some large equity cheques, the vast majority of investment need will be funded by debt issuance. The European power system is expected to require €2–3 trillion of capex between 2026 and 2035, up to double the previous decade’s spend.

According to Goldman Sachs, within this:

• €1.2–1.4 trillion is needed in power grids alone.
   
• Significant incremental spend is required for backup gas capacity (~€200bn) and battery storage (~€35bn by 2030).

Even over the next five years, the numbers are large: around €580bn of sector capex between 2026–30. With roughly 85% allocated to regulated or contracted activities, this does provide bondholders elevated security. On paper, capex visibility is high and earnings should be supported by regulated returns (particularly for grid operators) and contracted revenues (renewables). However, for credit investors, the issue is not just visibility of returns, but the timing mismatch between spending, cash flow generation, and regulatory recovery.

Source: Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research

Is leverage pressure structural?

Historically, utilities have been able to fund investment cycles with a mix of operating cash flow, disposals, and incremental debt while maintaining broadly stable credit metrics. This cycle looks materially different. As it stands, rating agencies have remain largely comfortable with declining FFO to net debt and rising debt burdens.

However, there are some marked differences. First is the sheer intensity of the capital increase. Second, the societal and political impact of increased pressure on the affordability of bills (across all utilities). Finally, the mis-match between up front capex and  delayed cash flow realisation is worthy of note. Spending is upfront, whilst returns are earned over the long term, leaving balance sheets under pressure in the interim, even if returns are ultimately attractive.

For bondholders, this raises three key questions:

1. Can we get comfortable with the amount of debt required to fund the capex?
    
2. How quickly can companies recycle capital, through asset sales, project financing or partnerships?
    
3. And the most important of all, are we being paid to take this risk?

Execution risk becomes a credit driver

In previous cycles, utility credit risk was heavily linked to commodity exposure or regulatory outcomes. In this capexcycle, execution risk is emerging as a primary credit variable.

The complexity of what needs to be delivered is unprecedented. Europe must simultaneously: retire old assets, build out renewables at scale (with generation increasingly weather-dependent), expand and modernise grids that are decades old and integrate new demand sources such as datacentres.  

Each of these is challenging in isolation. Delivering them simultaneously introduces coordination risk across supply chains, permitting, and system planning. From a credit perspective, this matters because execution slippage directly translates into:

• Cost overruns → higher debt funding needs?
   
• Project delays → deferred cash flows and weaker coverage ratios?
   
• Regulatory lag → slower recovery of invested capital?

In other words, even if returns are contractually or regulatorily supported, cash flow timing becomes uncertain. For credit investors there could be some bumps along the way.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/09/2026 - 05:00