Zero Rss

YouTube, Instagram, And The Future Of Ministry

Authored by Van Mylar via RealClearReligion,

Meta is testing Instagram on television. Pinterest has acquired a connected-TV ad-buying platform. Social media content is becoming one of the most-watched video types on American television. And YouTube is leading the way, with tens of millions of Americans now watching YouTube on the biggest screen in the house.

YouTube's move into creator-led, 24/7 "Stations" points to something larger: digital and social platforms are no longer simply competing with television. They are becoming television.

For nonprofits and ministries, this is not a passing media trend. It is a strategic signal.

The migration of social behavior back to the living room represents a fundraising, awareness and discipleship opportunity too large to ignore. It is also a warning to organizations still treating television, streaming, social, direct mail, radio and email as disconnected channels.

That means the old channel-by-channel mindset is no longer enough. Direct mail, television, radio, email, YouTube, social media and connected television must work together as one integrated donor journey.

A short clip may create discovery. A long-form video may build trust. A host-read appeal may deepen credibility. A direct mail package may provide a tangible response moment. A TV placement may bring the mission back into the shared household space.

The living room has always carried emotional weight. It is where families hear breaking news, watch stories that move them and encounter moments that shape belief, identity, generosity and action. But the new living room is different. It blends broadcast, streaming, social video, creator content, streaming channels and algorithmic discovery into one environment.

And every generation brings a different expectation to that screen.

Gen Z views television as an extension of the feed. They are not easily moved by polished institutional messaging. They want authenticity, immediacy and evidence. They want to see who is being helped, who is telling the story and whether the mission feels credible. Creator brands are becoming television brands, and the trust younger audiences place in a familiar face is proving just as valuable as a traditional network name.

Millennials are the bridge generation. They move fluidly between television, streaming apps, YouTube, podcasts, social feeds and mobile giving. They respond to content that is useful, transparent, emotionally honest and easy to act on. They do not want friction. If the story moves them, the next step must be immediate and clear.

Gen X may be the most overlooked audience in this shift. They are skeptical, independent and media-savvy. They still understand the authority of the television screen, but they verify before giving or getting involved. For them, the formula is trust plus proof. They want to know where the money goes, whether the organization is effective, and whether the appeal is grounded in reality rather than hype.

Boomers still have a deep relationship with the living room screen, but they are not passive viewers anymore. Many stream church services, watch YouTube on their Smart TVs, and respond to familiar hosts, strong storytelling and appeals tied to faith, family and legacy.

The Silent Generation, though smaller, remains significant for legacy giving. They respond best to clarity, consistency, trusted messengers, and a sense that their giving will outlive them.

That is why the question for ministries shouldn't simply be how to buy more advertising space, but rather who they are trying to reach.

What shaped them? What do they trust? What do they question? What kind of story moves them? What makes them believe an organization is worthy of their generosity?

There is also a deeper reason platforms are chasing the living room: mobile is running out of room to grow. Social media platforms need new attention, new inventory and new environments. Television is where much of that remaining attention lives.

That should reframe how ministries and nonprofits think about television. Connected TV (like Smart TVs or TVs with an Amazon Fire Stick) is not simply an experimental add-on to a digital media plan. It is where engaged attention is moving next.

It is also where discovery and trust can converge.

Many viewers now begin watching full programs because of a short clip they first saw on social media. For a ministry or nonprofit, that matters. A short, honest clip may be the first step in a person's journey that ends in a gift, a prayer request, a church visit, a volunteer application or a deeper relationship with the mission.

Connected television is not just another media-buying channel. It is where generational habits, creator trust, algorithmic discovery and shared household viewing collide.

The ministries and nonprofits that thrive will build integrated ecosystems: short-form content for discovery, long-form content for trust, authentic storytelling for credibility and simple response paths for action.

The ministries and nonprofits that win will be the ones that understand who is sitting on the couch - the teenager scrolling and streaming, the Millennial parent multitasking, the Gen X skeptic verifying, the Boomer watching with a giving history and the older donor thinking about legacy.

For ministries and nonprofits, the calling is simple: Do not just reach the living room. Earn a place in it.

This article was originally published by RealClearReligion and made available via RealClearWire.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/27/2026 - 18:25

Putin Admits Escalation: Enemies Unable To Defeat Russia On Battlefield, Resort To 'Open Terrorism'

This month has witnessed a string of major Wildberries warehouses and logistics hubs go up in flames due to wave after wave of Ukrainian drones strikes. The Russian online retailer, which is by far the largest and widely deemed the 'Russian Amazon' - is bracing for likely more attacks to come.

Ukraine's long-range drones strikes have very clearly moved beyond just oil and defense industrial sites, and have even included an attack on a holiday camp in Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia over the weekend, which killed at least twelve civilians. The Kremlin called it a terror attack, given it was a direct assault on a resort area.

Fresh Monday comments from President Vladimir Putin have highlighted this shift in Ukraine's strategy. Putin says that its forces are unable to advance the battlefield, and so are increasingly moving to outright terrorism tactics.

Image via Sputnik 

"[Enemies] are unable to defeat Russia on the battlefield so they are betting on using openly terrorist methods against our people," Putin said at a Kremlin meeting with members of the outgoing Eighth State Duma (lower house of parliament).

"However, no one has ever succeeded in breaking the Russian people. It has never happened and it will never happen," he stressed. He further highlighted a broader Western effort to 'rattle' and 'break' Russia which the populace has successfully endured for years at this point. 

"Seeking to rattle the Russian state and provoke social division in our country, [Western countries] have attempted to strangle our economy, financial system, and banking sector, and sought to undermine the potential of science, industry, and education," Putin said.

But he admitted some serious challenges as a result of the 'special military operation' in Ukraine. "In response to historic trials and aggressive external pressure, our multi-ethnic people have responded with internal solidarity. That has always been the case, and that is precisely what we see today," he said.

"The past five years - the period of your tenure as deputies - have been challenging and immensely responsible for our country," Putin told the legislators. 

"We have long been confronted with unlawful restrictions, with attempts at containment and pressure - both after the 'Russian Spring' of 2014 and even before that. But since 2022, the West has put the Russophobic machine into full swing," he recalled.

Ukrainian drones strikes on a Wildberries facility in the vicinity of St. Petersburg last week:

Compilation of most Ukrainian drones strikes on a Wildberries facility in the vicinity of St. Petersburg, Russia this morning. https://t.co/8E7IJ7ZNI6 pic.twitter.com/fY7zmDyKDn

— Woofers (@NotWoofers) July 24, 2026

Some analysts have observed that over the last several months the war has moved toward escalation - and a more 'total war' environment which puts civilians on either side at greater risk.

Russian ballistic missile attacks directly on the Ukrainian capital have been more devastating of late, and so have Ukraine's long-range drones sent deep into Russia. With Russian missiles and drones increasingly falling on residential neighborhoods in and around Kiev, the Zelensky government is also hurling the terrorism charge right back at Moscow.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/27/2026 - 18:00

Renewables 'Can't Keep Up' With Data Center Pace. As Usual, The Left Wants Government To Step In...

Authored by Gary Abernathy via The Empowerment Alliance,

The political left is worried that the rapid expansion of data centers across the U.S. - a controversial but necessary development considering our competition with China - is increasingly accompanied by the corresponding construction of stand-alone natural gas plants to provide the power demands of the centers.

In Ohio, 10 gas-fired power plants are in the works to fuel new data centers. In West Virginia, a startup business building AI compute campuses plans to utilize hundreds of gas generators by 2028. Newly minted trillionaire Elon Musk has purchased a gas turbine company specifically to power the Tennessee-based data centers fueling Grok.

Across the nation, similar stories are playing out region by region, with dedicated gas plants often backed by tech giants who once swore off fossil fuels before reality set in.

Natural gas plants can be stood up relatively quickly and deliver the massive power required to keep the U.S. ahead of its adversaries in the AI/data center race. While data centers have resulted in controversies in some local communities - an unsurprising NIMBY reaction - other places have welcomed the developments.

As stated here before, artificial intelligence is here, like it or not. The only question is who will make the rules, the U.S. or China?

Soldiers in the anti-fossil fuel brigade are once again coming face-to-face with their biggest enemy: reality. And as usual, rather than seeking to engage fairly in the free market, backers of renewables are demanding that government write regulations requiring their use.

The Associated Press recently reported that "tech giants are demanding power at such speed and scale - some data centers consume more energy than a mid-size city - that the construction of wind and solar simply can't keep up," giving natural gas a substantial advantage. Most people call that the free market playing out as it naturally will. The climate change fearmongers call it foul play.

To level the field, the same old playbook is once again being deployed. For instance, in Michigan, Oregon and Minnesota, laws have been enacted in the last 18 months "designed to protect their pre-existing requirements that electric utilities use only emissions-free energy sources by 2040," AP reported, adding that similar bills are emerging in California, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

New York, not surprisingly, leads the way when it comes to the heavy hand of government mandates. There, legislation would force data centers over a certain size "to meet renewable energy benchmarks starting in 2030 and, by 2040, get at least 90% of their energy from renewable energies."

The arrogance of those demanding that alternatives be given special consideration was once more on display courtesy of a New York state lawmaker who wrote the bill in question. "We are literally talking about the wealthiest companies in the world that are looking to build in New York state," said state Sen. Kristen Gonzalez (D), adding, "and if they have the resources to put billions of dollars into data center development, then they certainly should have the resources to build out renewable energy sources to power them."

So there!

Insisting what other people can and should do with their money - and writing legislation forcing them to do it - is a familiar page from the playbook of the left. Such attitudes will only be magnified by the new crop of socialists who are winning Democratic Party primaries across the country.

Of course, to back up the demand that renewables be governmentally propped up to power data centers, the left will trot out friendly new studies to bolster its arguments. So, right on cue, here comes the Environmental Integrity Project with another study condemning the big, bad gas plants.

"Dozens of planned gas plants to directly power data centers in the United States could emit as much greenhouse gas annually as Australia or France," according to a Reuters story on the findings of the study.

"An industry of the future should not be chained to dirty fuels of the past and the air pollution from fossil fuels that cause real harm to communities," said Jen Duggan, executive director of the EIP.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin countered, "I think that a lot of Americans would agree that we should win this race against China to be the AI capital of the world." Amen.

The climate change movement flourished under the Obama and Biden administrations, costing taxpayers billions of dollars and funneling industries and consumers into a no-choice scenario of less reliable, less effective alternative power options. Thankfully, the Trump administration has unleashed all American energy resources - including inviting alternatives to compete in the free marketplace.

For now, the left acknowledges that the federal government is not friendly turf. So, when it comes to emerging data centers, the subsidies-and-mandates game is playing out at the state level, because without such help, as AP reported, "the construction of wind and solar simply can't keep up."

In the free marketplace, things that can't keep up eventually fall by the wayside. But in the fantasyland of far-left (and socialist) idealism, government regulations keep them afloat or even put them in preferred positions - at least until their deficiencies become too obvious and too dangerous to pretend anymore. (For example, see the massive 2025 power outage in Spain, Portugal and parts of France, where alternatives failed and natural gas came to the rescue to restore power.)

