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Court Rules Pentagon Can Fire Stars And Stripes Journalists

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

A district court denied a motion from three Stars and Stripes journalists that sought to block the Department of War from firing them.

The Pentagon in Arlington, Va., in a file photo. Carolyn Kaster/AP

While plaintiffs argue that the terminations "violate their First Amendment rights to communicate as citizens on matters of public concern," such rights have "some limitations" when applied to people employed in public service, Judge Trevor N. McFadden, from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said in the Sept. 4 order.

"When government employees provide public commentary in their official capacity, their speech is government speech, and the First Amendment does not apply," the judge said, adding that the plaintiffs have not demonstrated any "irreparable harm."

The journalists - Max D. Lederer, Erik A. Slavin, and Lara S. Korte - filed their lawsuit on Aug. 27.

On July 5, Korte and Slavin gave interviews to CBS News. The program discussed changes to Pentagon regulations governing Stars and Stripes and their impact on its independence.

Korte said that restrictions may come on her reporting. "I'm working for Stars and Stripes ... not for the Pentagon, not for any administration, not for any policymaker. I'm here to cover the military community," she said.

Meanwhile, Slavin said he would not comply if the Pentagon requested depictions of the story that were inaccurate.

On Aug. 11, Stars and Stripes published a story about "deteriorating conditions" aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, according to the lawsuit. The vessel had been on extended duty amid the U.S.-Iran war.

On Aug. 12, a day after the article was published, Lederer was allegedly ordered to give Slavin and Korte Notices of Separation, citing insubordination for statements made in the July 5 interview.

However, Lederer did not deliver the notices. Instead, he announced his retirement.

Moreover, on Aug. 18, Lederer gave an interview with Stripes, raising concerns about the "direction" of the publication, the complaint said.

On Aug. 21, the Pentagon delivered Notices of Separation for all three plaintiffs, accusing them of insubordination and violating other Department of Defense rules, according to the lawsuit. Defendants in the case include the Pentagon and officials from the department.

"Defendants seek to terminate Plaintiffs because they publicly expressed their personal opinions about Stripes' operations as citizens and because Defendants disapproved of Stripes' publication of the Lincoln Story. The terminations violate Plaintiffs' First Amendment rights," the lawsuit said.

The U.S. Central Command has accused media reports of publishing false reports regarding USS Abraham Lincoln, including one which claimed multiple sailors died aboard the ship in a fight. "No service members aboard the aircraft carrier have died," the Central Command said.

According to the recent court order in Slavin and Korte, the judge held that the plaintiffs failed to show that they participated in the CBS News interview as private citizens.

As for Lederer, the judge observed that his "failure to carry out a directive from a supervisor finds no shelter under the First Amendment."

The judge denied the plaintiffs' motion for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction.

The Epoch Times reached out to the legal representative for Slavin, Korte, and Lederer for comment and did not receive a response by publication time.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which provides free legal services to news organizations and journalists, said in a Sept. 4 statement that the court should block the War Department from terminating the three employees.

"The government's actions in this case pose a threat to the historical independence of a news outlet that publishes stories of interest to the U.S. military community," the group said.

Meanwhile, the USS Abraham Lincoln arrived in Thailand this week after spending 286 days at sea. The roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines aboard the vessel got the chance to be on land for the first time since November last year.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/07/2026 - 20:00

Chinese Oil Demand Unexpectedly Soars, Sending Shanghai Crude Above $100, With Brent Prices Set To Follow

One of the reasons why the price of oil failed to soar during the "actively kinetic" phase of the Iran war, when shipments through Hormuz were effectively halted and the world faced a shortage of about 10-15mm barrels of oil per day, is that Chinese oil demand suddenly evaporated. Whether due to a sharp slowdown in the economy (which after the sudden "recap" of China's banks appears quite likely) or due to an aggressive drain of China's strategic reserve, the reality is that, as discussed here extensively, both Chinese oil imports...

... and local product refining...

... cratered for much of 2026, signaling that Chinese oil demand has indeed plunged.

But no more: one of the telltale signs of the period of weak Chinese demand was the collapse in the Brent-Shanghai crude spread, which traded as negative as -$20 in late April. However, in the past few weeks, we have seen a dramatic jump in Shanghai crude, which is trading just shy of the highest level hit since the Iran war, well above $100. More importantly, it now trading a sizable premium to Brent, indicating that the period of weak Chinese demand is finally over (whether because the economy is finally recovering or simply to squeeze Trump ahead of his summit with Xi, not to mention the midterms, remains tbd). 

And sure enough, as Bloomberg report, China - the world's largest oil importer - is now aggressively bidding up crude prices across Africa, Canada, and Latin American markets as disruptions in the Hormuz chokepoint and limited Iranian supplies intensify competition for alternatives. The scramble is squeezing smaller Chinese refineries that once relied on heavily discounted Iranian barrels; the same refineries simply shut down a few months ago when there was not enough domestic demand.

But now, something has finally flipped, and demand for oil is suddenly soaring, sending Shanghai crude above $100 and threatening to push Brent prices - earlier today rising above $97 for the first time in over a month - also above $100 for the first time since May. 

The renewed Chinese buying marks a major shift from a period when subdued Chinese buying helped restrain crude oil prices. With Iranian exports almost entirely shut off by the US blockade and fighting flaring again, as seen Monday when Saudi Aramco's Jizan oil facilities were reportedly hit, the race to find replacement supplies around the world is becoming an increasingly expensive task for the Chinese. 

Here is what some traders who spoke with Bloomberg had to say: 

The turnaround is producing spikes in the price of various grades. Congo's Djeno crude was offered to Chinese buyers at premiums of as high as $20 a barrel over ICE Brent this week, up from around $15 a couple of weeks ago, according to traders who asked not to be named as they're not authorized to speak to the media.

Chinese buyers are also buying tanker loads of crude from Canada, Brazil, and Argentina, while stronger demand has lifted prices for Russia's ESPO crude. Asian buyers are also pushing Dubai crude futures toward $100 per barrel.  

While Chinese seaborne crude imports are still below prewar levels and are currently trending toward 10 million barrels per day, the Shanghai crude spread indicates that imports are aggressively rising, and that the race for alternative supplies may still intensify. 

Bloomberg pointed out that the rebound in crude imports comes as refinery math improves and inventories are being rebuilt in China. Improved processing margins, the resumption of fuel exports, and commercial restocking are encouraging refiners to ramp up purchases, according to GL Consulting founder Liao Na. 

Smaller independent refiners, known as teapots, face the greatest pressure because their traditional sourcing channels for Iranian and Venezuelan crude have eroded this year as access to those supplies has collapsed amid the Trump administration's push to rewire global energy markets. 

Liao said, "China's robust buying lately is largely driven by refiners taking advantage of decent margins," adding, "Active restocking by commercial players has also helped, but it’s not necessarily a sign of stronger underlying demand that’s supporting the recovery."

Separately, Goldman Sachs energy expert Daan Struyven expects China's ability to adjust purchases to prices to help moderate any spikes in crude prices, although he also warned that Brent may rally to as much as $120 a barrel if attacks on shipping in the Middle East increase.

“Events over the last few days do suggest that the risk of shipping disruptions broadening and intensifying is an important one,” Daan Struyven, co-head of global commodities research, said in an interview on Bloomberg TV.

Goldman's preferred way to trade another oil spike is buy going long natural gas and diesel as a way to capture gains:  “While we see meaningful upside to crude oil prices, we do recommend to investors to hedge geopolitical risks by going long in global natural gas and refined-oil products,” Struyven said, referring to bets on gains. “The supply shocks are bigger than in the crude market.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/07/2026 - 19:04

Hunter Biden To Launch Memecoin, Will Send To TRUMP Holders

Authored by Turner Wright via CoinTelegraph.com,

Hunter Biden will reportedly distribute 200 million of the LAPTOP token to his substack subscribers, members of a mailing list and investors in President Donald Trump’s memecoin.

Hunter Biden, son of former US President Joe Biden, announced that he plans to launch a memecoin based on the reports of his infamous laptop, which has been subject to intense media scrutiny.

In a Monday announcement on X, Hunter Biden posted the memecoin’s ticker symbol, $LAPTOP, signaling a Wednesday launch. The Wall Street Journal reported that Biden would send 20% of the one-billion token supply to substack subscribers, members of a mailing list and investors in President Donald Trump’s memecoin, Official Trump (TRUMP), whose value has dropped by about 97% since reaching an all-time high price in January 2025.

Source: Hunter Biden

The basis for the memecoin’s namesake is Biden’s computer, whose existence and contents were subject to scrutiny before the 2020 election, in which his father was running against Trump. The laptop continues to be invoked by many right-wing media figures and was the subject of two lawsuits filed by Biden over privacy laws. 

Since his father left office in January 2025, Biden has stepped up his rhetoric on crypto and blockchain, specifically criticizing the Trump family’s entanglements with the industry through its World Liberty Financial business. 

In August, he called World Liberty “corruption at a scale we’ve never seen,” comparing its business practices with those of defunct crypto exchange FTX and pointing to its ties to foreign governments like the UAE. Biden also said in June that “decentralized digital currency and the blockchain are the inevitable future.”

The LAPTOP founders, holding 30% of the token supply, will reportedly burn up to 30% of the memecoins depending on the outcome of events, including a Democrat winning the presidency in 2028, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) reaching an all-time high and LAPTOP’s fully diluted value exceeding TRUMP’s.

CLARITY Act vote set for later this month

The LAPTOP memecoin, if launched as planned, could shine more of a spotlight on Trump’s crypto ventures at a time when lawmakers in Congress are considering a comprehensive market structure bill to regulate the digital asset industry. The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, also known as the CLARITY Act, is scheduled for a cloture vote in the Senate on Sept. 15.

Cointelegraph reached out to the White House for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/07/2026 - 18:00

Unhinged Passenger Duct-Taped on Flight Is Identified, Fired From Job

An American Airlines flight was forced into an emergency landing Thursday evening after an unhinged passenger was duct-taped to his seat after a racist, sexist meltdown, according to multiple reports.

The raging flyer, identified as 67-year-old Arthur Layne Lundeen, allegedly hurled the N-word and anti-gay slurs at flight attendants and unloaded a series of "very offensive" remarks at female passengers, eyewitnesses told ABC News.

Fellow passenger Richard O'Lenick told NJ.com that Lundeen made statements about Jesus and said the plane was going to crash, then struck a pastor seated next to him and a woman who intervened. Witnesses said Lundeen had been served at least one drink.

That prompted O'Lenick and his coworker Juan Mejia, a retired Weehawken police officer, to step in. According to the New York Times, Lundeen bit Mejia's hand before a flight attendant handed over the tape that Mejia wrapped around the man's body, seat and head.

Shocking footage shows Lundeen's head, hands and torso duct-taped to the chair and his wrists bound together.

The Dallas-to-Newark flight was diverted to Baltimore, where Lundeen was hauled off the plane and arrested before passengers could continue on to their destination, according to the New York Post.

Lundeen was charged with misdemeanor second-degree assault and disorderly conduct, while the real estate agent's employer, Long Realty, cut ties in a statement.

"Long Realty is aware of reports concerning criminal charges filed against a former affiliated real estate agent arising from an incident that allegedly occurred during a commercial flight.

"Upon learning of the incident, Long Realty promptly ended its affiliation with the individual. The individual is no longer associated with or authorized to represent Long Realty in any capacity.

"The conduct described in the reports is wholly inconsistent with the professionalism, integrity, compassion, and respect for others that Long Realty expects from those affiliated with the company. We expect those associated with our company to uphold those values, and we have no tolerance for conduct that so clearly falls short of those expectations. Our thoughts are with the passengers, crew members, and others affected by this incident."

Federal authorities are now weighing whether to file additional charges.

"The FBI is currently conducting interviews to gather the facts and will consult with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland to determine if federal charges will be filed," the bureau said in a statement.

Lundeen was released on his own recognizance on Sept. 4 and waived an attorney at his initial appearance, court records show. His trial is set for Oct. 19 in Anne Arundel County District Court. The charges are allegations and he is presumed innocent.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/07/2026 - 17:30

Canada's Tariff Strategy Designed To Interfere With U.S. Midterm Elections

Late last month, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney walked away from a trade deal with the United States. According to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Canada was "offered the best trade deal of any country on the globe," but Carney abandoned the deal "at the last minute."

According to the White House, "the U.S. offered Canada the most preferential market access of any country on Earth, with deep cuts on steel, aluminum, autos, lumber, and more. Instead of partnership, Canada chose unreasonable demands, walk-backs, and flat-out rejection." Canada responded with retaliation rather than negotiation, becoming the only other country besides China to do so.

And the reason is that Canada is trying to influence the 2026 midterm elections in the United States.

After the trade negotiations failed, Canadian officials announced that tariffs of up to 50% will hit roughly 700 American products starting September 8, covering close to $20 billion in goods, about 7% of everything Canada imports from the United States. The rates range from 15% to 50%, and tariffs on American steel and aluminum will double from 25% to 50%. This was a targeted economic strike meant to hit key states before the midterm elections.

Ottawa has barely bothered to deny it. Canadian Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said the tariffs were built to apply political pressure on specific states, telling reporters: "We are also targeting products that can target specific states in the United States. We are being smart and strategic in order to apply political pressure, and I think it's the right thing to do right now."

Asked directly about the political intent by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., Joly did not walk it back: "We are putting pressure clearly on different states and different people. We don't want to do that. We don't want this trade war. We didn't start it."

The target list reads like a midterm map. Cheese products from Wisconsin. Washers and dryers from Kentucky, where GE Appliances is a major employer. Steel, aluminum and auto parts from Michigan. The Wall Street Journal reported that Canadian officials designed the package to protect domestic industry and to "sting President Trump and his Republican Party" heading into November.

"The states that are most reliant on Canada as an export market are often the northern-tier states - Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New Hampshire," Ed Gresser told the Wall Street Journal. He argued that Canada is "trying to show the Republican party that there's a systemic cost to doing this sort of thing."

Trade consultant Eric Miller, who heads the Washington-based Rideau Potomac Strategy Group, said Canada picked targets with available substitutes, either domestic production or imports from Mexico and China, items like air conditioners and appliances, while simultaneously hitting producers in swing states and reliably Republican territory.

Nowhere was the targeting clearer than Maine, and nowhere did it collapse faster. Ottawa's original list carried a 25% tariff on American lobster, set to bite during the fall season when roughly half of Maine's catch goes to Canadian processors. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), facing re-election in November, had already warned that the trade war would hurt her state. The Maine Lobstermen's Association warned on Aug. 26 that the duty would land at the worst possible moment for an industry running on thin margins.

One day later, Canada removed seafood and fish products from the list entirely, citing "select adjustments" made "based on feedback" while insisting it was maintaining a dollar-for-dollar response. Collins applauded the reversal. Ottawa aimed at a vulnerable Republican senator's most iconic industry, took one day of political heat from that state, and backed off - which tells you the aim was never really about lobster.

The rest of the list is still standing.

Desjardins Capital Markets economist Royce Mendes estimates that the tariffs could add about 0.2 percentage points to Canadian inflation, already near 3%. The central bank is already managing higher energy costs and the risk of a slowdown, which makes this move extremely complicated for Canada, and, according to Corpay chief market strategist Karl Schamotta, Canada's strategy may backfire.

"An intensified trade war will hurt the country more than the U.S.," Schamotta explained. "Countertariffs will not help. In Canada, just as in the U.S., they are effectively taxes on domestic consumption. They raise the cost of living while doing little to shift trade balances or improve overall economic welfare."

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/07/2026 - 16:30

Hackers Withdraw 320 Million In Bitcoin From Blockstream's Liquid Network Federation Reserves

Authored by Juan Galt via BitcoinMagazine.com,

The Liquid Network said Sunday that purported white-hat hackers withdrew about 4,000 bitcoin, worth about $320 million, from the federation wallet that backs L-BTC.

Bridge nodes were disabled, and the sidechain was paused. Other issued assets, including USDT, DePix and RWAs, were unaffected, the official account said on X.

The Liquid Network is a federated sidechain of Bitcoin, founded by Adam Back’s Blockstream. The Liquid chain issues a variety of assets such as LBTC, which it backs with BTC on the Bitcoin main chain, held in a large multisig of 15 corporate and known members. 11 of the 15 members need to sign a valid multi-signature transaction to move coins from the treasury. Before the hack, the treasury held over 4200 BTC; after the hack, Blockstream’s proof of reserves page reports a little over 207 BTC left. 

The hackers withdrew 4,019.4 BTC from the reserve address in a peg-out transaction using the SideSwap Peg-out Authorization Key. SideWap is a bridge exchange and a member of the Liquid Federation. While details on the mechanism of the hack are not confirmed yet, it appears an inflation bug on the LBTC side chain was exploited by the hackers to create over 4,000 LBTC that did not exist before, and cash them out for on-chain bitcoin from the federation. Because the transaction appeared as valid, given the consensus bug, the federation members’ HSM security servers signed the BTC withdrawal transaction, worth roughly 320 million at the time. 

The hacker moved the funds to an address ending in 6gyqjlte, from which they quickly signed a new transaction with a message on the OP_RETURN arbitrary data field saying “we are whitehats. contact us on chain.” Those coins were still at that address at the time of writing.

A small mainnet transaction to the hacker address followed by an OP_RETURN saying “Please contact security@blockstream.com”, presumably from a Blockstream public address, though that remains unconfirmed. A later OP_RETURN spend from the hacker address carried “Please contact us on Signal @m671aw.70”, however, this may be spam and does not share a link to the address with the stolen funds.

In response to the breach, exchanges were told to pause L-BTC deposits and withdrawals. Bridge nodes on the Liquid Network have been paused, limiting access to the side chain, which continues to produce blocks. 

JAN3 CEO Samson Mow said Aqua’s Liquid features were affected and that on-chain bitcoin still worked. Other wallets in the industry that use the Liquid Network are expected to be affected. Users holding LBTC now effectively have their savings at risk, since the underlying BTC is currently not redeemable. Given the private nature of the Liquid chain, user onchain analytics are scarce and not much public information is known about how much LBTC is held by retail users versus corporations of Blockstream itself. Nevertheless, should the funds not be returned, it would be a heavy blow to the Liquid Network’s user base.

Users of LBTC don’t have many options but to wait for conversations with the hackers to resolve. Given the size of the hack, it would be difficult for the hackers to get away with stealing all that bitcoin, though perhaps not impossible.

What may happen is that the hackers ask for a finder’s fee and return the majority of the funds. 

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/07/2026 - 16:00

Iron Ore Bottom In? Prices Reclaim $100 On "Improving Downstream Conditions"

Iron ore futures in Singapore surged above $100 a ton, the highest level since mid-July, as tightening Chinese coking coal supplies lifted steelmaking costs and early signs of improving seasonal demand supported prices across the steel supply chain.

Rafael Barcellos, head of Latin American metals and mining, pulp and paper equity research at Bradesco BBI, wrote in a note last week that the coal squeeze is helping support steel prices, with rebar and hot-rolled coil reaching multi-month highs. Improving downstream conditions are, in turn, providing support for iron ore.

Barcellos pointed to China's August manufacturing purchasing managers' index as another encouraging economic signal. 

Iron ore inventories also continued to decline, spot activity at Chinese steel-trading houses increased for a second consecutive week, and steelmaker margins improved. Blast furnace utilization, however, declined for a second week, tempering the recovery picture.

Barcellos flagged a recovery: 

Even so, the recovery we flagged in VALE: Calling the Iron Ore Bottom? Attractive Asymmetry After 2Q26 Results is now playing out, with prices largely rebounding from the lows of the past couple of weeks — a trend we expect to persist amid firm cost support and improving downstream conditions. 

Barcellos' trade recommendation: 

Against this backdrop, we continue to favor Vale and Ternium over CSN, Gerdau, and Usiminas.

China's prolonged property downturn has weakened a major source of steel demand, weighing on iron ore prices despite periodic rebounds. 

The latest recovery to $100 a ton raises the question of whether improving seasonal conditions can translate into a sustained demand growth story, keeping prices in triple-digit territory. 

In the metals complex on Monday, London copper futures reached a new high of $14,530 a ton. For further context, we direct readers to our note, "The Copper Chart Causing Alarm."

Professional subscribers can read much more about the latest metals space here on our new Marketdesk.ai portal. 

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/07/2026 - 15:30

Lawmakers Press DHS On Forced-Labor Import Enforcement

Authored by Arthur Zhang via The Epoch Times,

A bipartisan group of lawmakers wants to know whether enforcement is keeping pace after the Department of Homeland Security last month added 43 companies to its forced-labor Entity List - the largest single expansion since the list was created.

Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress, at a U.S.-backed Uyghur photo exhibit of dozens of people who are missing or alleged to be held in CCP-run camps in Xinjiang, China in front of the United Nations in Geneva on Sept. 16, 2021. Denis Balibouse /Reuters

Their Sept. 3 letter welcomed the expansion but cited reports of "substantially declining detention activity" in some high-risk sectors, continued imports through transshipment hubs, and what the lawmakers described as "hundreds more Entity List packages" remaining in the approval pipeline.

Reps. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) and Chris Smith (R-N.J.) led the request for a DHS briefing within 30 days. It was also signed by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), Young Kim (R-Calif.), and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).

The lawmakers want DHS to explain what it is stopping at the border, what is being released, how quickly companies are being added to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List, and how the government is tracing Chinese inputs that move through other countries before reaching the United States.

"Strong enforcement protects human rights, supports American workers, and helps ensure that U.S. businesses are not undercut by illegal and unfair trade practices," they wrote.

A Wider Range of Products

The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, or UFLPA, took effect in 2022. It creates a rebuttable presumption that goods made wholly or partly in Xinjiang, or by entities on the UFLPA Entity List, were made with forced labor and are barred from entering the United States unless the importer meets the law's requirements.

DHS said in its 2025 UFLPA strategy update that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had reviewed more than 16,700 shipments worth nearly $3.7 billion under the law and denied entry to more than 10,000.

The government has also widened the range of products receiving closer scrutiny. Its high-priority sectors include apparel and cotton, seafood, aluminum, polysilicon, and newer areas such as copper, lithium, and steel.

The Aug. 3 Entity List expansion brought the total to 187 entities and reached industries ranging from textiles and food to pharmaceuticals, aluminum, copper, lithium, and battery materials.

One addition, Xinjiang Tianyun Organic Agriculture Co., produces fish, including salmon. The Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force said it had reasonable cause to believe Tianyun participates in government-sponsored recruitment and labor-transfer programs involving Uyghurs, Kazakhs, or Kyrgyz people. DHS also listed the company under a separate UFLPA category covering entities that source materials from Xinjiang or government-linked labor programs.

The lawmakers specifically asked DHS how it is handling forced-labor exposure in seafood supply chains, including abuses aboard fishing vessels, transshipment, and coordination with other federal agencies.