The U.S. will likely win the AI race, but only because it got under way in earnest during the Trump administration. If it had happened under the Biden regime, our government would be mandating artificial benchmarks for renewables while China focused on controlling artificial intelligence for the world.

This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/27/2026 - 17:40

Court Rules Illinois' In-State Tuition Benefits For Illegals 'Unconstitutional And Invalid'

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

A federal court ruled in favor of the Trump administration in a lawsuit challenging Illinois’ laws that offered education benefits to illegal immigrants while denying the same for out-of-state Americans.

In a July 24 order, the District Court for the Southern District of Illinois declared that in-state tuition provisions under the state’s Acevedo Bill (which became law in May 2023), its 2024 amendment, the DREAM Act, and the Retention of Illinois Students and Equity (RISE) Act, as applied to illegal immigrants, violated the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause and are “unconstitutional and invalid.”

The Trump administration argued that these three laws, which provide postsecondary education benefits to illegal immigrants, were in violation of Title 8 of the U.S. Code Section 1623.

Section 1623 bans illegal immigrants from being eligible for post-secondary education benefits in a state unless the same benefits are provided to all U.S. citizens, regardless of their state of residence.

In its complaint filed last September, the Trump administration highlighted that the Acevedo Bill allows illegal immigrants to pay a lower tuition rate in the state’s public colleges and universities than a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident from other states.

The Illinois DREAM Act, signed into law in 2011, created a scholarship program funded by private donations.

This benefit was later limited to illegal immigrants students in the state.

The RISE Act, which came into effect in 2020, extended state financial assistance to illegal immigrants.

In a motion to dismiss filed in November 2025, Illinois challenged the validity of Section 1623. The state argued that Section 1623 violates the anticommandeering doctrine outlined in the U.S. Constitution’s 10th Amendment, which recognizes that Congress has no power to issue direct orders to a state.

Section 1623 “runs afoul of the anticommandeering doctrine because it regulates states rather than private actors,” Illinois said. Because Section 1623 violates the anticommandeering doctrine, “all the federal government’s claims against all defendants must be dismissed.”

However, in the July 24 order, the court disagreed with this argument, affirming that restrictions under Section 1623 do not constitute “commandeering” under the 10th Amendment.

The doctrine bans the federal government from dictating what state legislatures can or cannot do. It also prohibits Washington from compelling states to enact or enforce federal regulatory programs. Section 1623 “does none of these things,” the court observed.

Instead, Section 1623 “functions as a limit on the eligibility of noncitizens rather than a command that states legislate or administer any particular program.”

The court permanently enjoined Illinois and other defendants in the case, including state entities, from enforcing the three laws disputed by the Trump administration.

The case was brought by the Department of Justice’s Civil Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Illinois, according to a July 24 statement from the department.

“Illinois sought to incentivize illegal immigration on the taxpayer’s dime by treating illegal aliens better than U.S. citizens living in other states, in clear violation of federal law,” U.S. Attorney Steven D Weinhoeft said in the statement.

“This ruling enforces the statute Congress wrote and stops the State from putting illegal aliens ahead of American citizens.”

The Epoch Times reached out to the office of Illinois governor for comment, but did not receive a response by publication time.

The case is one of several in which the Trump administration is targeting state educational benefits being provided to illegal immigrants over U.S. citizens.

On July 23, the Justice Department announced that it had filed a case against Colorado over this issue. Similar lawsuits have been filed against California, Virginia, Massachusetts, Maryland, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Kansas, and Minnesota, all of which are pending.

In Texas, Kentucky, Nebraska, and Oklahoma, the Trump administration has succeeded in getting permanent injunctions against in-state tuition benefits for illegal immigrants.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/27/2026 - 17:00

Cracker Barrel Dumps CEO After Woke Logo Fiasco

Shares of Cracker Barrel Old Country Store have yet to fully recover from outgoing CEO Julie Masino's brief "woke" rebranding effort last year. The family-dining chain quickly restored its iconic "Old Country Store" logo and nostalgic aesthetic. Still, the failed overhaul now appears to have cost Masino her job after exposing a serious failure of brand stewardship.

The Cracker Barrel controversy began on Aug. 18, 2025, when the company published a simplified logo that removed the "Old Timer" and barrel, sparking an immediate online backlash that intensified over the following week.

President Trump called for the oldlogo'ss restoration on Aug. 26, and Cracker Barrel reversed the redesign later that day.

Shares plunged by more than half in the months following the disastrous rebranding attempt and remain about 14% below where they traded before the controversy started.

Bloomberg reports that restaurant industry veteran David Deno will replace Masino.

Deno, who led Outback Steakhouse parent companyBloomin'’ Brands from 2019 to 2024, will take over on Aug. 10. Masino, CEO since late 2023, will remain as an adviser until early October.

Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Michael Halen and Amir Islam said Deno inherits favorable comparisons against last year's logo-driven sales drop, though his long-term success will depend on rebuilding traffic and recruiting experienced executives.

Rebuilding customer traffic starts with Deno understanding the brand's core audience and recognizing where America's Overton window now sits. It has shifted away from the left and far-left fringes toward the political center, as "woke" branding has largely vanished despite efforts by revolutionary socialist activists to revive it.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/27/2026 - 16:40

Will The "Fat Lady" Finally Sing For Fauci?

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

"The Fauci diary is amazing. He monologues like a Scooby Doo villain."

- El Gato Malo on "X"

Remember Covid-19? Seems like long ago in a world that time forgot. Well, you get to revisit the whole sketchy business on Wednesday, July, 29, when Dr. Anthony Fauci is called to testify about it to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee chaired by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).

Though half the USA is still psychotic and unable to process reality, the other half of the country understands that Dr. Fauci has some ‘splainin’ to do.

Dr. Fauci was initially invited but declined to appear (didn’t feel like it), so the committee issued a subpoena compelling him (under penalty of up to a year in jail for failure to show).

Because Dr. Fauci was given a peremptory pardon by “Joe Biden,” he cannot legally invoke the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination.

He will have to answer the questions.

Of course, Dr. Fauci has demonstrated in previous appearances that he is a world champeen of failing-to-recall stuff and, at age 85, one might expect him to work that angle to the max.

One big question hanging over the whole proceeding is whether Covid-19 was concocted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology or “jumped from animals to humans” as Dr. Fauci posited around the 2:14 mark (near the end) of this video from a White House press conference, April, 13, 2020:

The Intel Community now kind of leans toward the lab leak theory.

Anyway, that all leads to another question as to whether Dr. Fauci directed his agency, the NIAID, to arrange funding for gain-of-function research at Wuhan on coronaviruses found in Asian bats.

In other words... did they make the chimeric virus on-purpose?

In past testimony, Dr. Fauci has equivocated and dissembled about that, played word games that led to raised voices between himself and Sen. Paul.

As it happened, then-Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard recently unearthed the paper trail of emails and memoranda between Dr. Fauci and his colleagues / partners in other corners of the epidemiological world that show how, at the time, they were all scrambling to cover their collective asses in the Covid-19 business.

One partner in particular, Peter Daszak of the New York based EcoHealth Alliance, which had channeled many grants to Wuhan since 2014, was especially active in fabricating alibis and ruses — including a major paper in the UK’s leading medical journal, The Lancet (the article was later nullified).

Behind that smokescreen of confabulation lies the wreckage of American society by the evil Covid-19 business.

It was even evident at the time (spring 2020) that President Trump suspected he was being played by the committee of “experts” that had been set up to make Covid-19 policy. His body language suggested as much in news conferences where he shifted uncomfortably from side to side, watching while others spoke at the podium, as if rehearsing his later YMCA dance.

At one point, April 23, 2020, (Fauci wrote in an email) President Trump called advisor Deborah Birx (“Scarf Lady”) into the Oval Office and yelled at her:

“You and Fauci have destroyed the country and the economy. I should never have listened to you. You have completely destroyed us.”

(Thanks to @JeffreyTucker on “X” for citation.)

And that was only the beginning of an event that led to a more momentous string of operations against the welfare of the American people, including the mass shutdown and ruin of small businesses, the orchestrated George Floyd riots, the year-plus of no school, and the mass mail-in ballot policy that enabled widespread voting fraud, ushering-in the election of Deep State tool “Joe Biden,” with the epic fuckery his handlers later laid on the body politic — including the open border, universal DEI, transsexuals celebrated on the White House lawn, the Ukraine money-laundry, weaponization of law and intel, build-out of the USAID-NGO grift matrix to fund Democratic Party operations, and much more.

Note, too, the concurrent disgrace of the medical establishment that went along with Covid policy. The doctors of America ganged up against the patients of America and broke the Hippocratic oath that says first, do no harm. The doctors went along with the fake mRNA vaccines long after it was evident that the shots didn’t work to prevent the disease and, in fact, induced widespread serious injuries, often fatal. The doctors, who followed the jive treatment protocol of ventilators along with remdesivir, the drug that destroyed patients’ kidneys in a matter of days and killed them. The doctors, whose hospitals collected as much as $35,000 per patient documented as dying from Covid (which was often a lie). The doctors who played dumb about the efficacy of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. The doctors who still won’t admit that the vaccines are producing increased rates of cancer deaths and immune system failure. Sane Americans today now regard their primary care doctors as no better than 18th century quacks operating out of barbershops. Nice going, docs!

(Apart from the colossal racketeering operation that you have enabled medicine to become.)

One abiding mystery in the bigger picture is why Donald Trump never really addressed the evil trip that was laid on him about Covid-19 by Fauci and many others. . . why he has not denounced the whole wicked business. . . why he has not already allowed HHS-Sec’y Robert Kennedy, Jr., to withdraw the Covid vaccine from approval. . . why one David Morens, a Fauci “advisor” is so far the sole official indicted for attempting to cover-up the funding chain for bat coronavirus research?

Perhaps after Dr. Fauci does his ‘splainin’ this Wednesday, President Trump will feel free to come clean about what happened in March and April of 2020 and do some ‘splainin’ of his own.

If he does, prepare for possible widespread head explosions.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/27/2026 - 16:20

BMO Says Return Of Mexican Cattle Is "Clear Positive" For Two Beaten-Down Meatpackers

Following the USDA's announcement that it will begin lifting the year-long ban on Mexican live cattle imports on Aug. 24, BMO Capital Markets senior equity research analyst Andrew Strelzik called the decision a "key positive" for publicly traded meatpackers Tyson Foods and JBS.

The restrictions were imposed to combat the New World screwworm, a flesh-eating parasite that threatens livestock. Restoring Mexican cattle flows should gradually ease tight U.S. supplies, improve slaughterhouse utilization, and support beef-processing margins.

"A combination of recent beef plant closures and the recovery of Mexican cattle imports should create a path to U.S. beef packer margin improvement," Strelzik wrote in a Monday morning note, identifying a potential new tailwind for Tyson Foods and JBS.