Labubu Brings the Issue to Consumer Goods

The congressional letter also points to consumer products, including Labubu toys made by Beijing-based Pop Mart.

In May, advocacy groups State Armor and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation asked DHS and CBP to investigate after isotopic testing of 20 Labubu products purchased in the United States found that cotton in 16 was traceable to Xinjiang, according to their letter.

The groups asked CBP to detain and test related shipments and urged the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force to consider adding Pop Mart and associated entities to the UFLPA Entity List. Their letter said the testing was conducted by Oritain, which uses chemical signatures to assess geographic origin.

That finding concerns where the cotton came from. A separate labor investigation has focused on Jiangxi Shunjia Toys Co., a major manufacturer of Labubu products for Pop Mart.

Labubu toys on display inside a Pop Mart store in San Jose, Calif., on June 6, 2025. Conner Lee/The Epoch Times

China Labor Watch said it interviewed 51 workers at the factory, which employed over 4,500 workers at the time, and documented alleged excessive overtime, wage deductions, irregular contracts, extensive use of dispatched labor, and other workplace problems.

Li Qiang, founder and executive director of China Labor Watch, told The Epoch Times on Sept. 4 that the organization's concerns go beyond ordinary violations of Chinese labor law.

"Our investigation identified indicators that we believe are relevant to a forced-labor assessment, including the withholding of workers' wages, elements of involuntary work, and exploitation of workers' vulnerabilities," Li said.

Li said China Labor Watch has submitted additional evidence to CBP that has not been made public while the matter remains under review.

"The central concern is whether particular employment practices restrict workers' genuine ability to leave or refuse work, rather than simply whether the factory violated Chinese labor law," Li told The Epoch Times.

Li said firsthand worker testimony is particularly important in forced-labor investigations but generally needs to be corroborated through interviews with other workers, employment and payment records, recruitment information, company and supply-chain records, photographs, and other documentation.

"The key issue is not simply demonstrating serious labor-law violations, but establishing evidence of coercion or other indicators relevant to forced labor," he said.

CBP has not publicly announced a Labubu-specific enforcement action.

Questions Over Enforcement

The lawmakers asked DHS for shipment outcomes broken down by sector and country, staffing levels devoted to UFLPA enforcement, the evidence importers must provide to overcome the law's presumption, and information on newer supply chains such as silicon-carbon battery anodes and critical minerals.

They also want to know how DHS is using artificial intelligence to check shipment country of origin and supply chain documentation, and how the department is working with foreign governments to reduce transshipment and strengthen forced labor import restrictions.

Under DHS's public process, any member agency of the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force may recommend an entity for addition to the UFLPA Entity List. Member agencies review the recommendation, and additions are decided by majority vote.

CBP acknowledged questions from The Epoch Times about shipment releases, sector-specific enforcement trends and the difficulty of tracing Chinese upstream inputs through third countries, but said it needed more time to research the questions.

DHS had not responded by publication.

The lawmakers asked DHS to provide the briefing by Oct. 3.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/07/2026 - 15:00

Welcome To The World That Now Exists

By Michael Every of Rabobank

We ended last week with the Dutch thinktank acknowledgement that "The world as we knew it no longer exists.” We start this week knowing many are going to be profoundly uncomfortable with the new world that replaces it.  Not the weekend op-ed in the Financial Times asking, ‘Is Keynesianism dead?’ adding “When debt is the disease, fiscal medicine may be as likely to harm as heal,” though that will shock many. Nor that the US just blew up three Iranian tankers, and Iran is firing at others, when such economic warfare is only going to drive inflation higher.

Rather, Germany’s state election in Saxony-Anhalt saw the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) emerge by far the largest party with 44%, over double what it got in the last election. It may be able to govern alone depending on what happens to smaller parties falling under the 5% threshold. If not, it will need a coalition partner. The mainstream --but no longer main-- parties like the Social Democrats (SDU), on 9%, and governing Christian Democrats (CDU), on 17%, refuse to work with it. However, the far left populist BSW party, which won 5%, might do so.

To say this upends post-war German electoral politics is an understatement: it would be the first time the "far right" would be in power since 1945. Moreover, the two extremes of the German political spectrum would be the majority, not “the sensible center combines to win – because markets.” Indeed, a ‘horseshoe effect’ of opposed anti-establishment parties could work together to dynamite that system. After all, the AfD and BSW have the same views on immigration and deportations; on Russia and Ukraine (pro-Russia, anti-the Ukraine war and Germany’s role in it – and in NATO); and on energy (favoring a return to Russian gas as soon as possible).

Yes, ‘This is only Saxony’, and the AfD is polling at 28% in west Germany vs. the 44% it just got in the east. However, add leftists Die Linke and BSW 17% and it’s again close to half of voters. That’s as VW fires another 50,000 workers, deindustrialisation accelerates, and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov just warned Germany is moving towards war with Russia, all of which might see further voting shifts. The “sensible center” doesn’t seem to have any answers to those huge problems regardless of whether one likes the AfD and BSW proposals. As such, could markets start considering a second German structural shift in the space of a few years? First, ‘Germany will never borrow’ became ‘Germany is borrowing hugely’; could ‘Germany is politically stable’ now become ‘Germany is politically unstable’? “Was gibt, Mr Market?”

That’s as French far-left presidential candidate Melenchon, who wants more public spending, declared: “The ECB holds an enormous amount of French state debt. I propose to all the states of the eurozone to cancel this debt held by the ECB.” He added, “We are all members of the euro system, so this is a debt we owe to ourselves. The media establishment has tried to manipulate this reasonable proposal. It took us a few days of explanation to untangle their lies. That is now done. From now on, a poll shows that the French who support this proposal to cancel the debt are more numerous than those who oppose it.“ That’s on top of, “We will establish a public banking hub. Our country has a lot of money.” Melenchon also wants "cooperative non-alignment" with Russia and blames US and NATO expansionism for provoking the crisis; he strongly opposes a new Cold War with China or any potential conflicts over Taiwan and sees closer ties with Beijing as part of a multipolar world order that undermines US hegemony.

However, nationalist Le Pen is the election favorite. She promises a "golden rule" to keep fiscal deficits under 3% of GDP and a cost-cutting package - which includes €125bn from migration, “useless” public agencies, and France’s EU contribution; plus, she wants to roll back Macron’s pension reform so workers can retire at 62. Le Pen also favors a strategic rapprochement with Moscow, once the war is over, opposes economic sanctions, and aims to limit aid to Kyiv.

In Italy, PM Meloni, now the longest serving post-WW2 leader, is heading into a 2027 election with a political rival to her far right; she is moving in that direction as a result. As Le Monde puts it, ‘Meloni's migration policy becomes lever for Italy's illiberal shift: Questioning the work of magistrates, bypassing parliament, putting the press under surveillance, marginalizing human rights: The Italian prime minister's ongoing escalation is undermining the rule of law.’

Spain has its own problems, and a recent immigration incident in Ceuta, as PM Sanchez is moving to the progressive left geopolitically, including towards China, leading to clashes with not just Trump but Meloni. There, the right-wing PP is polling at around 33%, the far-right Vox at around 18%, and the further right SALF, promising an “iron fist” on around 6%.  

Germany, France, Italy, and Spain account for 60% of Eurozone GDP. Yes, there is a technocratic rules-based EU superstructure, and the ECB’s Transmission Protection Instrument that allows it to buy Eurozone government bonds during periods of market stress or disorderly conditions not justified by country-specific fundamentals. (Just imagine if the Fed under Warsh were to consider putting that kind of monetary policy in place in the current market environment: quelle horreur!) However, how comfortably could that trundle on if we were to see conflated trouble in the Big Four Eurozone political economies? But this isn’t a ‘European’ issue any more than it is a ‘US’ one.

In Australia, the One Nation Party is now supported by a quarter of all voters and breathing down the neck of the center-right Liberal-National coalition, pulling the center right to the right as center-left Labor is pulled to the left. The same trend is clear in the UK with Reform vs the Conservatives (and Restore vs Reform, as we just saw the first proto ‘Blackshirts’ rally in the UK since the 1930s) and Labour vs the Greens and sectarian parties. Canadian PM Carney meanwhile seems to have found “sensible centrist” political support by being the ‘anti-Trump’… while embracing his policies like defence spending, fiscal deficits, tariffs, and national security subsidies.

As with geopolitics, markets generally only react to ‘political issues’ once they are in their faces. However, the number of such political backdrops should be seen as a whole, not separate pieces: first, because this populism is a logical and predictable byproduct of the current system; second, because Trump aside, populists are non-linearly disruptive for “because markets” in direct correlation with their numbers in power.

One populist leader may be cowed by a “coalition of the willing centrists” around them; two may not be as much; three are less likely to be again, etc. And we are looking at a possible near future where populists are no longer the angry minority but the majority. Happy Monday, and welcome to the world that now exists.  

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/07/2026 - 14:00

Six Nuclear Bills Clear House Committee Without A Single 'No' Vote

The House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced six nuclear-industry bills on September 2nd, all without a single opposing vote. The measures target fuel recycling, uranium enrichment, licensing delays, regulatory staffing and transparency.

The vote to get it to the House floor is another testament to the lack of divide among the Republicans and Democrats regarding the need for more nuclear energy in America.

As we highlighted in a report from Goldman, the Western nuclear revival is gathering momentum across microreactors, small modular reactors and larger designs. But turning announcements into operating infrastructure requires fuel supplies and a regulatory system capable of processing the projects.

The six bills pushed to the House attempt to address at least some of the standing issues:

• H.R. 3978, Nuclear REFUEL Act, 44 yes - 0 no. This would simplify licensing for facilities that recycle spent nuclear fuel without isolating plutonium. Qualifying projects could use the single-step fuel-cycle licensing route instead of separate construction and operating approvals. The potential payoff is a clearer path to reusing nuclear material and developing domestic recycling capacity.
• H.R. 9612, American Enrichment Deployment Act, 43-0. Enrichment plants would receive treatment closer to other fuel-cycle facilities, including permission to begin construction before licensing under the same conditions. Developers would build at their own risk, but NRC approval would still be required. The aim is to bring additional domestic enrichment capacity online sooner.
• H.R. 5549, Efficient Nuclear Licensing Hearings Act, 44-0. This removes mandatory hearings when nobody with an affected interest requests one and requires informal procedures for covered hearings. It’s an opportunity to trim legal costs and delays without making public participation disappear.
• H.R. 9613, Nuclear Advisory Committee Reform Act, 41-0. This refocuses the NRC’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards on significant, novel reactor-design safety issues and changes membership and term rules. The idea is to reduce repetitive reviews.
• H.R. 9614, NRC Staff Pay Alignment Act, 42-0. The NRC chairman could pay career senior executives up to 110% of the applicable Senior Executive Service pay ceiling. It gives the regulator more room to retain experienced leadership as the industry competes for expertise.
• H.R. 9084, Department of Energy Nuclear Transparency Act, 41-0. DOE would have to announce covered nuclear-facility authorizations and safety-rule changes, and publish safety analyses, within 72 hours. It's unclear what the real benefit of this one is besides maybe providing more opportunity for nuclear skeptics to complain about faster regulatory actions. More transparency can be a good thing, but the benefit is less clear in this situation.

In July, ranking Democrat Frank Pallone, and even AOC, singled out the advisory-committee overhaul over concerns about weakening safety oversight. Pallone also sought implementation changes to the enrichment bill, while crediting the transparency measure with helping keep bipartisan nuclear legislation moving.

Surprisingly, those concerns never translated into recorded opposition at the full committee.

All this goes to highlight the dramatic change in opinion for the expansion of nuclear energy generating capacity in the US in recent years... 

Gallup found in 2025 that 61% of Americans favor nuclear energy, only a single point away from the highest level recorded in the poll's three-decade history. Gallop then ran a similar poll in April 2026, asking whether the U.S. should put more emphasis on various energy sources…

Nuclear was the only one of the six energy sources Gallup tested whose "more emphasis" support increased since 2021.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/07/2026 - 13:30

DOJ Announces Deal With Mount Sinai Ending Pediatric Sex-Change Interventions

Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times,

The Justice Department announced Friday an agreement with Mount Sinai Health System that ends the New York hospital network's provision of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical procedures to minors.

Mount Sinai West in New York City on Jan. 20, 2026. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Mount Sinai, one of the largest healthcare providers in New York, will stop those interventions, pay a monetary penalty, and dedicate $2 million to free medical care for people living with harmful consequences of treatments they received as children, the department said.

The deal is another product of a nationwide investigation into hospitals that performed gender transition procedures on children. Similar agreements have already been reached with Texas Children's Hospital, the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and Connecticut Children's Hospital.

Officials said Mount Sinai stayed cooperative, proactive, and solution-driven throughout the inquiry, they said, noting the multimillion-dollar commitment to detransition care.

"The Department of Justice is committed to holding accountable medical providers that violate federal law and endanger children through so-called gender-affirming care," Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement. "This agreement puts an end to these practices at Mount Sinai and provides meaningful relief for individuals who have already suffered harm."

Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate of the Civil Division said the hospital follows a growing trend.

"A growing number of hospitals, like Mount Sinai, have recognized the medical scandal of sex-rejecting procedures," Shumate said. "While we are grateful when we secure resolutions to end this discredited practice and protect children, we must not and will not rest in our pursuit of justice for the victims it has left behind."

U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould for the Northern District of Texas, whose office worked the case, said his district "remains committed to holding medical providers, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies accountable for unsound medical practices and procedures that put our kids at risk."

He called the settlement "a step in the right direction."

The claims resolved in the agreement are allegations only. There has been no determination of liability, and Mount Sinai has denied all allegations.

The investigation stems from a January 2025 presidential order titled "Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation," which directed the Justice Department to prioritize enforcement involving alleged violations of federal law. In April 2025, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memorandum on "Preventing the Mutilation of American Children."

The Civil Division then opened a nationwide probe of the child gender-transition industry. Investigators have examined possible violations of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the False Claims Act, and other federal healthcare laws. Issues include alleged fraudulent billing, such as the use of false diagnosis codes to obtain payment from federal programs and private insurers.

Those schemes, according to the department, compound harm to children by shifting the cost of potentially unlawful interventions onto taxpayers and insurers.

The department's earlier hospital settlements followed a similar pattern, emphasizing stopping the procedures on minors, imposing penalties, and funding restorative care. Texas Children's Hospital, under a May 2026 deal, agreed to open what officials described as the nation's first detransition clinic. Cleveland Clinic's June agreement barred puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries for minors for 20 years and required restorative care. Connecticut Children's August deal included a $500,000 commitment for patients living with harmful consequences of prior treatment.

An August HHS report titled "Wolves in White Coats" alleged that practitioners of pediatric gender treatments may have committed tens of millions of dollars in insurance fraud over a decade.

The report estimated hospitals billed nearly $120 million for such treatments since 2019 and said the work became "a strategic area of growth" in revenue. Vice President JD Vance called on the Justice Department to investigate the hospitals after the report's release.

In line with Trump administration policy, the Civil Division said it will continue to pursue cases nationwide, put an end to unlawful conduct, recover funds obtained through fraud, and hold accountable those who profit by violating federal law at children's expense.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/07/2026 - 13:05

Key Events This Holiday-Shortened Week: All Eyes On Friday's CPI

After Friday's blowout jobs report, attention now turns to inflation. Economists expect headline CPI (Friday) to rise by +0.4% month-on-month in August, up from +0.07% previously, while core CPI is expected to print at +0.2% month-on-month, broadly unchanged from July’s +0.22%. Higher gasoline prices are likely to support the headline reading, while core inflation should continue to benefit from gradually moderating shelter costs (which however are turning higher again per Case-Shiller). If realized, the forecasts would leave headline CPI broadly unchanged at 3.4% on a year-on-year basis while core inflation edges 10 bps lower to 2.4%.

Ahead of that, the PPI (Thursday) will provide another important input into the inflation outlook. Economists expect PPI to imply a +0.3% month-on-month increase in core PCE, up from +0.2% in July, leaving the annual rate rising to 4.6% from 4.2%. The remainder of the US calendar is relatively quiet, with markets closed today for the Labor Day holiday. However, the preliminary University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey (Friday) will also attract attention. Economists expect sentiment to decline to 51.0 from 51.7 in August, while the survey’s inflation expectations measures will be closely watched.

In Europe, the ECB policy decision (Thursday) will be the key event. DB's European economists expect a 25bp rate increase, taking the deposit rate to 2.50%, and investors will focus on any guidance regarding the likelihood of further tightening. DB economists also expect an additional hike in December. They have also upgraded their 2026 and 2027 economic forecasts by 0.3pp and 0.1pp to 0.8% and 1.2% respectively. Economic data will also be closely monitored, including German industrial production (today) and trade data (tomorrow), French industrial production (Wednesday), and UK monthly GDP (Friday). Inflation releases from Sweden (today) and Norway and Denmark (Thursday) will provide additional insight into regional price pressures.

In Asia, China will dominate the calendar. DB economists expect the August trade balance (tomorrow) to show stronger activity, with exports and imports forecast to grow a significant 27% and 29% year-on-year respectively. Inflation data (Wednesday) are expected to show CPI accelerating to 0.8% year-on-year from 0.5%, while PPI inflation moderates to 3.2% from 3.5%. In Japan, key releases include labor cash earnings and the Economy Watchers survey (tomorrow), followed by PPI data (Friday).  A reminder that the BoJ has an important meeting on Friday week, less than 36 hours after the FOMC conclusion.

Beyond the economic calendar, the US Treasury’s expanded long-end buyback programme begins on Wednesday, increasing support operations in longer-dated maturities. In politics, the US Republican Party will hold its first midterm national convention in Dallas on Wednesday and Thursday, while Canada’s counter-tariffs on US imports come into force tomorrow. Corporate earnings highlights include Inditex (Wednesday) and Adobe and Oracle (Thursday). Oracle will be the key given all the focus on AI capex.  

Courtesy of DB, here is a day-by-day calendar of events

Monday September 7

• Data: China August foreign reserves, Japan July leading index, coincident index, Germany July industrial production, Sweden August CPI
• Other: US Labor Day holiday (markets closed)

Tuesday September 8

• Data: US August NFIB small business optimism, NY Fed 1-yr inflation expectations, July consumer credit, China August trade balance, Japan July labor cash earnings, BoP current account balance, BoP trade balance, August bank lending, Economy Watchers survey, Germany July trade balance, France July current account balance, trade balance
• Auctions: US 3-yr Notes ($58bn)
• Other: Canada’s counter-tariffs on US imports enter into force

Wednesday September 9

• Data: China August CPI, PPI, Japan August M2, M3, machine tool orders, France July industrial production
• Earnings: Inditex
• Auctions: US 10-yr Notes (reopening, $39bn)
• Other: US Treasury’s expanded long-end buybacks take effect, the Republican Party holds its first midterm national convention in Dallas (through Thursday)

Thursday September 10

• Data: US August PPI, existing home sales, July wholesale trade sales, initial jobless claims, UK August RICS house price balance, Italy July industrial production, Norway August CPI, Denmark August CPI, Sweden July GDP indicator
• Central banks: ECB’s decision, BoJ’s Masu speaks
• Earnings: Adobe, Oracle
• Auctions: US 30-yr Bond (reopening, $22bn)

Friday September 11

• Data: US August CPI, federal budget balance, September University of Michigan survey, Q2 household net worth, UK July monthly GDP, Japan August PPI, Germany July current account balance, Italy Q2 unemployment rate
• Central banks: ECB’s Lane speaks

Finally, focusing just on the US, Goldman writes that the key economic data release this week is the CPI report on Friday. Fed officials are not expected to comment on monetary policy this week, reflecting the blackout period ahead of the September FOMC meeting.

Monday, September 7 

• US Labor Day holiday observed. There are no major economic data releases scheduled. NYSE will be closed, SIFMA recommends bond markets remain closed.

Tuesday, September 8 

• There are no major economic data releases scheduled. 

Wednesday, September 9 

• There are no major economic data releases scheduled. 

Thursday, September 10 

• 08:30 AM PPI final demand, August (GS +0.4%, consensus +0.4%, last flat); PPI ex-food and energy, August (GS +0.3%, consensus +0.3%, last +0.2%); PPI ex-food, energy, and trade, August (GS +0.4%, consensus +0.3%, last +0.4%): As usual, we will watch the medical services and domestic passenger airfares components of this month’s PPI report for their read-through to PCE. Recent methodological changes mean that the portfolio management PPI is no longer an input into the PCE calculation, and that PPIs for data processing services and videogame software will be used to construct the computer software and accessories component of PCE. On net, we expect these changes to lead to a downward revision of 0.2pp to YoY PCE.
• 08:30 AM Initial jobless claims, week ended September 5 (GS 205k, consensus 205k, last 206k): Continuing jobless claims, week ended August 29 (consensus 1,780k, last 1,779k)
• 10:00 AM Existing home sales, August (GS -2.0%, consensus -1.6%, last -1.7%)
• 10:00 AM Wholesale inventories, July final (consensus +1.3%, last +1.3%)

Friday, September 11 

• 08:30 AM CPI (MoM), August (GS +0.39%, consensus +0.4%, last +0.1%); Core CPI (MoM), August (GS +0.23%, consensus +0.2%, last +0.2%); CPI (YoY), August (GS +3.40%, consensus +3.4%, last +3.4%); Core CPI (YoY), August (GS +2.40%, consensus +2.4%, last +2.5%): We estimate a 0.23% increase in August core CPI (month-over-month SA), which would lower the year-over-year rate by 0.1pp to 2.4% on a rounded basis. We expect mixed autos inflation, reflecting a 0.5% increase in used car prices, a 0.2% increase in new car prices, and a 0.2% decline in the car insurance category. We forecast benign readings for the shelter categories—a 0.22% increase in the OER category and a 0.23% increase in the rent category—reflecting the continued slowdown in their underlying trend. We expect firmer travel services inflation (airfares: +4%, lodging away from home: +0.3%), reflecting the signals from alternative price data. We estimate a 0.39% rise in headline CPI—reflecting higher food (+0.25%) and energy (+2.3%) prices—which would raise the year-over-year rate to +3.40% from +3.36%. Our forecast is consistent with a similar 0.22% monthly increase in the core PCE price index in August.
• 10:00 AM University of Michigan consumer sentiment, September preliminary (GS 52.0, consensus 51.0, last 51.7); University of Michigan 5-10-year inflation expectations, September preliminary (GS 3.3%, last 3.3%): We expect University of Michigan’s 5-10-year inflation expectations measure to remain unchanged at 3.3%, above its 1995-2019 average of 2.8%. We noted recently that these elevated levels in part reflect the increased politicization of survey responses and methodological changes rather than signaling an immediate risk of unanchoring.