Strelzik outlined more color:  

Combination of recent beef plant closures and recovery of Mexico cattle imports should create a path to U.S. beef packer margin improvement.

Specifically, TSN's/ JBS's previously announced beef plant closures remove ~6% of industry slaughter capacity, while a full Mexico border re-opening would add an incremental ~5% of cattle supply. The 10%-11% improvement in cattle supply/slaughter-capacity balance would raise industry plant utilization closer to normal historical levels, though Mexican imports will take time to flow through the supply chain to slaughter, especially given the USDA's phased reopening strategy.

Notably, we estimate Douglas, AZ typically accounts for ~15% of Mexican cattle imports to the U.S. (note the closest active screwworm case is over 300 miles from the port).

There are uncertainties that will impact the pace and magnitude of beef margin recovery, including the rate at which cattle imports ramp and the type of cattle imported (e.g., fat cattle, feeder cattle). That said, the pace of imported Mexican cattle could materially accelerate with the reopening of New Mexico port of entries. In fact, we estimate the two New Mexico ports of entry combined account for just over half of all cattle imports from Mexico to the U.S. While timing is unconfirmed and hurdles will need to be cleared, we would not be surprised if New Mexico ports of entry were to re-open by early fall if the Arizona reopening is successful. Re-opening can be paused if the USDA identifies increased risk via post-opening audits or other observations/ information.

Border re-opening is a clear positive for Outperform-rated TSN and JBS, as meaningful inflection in U.S. beef margins could finally be on the horizon. Every $100mm change in TSN's beef performance has an ~$0.20 EPS impact (~5% of our FY27 EPS estimate), while every $100mm change in JBS's beef EBITDA is equivalent to ~2% of our 2027 EBITDA estimate. While heifer retention has been slow, the combination of plant closures and Mexico re-opening can create a bridge to underlying herd rebuilding. We note that heifers as a percent of slaughter decreased to 36% in June (from 40% previously), falling below the historical average.

Shares of both meatpackers have been pressured in recent months as New World screwworm detections in Texas and elsewhere have intensified concerns about already tight cattle supplies.

Mexican cattle represented about two-thirds of U.S. live cattle imports between 2020 and 2024, but most are lightweight feeder animals that require additional feeding before slaughter. The Aug. 24 reopening will begin at only one Arizona border crossing, meaning additional supply will enter gradually.

The immediate benefit should be lower cattle procurement pressure and improved margins for the meatpackers.

Related:

• Forget Beef. This Protein Is Way Cheaper

Yet beef prices are likely to stay elevated rather than enter a bear market. The U.S. herd remains near multidecade lows, and Bank of America's recent interview with a cattle expert suggested that elevated retail prices could persist for several years. Read the report.

We suspect the Trump administration's decision to restore live cattle imports from Mexico is part of a broader effort to ease food inflation and improve affordability ahead of the midterm elections.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/27/2026 - 15:45

BofA Downplays China's DUV Tool Production Report, Sees Only "Modest Threat" To ASML

ASML Holding NV shares in Amsterdam suffered their steepest decline in more than a year, breaking below the crucial 50-day moving average after The Information reported that a Chinese state-backed company had begun producing immersion deep-ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machines.

The Information did not cite the Shanghai-based company that plans to manufacture about five DUV machines this year and roughly 20 in 2027. The firm reportedly assembled teams from other Chinese chip-equipment firms, including Shanghai Yuliangsheng Technology.

ASML builds lithography machines that print transistor patterns onto silicon wafers. Its DUV machines are considered the workhorses of the semiconductor industry, producing highly advanced chips ranging from DRAM and NAND memory to logic and AI chips, as well as smartphone and automotive processors.

Only three weeks ago, we reported that China's leading memory-chip companies are quickly closing the technology gap with their South Korean chip-producing rivals faster than expected, raising concerns that expanding Chinese production could eventually spark a global memory glut.

First reported here on July 6

China CXMT Testing Production Line for Next-Gen Bonded DRAM, Closing Tech Gap With Korea "Far Faster Than Expected"https://t.co/oHI5VEVDRD https://t.co/93ks5sQAf2

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 27, 2026

China's largest memory company, CXMT, is reportedly testing a pilot line for bonded DRAM in Hefei (the heart of China's semiconductor industry), a technology that manufactures memory cells and peripheral circuitry on separate wafers before joining them. This process could deliver higher density and performance using older deep-ultraviolet lithography equipment, allowing China to reduce its dependence on advanced EUV machines restricted by US export controls.

The company is also developing HBM3 and HBM3E products, pursuing next-generation CXL memory, and preparing for a potential Shanghai listing. Its reported share of the global DRAM market reached 8% during the first quarter of 2026, and Apple is said to be considering CXMT as a supplier.

The US has been probing ASML for many months out of concern that one of its lithography machines ended up in Chinese hands despite US-led export controls.

Bank of America analyst Didier Scemama commented on The Information's report, telling clients:

According to The Information, China may have started production of DUV immersion litho tools. The article suggests that China have brought together immersion DUV development teams from other Chinese companies but warns that DUV advances are still "at an early stage". Yuliansheng Tech allegedly intends to produce 5 DUV tools this year and 20 next year for domestic Chinese customers, including SMIC, CXMT and Hua Hong. Of note, the article indicates that the immersion tools may be using components from both China and Japan, potentially violating export control restrictions.

Scemama continued:

China is a major market for ASML but threat likely modest

The leading domestic player, SMEE, has yet to demonstrate ArFi systems in high-volume production at 28nm or below, while reports of a Chinese EUV breakthrough have not resulted in a commercial product. China remains an important market for ASML, accounting for roughly 20% of group sales and 44% of DUV revenue in 2026. Replacing ASML would require a domestic alternative with comparable productivity, overlay and cost of ownership. That remains a high hurdle. ASML's NXT:1980Fi already delivers 330 wafers per hour and 2.5nm machine-matched overlay, while successive generations have further improved overlay performance. In leading-edge Chinese logic manufacturing, where EUV is unavailable and multiple patterning is required, even modest reductions in scanner performance could materially lower yields and increase cost per die.

. . .

We think today's weakness is an over-reaction and see current levels as an attractive opportunity.

Domestic DUV machines could eventually increase DRAM and NAND production in China, strengthening suppliers such as CXMT and YMTC while helping alleviate the global memory crunch. The report also suggests that ASML's long-term competitive position could face growing pressure, while the leverage exerted by US and Western export controls over China's access to advanced chips and chipmaking equipment could erode. 

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/27/2026 - 15:30

US Treasury Sells $139BN In Two Polar Opposite Auctions: A Stellar 2Y And A Dismal 5Y

Ahead of Wednesday's FOMC decision (where according to SOFR futures, the odds of a rate hike are a significant 38%, even as most traders expect no action by the Fed), we had the week's first two coupon auctions take place according to an abbreviated schedule, with the sale of $69BN in 2Y notes taking place at 11:30am, followed by $70BN in 5Y notes. And while the former was unexpectedly strong, the latter was one of the ugliest 5Y auctions in years.

Here are the details.

The 2Y auction priced at a high yield of 4.315%, up from 4.189%, and the highest since December 2024. More importantly, it stopped through the 4.320% When Issued by 0.5bps, the third stop through in a row, and the highest since January. 

The bid to cover was solid, at 2.662, it was also the highest since January. 

The internals were likewise solid, with Indirects taking down 56.6%, up from 55.5%, if below the recent average of 58.2%. And with Directs awarded 34.1%, roughly flat with 34.3% last month, Dealers were left with just 9.4% of the auction, the lowest since January. 

But if the 2Y auction was strong - and thus an indication that at least the primary bond buyers don't expect any imminent rate hikes - the 5Y auction was a dismal mirror image.

The bond priced at a high yield of 4.408%, a big jump from 4.20% in June and the highest since December '24. It also tailed the When Issued 4.399% by 0.9bps, which made it an unprecedented 14th tailing auction in a row, and the biggest tail since March.

The bid to cover was worse: it dropped to 2.282, the lowest in almost 5 years, since Sept 22. 

The internals were just as ugly, with foreign demand sliding to just 59.24%, the lowest Indirects award since July 2025. And with Directs awarded 27.22%, the most since January, Dealers were left holding 13.5%, the highest since March.

In short, today's two auctions - which took place within 90 minutes of each other - couldn't be more different. The impressive 2Y showed remarkable buyside demand, while the dismal 5Y auction, separated by just 3 years in maturity, was one of the ugliest auctions for the tenor in years. Whether it is because someone expects inflation to spike aggressively 3-5 years from today (but not in under 2 years), or just jitters ahead of the Fed, remains to be seen, and when we get next week's 3Y auction, we will have a much better sense of what drove the striking divergence in today's two auctions. 

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/27/2026 - 15:15

Flashback: Fauci Funded Technique To Hide Evidence Of Genetic Engineering According To RFK Jr.

Four years ago, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made an accusation that got him shadowbanned, "fact-checked," and dismissed as a crank: that Anthony Fauci's NIAID had bankrolled the development of a laboratory technique whose primary utility was erasing the fingerprints of human engineering from a manipulated virus - and that the technique was then handed to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

With Fauci's personal diaries now public, Tulsi Gabbard's last-day document dump on the record, Ralph Baric stripped of his NIH grants and placed on leave by UNC, and Fauci himself scheduled to appear under subpoena before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee this Wednesday at 8:30 a.m., Kennedy's remarks are worth revisiting.

Here's what he said:

"He [Fauci] funded Ralph Baric to develop a technique called seamless ligation. And that is a technique for hiding the engineering project."

"So, normally, when you do that kind of engineering, you can see it, and you can say, 'That bug was created in a lab.'"

"He [Baric] developed a way of hiding all traces [of what] was developed. And he taught that to the Chinese scientists - to Shi Zhengli."

"There is no public health [reason for this]; it is the OPPOSITE of what you would do if you are interested in public health... To teach people how to hide that only has a nefarious purpose."

RFK Jr. says Fauci funded a technique used for HIDING human fingerprints on lab-created bugs.

The technique is called “seamless ligation.”

Kennedy explains the only reason anyone would try to hide where a bug came from would be for a “NEFARIOUS purpose.”

"He [Fauci] funded… pic.twitter.com/B8rBc669q0

— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) July 27, 2026

Kennedy made the same argument repeatedly around the release of The Real Anthony Fauci, and his complaint was never just that gain-of-function research is dangerous - everyone concedes that now, including the virologists. It was narrower: that U.S. taxpayers paid to develop, and then export, a capability whose only obvious application is defeating attribution.

What "Seamless Ligation" Actually Is

The technique is published, peer-reviewed, sitting on the National Institutes of Health's own servers, and was openly boasted about for the better part of two decades.

Assembling a full-length coronavirus genome from smaller synthetic fragments requires cutting and pasting DNA. Conventional restriction enzymes leave behind junction sequences - "scars" - at every splice point. Those scars are the tell. Line up the genome, spot the regularly spaced artificial seams, and you can say with confidence that a human being built the thing.