Source: DB, Goldman, BofA

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/07/2026 - 12:55

Japan Sold Almost $90 Billion In Treasuries To Fund Record Yen Intervention

At the end of July, the only question following Japan's record $90 billion yen intervention (which worked for about two weeks before the effects faded and Bessent had to engage in more market intervention), was whether and how much Treasuries Japan had sold as part of the intervention. 

The BOJ spent a record $90BN to briefly push the yen higher.

Another catastrophic intervention by the central bank which is 100bps behind in rate hikes (chart Goldman) pic.twitter.com/xOGszXSgF7

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 31, 2026

We now now the answers: i) yes and ii) a lot. 

According to Finance Ministry reserve data released Monday, Tokyo’s holdings of foreign securities fell by $87.8 billion at the end of August from a month earlier. That decline was close to the scale of Japan’s recent intervention to support the yen. Analysts suggested Japan likely sold Treasuries at the short end of the maturity spectrum, Bloomberg reported.

Prior to the latest reserve release, the ministry had already confirmed that authorities spent the equivalent of ¥15.4 trillion ($98.6 billion) in the month through Aug. 26, with part of the operation conducted jointly with the US. And as we reported previously, te monthly intervention was also the largest on record.

A ministry briefer said intervention was a factor behind the fall in foreign reserves, but did not confirm that Treasuries were offloaded. Another intervention financed through sales of US Treasuries could potentially further anger Bessent as it would show that Tokyo is still willing to go down that route even as US officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, have become increasingly focused on Treasury-market stability, particularly ahead of the midterm elections.

“Japan may have used both foreign securities and deposits, but it most likely sold US Treasuries,” said Atsushi Takeda, chief economist at Itochu Research Institute.

As we noted then, the US participated in Japan’s intervention campaign at the end of July by stepping into the market on July 31 in the first coordinated move between the nations to support the yen since 1998. That, according to Bloomberg, shows the two sides are still likely on the same page for now.

“Bessent has also repeatedly said that the yen has weakened too much, so the US probably shares that view and that’s why it’s cooperating with Japan,” Takeda said.Still, long-term US yields are still firmly placed on Bessent’s radar. He recently announced that the government would double the size of its buybacks of longer-dated debt for two months through Nov. 4, a move likely aimed at keeping a lid on longer-term yields.

The data do not provide a detailed breakdown of securities holdings or maturities, though market participants estimate that roughly 70% of Japan’s foreign reserves are invested in US Treasuries.

“Japan still has room to intervene given the amount of securities it holds, but given comments from Bessent, selling US Treasuries to fund further intervention could end up attracting pressure from the US,” said Akira Nishimura, economist at the Japan Research Institute. “That would make it difficult for the ministry and the BOJ to act going forward.”

Analysts suggested that Treasury sales were likely focused at the short end of maturities, limiting their impact on long-term yields and the potential for irritation in Washington.

“Japan’s Treasury holdings would span the curve, but the first port of call to fund intervention would be to liquidate assets with maturities of 5 years and under,” said Prashant Newnaha, senior Asia-Pacific rates strategist at TD Securities, flagging their greater liquidity. “It’s unlikely the MOF would have offloaded longer dated securities - maturities of 10 years or more - given the potential for significant pressure on long-end yields.”

Not only are shorter-term Treasuries the easiest to sell, foreign reserve managers tend to invest at the short end anyway as that is their “preferred habitat,” said Macquarie strategist Gareth Berry, adding that  “conveniently, selling short-dated Treasuries is probably something the US side would be less concerned about, and better able to live with, as US attention seems mainly focused on the long-end."

Markets have remained jittery since last week as investors recalibrate their rate expectations and positions. The yen strengthened from around 160.39 per dollar on Wednesday to as much as 155.30 on Friday. The currency further strengthened to around 154.50 on Monday amid ongoing speculation Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund may boost allocations toward domestic assets.

That suggests no further intervention for the time being, especially with the BOJ expected to do the heavy lifting from now on. Following Bessent’s call for higher Japanese interest rates in North Carolina last week and recent signaling from BOJ officials, markets are now fully pricing in a BOJ rate hike in September. Some investors are even starting to consider whether the central bank could accelerate the pace of tightening after a series of hawkish signals, a stance that would offer further support for the yen.

Finally, while Monday’s report showed Japan’s foreign currency reserves fell $94.6 billion to $995 billion at the end of August, the remaining amount still shows the substantial resources available to authorities should they need to intervene again. Foreign currency deposits, another potential source of intervention funds, fell $6.9 billion.

In addition to selling securities and drawing on foreign deposits, Japan can also tap the Foreign and International Monetary Authorities Repo Facility in future interventions, Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama suggested after the US-Japan joint intervention. The facility introduced during the pandemic enables Japan to access up to $60 billion per day without selling Treasuries, limiting any impact on US yields and expanding the potential scope for intervention. Still, there is no record of Japan using FIMA.

“The lack of any precedent would be a significant hurdle to actually using it,” Nishimura said. “So I view the comments on FIMA as more of a signal that Japan still has ample resources available to fund intervention, rather than actually using the facility.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/07/2026 - 12:15

The Copper Chart Causing Alarm

Copper futures in London continue to move higher, once again approaching record highs, as US buyers purchase record volumes from the seaborne market, with imports reaching 200,000 tons in July. A phased US tariff would keep that buying in motion for longer, further tightening the ex-US market and limiting any near-term price correction in London trading.

Rafael Barcellos, head of Latin American Metals & Mining and Pulp & Paper Equity Research at Bradesco BBI, wrote in a note last week that global mine supply is deteriorating. He warned that severe weather in Chile has forced Antofagasta and Lundin to cut their production guidance, further tightening an already stressed physical market.

Barcellos explained:

Copper prices extended their July rally into August, running above US$14,000/t throughout the month and reaching ~US$14,450/t as of August 30. Momentum has been driven by near-term physical tightness, as refined copper continues to flow into the US ahead of a potential import tariff.

While market consensus frames the policy as a binary outcome for copper — a tariff being supportive for prices and a no-tariff decision being negative — we would argue instead that both outcomes are ultimately bearish, and that it is the uncertainty around the tariffs that is intensifying the current upward momentum. Should tariffs not be implemented, the massive inventories accumulated in the US would be redirected elsewhere, increasing global supply availability. However, should the US instead move ahead, US buyers would likely reduce near-term procurement given the elevated stocks already built ahead of the decision, ultimately reducing regional demand and easing tightness elsewhere. That said, a phased tariff (e.g. an incremental rate over the coming years) — which we do see as the most likely scenario — should help keep US buyers in the seaborne market for longer, smoothing rather than removing the demand adjustment and limiting the near-term downside to prices.

On the supply side, the concentrate market remains tight, further exacerbated by extreme weather in Chile, which led Antofagasta and Lundin Mining to lower their 2026 production guidance ranges to 625-655kt (from 650-700kt) and 300-325kt (from 310-335kt), respectively, reflecting disruptions at Los Pelambres and Caserones. On the refined side, amid persistent concentrate tightness, Chinese smelters have increasingly turned to secondary feedstock, with copper scrap imports rising +15% YoY in July (+9% YTD)

Barcellos' view of the copper market was echoed in a Bloomberg report on Friday, which cited International Copper Study Group data showing that global mine production fell 1.1% during the first half of 2026, with output at industry giants Codelco and Freeport-McMoRan declining by double digits.

Separately, Morgan Stanley, which began the year forecasting supply growth, now expects mine production to finish roughly unchanged or slightly lower, potentially marking the first annual decline since 2017.

Producers representing roughly two-thirds of global supply recorded a 3.5% decline during the first half and a 4.1% drop in the second quarter, according to Jefferies data cited by SP Angel. Chile, the world's largest copper-producing country, suffered its weakest second quarter in nearly two decades and now expects annual output to fall 2.6%.

Related:

• Jefferies: "Turns Out, We Weren't Bullish Enough On Copper"
• HSBC Warns Of Commodity "Super-Squeeze" As Goldman Hikes Copper Forecasts

Copper has now advanced for 10 consecutive weeks on the London Metal Exchange.

To sum up, all of this only suggests a structurally bullish period for copper. Demand from electric vehicles, power-grid expansion and artificial-intelligence data centers is accelerating just as physical-market tightness constrains supply and pushes London prices higher.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/07/2026 - 11:35

This Labor Day, A Look At Declining Role Of Unions In America

Authored by Jeremy Lott via The Epoch Times,

Labor Day, celebrated this year on Sept. 7, is a holiday in transition.

It was created by American labor unions in the 1880s. The federal government recognizing it as a national holiday under President Grover Cleveland helped unions to gain prominence.

Yet as unionization has declined, so too has the close association of the day with organized labor.

The Department of Labor's website now calls it an "annual celebration of the social and economic achievements of American workers."

Nelson Rivera of New York City is one such worker. He is an assistant supervisor in maintenance, a field he has toiled in for 23 years.

"Labor Day to me is just celebrating people that've been working all their lives, like 20 and 30 years," he told The Epoch Times.

He said it was a day to "cook out with my family, have a good time with them, and relax."

For many working families like Rivera's, the Labor Day cookout is a regular event.

It's also the occasion for many sales, the moment fashionistas have designated to mark the shift to fall colors, and the holiday after which many schools start.

Even that last part has faded, however, with the Pew Research Center finding in 2023 that more than 70 percent of students now start earlier.

America is less organized around Labor Day because American workers are less organized by unions than they used to be.

Only 10 percent of the total American workforce was unionized last year.

Among those, fewer than 6 percent of private-sector workers were unionized, according to government data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The decades-long decline has been helped along recently by some Trump administration moves against public-sector unions.

On the state level, legislatures in red states are pushing against unions in several ways, while their counterparts in blue states are pushing back.

In percentage terms, it has been quite the fall. Unionization of the American economy stood at 20.1 percent in 1983. From the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s, the percentage of the U.S. workforce that was unionized was even higher than that, at more than 30 percent.

That means that the American economy has transformed over 70 years, from roughly one in three workers being unionized in 1955 to one in 10 in the most recent figures.

Last year's unionization number was propped up by government workers, who the Bureau of Labor Statistics noted are organized at a rate "more than five times higher than the rate of private-sector workers," or 32.9 percent.

Looking at the private sector alone, only slightly more than one in 20 workers were represented by a union.

Trump and Unions

President Donald Trump courted union voters during his three campaigns for the presidency, and the actions of his administration toward private-sector unions have been mixed.

At times, Trump has shored up the union position. He met with the International Longshoremen's Association leadership as president-elect in 2024 and worked to avert a strike with an agreement to slow any job-replacing automation at East and Gulf Coast ports.

Other times, Trump has done things that unions generally opposed, such as firing the National Labor Relations Board's Democrat-designated member Gwynne Wilcox in late January 2025.

The firing had to be litigated. That kept the regulatory body from having a necessary quorum for about a year. The lack of regulatory authority contributed to a growing backlog of thousands of cases, which made it very difficult for unions to press unfair labor practice claims.

Trump's administration has been more oppositional to unions representing government workers.

With one executive order, for instance, the president sought to exclude the workers of 40 government agencies from collective bargaining. After much litigation, the administration has managed to cancel collective bargaining for the workers of several agencies.

In an April court filing, the National Treasury Employees Union said it expects to "lose tens of thousands of members" because of those actions.

The administration also took actions to make it easier to fire civil servants by reclassifying them, successfully urged somewhere in the neighborhood of 140,000 federal workers to take buyouts, and has floated a federal pay freeze for next year.

Unions representing government workers have shed many of their own workers. Collections fell off after the federal government stopped automatically deducting union dues from many workers' paychecks and depositing them into union accounts.

States and Unions

Actions limiting government unions in ways great and small are also happening at the state level, particularly those controlled by Republicans.

For instance, this year the Idaho legislature passed a bill to prohibit school districts "from allowing taxpayer funds to promote teachers unions."

The bill forecast that a few school districts "may experience a modest indeterminate increase in revenue," seeing as how teachers' unions are now "required to reimburse the school district for any time teachers spend on union-related activities during work hours."

States with Democratic majorities are generally pushing the other way, as one act of the New Jersey legislature shows.

For the 2026-2027 school year, New Jersey schools are introducing mandated curriculum to turn social studies classes into primers on the past struggles of organized labor, including "notable strikes throughout history."

Where Unions Have a Greater Impact

Yet the story for organized labor in America on this Labor Day is not only a story of decline. There are some successes as well that show how unions continue to exert influence.

Unions continue to push for and win some unionization elections.

And unions in a few sectors have found ways to buck the wider trend and have organized in numbers that are several times greater than in the economy as a whole.

The technical term for the percentage of the economy that is unionized is called union density.

Julia Cartwright is a senior research fellow in law and economics at the American Institute for Economic Research.

She told The Epoch Times that she expects that private-sector union density will either "stay flat or drift slightly lower over the next five years, from 5.9 percent in 2025 to somewhere in the 5.5-6 percent range by 2030."

Currently, the transportation and infrastructure sectors "sit well above the private-sector average" of union density, Cartwright said, and supplied numbers from government data.

Workers at utilities, which manage significant infrastructure, are 17.8 percent unionized. Transportation and warehousing workers together are 13.6 percent unionized. Construction workers, who are responsible for servicing and building out a lot of infrastructure, are 11.1 percent unionized.

"These industries stay more heavily unionized because the usual union-avoidance playbook doesn't work as well there," she said, explaining that "the work can't be relocated; you can't offshore a port, a rail line, or a construction site."

Cartwright said certain laws have also played a role in boosting unionization in these sectors.

Prevailing wage laws, mandated for federal contracting companies by the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 and mimicked by several states, require "prevailing, often union-scale, pay on public projects, which erases nonunion contractors' main bid advantage and keeps union contractors and their apprenticeship pipelines viable," she said.

Parts of the transportation sector have a whole different set of laws regulating unionization, she noted.

The normal rules of the game under the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 treat single workplaces as bargaining units for the purposes of unionization elections.

Railroads and airlines are instead governed by the older Railway Labor Act with "bargaining units spanning an entire carrier's system," Cartwright said.

That makes it easier to unionize much larger percentages of those sectors. And more thorough unionization gives unions more leverage.

Rail and shipping are "chokepoint industries," she said, "meaning industries positioned at narrow pass-through points in the economy where a stoppage cascades far beyond the firm itself."

Cartwright used as an example a rail or port strike, which can "idle billions of dollars in capital and disrupt supply chains nationwide."

The large sums of money at risk of disruption have "historically made accommodation cheaper for employers than confrontation."

Construction, Transportation Trends

Peter Philips is an economist at the University of Utah who has also studied unionization in America. He foresees some strength ahead for unions in these sectors, but also some weakness.

"Union density in the construction sector benefits from construction booms," he told The Epoch Times, and he thinks demand for data centers to power the growing AI sector fits that bill.

Philips predicted that far greater data center construction will redound "to the benefit of construction unions that will expand their membership to meet the demand."

In contrast, he thinks the transportation sector is "more of a mixed bag."

Philips said that economic booms benefit trucking, railroads and airline travel.

Yet trucking firms are finding themselves squeezed by higher diesel prices due to shipping problems through the Strait of Hormuz, and the AI boom could lead to the development of some driverless trucking down the road.

The expansion of driverless trucks, "if they are successfully introduced to the transportation sector," is likely to "hurt long haul trucking employment, including possibly unionized truckers," he said.

He thinks that Americans are bound to be skittish about at least some of this.

"It may be a while, if ever, that the public is going to be comfortable with and accept driverless 18-wheelers," he said.

The contest he sees developing at trucking firms is between rising demand, the struggle to staff for that, and automation, which is one answer to the staffing problem.

Recent Union Gains

Drawing on the same government data as Cartwright and Philips, the AFL-CIO trumpeted the recent achievements of organized labor as a whole.

"Union representation grew by 463,000 in 2025, bringing the total number of workers represented by union contracts to 16.5 million," the union said in a news release earlier this year celebrating results that were the "highest in 16 years."

The AFL-CIO noted "significant gains in health care, retail, education services and construction" and that unions have made headway in the South, which had been thought by many in organized labor to be hostile territory because of the states' right-to-work laws.

However, even for all that effort, the percentage of America's unionized workforce stayed essentially flat.

Cartwright cautioned that percentages of unionization can sometimes be misleading because the size of the American workforce changes over time.

"Unions have been adding members in absolute terms," she told The Epoch Times, "but the nonunion workforce keeps growing faster, so union density stays roughly the same."

Cartwright said this growing but still seemingly getting nowhere phenomenon was "starkest in 2022, when unions gained 273,000 members and density still fell because total employment grew by 5.3 million."

That does not mean that unions are doomed to relative decline. What it does mean on this Labor Day is that unions and their supporters have their work cut out for them.

According to AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, they are up to that challenge.

"In 2026, workers will continue to organize in every corner of the country and build power to fight for the lives they deserve," she said.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/07/2026 - 11:15

Zelensky Expects War To Continue Through Winter, As Witkoff-Kushner Deliver 'Upbeat Assessment' From Putin Meeting

Despite Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner having delivered 'upbeat assessments' (per AFP) to Kiev after meeting with President Putin in Moscow over the weekend, Ukrainian President Zelensky has told his citizenry to prepare for a brutal winter, as the war is set to continue through this period.

A senior Ukrainian presidential official said Sunday that the US team brought new, "more effective" proposals for ending the war. "It's not the same as it was before. This one now is more effective. They're still talking. This is actually the most important part," the official said to AFP.

AFP via Getty Images

This marked Witkoff-Kushner's first trip to Kiev - as they've been playing point for Trump efforts at negotiating the end to conflicts from the Middle East to Gaza to Eastern Europe. However, many have pointed out they are un-elected, not formally appointed, and hold no official government offices - and do not have prior track records as high level diplomats. 

Zelensky after being briefed on US talks with Putin remarked: "We very much hope that we will be able to reach agreements with our American partners, and we are counting on the support of our European partners if the war continues in winter — and this is how it appears at the moment."

This comes after the Kremlin reportedly told Americans Saturday it was feeling "confident" its forces would advance more, deeper into Ukraine from eastern territories that Russia already holds.

Kushner said: "Hopefully this trip has come out with some new ways to advance forward. I think we've learned a lot from the trip."

It's unlikely that President Putin takes these two men very seriously, especially Trump's son-in-law, who seems to hold this top envoy position for no other reason than being family. And of course Witkoff is a real estate mogul. Both Kushner and Witkoff are Jewish - which has some bearing on failed Iran negotiations, as well as prior Gaza peace efforts - given Tehran doesn't trust them, but sees them as having divided loyalties. The Kushner family has for decades been close personal friends of Netanyahu, with the Israeli leader having on occasions stayed at their private residence.

Hundreds of thousands dead in the Ukraine proxy war, which holds the potential to escalate into nuclear confrontation with NATO... and the guys that Trump sends sit and ruminate about the "incredible stories and memories" they will share in retirement:

🇺🇸 Witkoff to Putin:

President Putin, thank you so much for having us.

We were sitting outside just now, me, Jared, Kirill, Yuri, and we were talking about, when we retire, we will have all these incredible stories and memories, and yours will be right at the top of it all. pic.twitter.com/w8HoGg5o54

— MAKS 26 🇺🇦👀 (@Maks_NAFO_FELLA) September 5, 2026

Trump had promised to end the Ukraine war from his very opening days in office, which of course proved absurdly unrealistic. But he did energize the MAGA base by placing this as a top priority.

However, the reality remains: the US has continued providing deep intelligence assistance to Ukraine, it has continued to approve missile and other weapons transfers to Kiev, and has given a greenlight for Ukraine to send long-range drones against sensitive assets on Russian soil. Halting these things could be an actual catalyst toward peace settlement, but so far by all appearances these US support programs are going strong.

T-shirts...

Thanks for the $400 Billion Steve and Jared. Check it out, we printed some t-shirts with whatever money we have left. https://t.co/dujLcZdiwW

— Alex Christoforou (@AXChristoforou) September 7, 2026 Tyler Durden Mon, 09/07/2026 - 10:50

GOP Bets On Trumpapalooza To Defy Midterm History

Authored by Carolina Lumetta via RealClearPolitics,

Texas-based Republican strategist Rebecca Trahan is excited to see the first-ever GOP midterm convention come to Dallas next week. More specifically, she hopes it will bring yet more national attention and dollars to the Senate campaign for state Attorney General Ken Paxton.

"I think [the convention] can be very motivating. I hope that the event does encourage and get people to get out and vote," Trahan told RealClearPolitics. "I hope that it drives a lot of money to the Paxton campaign because they really need it, and I know that Texas really needs Ken Paxton as the next senator considering our options."

Trahan says Paxton's Democratic opponent James Talarico is a more formidable challenger than many Republicans realize. She said the convention is a welcome burst of energy onto the scene but would be better if it were more accessible. The two-day event will not be aired in full on national television networks, and it competes with the beginning of the school year and the start of football season on the two nights of speeches.

"I really applaud the RNC for doing everything that they can to help Texas candidates, and especially to help Ken Paxton, because we need it," Trahan said.

But she's not attending the convention either.

"For me, if I'm going to a fundraiser, I prefer that it be a little bit more private," Trahan said. "I love conventions, but there is so much work to be done just this weekend alone, and block walking and phone banking. So I chose to stay back and do that."

The Republican National Committee promised a "Trumpapalooza" as the president takes the stage on both convention nights. Several Republican candidates have hemmed and hawed on whether they'll attend the rally-like event, and the RNC has opened attendance to the public, hoping to gin up both base and prospective voter support.

"We are trying to reach those low- and mid-propensity voters that came out for President Trump in 2024, and we're trying to communicate to the American people the contrast that they have on the ballot this cycle," RNC spokeswoman Natalie Baldassarre told RCP.

Vice President JD Vance previewed the party's message during a White House press briefing Thursday. For the past year, the Trump administration has highlighted the One Big Beautiful Bill, rebranded as the Working Families Tax Cuts. In recent weeks, they've argued that Democrats who opposed the legislation would essentially be raising taxes if they win and would try to reverse Trump's actions over the past two years.

"My elevator pitch is actually very simple," Vance told reporters. "Do you want to live in a country that has safety and security and prosperity? If the answer is yes, and I think most Americans do, then vote for congressional Republicans over congressional Democrats on every single issue. The Democrats have taken the side of fraudsters, of criminals, and of far-left interest groups over the side of the American people."

But the strategy of hosting a midterm convention in Texas in September could be a double-edged sword.

"I don't know how much I want to be part of this," one Republican House member told RCP. "It's just going to be a highly orchestrated Trump thing where they'll trot out some members."

Many Republican candidates, particularly those in tight races, have either declined to attend the convention due to scheduling issues or have not revealed their plans, according to reporting from Politico and CNN. During a midterm year, even one or two days spent away from the campaign trail is considered wasted time. To that effect, House Speaker Mike Johnson already canceled the final weeks of the House session this month so that members may remain in their districts.

The low level of enthusiasm does not appear to be worrying the White House. Vance said the point of the convention is to bring the full force of the Trump administration to help the GOP, which does not necessarily require candidates to be on the stage.