Baric's lab solved that problem. Using Type IIS restriction enzymes - which cut outside their own recognition sequence - his team developed an assembly method that leaves no residual site at the junction. The finished genome reads as though it were never cut at all.

Baric's own lab nicknamed it the "No See'm" method - and the full protocol was published in 2008 by Eric Donaldson, Amy Sims and Ralph Baric as Systematic Assembly and Genetic Manipulation of the Mouse Hepatitis Virus A59 Genome in Springer's Methods in Molecular Biology series. Its abstract describes demonstrating "the power of this unique site-directed 'No See'm' mutagenesis approach." "No See'm technology" is listed among the paper's official keywords. The underlying assembly platform had been laid out six years earlier in the Journal of Virology.

The stated scientific rationale is efficiency: no scars means no unwanted mutations at the junctions, and mutants can be generated fast. But efficiency and untraceability are, here, the same property. A seamlessly assembled synthetic genome is indistinguishable from a naturally circulating strain, which is what the method was built to achieve.

Kennedy has put the NIAID funding figure at roughly $212 million to $220 million flowing to Baric over the course of his career.

Meanwhile, Baric was the researcher most affected by the Obama administration's 2014 gain-of-function pause as noted by NPR in "How A Tilt Toward Safety Stopped A Scientist's Virus Research" - and that he was America's foremost coronavirus biologist on the federal dime. Baric and Shi Zhengli went on to co-author the 2015 chimera study in Nature Medicine that the journal was later forced to flag with an editor's note.

In Light Of Fauci's Diary...

Kennedy's longstanding claim is that evidence COVID-19 was man-made was engineered away. 

Baric confirmed the furin cleavage site was his job. In a voluntary transcribed interview with Sen. Rand Paul's staff in April, released this week, Baric - co-author of the 2018 DEFUSE proposal, key contributor to NIAID-funded work in Wuhan - confirmed that the furin cleavage site insertion described in that proposal was his assignment. Per Paul's Reading Room, he also confirmed running an experiment that undercuts the core scientific defense of natural origin, and still cannot explain how he ended up on the February 1, 2020 call with Fauci and the authors of "Proximal Origin."

Fauci's diary shows he knew on day one. The entries Paul released this weekend record that on January 31, 2020 - before most Americans had heard the phrase "lab leak" - Jeremy Farrar patched Fauci into a call with Kristian Andersen and Eddie Holmes about the SARS-CoV-2 furin cleavage site. Fauci's own contemporaneous note: they raised "the possibility that this could have been deliberately inserted and either accidentally released or deliberately released by a crazy person in the lab, the former being the most likely." Roughly half the scientists on that initial call thought the virus looked constructed. Days later, Fauci was on Newt Gingrich's podcast dismissing lab-origin questions: "I've heard these conspiracy theories. And like all conspiracy theories, Newt, they're just conspiracy theories."

A national lab said the same thing in writing. Gabbard's June 18 declassification included an eight-page May 27, 2020 assessment from Lawrence Livermore's International Assessments program concluding that "all of the necessary conditions for an accidental release of a laboratory-modified coronavirus - specifically a coronavirus adapted to recognize human cell receptors - were present" at the WIV in mid-to-late 2019. The documents are online.

Fauci says he expected their Gain of Function guy would say they shouldn't waste time looking at deliberate insertion? "Of course the virus mad scientist guy would say we shouldn't look into the virus mad scientist angle"?

WHAT pic.twitter.com/ci5JTT8TLT

— Cthocas (@cthocas) July 25, 2026

And Baric's career is over. As Paul Thacker noted, NIH has quietly removed Baric from all his grants; UNC has placed him on leave and refused to cooperate with federal document requests. Jeffrey Sachs - who chaired the Lancet COVID commission - now points at Baric directly. Robert Redfield told RCI he briefed Mike Pompeo in a SCIF in early 2020: "Mike, this is the smoking gun. This virus came from a lab."

A senior HHS official put it to RCI more bluntly: "Baric designed the gun. But the Chinese built it, and then they pulled the trigger."

The Fingerprint That Wasn't Erased

Kennedy himself never argued the erasure was total - noting a preprint arguing that Baric's fingerprints were visible after all. In October 2022, Valentin Bruttel, Alex Washburne and Antonius VanDongen posted a preprint titled Endonuclease fingerprint indicates a synthetic origin of SARS-CoV-2. Their argument: the SARS-CoV-2 genome contains an oddly regular pattern of BsaI and BsmBI restriction sites - exactly the spacing you'd want for efficient lab dis- and re-assembly, and an anomaly among wild coronaviruses. They found the pattern "more likely a product of synthetic genome assembly than natural evolution."

The preprint was aggressively contested and never formally published. If it holds, the implication is that whoever assembled the virus was less careful than the man who taught the technique.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/27/2026 - 14:45

Mapping SpaceX's Lockup Expirations: HSBC Calculates When The Shares Could Hit The Market

As of early Monday cash trading in New York, SpaceX shares were hovering near an all-time low of $110.21 after briefly dipping into the $108 handle. The rocket/AI company bonds have also come under pressure, leaving investors searching for signs of where the post-IPO selloff might finally find a proper floor.

SPCX LOD (and all time low) 110.21 https://t.co/RMbpm3ogyF

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 27, 2026

Even a bullish note from Deutsche Bank analyst Edison Yu failed to correct increasing bearish sentiment. Yu's post-mortem concluded that Starship Flight 13 demonstrated "solid progress" toward full reusability, but the note was not enough to spark any meaningful wave of dip-buying.

One immediate overhang in the stock may be the quickly approaching lockup expirations. Traders appear reluctant to step in front of a potential tsunami of newly eligible shares that could dramatically expand the public float and put further pressure on the struggling stock.

HSBC analysts Nicolas Cote-Colisson and Charlie Rothbarth recently provided clients with a roadmap of SpaceX's lockup expirations. The first major release could make about 912 million shares eligible for public sale on Aug. 6, just two days after the company's first quarterly earnings report.

The unlock would expand SpaceX's free float to 11.8% from 4.9%, compared with roughly 639 million shares currently available for trading, creating a potentially significant supply overhang.

Here's more color from the analysts on the lockup schedule:

Investors should also consider potential share release post-lockup

SpaceX's IPO prospectus indicated that 555,555,555 shares would be issued to constitute the free float. We understand that the underwriters have exercised their option to purchase additional shares of Class A common stock in full, so the free float would have extended to 638,888,888 shares.

We identify 4,678m locked up shares and another 8,160m shares subject to an extended lockup. Based on the information provided by the SpaceX prospectus dated 12 June 2026, we calculate that 912m shares could be available for sale in the public market from 6 August 2026, compared with 640m shares constituting the free float at present. The free float would increase from 4.9% at present to 11.8%.

Another release event could occur on the same day depending on SpaceX shares trading above USD175.5 for at least five of 10 consecutive trading days ending on 4 August 2026 (i.e. between 22 July and 4 August 2026). The table below provides further event/date triggers for subsequent share releases.

Those restricted shares are currently owned by funds and individuals that have participated in the private rounds of financing and may be inclined to keep their shares. But we think investors should be aware of this.

via HSBC

One institutional trading desk we spoke with said it plans to wait for the lockup expirations before starting a position in the stock.

Professional subscribers can find more color on SPCX here at our new Marketdesk.ai portal.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/27/2026 - 14:05

Gold Isn't Returning... Confidence Is Leaving

Authored by Mark St.Cyr via AmericanThinker.com,

Most people are framing the conversation regarding gold wrong.

They talk about gold making a comeback -- as though the metal changed. As though something happened to gold.

Nothing happened to gold. Gold is exactly what it has always been.

What's changed is the environment around it. And that distinction matters enormously, because it tells you where to look for better insights.

For decades, people treated fiat currency as the unquestioned foundation of global finance. Gold became an afterthought -- an inflation hedge, a crisis trade, insurance against events sophisticated investors assumed would never arrive. The system ran on confidence, and confidence was abundant. When confidence is abundant, nobody examines the collateral.

However: when confidence erodes, collateral suddenly matters again.

That is what is happening now. Not suddenly. Not dramatically. Systemically.

Central banks have been quietly adding gold reserves for years. Governments have grown uncomfortable with the political risk embedded in foreign currency holdings. Institutional investors are revisiting strategic allocations they long considered settled. Discussions have surfaced around gold-backed sovereign debt. Tokenization is making physical ownership practical inside a digital financial system.

Taken individually, none of this looks like a revolution. Taken together, it looks like a system beginning to search for a more trusted foundation.

The conventional gold debate obsesses over inflation forecasts, Federal Reserve policy, and price targets. That framing misses the structural issue entirely. Gold is not becoming more valuable because its characteristics changed. Its characteristics have been constant for centuries. What changed is how much those characteristics matter in the environment we now occupy.

Every period of monetary history forces the same question eventually: what asset sits outside the promises of everyone else? That question grows more urgent as sovereign debt expands, fiscal flexibility narrows, and geopolitical relationships become less predictable. In that environment, neutrality acquires real value. Gold carries no national allegiance, no corporate balance sheet, no counterparty obligation. Those qualities have always existed. Markets are simply beginning to price them again.

Although gold-backed money deserves serious consideration -- not as nostalgia, but as a return to the classical gold standard -- it remains highly improbable. Modern governments have little incentive to surrender the flexibility fiat systems afford them. The realistic scenario is quieter than that. Gold gradually resumes its role as a reference asset. Not circulating currency. Not legal tender. But foundational collateral, increasingly preferred when confidence elsewhere continues to weaken. This is what appears to be happening far away from all the sell-side headlines.

What makes this moment worth watching is the self-reinforcing nature of the process. Higher demand supports higher prices. Higher prices strengthen balance sheets. Stronger balance sheets make additional gold ownership easier to justify. Broader institutional acceptance encourages wider adoption. Wider adoption generates further demand. These are not isolated developments. They are feedback loops.

Today, whether this ever produces a formal gold-backed currency is secondary. The primary insight is: people and governments are actively adjusting the value of confidence. Quietly. Through behavior, not announcement. History repeatedly shows that monetary transitions rarely begin with a declaration. They begin when participants start acting differently -- and by the time the new consensus becomes obvious, most of the adjustment has already occurred.

So the right question is not whether gold deserves renewed attention. The right question is why increasingly sophisticated institutions believe it does -- and what that tells us about the system they are quietly hedging against.

That answer has nothing to do with nostalgia.

It has everything to do with architecture.

Financial systems are based on confidence.

When confidence begins to fragment, participants seek assets that require the fewest assumptions.

Gold has occupied that position before -- not because governments demanded it, but because markets eventually preferred it.

And while goldbugs wait, there is now an option to collect as much as 4% yield on physical, paid out as additional ounces of physical gold, something our friends at Monetary Metals have been perfecting for years.

Gold is not asking for a larger role in the current system.

The current system may be assigning it one.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/27/2026 - 13:45

The Upcoming AI Spend Slowdown?

Submitted by Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

We have been attacking this issue orthogonally for the past few weeks.