"That doesn't concern me," Vance said during the briefing. "We can make the argument as much as possible that if you elect congressional Democrats, you're going to see higher prices, worse energy, higher taxes, and more fraud. The president and I can go and make that argument on national TV. We don't need a congressman in a tight race to be there in all cases."

Conventions in midterm years are often glorified revelries with little concrete purpose, especially when the identity of the party's eventual presidential nominee is unknown. Trump first publicly floated the idea of a midterm convention last year. Then, the RNC voted during its January annual meeting to change the charter rules to allow for such an event. Trump confirmed the date and location in another Truth Social post in June.

While the GOP has never done something like this before, Democrats were once quite practiced at it. The party would often host a mid-cycle convention until the mid-1980s, when then-Democratic National Committee chairman Paul Kirk shuttered the tradition. He complained that would-be presidential candidates used the stage to attract attention for themselves rather than all the races down-ballot that needed support. The entire event he summed up as "places for mischief."

This year, the DNC again teased that it might return the practice, but in its own annual meeting, members shot down the idea. DNC Executive Director Roger Lau said in a statement that the party had "baited" the GOP into throwing money down the drain for a midterm convention, giving the DNC an advantage in spending. But that strategy might not have panned out. The RNC reported a record $130.3 million in cash on hand by the end of July. The DNC reported roughly $16 million at the same time, along with nearly $18 million in debt.

Most congressional Republicans are paying roughly $25,000 each to attend the convention, though each state party manages its own ticket packages. Other affiliated organizations, such as the National Republican Congressional Committee, are offering additional perks like breakfast with House leadership and special access for up to $100,000, according to an NRCC flyer first reported by Politico. The RNC also designated tickets for state parties, which then determined how to distribute them. Instead of delegates, the seats will be filled with members of the public, according to the RNC.

RNC Chair Joe Gruters told Newsmax this week that the convention will be a landing place for the party's messaging. He appeared optimistic that of the 35 competitive House races this cycle, Republicans can defy conventional wisdom and defend the congressional majority.

"We think we can defy history and we have the right candidates," Gruters said. "We have the messaging, we have the resources to put behind that messaging, and so, we're well on our way."

The messaging will focus on key portions of the president's agenda, including last year's tax cuts, border enforcement, energy policy, trade, and more. But it will have to dodge some pitfalls, such as the ongoing war with Iran, high inflation and gas prices, a controversial deal to subsidize Venezuelan beef, concerns about data centers, and the president's sinking approval ratings. Vice President JD Vance will keynote the first night, and the president will close out Thursday night with his own address.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/07/2026 - 10:25

Huawei Crashes Apple's Big Launch Week With $3,000 Trifold Smartphone

Two days before Apple's big launch event on Wednesday, when the company is expected to debut its long-awaited foldable iPhone, Huawei Technologies and Xiaomi are unveiling their premium foldable smartphones.

Huawei on Monday unveiled its Mate XT 2, a trifold smartphone that unfolds into a 10.2-inch tablet. The starting price is $2,980, representing a 10% increase over its predecessor.

First unboxing of Huawei’s $3,000 Mate XT2

The second-gen tri-fold that turns into a 10.2 inch tablet pic.twitter.com/xDET4qM296

— ViralRush ⚡ (@ViralRushX) September 7, 2026

Huawei Executive Director Richard Yu attributed part of that increase to the big memory squeeze that has sent prices skyrocketing. Despite its premium price, the entry-level device comes with 16GB of memory and 256GB of storage. 

Xiaomi is set to launch a rival foldable phone later today, while Apple's foldable iPhone, expected to debut on Wednesday, could be called the iPhone Ultra and cost upwards of $2,500.

The iPhone Ultra is now said to feature MagSafe charging after all.

Previous leaks suggested Apple was skipping this feature on their first foldable due to space constraints. pic.twitter.com/95EomHTV9c

— AppleTrack (@appltrack) September 2, 2026

Yu told reporters earlier that the "real challenge right now is pricing, because memory costs have risen sharply. We adopted a lot of new technology, and the cost pressure has been enormous."

The launches of premium foldable phones from the three major brands this week come amid mounting headwinds across the global handset market. Counterpoint forecasts a 14% drop in global smartphone shipments this year. Chinese manufacturers are particularly exposed because of their reliance on budget handsets.

Counterpoint analyst Ivan Lam said Apple has the "world's biggest premium device installed base," adding, "Its foldable will sell well and rapidly grab market share." He also noted that the new handset could spur broader consumer demand, giving rivals a lift.

Smart Analytics Global forecasts that Apple could capture 41% of worldwide foldable sales next year. Its entry will undoubtedly intensify competition across the foldable space.

However, Nikkei Asia reported last week that production of foldable iPhones remains limited ahead of this week's launch.

"Apple has very high quality requirements and added an extra trial run in August ahead of actual production. However, production is ramping up slowly, with output currently at only a few hundred units a day in late August. That initial volume could be challenging to meet market demand," one supply chain manager told the Japanese news outlet.

With U.S. gasoline prices averaging above $4 a gallon nationally and squeezing household budgets, the iPhone Ultra's high price tag could pose a major test of consumers' willingness to spend on premium upgrades. For Apple, under new leadership with John Ternus at the helm, the key question is whether the foldable design offers enough value to persuade consumers to upgrade. Then again, there are always buy-now, pay-later options.

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

Futures Drop As Iran Hostilities Send Brent To 6 Week High Above $97

US stock futures slipped in cautious, low volume trading as the latest Middle East escalation pushed oil prices higher, lifting bond yields in Europe and Asia. As of 9:00am ET, S&P futures were down 0.2% with Nasdaq futures modestly in the red despite solid performance for tech stocks earlier in the session, which helped the Kospi surge more than 4.6% - its second biggest jump since the Situational Awareness takeover by Citadel - and Nikkei jumped almost 2% as OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra debut reinvigorates the Asian semiconductor rally. Taiex climbs about 1.5% and ChiNext soars 2.6% (as discussed overnight, China may be the next Gamma Squeeze target). Hang Seng underperformed peers with a 1% loss as Chinese tech stocks retreat in Hong Kong. Brent crude rose above $97 a barrel following the largest exchange of tanker attacks yet between Iran and the US. Traders also assessed reports of hits on Saudi Arabian oil infrastructure and a potential accord between Iran and Oman to manage shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. In FX, the yen strengthened to its highest level since February, surpassing the peak reached after July’s intervention. The dollar fell 0.2%. Cash trading in Treasuries and US equities was closed for Labor Day. US markets are closed for Labor Day. 

In corporate news, an Amazon.com Inc. cargo plane overran a runway at Miami International Airport and burst into flames on Sunday, killing at least five people and temporarily shutting down the airport’s runways.

• Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Plc will slash some 4,000 jobs as Britain’s largest carmaker grapples with US tariffs, the fallout of a crippling cyberattack and intense competition.
• Novo Nordisk A/S stopped two more trials for its experimental heart disease medicine, in a further blow to the drug’s prospects.
• Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. is in talks with the biggest refining companies in Thailand and Africa to invest in their businesses.
• Uber Technologies Inc. has hired banks to hold calls with investors this week for a debut euro bond sale.
• Novartis AG suffered a second trial disappointment within a week after the Swiss pharma group’s potential blockbuster heart drug failed in a final-stage study.

US cash trading and individual stock futures are shut today for the Labor day weekend. For anyone catching up after a break, Friday’s US jobs report did the early work on this week’s story. Payrolls rose 162,000, blowing past estimates, and pushed the market-implied odds of a Federal Reserve rate hike on Sept. 16 to a little above 60% from around 50% before the print.

That leaves Friday’s CPI (and to an extent Thursday’s PPI) as the real swing factor for a Fed that’s held steady for five straight meetings. The European Central Bank adds its own test Thursday, with markets pricing a near-certain quarter-point hike to a 2.50% deposit rate. Between the two central banks and Friday’s CPI, this is the week Europe has to trade around.

“Markets will be adjusting their positioning heading into the Fed’s blackout period. The risk is the Fed turning hawkish and that will be reflected in equities,” said Geoff Yu, a senior macro strategist at BNY. “Bond markets will remain nervy and we remain focused on fixed-income volatility.”

While economic data will likely be the biggest catalyst for markets this week, earnings will also help shape the outlook for key equity sectors. Results from Oracle Corp. and Adobe Inc. on Thursday will give investors a fresh read on AI infrastructure demand and the threat the technology poses to software makers. For now, the earnings backdrop remains supportive. Investors should buy any dips in equities given a robust earnings outlook, said JPM strategists. Even moderate central bank tightening would be unlikely to derail the positive backdrop for stocks unless inflation expectations change materially, said the team led by Mislav Matejka. “As corporate profits remain on an uptrend, any bout of weakness in equity prices would leave them cheaper,” the strategists wrote. “We believe one should continue using the dips to add.”

The Stoxx 600 struggled for direction, with economically sensitive sectors among the biggest decliners as inflation concerns drove bond yields higher. Novartis AG shares fell 2.6% after a heart drug failed in a final-stage study. Energy stocks outperformed, while the real estate and insurance sectors were among the biggest laggards. Here are the biggest movers Monday:

• Nordex shares rose as much as 12%, the most in over four months, after being upgraded to buy at BofA Global Research
• SigmaRoc rose as much as 13%, the most since March 2021, after the lime and minerals group released its interim results and announced the acquisition of Lithuanian dolomite business AB Dolomitas
• Lottomatica shares gained as much as 8.2%, hitting the highest since June, after the Italian gaming company quantified the boost to online earnings it expects from the proposed acquisition of Spanish rival Cirsa Enterprises
• Infineon shares rose as much as 3.9% as MP Capital Markets upgraded the stock to buy from hold
• Burkhalter shares rose as much as 6.7%, the most since March 2022, after the Swiss building technology services company reported results
• Novartis shares fell as much as 3.9% after the Swiss pharma group’s potential blockbuster heart drug, pelacarsen, failed in a final-stage study
• Schindler dropped as much as 3.6% after Goldman Sachs gave the elevator and escalator specialist its only sell rating, downgrading from neutral, citing lower growth and earnings progression compared to the wider sector
• Tomra shares fell as much as 10%, while Norwegian-listed peer Envipco also slumps, after France abandoned plans to impose a mandatory deposit return system for plastic bottles, introducing doubts over a potential growth catalyst for the stocks
• Hollywood Bowl shares dropped as much as 6%, the most since May 2025, after analysts at Deutsche Bank cut their price target and warned the summer drought created “less-than-ideal conditions” for the provider of indoor family entertainment

German establishment politics, and specifically Merkel's pro-immigration legacy, suffered a crushing blow over the weekend, after the conservative Alternative for Germany scored its best-ever result in a state election on Sunday, delivering a powerful blow to liberal Chancellor Friedrich Merz. The AfD secured 44% of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt. In the UK, the government signaled it won’t provide financial support to limit job losses expected to be announced at Jaguar Land Rover this week.

South Korea’s memory heavyweights were standouts in Asia as the release of OpenAI’s GPT-6 model continued to fuel renewed enthusiasm for AI. Driving the tech rally is OpenAI’s plan to release a new model, GPT-6, pitched as a milestone toward artificial general intelligence. That pushed the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index up 3.4% on Wall Street Friday and has SK Hynix and Samsung leading the advance in Asia Monday. The enthusiasm isn’t universal though. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng and its tech gauge both slipped into the red despite the Nikkei and Kospi seeing solid gains.