• Last weekend’s Cheap China Compute brought up several issues facing the AI Spend.
• On Thursday we published Braggawatts (which should probably be BragCompute or something), but the concept is that a lot of the announced deals are missing some, or all of the following:
  • Enough electricity, especially at peak usage times, to fulfill their commitments.
  • Access to water and other resources to function.
  • Getting the various chips on time, connected and installed (hearing China is threatening to restrict exports of fiber-optic cables (another, in a long list of reasons why the U.S. (and others) need to pursue ProSec™).
  • Municipal, State, or even Federal regulatory approval (to the extent they are necessary).

To the extent this is true (and we also see construction cost overruns and delays) this is probably good for credit spreads, but negative for equity valuations.

Indirectly, we have been addressing two issues, for even longer. While these issues have been in the background, they are rising to the forefront more quickly than anticipated:

• Market structure (ETFs, leveraged ETFs, 0DTE options, etc.).
• The need for the AI industry to rapidly adopt far better community outreach! Our somewhat silly, AI-generated, picture of workers (dressed for casual Friday), carrying torches, storming a data center, seems less silly by the day. The AI Revolution is growing faster than we thought and is already influencing state and local politics coming into the midterms.
  • While it might be easy to ignore New York State’s recent “moratorium” (though be careful doing that, as upstate New York is far less “liberal” than New York City), it is more difficult to ignore the change in Texas.
  • Governor Abbott now seems to be discussing a “prohibition in rural neighborhoods.” That goes beyond previous discussions introducing rules around electricity, water, noise, etc. This is a far cry from when the Governor was attempting to make Texas a dominant hub for AI and datacenters!

It is quite possible we won’t see a slowdown in AI spending (that still seems to be what markets are pricing in), but the case that this narrative experiences a serious “hiccup” is growing.

The Market is Always Right

Since I spend half my time trying to fight markets, I’m not sure I agree with that, but it seemed like a good way to highlight 3 important things that happened late this week. Yes, the Philadelphia Semiconductor index bounced back this week (up 1.2%), but the Nasdaq 100 slumped 1.6%.

• INTC earnings seemed great. I don’t attempt to forecast earnings, but when the earnings hit the tape, virtually everyone I trust on social media and traditional media seemed to view them as very positive. Yet INTC dropped about 8% on Friday.
• On Wednesday, Anthropic and AMD announced a deal. Maybe I’m confused, but it seems to me that a month or two ago, that sort of announcement would have been very positive for AMD stock. Yet AMD stock fell 5.4% from Wednesday’s close.
• On Thursday, ORCL announced a $7 billion deal with the Pentagon. Seems impressive (and very much in line with our ProSec thesis). Yet, ORCL hit a 52-week low on Friday, falling on both Thursday and Friday.

At “best” this is telling us that the market is setting a very high bar for further upside.

At “worst” it is telling us that positioning is overly long, and it elevates our market structure concerns.

What Goes Up Must Come Down?

The inflows into the semiconductor space have been quite incredible.

Source: Bloomberg Finance L.P. (SOXX US Equity — iShares Semiconductor ETF)

It is difficult to look at this chart and not see:

• A decent correlation between inflows and performance (momentum and the narrative have worked hand in hand to bolster the market).
• A chart that looks “parabolic” in nature, which is always concerning (at least to me).

SOXX assets under management grew from $20 billion at the end of March to over $47 billion (a combination of price and inflows). Some serious wealth effect.

SOXL hasn’t had the same pace of inflows (it has had outflows since the rally began in April). But this 3X leveraged ETF has assets of $20 billion, representing $60 billion that needs to be rebalanced daily (the bigger the move up, the more it has to buy; conversely, the bigger the move down, the more it has to sell). That daily rebalancing is separate from inflows or outflows.

This combination of ETFs (and other ETFs focused on semis, including a large number of single stock leveraged ETFs) adds to my concern.

Distilling

Not the fun kind of distilling (which you may need after reading this report), but the “distilling” Chinese AI is using to speed their model “training” and make their “training” far cheaper is a real concern. You are seeing the U.S. government examining what can be done about this.

We will get into more detail on this later this week, as I’m having several conversations with Academy’s GIG members on this subject.

Increasingly I’m worried we are seeing a “rinse and repeat” for China:

• Flood the market with cheap “something” (in this case compute).
  • Maybe the “thing” isn’t as good, but it is so darn cheap, it is tempting.
  • Maybe it is cheap due to a variety of factors (unfair government support, loose (if any) enforcement of Intellectual Property protection, etc.).
• Use that pricing power to slow global competition.
• Add in some legitimate advantages China has (no concept of NIMBY, a decade or more of rapid expansion of energy production and their grid, their own legit Intellectual Property, and the production, at scale, of a variety of lower level, but useful chips).

As much emphasis as Academy has placed on ProSec™, I’m fearful that we underestimated the potential for Cheap Chinese Compute to disrupt not just our AI/Data Center Industry, but also at some level, our National Security.

This “Is It Worth It?” Narrative Shift

The media is an incredible source of information. I incredibly value my engagement with media. Not just the brief moments in front of the camera or the microphone, but all the discussions we have. Some on background. Some on views that never get published. That has been incredibly helpful, but one other thing has been of incredible use to me as a strategist:

• Seeing the shift in the media narrative before it plays out.

If you don’t think the media influences markets, you can skip this section.

What I see (and experience) are “cycles” that develop over time.

A few weeks/months ago, the media wasn’t that interested in negative stories on the AI Spend (except maybe to highlight troubles in the bond market).

Then, no strategist or analyst wanted to be involved in negative stories on the space, because it was dead wrong, at least based on stock prices.

But I believe I can “sense” a shift in what is being asked, what is being published, and more importantly, what is going to become the narrative!

This affects everyone from CEOs to strategists. What CEO was going to say they might slow down spending (either on the build-out, or the use side)? Could any CEO really say, “we’ve been seeing our token costs increase, and despite trying to use this stuff (that apparently everyone else is having success with), we are struggling to get a lot of value out of it (we discussed simple Return on Investment as a potential issue in Thursday’s report).

Any CEO who was willing to do that might as well have branded Luddite on their forehead and waited for their stock to crash as “everyone knows you need to be using AI.”

Yet, we’ve mentioned this, but one conference organizer’s comments are worth repeating.

• In 2025 AI sessions were wildly popular and received high scores.
• In 2026, attendees wanted case studies and examples (which I tend to think means that they have been experimenting, with limited success).

Source: Bloomberg Finance L.P. (SDLLMTN Index — Silicon Data LLM Token Expenditure Index)

I will admit that I don’t have a good grasp of how accurate this chart is, but it sounds cool. The token expenditure index has fallen further since the first time we published this. It is possible token use is increasing, only if they are buying cheaper tokens.

The reality is that this chart may support my “trying but frustrated” view, that many people seem to be experiencing (at least anecdotally and in private conversations).

How many people out there are thinking:

• Finally!
• Whew, I’m really happy it isn’t just me!
• I told you so!

None of this means that AI and Data Centers are not useful. They are useful and will continue to see their usage and adoption grow. But…

• Are current growth expectations too high? That seems possible.
• Are valuations susceptible to changes in growth sentiment, coupled with market structure? Seems possible as well.

The voice of those questioning the current utility and cost of that utility, and therefore growth is likely to rise in the coming weeks, which would be a headwind for valuations.

Bottom Line

It is completely valid to have the following thoughts at the same time (at least I hope it is valid, because these are my thoughts):

• AI and Data Center usage will continue to grow.
• The onslaught of Cheap Chinese Compute is not good for profit margins of the providers, or the picks and shovels.
• Plans to build out compute may be far less feasible than previously thought, once again changing the profit margin outlook going forward.
• While useful, the cost to use AI has increased, and it is unclear that there is widespread belief that the cost vs benefit is truly there given today’s technology and prices. Investments in technology based on “Fear of Missing Out” may slow, if companies don’t fear they are missing out.
• The media narrative may shift rapidly too, giving their bears a bigger stage to express their concerns.
• The importance of leveraged ETFs in the AI Spend/Data Center space (add in Nasdaq 100, etc.) certainly helped propel stocks higher (which people seem to ignore), and it will amplify any sell-off (and already has).

From an investment standpoint:

• Buy bonds in the space! Spreads are wide. Given Credit Default Swap activity, one can assume there are decent short positions that have been built (always a nice catalyst if direction reverses). Money managers across the globe are “making room” to absorb the “certain onslaught of new issuance.” All it takes is for someone on the build side to “flinch.” Not even going on the full Debt Diet, but cautioning on how much they will spend how quickly. Maybe it won’t happen, but while we may not be facing a “perfect storm” for the space, there are a lot of risks that don’t seem fully priced in yet.
• Buy “completed projects.” Companies with projects that are completed or nearly completed will have a competitive advantage if we see any slowdown.
• Be cautious on equities in the space. All are great companies. Almost all fit into our ProSec™ narrative. But valuations may be questioned, and as we’ve seen in these markets, prices move fast when they start to move.

Iran is my biggest concern for Treasuries. Not just the energy price inflation, but also the need for countries to spend more on defense. Even in the Middle East, countries that once gobbled up Treasuries are facing their own economic slowdown, while seeing their need to spend increase. I should probably throw in the towel for rate cuts before hikes. But, and this remains a big but, if we do see spending on the AI / Data Centers slow at all, that will help on the inflation front and will put a question mark on jobs, as so much of what has been driving the economy on the positive side is related to the Capex spending in this area! Maybe the market will just put all these questions on hold, until the end of the summer, but it doesn’t have that sort of feeling!

Hope you are all able to get some vacation with friends and family this summer, while only having to keep one eye glued to markets!

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/27/2026 - 13:05

Deep State In "Fight To The Death" To Defend Voter Fraud

Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

Journalist Alex Newman is an expert on the so-called Deep State.  He is the author of the longtime popular book “Deep State” and, most recently, “Deep State 2.0.” 

The Deep State is not a conspiracy theory.  It is a conspiracy fact. 

This year, the Deep State will be going to war with the Trump Administration to hold onto the voter fraud that has won them elections for many years.  Without voter fraud, Deep State Democrats lose and lose big in the midterms.  They are fighting every way they can to keep the cheating going.  

The Trump Administration is threatening fines and jail time if the Dems in Blue States “Refuse to Cooperate to Secure Elections.”  It is so bad that Harvard PhD and political expert Dr. Jerome Corsi says President Trump must “Stop Voter Fraud or Lose the Republic.”  The fight is going to get much more intense and violent before the midterm elections in November. 

Alex Newman says:

“Voter integrity is one of the arenas where this fight to the death is taking place. 

We are going to determine in the not-so-distant future if the Deep State and those who hate America and our Constitutional Republic are going to control the most powerful military and most powerful economy in the world, or are ‘We the People’ going to exert control over the government we created to protect our liberties?  

It will be a fight to the death. 

There is no option these two can end up with control of the government.  We have a long fight ahead.”

This is no small thing as the very existence of America hangs in the balance in November.  Newman says, “I don’t think the Left, the Deep Staters or totalitarians are going to roll over and play dead here..."

"They realize everything is at stake, and if they get caught, a lot of them are going to end up in jail...

We are talking about treason, and that is a key point to understand.  This is not just a little crime, a misdemeanor or steering government contracts to your brother-in-law.  This is an effort to subvert our form of government...

President Trump made it very clear that this is not just a domestic subversive movement.  He made clear there are international forces involved such as communist China very directly . . . as one of the players to rig our elections...

President Trump spoke about how Deep State swamp creatures within the intelligence agencies and law enforcement deliberately suppressed the information they had about communist China trying to manipulate and steal our elections.  What we are talking about, to be very clear, is treason.  It’s an effort to seize control or perpetuate control over the most powerful country on the face of the earth.”

If the Deep State loses total control, Newman says you can expect the very worst.  Newman explains,

“I believe there is a very good chance that this goes nuclear. 

That might be the Iranians trying to launch a nuke . . . or the Russians trying to use a nuke, or it could be the communist Chinese using a nuke. 

I think that is a very real possibility, especially if it looks like the whole thing is going to unravel and Americans are going to regain control of their country.”

The Deep State has tentacles all over the world, including the International Criminal Court, the UN and politicians installed in governments of many of our so-called allies.

In closing, Newman says, “I think we all need to be involved, and we all need to be praying for the President..."

"  In fact, the Bible commands us to pray for those in authority whether you like them or not.  We need to recognize this is much bigger than a personality and much bigger than a party.  Please recognize that right now, President Trump, his Administration and the Hand of God are the only things standing between the people of the United States with our liberties and constitutional form of government and a global totalitarian political, economic and religious system that they have been telling us about openly for decades. . ..   We better hope Trump succeeds and do everything in our power to help him succeed.  

One of the key milestones is making sure we have a secure 2026 Election. . .. We are playing for all the marbles.  That is a very good way to put it.  If Donald Trump is not successful, I don’t know if we are going to have another opportunity to stop this . . .. controlled demolition of America.”

There is much more in the jam-packed 43-minute interview.

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog as he goes One-on-One with hard-hitting journalist Alex Newman to talk about the stunning new Deep State revelations found in his new book called “Deep State 2.0” and the fight to the death coming for voter integrity coming this November for 7.25.26.

To order “Deep State 2.0” click here.

To support Alex Newman with electronic donations, click here.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/27/2026 - 12:25

BlackRock Says Crypto Can Outrun The Quantum Threat... If It Moves Fast Enough

Authored by Mathew Di Salvo via BitcoinMagazine.com,

BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, has chimed in on the crypto-quantum debate - and is surprisingly optimistic.

The firm, which manages over $15 trillion in assets, said in its new report, Quantum Computing and Blockchains, that upgrading existing cryptography to quantum-resistant standards is a far easier task than actually building a functional quantum computer capable of breaking that cryptography. 

“In our view, PQ migration for cryptocurrencies is eminently addressable from a technical standpoint, and the key challenge is one of timely coordination and implementation,” the report read. 

The crypto community has sounded the alarm about hypothetical advancements in quantum computers that could in the future be able to break Bitcoin’s cryptography. Some in the space — including Bitcoin developers — have started preparing for a post-quantum future by testing quantum-resistant signatures on live sidechains. 

Quantum computers do exist but make mistakes and a machine that can break Bitcoin’s cryptography currently does not exist.

Bitcoin currently is the biggest computer network in existence. 

BlackRock has skin in the game after having debuted in 2024 spot Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded funds. BlackRock’s Bitcoin fund had the most successful launch in the history of the ETF industry. 

BlackRock boss Larry Fink has also talked of Bitcoin being “digital gold” and an “international asset” and has spoken about how crypto networks can help tokenize everything. 

JUST IN: Michael Saylor announces Strategy, BlackRock, Fidelity and Coinbase are pledging $15 million to support open source Bitcoin development "for the decades ahead." 🚀 pic.twitter.com/W5q60ph9n3

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 23, 2026 BlackRock’s views on Bitcoin 

The report said that while solutions exist for protecting Bitcoin against quantum computers — it is technically simple to upgrade — coordination is hard given the cryptocurrency’s decentralized, consensus-driven development.

BlackRock noted that about 35% of circulating Bitcoin’s supply is potentially vulnerable to certain attack types due to exposed public keys, and 11-19% may be permanently lost regardless of migration.

Along with crypto bigwigs like Coinbase, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Block, BlackRock on Thursday announced a new Bitcoin Security Consortium aimed at donating funds to engineers to help their open-source work supporting proposals like BIP-360.

The asset manager added in the report that while BIP-360 is a credible, well-designed piece of a larger puzzle, it stopped short of calling it the solution. Still, it added that Bitcoin and other crypto networks had the advantage. 

“That said, it is a much less daunting task to upgrade current cryptographic systems (including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others) to a quantum-secure standard than it is to build a CRQC from where quantum computing progress stands today,” the report noted. 

“Thus, advantage remains decidedly with the defense, at the current juncture.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/27/2026 - 11:45

Key Events This Busy Week: FOMC, PCE, GDP, War On/War Off... And Earnings Galore

Before we look at the week ahead, a quick look at the main event that defines the market this Monday morning: after 13 consecutive nights of US strikes aimed at degrading Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping, Washington has refrained from further attacks since late Friday, while Tehran has publicly stated that it has also suspended retaliatory operations. The pause falls short of a formal ceasefire, but both sides are presenting it as an opportunity for diplomacy, with Omani-mediated talks continuing over the weekend focused on navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. US officials, including UN Ambassador Mike Waltz, have stressed that all military options remain on the table and that President Trump is simply giving negotiations more space. However, reports from the New York Times and Axios suggest an active debate within the administration over both the effectiveness and costs of further strikes, with some military officials reportedly arguing that key objectives have largely been achieved. For now, the market is treating the lull as a positive development, although the situation remains highly fluid.

The main market risk remains the energy and shipping front. Traffic through Hormuz remains severely disrupted, while the conflict has broadened into the Red Sea, where Iran-backed Houthi forces reportedly launched missile and drone attacks against Saudi energy infrastructure around Jizan and Yanbu over the weekend, prompting retaliatory Saudi strikes. This raises the prospect of simultaneous disruption to both Gulf and Red Sea export routes. So a welcome pause from the main actors but a fragile one, especially with side battles still ongoing.

However there is no doubt the weekend news is positive and this morning Brent crude prices are around -4.5% lower to $92.42  and 10yr USTs are down -4.5bps. S&P 500 futures are up +0.71% with Nasdaq futures gaining +1.17%.

With that in mind, let's now look ahead, and as more and more of the financial world steps off the ever-turning carousel of market news and disappears towards sunnier shores, a busy global week lies ahead, with central bank decisions, major economic releases and a heavy slate of corporate earnings all competing for investors’ attention. The Federal Reserve meeting concluding on Wednesday remains the standout event, but investors will also hear from the Bank of England (Thursday) and the Bank of Japan (Friday). Meanwhile, key economic releases include US Q2 GDP and June core PCE inflation (both Thursday), Euro Area Q2 GDP and July inflation data (Thursday/Friday), Japan’s Tokyo CPI (Friday) and China’s official PMIs (Friday). Adding to the significance of the week, four of the world’s most influential companies — Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Amazon, which together account for 17% of the S&P 500—will report earnings, with the first two on Wednesday and the latter two a day later.

The headline event of course comes with the FOMC meeting (Wednesday), where DB economists continue to expect the Fed to leave rates unchanged. However, the decision appears unusually finely balanced. The renewed escalation in the Middle East and the sharp rise in energy prices have complicated the inflation outlook, while recent market-based measures of inflation compensation have moved higher as concerns around energy supply disruptions have intensified. Against that backdrop, policymakers face a difficult trade-off between evidence that inflation had been moderating and growing signs that higher oil prices could create a more persistent inflation shock.

It’s rare for a Fed meeting to be this finely balanced so close to the decision. Futures are still assigning a 34% probability to a rate hike this week (-4pps overnight in Asia), a level of uncertainty we seldom see at such a late stage. During the post-Covid hiking cycle, markets did receive a steer via the financial press during the blackout period if the Fed was considering a surprise move. Under the current regime, that appears far less likely.

The Fed decision will sit in the middle of several important data releases. Durable goods orders (today) and the advance goods trade balance (tomorrow) will help shape expectations for the first estimate of Q2 GDP (Thursday). Economists expect annualized GDP growth of 1.9% in Q2. Although this would mark a downgrade from earlier estimates, much of the weakness reflects a drag from net exports linked to strong AI-related imports. Beneath the surface, domestic demand remains considerably healthier. Indeed, DB's economists expect final sales to private domestic purchasers, their preferred measure of underlying demand, to rise by a robust 3.3%, which would be the strongest reading since Q3 2024.

Attention will then turn to inflation. The June personal income and spending report (Thursday) includes the latest reading of core PCE, the Fed's preferred inflation gauge. DB economists expect core PCE to increase by 0.19% month-on-month, which would leave the annual rate at 3.3% assuming no significant revisions. That will be followed by the Employment Cost Index (Friday), one of the Fed's preferred measures of labor cost pressures. Economists expect the annual growth rate to remain at 3.4%, a level many policymakers would still view as broadly consistent with returning inflation towards target over time.

Alongside the macro data, earnings season moves into a critical phase. Around 35% of the S&P 500's market capitalization is scheduled to report this week. Technology will dominate attention, with Microsoft and Meta releasing results (Wednesday), followed by Apple and Amazon (Thursday). Together, those companies account for 17% of the S&P 500 and will help determine whether investor enthusiasm around AI-related spending remains intact. Elsewhere, notable US earnings releases include Visa and Mastercard in financials, ExxonMobil and Chevron in energy, and Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble in consumer staples.

In Europe, attention will be split between monetary policy and inflation. The Bank of England announces its latest policy decision (Thursday), and economists expect Bank Rate to remain unchanged at 3.75%, accompanied by a 7-2 vote split. 

On the data side, Germany and Spain release flash July CPI figures (Thursday), before France, Italy and the Euro Area publish their inflation readings (Friday). DB's European economists expect Euro Area headline HICP inflation to rise to 3.0% from 2.8%, while core HICP is forecast to edge higher to 2.52% from 2.36%. The Euro Area's preliminary Q2 GDP estimate is also due (Thursday), while Germany's Ifo survey (today) should provide an updated read on business sentiment.

In Asia, the Bank of Japan decision (Friday) will be the key event. Here, economists expect policymakers to keep their current policy settings unchanged. Japan will also release Tokyo CPI, retail sales, industrial production, labor market data and housing starts (all Friday), offering a comprehensive snapshot of the economy at the start of the third quarter. In China, the official manufacturing and non-manufacturing PMIs (Friday) will provide the latest evidence on growth momentum. Elsewhere, Australia's June CPI report (Wednesday) will be closely watched for indications about the Reserve Bank's policy path. 

Courtesy of DB, here is a day by day preview of the week ahead.

Monday July 27

• Data: US June durable goods orders, July Dallas Fed manufacturing activity, Japan June PPI services, China June industrial profits, Germany July Ifo survey, Eurozone June M3
• Earnings: LVMH, AstraZeneca, Welltower, Cadence Design Systems, Celestica
• Auctions: US 2-yr Notes ($69bn), 5-yr Notes ($70bn)

Tuesday July 28

• Data: US June advance goods trade balance, wholesale inventories, July Conference Board consumer confidence index, Richmond Fed manufacturing index, business conditions, Dallas Fed services activity, May FHFA house price index, France July consumer confidence, Q2 total jobseekers
• Earnings: Visa, Coca-Cola, KLA, Seagate Technology, Boeing, Rio Tinto, Safran, Unilever, Corning, Air Liquide, S&P Global, GSK, UPS, Barclays, EssilorLuxottica, Sherwin-Williams, Mondelez, American Tower, Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ecolab, Hilton, NXP Semiconductors, Teradyne, Ford, Orange, Mercedes-Benz, Kering, Centene, Sika
• Auctions: US 7-yr Notes ($44bn)

Wednesday July 29

• Data: UK June net consumer credit, M4, Germany June import price index, Italy May industrial sales, Australia June CPI, Sweden Q2 GDP indicator
• Central banks: Fed’s decision, BoC summary of deliberations 
• Earnings: Microsoft, Meta, SK hynix, Lam Research, Procter & Gamble, ARM, L'Oreal, Hermes, Amphenol, Airbus, Qualcomm, UBS, Hitachi, Advantest, Intesa Sanpaolo, Starbucks, Vertiv, Fortinet, CaixaBank, Equinix, Vinci, Eni, Aon, Standard Chartered, Public Storage, Danone, BASF, Porsche, Humana, GE HealthCare Technologies, Telecom Italia
• Auctions: US 2-yr FRN ($30bn)

Thursday July 30

• Data: US June PCE, personal income, spending, Q2 GDP, initial jobless claims, Japan July consumer confidence index, Germany Q2 GDP, July CPI, France Q2 GDP, private sector payrolls, June consumer spending, Italy Q2 GDP, June unemployment rate, PPI, Eurozone July economic, industrial, services confidence, Q2 GDP, June unemployment rate
• Central banks: BoE’s decision
• Earnings: Apple, Amazon, Samsung Electronics, Mastercard, Shell, Tokyo Electron, Schneider Electric, AB InBev, Rolls-Royce, BBVA, British American Tobacco, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Altria, Stryker, Enel, Sanofi, ING Groep, Lloyds Banking, KKR, BAE, Cigna, Monolithic Power Systems, Regeneron, CRH, Societe Generale, Ferrari, Vale, LSEG, Anglo American, adidas, Leonardo, Reddit, DSM-Firmenich, MTU Aero Engines, Capgemini, Stellantis

Friday July 31

• Data: US Q2 employment cost index, July MNI Chicago PMI, China July official PMIs, UK July Lloyds Business Barometer, Japan July Tokyo CPI, June jobless rate, job-to-applicant ratio, retail sales, industrial production, housing starts, Germany July unemployment claims rate, France July CPI, June PPI, Italy July CPI, consumer confidence index, economic sentiment, manufacturing confidence, Eurozone July CPI, Canada May GDP
• Central banks: BoJ’s decision
• Earnings: ExxonMobil, AbbVie, Chevron, Linde, Eaton, Sony, AXA, Engie, NatWest, Credit Agricole, Holcim, Siemens Healthineers, FANUC, Ares

* * *

Finally, looking at just the US, the key economic data releases this week are the advance release of Q2 GDP and core PCE inflation on Thursday. The July FOMC meeting is on Wednesday. The post-meeting statement will be released at 2:00 PM ET, followed by Chairman Warsh's press conference at 2:30 PM.

Monday, July 27 

• 08:30 AM Durable goods orders, June preliminary (GS +1.0%, consensus +1.8%, last -4.5%); Durable goods orders ex-transportation, June preliminary (GS +0.6%, consensus +0.8%, last +1.4%); Core capital goods orders, June preliminary (GS +0.6%, consensus +0.8%, last +1.4%); Core capital goods shipments, June preliminary (GS +0.6%, consensus +0.5%, last +0.1%): We estimate that durable goods orders rebounded 1% in the preliminary June report (month-over-month, seasonally adjusted) based on our tracking of commercial aircraft orders. We forecast a 0.6% increase in core capital goods orders—reflecting the increase in the new orders components in manufacturing surveys in June—and a 0.6% increase in core capital goods shipments—reflecting the continued increase in core capital goods orders in recent months.

Tuesday, July 28 

• 08:30 AM Advance goods trade balance, June (GS -$95.0bn, consensus -$100.3bn, last -$105.9bn)
• 08:30 AM Wholesale inventories, June preliminary (last +0.1%)
• 09:00 AM FHFA house price index, May (last -0.1%)
• 09:00 AM S&P Case-Shiller home price index, May (GS +0.1%, consensus flat, last flat) 
• 10:00 AM Conference Board consumer confidence, July (GS 92.0, consensus 92.4, last 91.2)

Wednesday, July 29 

• 02:00 PM FOMC statement, July 28-29 meeting: As discussed in our FOMC preview, at its July meeting, the FOMC is likely to keep the funds rate unchanged at 3.50-3.75%. The post-meeting statement might acknowledge the upside risks to inflation posed by renewed geopolitical conflict, and there will likely be at least one dissent in favor of a hike. Market pricing implies that investors see the outcome of the July meeting as unusually uncertain, likely because the FOMC has been split recently, Chairman Warsh’s own position remains unclear, and some of the re-escalation with Iran occurred during the blackout period. But most voters appear unlikely to push for a hike this week after the softer June inflation data, the Fed has historically avoided delivering surprise rate hikes, and we suspect that voters might be especially reluctant to do so at a meeting without a Summary of Economic Projections.

Thursday, July 30 

• 08:30 AM GDP, Q2 advance (GS +2.6%, consensus +2.1%, last +2.1%); Personal consumption, Q2 advance (GS +2.3%, consensus +2.3%, last +0.5%); Core PCE inflation, Q2 advance (GS +3.46%, consensus +3.5%, last +4.4%); We estimate that GDP rose 2.6% annualized in the advance reading for Q2, following a +2.1% annualized increase in Q1. Our forecast reflects a rebound in consumption growth (+2.3%, quarter-over-quarter annualized, vs. +0.5% in Q1) and another quarter of strong business fixed investment growth (+8.8% vs. +10.6% in Q1) driven by strong equipment investment growth (+17.1%). We expect net exports to contribute -1.3pp to Q2 GDP growth. We estimate that domestic final sales rose +2.6% in Q2. We estimate that the core PCE price index increased 3.46% annualized (or 3.35% year-over-year) in Q2.
• 08:30 AM Personal income, June (GS +0.4%, consensus +0.3%, last +0.7%); Personal spending, June (GS +0.6%, consensus +0.4%, last +0.7%); Core PCE price index, June (GS +0.18%, consensus +0.2%, last +0.3%); Core PCE price index (YoY), June (GS +3.32%, consensus +3.3%, last +3.4%); PCE price index, June (GS -0.07%, consensus -0.1%, last +0.4%); PCE price index (YoY), June (GS +3.70%, consensus +3.7%, last +4.1%): We estimate that personal income and spending increased by 0.4% and 0.6%, respectively, in June. We estimate that the core PCE price index rose 0.18% in June, corresponding to a year-over-year rate of +3.32%. Additionally, we expect that the headline PCE price index declined 0.07% in June and increased 3.70% from a year earlier.
• 08:30 AM Initial jobless claims, week ended July 25 (GS 205k, consensus 200k, last 187k): Continuing jobless claims, week ended July 18 (consensus 1,803k, last 1,796k)

Friday, July 31 

• 08:30 AM Employment cost index, Q2 (GS +0.8%, consensus +0.8%, last +0.9%): We estimate the employment cost index rose by 0.8% in Q2 (quarter-over-quarter, seasonally adjusted). Our forecast would result in a 0.2pp decline in the year-on-year rate to 3.2% (year-over-year, not seasonally adjusted), which would mark the slowest pace of yearly wage growth since 2021Q2. Our forecast reflects slower ECI benefit growth after start-of-the-year benefit resets likely boosted growth in Q1 and a 0.8% quarterly pace of wage and salary growth—reflecting the signals from the Atlanta Fed’s wage tracker and average hourly earnings.
• 10:00 AM University of Michigan consumer sentiment, July final (GS 54.0, consensus 54.0, last 54.4); University of Michigan 5-10-year inflation expectations, July final (GS 3.3%, last 3.3%)

Source: DB, Goldman

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/27/2026 - 10:35

Massive Relax

By Benjamin Picton, Senior Macro Strategist at Rabobank

Oil futures are being offered this morning after President Trump on Friday declined to continue strikes on Iran. The ‘pause’ was extended over the weekend and reciprocated by the Iranians, marking the first ‘cease’ of the ceasefire in almost a fortnight.

According to Axios, Donald Trump’s advisors had provided the President with attack plans for the day but CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper reportedly advised against further strikes, arguing that Iran’s ability to disrupt shipping in the Strait of Hormuz had already been substantially degraded and that the aerial campaign had reached the limits of its effectiveness.

In a similar vein, the New York Times published a report over the weekend revealing that General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had cautioned the President that further escalation was possible but that it would dangerously deplete CENTCOM’s stock of interceptor missiles. This would expose the nineteen-odd US bases across the Middle East to even greater damage than they have already sustained, to say nothing of the infrastructure of GCC allies and the strain on the US’s defence priorities in the Pacific and elsewhere. President Trump denied the reports, telling the Wall Street Journal “we have far more [interceptors] than we need.”

In a further hopeful sign, an Omani team of negotiators has reportedly met with counterparts in Tehran to discuss arrangements to re-open the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Baqaei said that the talks had been “useful” and that progress had been made, but that there was no change in the status of the strait at this point. It also remains to be seen whether any agreement reached between Iran and Oman would be accepted by the United States.

Nevertheless, President Trump’s threats of ‘massive attack’ late last week that saw Brent crude surge above $100/bbl, higher bond yields, and equities under pressure has now given way to a massive relax, with Brent below $92/bbl, equity futures pointing higher and sovereign yields lower across the board.

Though it hardly bears noting, at this point it would behove us to caution that the war is not over and that we certainly are not out of the woods from either an energy security or financial markets perspective. 

To illustrate this point, the Wall Street Journal carried a story over the weekend regarding the escalating tit-for-tat between the Saudis and the Houthis that threatens to conflagrate into all-out war. Houthi attacks on Saudi Aramco infrastructure at the critical port of Yanbu (the Red Sea release valve for Saudi oil exports) over the weekend followed a declaration last week that Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea ports would be subject to a blockade that further threatens to starve energy-poor Asia of vital crude oil flows. For now, China is continuing to play the constructive role of balancing item by holding its crude imports well below the usual levels.

Similarly, Israel was reportedly bracing for escalation over the weekend with the Jerusalem Post noting that public bomb shelters had been re-opened in major cities. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said that the war would continue until the Iranian regime fell or gave up its nuclear ambitions, again highlighting the likelihood that hostilities will remain ongoing until one is forced to concede on the nuclear issue – and likely concede its regional influence in the process.

A further coalescing of an anti-Iranian bloc is also becoming more evident. Al Jazeera reports that Syrian President Al-Sharaa is seeking a security agreement with Israel that will apparently include several other countries and likely include provisions to stem to flow of weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon. This as Israeli government sources indicate that Israel has dramatically stepped-up its engagement with the GCC since the outbreak of the war, which has perhaps already yielded fruit through the UAE’s decision to leave OPEC and OPEC+. Détente between Gulf states and Israel holds out the prospect of less fragile supply chains in the future, where oil flows West rather than East and Iran loses its leverage over the global economy, but that potential future is riddled with ‘ifs’, and solves none of our near-term problems.

Elsewhere, Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi accused Ukraine of doing Israel’s bidding after the former struck an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea, killing at least one crew member. Ukrainian President Zelensky defended the action by stating that Kyiv was targeting vessels involved in military cargo shipments alongside Russian warships, again raising the prospect of two conflicts merging into one.

While geopolitical considerations will doubtless continue to set the tone this week, the Fed, Bank of England and Bank of Japan will all be meeting to set their respective policy rates. None are expected to raise their rate targets this time around but the inflationary impacts of war, and considerations over how persistent those shocks may prove to be, will surely loom large in their deliberations.

This week will also bring Q2 GDP readings for the United States and the Eurozone, along with Q2 PCE for the former and July CPI for the latter.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/27/2026 - 10:20

Shootout Erupts At Seattle Festival, Killing 3; Second Gunman On The Run

Seattle police are searching for a second suspect after two gunmen allegedly exchanged fire inside the crowded Bite of Seattle festival beneath the Space Needle, killing three people and wounding four others, including a 2-year-old boy.

BREAKING: 2 killed, 5 injured in shooting at Seattle Center, Washington pic.twitter.com/MPaA3lzO7W

— Rapid Report (@RapidReport2025) July 27, 2026

Assistant Seattle Police Chief Tyrone Davis told reporters late Sunday that investigators believe the suspects were shooting at each other when bystanders were caught in the crossfire.

Three people were killed and four others injured in a shooting at a Seattle food festival.

One suspect has been arrested, and authorities say the incident may have involved a shootout. Two firearms were recovered at the scene.

All 4 victims are in a stable condition.

Police… pic.twitter.com/V6ynVSdmNE

— I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) July 27, 2026

One suspect surrendered at the scene, while the second remains at large.

"We're still trying to figure this out," Davis said.

Suspect Number One:

BREAKING - SEATTLE SHOOTING 🚨🚨🚨

Two people are dead, 5 others were injured after shooting at a Seattle festival.

Alleged shooter in image below. https://t.co/IkEDa0ehh1 pic.twitter.com/DUs05mBGxV

— TERFs ‘r’ us ©️ (@Terfs_R) July 27, 2026

Davis described the suspect in custody as "a young person" who was being questioned by investigators. He said that individual was the only gunman officers witnessed opening fire. He noted that police did not discharge their weapons during the confrontation.

A Seattle Times reporter at the festival described hearing several loud pops followed by what sounded like rapid gunfire.

"It was just pure chaos," one festival attendee said.

Authorities have not indicated that the shooting is being investigated as terrorism, despite the heightened security following the Islamist attack at Berlin's Pride festival over the weekend. The State Department has also outlined a far-left threat across the West.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/27/2026 - 10:15

Deutsche Bank Says Starship Flight 13 Made "Solid Progress" Despite Booster Setback

Following last month's record-setting IPO, SpaceX shares have plunged 50% from their peak and now trade about 15% below the $135 offering price. The post-IPO euphoria has faded, stripping Elon Musk of his trillionaire status - at least for now.

On Friday evening, SpaceX launched Starship on its 13th test flight and successfully deployed 20 next-generation Starlink V3 satellites, making solid progress toward full reusability. The upper-stage spacecraft completed all its primary objectives, despite another landing-burn failure involving the Super Heavy booster.

Deployment of 20 @Starlink V3 satellites complete. Today's test will provide critical data as we prepare to expand our Starlink constellation pic.twitter.com/jWKLwXGlsk

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 24, 2026

Deutsche Bank analyst Edison Yu offered clients a post-mortem on Flight 13, noting that the latest Starship test.

Here is Yu's take:  

Starship Test Flight 13 illustrated solid progress for the program, in our view. For context, this was the second time the upgraded V3 iteration of Starship was flown. Interestingly, the rocket's second stage (Ship) executed all primary objectives whereas the first-stage booster (Super Heavy) performed well for most of the mission until an incomplete engine relight led to a harder splashdown than planned which was also an issue observed on Flight 12. As such, it does appear SpaceX may attempt a catch recovery of the second stage on the next test flight; if successful, this would represent a key milestone given the very high technical difficulty. Additionally, Flight 13 saw the successful deployment of 20 functional Starlink next-gen V3 satellites. Overall, while the initial abort was optically not ideal, we think Starship continues to progress in line with our base-case expectations

What caused the initial abort?

During the first launch attempt on July 16th , Starship reached T-0 and began the engine start sequence. However, 4 of Super Heavy's 33 Raptor engines failed to ignite. Therefore, the flight computer automatically aborted because the launch commit criteria permits a maximum of 2 engines out at liftoff. The company identified the cause to be off-nominal spin response in the liquid oxygen (LOX) turbopumps of 6 engines (4 failed to light plus 2 that displayed off-nominal behavior). The most likely cause of this dynamic was residual moisture that had collected inside the turbopumps from earlier operations. When the extremely cold cryogenic propellant was loaded, that moisture appeared to have frozen. As a result, the ice either slowed the turbopumps dramatically or stopped them from spinning up properly, so those engines never reached the required conditions to ignite. To address this, SpaceX removed and replaced 6 Raptor engines, performed verification testing including spin checks after chill. Then the attempt on July 23rd was postponed due to weather conditions in order to preserve visual coverage of the heat shield tiles during ascent. For background, the heat shield is still being iterated upon and considered one of the higher risk + less mature parts of Starship; therefore, gathering optical data is

What went well?

• Ascent & staging: All 33 booster engines and all 6 Ship engines performed well through their powered phases. Hot-staging was clean - rocket separation where the upper stage ignites its engines while still attached to the lower stage booster, which is also still firing.
• Boostback: First successful completion of the high-thrust portion of the boostback burn with all 33 engines running on V3 boosters. This is the maneuver that reverses first-stage booster's horizontal forward momentum and steers it back toward the ocean.
• Starlink V3 deployment: First flight of functional (not simulator) next-gen V3 satellites. All 20 sats deployed, extended solar arrays and antennas, established RF and laser links, and returned telemetry before burning up on reentry after ~20 minutes.
• In-Space Raptor relight: Successful single-engine restart in space; the longest demonstrated to date. Important capability for future orbital missions and controlled de-orbit.
• Ship reentry & landing: Soft, controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean. Ship 40 remained intact, continued transmitting telemetry and imagery, and provided the first high-quality views of an intact heat shield after a full reentry under higher dynamic pressure; should be ideal for heat-shield data collection.

What needs to improve?

• Booster landing burn: Only a subset of the Super Heavy engines (seemingly 8 out of 13) successfully relit for the landing burn. Hence, there was a hard splashdown rather than a soft, controlled impact. This remains the primary technical open item on the first-stage booster.

Next up: Flight 14

Following Flight 13, Elon Musk posted on X: "Unless we discover problems after mission data review, SpaceX will attempt to catch the ship with the tower on next flight." This would be the first attempt to catch the upper stage using the Mechazilla tower arms and if successful, would represent a major milestone for the program given the much higher technical difficulty level compared with catching the first stage (energy, speed, flip maneuver, margin of error, etc...). We estimate a target window in late August or September. Separately, we note that Starlink V3 satellites can be deployed on Starship even with partial reusability.t a catch recovery of the second stage on the next test flight;

SPCX shares dipped 1.5% in Monday premarket trading, falling to the $113 handle as the stock searches for a floor following its dismal post-IPO performance.

Looking ahead, SpaceX faces its first major post-IPO lockup expiration on Aug. 6, just two days after its scheduled quarterly earnings report. About 911.5 million shares will become eligible for sale, creating a potentially significant supply overhang.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/27/2026 - 10:00

Appeals Court Blocks Trump Mail-In Voting Order In 23 Democrat-Led States, Setting Up SCOTUS Fight

Via American Greatness,

A federal appeals court sided with 23 Democrat-led states and blocked the Trump administration from enforcing key pieces of the president’s election integrity order, setting up a likely showdown at the Supreme Court just months before the midterms.

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 to deny the Justice Department’s request to pause a lower court injunction while the administration’s appeal moves forward, leaving in place a ruling that stripped federal agencies of the power to enforce several provisions of President Donald Trump’s order in those states through the Nov. 3 elections.

The Justice Department has signaled it may now turn to the Supreme Court for emergency relief, a path the administration flagged earlier in the litigation should it fail to prevail at the appellate level.

Trump signed Executive Order 14399 in March, directing the Department of Homeland Security to compile lists of confirmed citizens eligible to vote and hand them to states, ordering the U.S. Postal Service to set new handling standards for mail-in ballots, and instructing the Justice Department to prioritize investigations of state and local officials who send federal ballots to people who should not receive them.

The measures represent one of the most significant pushes yet from the administration to shore up confidence in an election system Republicans have long argued is vulnerable to fraud and error, particularly through loosely regulated mail voting.

The administration argued the lawsuit was filed too soon, since federal agencies had not yet finalized the rules needed to carry out the order. The panel’s majority rejected that argument, finding the states already faced fast-approaching deadlines tied to the order and had no choice but to begin preparing for compliance.

“As the district court reasoned, the (executive order) lays out a clear set of rapidly approaching deadlines by which states must coordinate with federal officials and comply with new voting procedures,” the majority wrote.

“The Plaintiff States have no practical choice but to respond to the (order) now.”

The lawsuit, led by California, Massachusetts, Nevada and Washington, was joined by 19 other states and the District of Columbia, all governed by Democrats who have resisted the administration’s election security efforts from the start.

The states claim the Constitution gives them, not the president, primary authority over administering federal elections, an argument U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani accepted in June when she ruled several provisions likely exceeded Trump’s authority.

Saturday’s decision does not settle the underlying dispute over presidential power but keeps Talwani’s injunction intact while the case winds through the courts, a delay that could push final resolution dangerously close to the midterms.

Critics of the ruling argue that leaving basic safeguards, like verifying citizenship and tightening mail-ballot standards, in legal limbo only benefits officials in blue states with a history of loose election administration.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/27/2026 - 09:40