The dollar initially ticked higher, but then retreated following another surge in the yen which pushed the USDJPY as low as 154, down almost 200 pips overnight. The Korean won extended winning streak to around two-year high. T-note futures are about 1/32 softer near 107-14 with cash Treasuries closed for Labor Day. Bund futures are ~15 ticks lower after German far-right party AfD wins state election. Aussie curve bear flattens with 3-year yield ~3 bps higher. WTI crude futures climb 1% to near $92.40; gold sheds almost $30 to below $4,400-handle.

The notable overnight mover was again the yen, which strengthened to its highest level since February, surpassing the peak reached after coordinated intervention by Japan and the US. The Japanese currency suddenly extended gains, up as much as 1.4% to 154.06 against the dollar in London trading. There was no clear driver for the move, with some traders pointing to the US holiday helping to exaggerate the moves while others mentioned the break of the key 155 per dollar level as a reason.  The yen’s break below 155 is significant given the level previously acted as a floor following past intervention episodes,” said Masahiko Loo, senior fixed income strategist at State Street Investment Management.

Large stop-loss orders below the 155-per-dollar level were triggered and options dealers were forced to sell dollars, adding to the yen’s gains, according to a trader familiar with the transactions who asked not to be identified because they aren’t authorized to speak publicly.

China, separately, said it’s injecting 300 billion yuan ($45 billion) into its largest banks and insurers, its biggest recapitalization in almost two decades, with only a modest share reaction so far. 

In commodities, oil advances, with Brent futures are trading at a 6 week high, above $97 a barrel, after US attacks on Iranian tankers and Tehran’s threat of a new restricted zone outside the Strait of Hormuz. Over the weekend, Iran said it hit three US-linked ships in retaliation for American attacks on Iranian tankers. The US military earlier said it struck three Iranian crude tankers, in response to the IRGC targeting two US Navy warships with ballistic missiles. European natural gas prices surge. Meanwhile, Ukraine is resigned to Russia’s war dragging on through another tough winter.

In rates, japan likely sold a portion of its holdings of foreign securities, including US Treasuries, to finance its record currency intervention over the past month. Treasury futures edge down. There’s no trading of cash Treasuries worldwide on Monday because of a US public holiday.

Market Snapshot

Top Overnight News

• Saudi Aramco’s oil facilities in the Saudi Arabian city of Jizan have been attacked only a month after a separate strike temporarily knocked out some production at its refinery.: FT
• Iran says US energy companies' facilities are 'exposed': RTRS
• UAE says its energy exports will not be 'held hostage' by Iran war: RTRS
• Several Qatari liquefied natural gas tankers are heading back toward the Persian Gulf, a sign the supplier may be positioning vessels for a resumption of exports through the Strait of Hormuz: BBG
• The Alternative for Germany scored its best-ever result in a state election on Sunday amid growing public discontent with the political establishment, delivering a powerful blow to Chancellor Friedrich Merz: BBG
• AI could pose 'existential' risk to humanity, UN rights chief warns: RTRS
• From dance floor to war: China readies humanoid robots for combat: RTRS
• Japan likely sold a portion of its holdings of foreign securities, including US Treasuries, to finance its record currency intervention over the past month, despite concern in Washington over the impact of Treasury sales on long-term yields: BBG
• The South Korean won advanced to its strongest level in nearly two years Monday, helped by a rally in semiconductor stocks and continued foreign inflows into the country’s benchmark equity index: BBG
• Nepal rescuers focus on 900 hydropower workers, 121 could be trapped in tunnels, officials say: RTRS
• German industrial production declined the most in almost a year, marking an unexpected setback to the recovery of Europe’s biggest economy: RTRS
• Fed's Hammack (2026 voter) said on Friday that Fed policy is not restrictive and inflation is too high, while she stated local contact views indicate now is the time for a Fed hike to control inflation.
• Huawei launches new foldable smartphone; Xiaomi and Apple set to follow: RTRS
• Warning signs abound for Republicans as midterm campaign begins final sprint: RTRS
• President Trump said on Friday that they are taking action to help cattle ranchers and signed an order that allows ranchers to process their own beef, while small, medium, and large ranchers can sell to consumers, and he also stated that meatpackers have been charging unsustainable prices.
• There were multiple casualties after an Amazon (AMZN) cargo plane overran the runway and struck vehicles whilst landing at Miami International Airport, while the Miami-Dade County Sheriff announced that at least five people have been confirmed dead.

Iran Headlines

• US launched strikes against three Iranian crude oil tankers on Saturday, which destroyed one, in retaliation for the IRGC targeting US Navy warships with ballistic missiles.
• Iran’s navy said it targeted three oil tankers that were travelling through unauthorised routes in the Strait of Hormuz and three additional US vessels in other areas.
• US President Trump said on Friday that they do intermittent strikes in Iran and that the Iran issue is a military conflict, while he added that they may hit Pickaxe Mountain very soon. Trump warned that if anything goes badly with Iran, they may hit them hard and have essentially taken over Iran. He also claimed there have been no shootings for days and there are no mines in the Strait.
• US Energy Secretary Wright said a nuclear deal with Iran may not be achievable in the near term and military action may be needed to address threats from Iran, according to ABC News.
• Iran's top security official Rezaei said Iran and Oman will sign agreed Strait of Hormuz passage maps in the coming days and that Iran will commit to keeping the Strait of Hormuz open when the US neither threatens Iran nor attacks it. Rezaei also stated that they will announce in the coming days and weeks a restricted zone outside the Strait of Hormuz that starts from the US Navy's blockade line and extends through the strait into the Persian Gulf, and any ship identified entering this zone with the intention of passing through the strait will be added to the sanctions list. Furthermore, he said that Iran tested an Iranian anti-ship missile above a US warship for the first time and claimed the missile created 'hell' for the Americans 'and they fled'.
• Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Ghalibaf warned that Iran’s response to any attack against its interests and security would be faster, heavier and more painful.
• Iran's Foreign Ministry said the US-led war is disrupting global oil trade and costs, while it added that US aggression is causing instability in the Strait of Hormuz.
• Israeli military announced that it struck southern Lebanon after Hezbollah launched drones towards Israeli soldiers in the security zone. Israel's army also issued an evacuation warning to residents of a building in Deir Zahrani, southern Lebanon.
• Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich said PM Netanyahu ordered the evacuation of certain settlement outposts in the West Bank. It was separately reported that Israel conducted an airstrike on eastern Gaza City with four missiles.
• Joint statement by UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt Foreign Ministers strongly condemned statements made by Israel's National Security Minister Ben-Gvir and Defence Minister Katz regarding the displacement of Palestinians.
• Yemeni armed forces said they thwarted an attempt by Houthis to infiltrate the Dabab front, while they announced that warplanes struck Houthi positions in Balhaf and south of Hodeidah.

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of newsquawk

APAC stocks traded mixed as the region reflected on the recent strong US jobs data and subsequent Fed rate hike bets, as well as the US and Iran tit-for-tat attacks on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. ASX 200 was little changed as resilience in the energy, resources, materials and mining sectors is offset by underperformance in tech, utilities and telecoms, but with downside in the index cushioned by support at around the 9,000 level. Nikkei 225 gapped above the 66,000 level with tech-related stocks heavily represented in the list of biggest gainers in the index. KOSPI outperformed amid firm gains in the semiconductor giants, including SK Hynix, which is said to be sharply increasing the production share of its sixth-generation 10nm-class 1c DRAM. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp lagged with the Hong Kong benchmark pressured amid underperformance in the likes of Baidu and Xiaomi, while the big banks also declined after reports that ICBC and AgBank plan large A-share placements to raise CNY 100bln and CNY 160bln, respectively, as part of a Beijing-led CNY 360bln capital injection in financials.

Top Asian News

• US President Trump said on Friday that he will be hosting a state dinner for Chinese President Xi when he comes and that China has very little involvement with Iran.
• China’s Finance Ministry announced it will lead a capital injection of CNY 360bln in state banks and insurers, with ICBC (601398 CH) planning to raise CNY 100bln to bolster its capital, and Agricultural Bank of China (601288 CH) to raise CNY 160bln through a private placement of A shares, while the insurers include China Life Insurance (601628 CH), China Taiping Insurance (966 HK) and People’s Insurance Company of China (601319 CH).
• China unveiled a plan to strengthen rural investment and will boost rural revitalisation investments to boost agricultural productivity, while it will enhance bond and credit support for qualified agricultural initiatives.

European stocks were subdued and oil crept higher after tit-for-tat tanker strikes between the US and Iran. Novartis AG shares fell 2.6% after a heart drug failed in a final-stage study. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index was little changed by 1:10 p.m. in London. Energy stocks outperformed, while the real estate and insurance sectors were among the biggest laggards. 

Top European News

• UK Chancellor Healey said Britain’s economic growth must extend beyond the largest cities as he prepares to outline his economic agenda in a major speech on Monday. He is reportedly to set to announce a GBP 150mln fund for northern firms, aiming to boost growth.
• UK recruiters saw hiring pick up for the first time in four years in August, according to the FT citing a survey by KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation.
• Hundreds of masked anti-immigration protesters blocked roads leading to Britain’s busiest ferry port in Dover on Saturday.
• German Chancellor Merz warned about further losses of industrial jobs and said that they are losing industrial jobs on a large scale, although he welcomed the latest agreement on Volkswagen’s supervisory board.
• Germany’s far-right AfD is set to win the election in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt with 44.5% of the vote.
• German police discovered 12 explosive devices near overhead powerlines in two districts in east Germany, which is the latest spate of incidents targeting Germany’s electricity infrastructure.
• Greek PM Mitsotakis unveiled a package of economic measures including tax breaks and wage increases for pensioners and employees, with the measures costing EUR 3.5bln by 2030.
• Fitch raised Portugal's sovereign rating from A to A+; Outlook Stable.

Tariffs/trade

• US President Trump said Canada’s dollar imbalance with the US is unacceptable.
• US President Trump said on Friday that they have the right to put tariffs on nations like Switzerland and have the right not to trade with financial elite countries, while he also stated that he gets along very well with Mexico's President.
• Japanese Trade Minister Akazawa said progress was made on the USD 550bln investment initiative that was set up as part of a trade deal with the US.

FX

• DXY struggled for direction after ultimately fading the knee-jerk uplift from the stronger-than-expected NFP report on Friday, with price action not helped amid the holiday closures in North America on Monday and with the Fed currently on a blackout period, while market participants will have to wait till much later in the week for US CPI data.
• EUR/USD traded little changed just above the 1.1600 level, with the single currency unfazed by news that the German far-right AfD is set for a big election win in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, but will fall short of achieving a majority. Separately, German Chancellor Merz warned about further losses of industrial jobs.
• GBP/USD marginally softened although held on to the 1.3500 status, with participants looking ahead to comments from UK Chancellor Healey, who will outline his economic agenda in a speech today.
• USD/JPY was range-bound on both sides of the 156.00 level in the absence of fresh catalysts from the US or Japan to begin the week, with both their central banks scheduled for key meetings next week.
• Antipodeans conformed to the uneventful trade across the FX space amid the ultimately mixed risk appetite and with no tier-1 data to spur price action.
• PBoC set USD/CNY mid-point at 6.7795 vs Exp. 6.7086 (prev. 6.7787)

Fixed Income

• 10yr UST futures lacked direction after whipsawing in the aftermath of last Friday's blockbuster jobs report, while price action is contained with US cash markets closed on Monday for Labor Day.
• Bund futures trickled lower and returned to beneath the 123.00 level amid mild gains in oil prices and with German Industrial Production data due later, while there was little impact from news that Germany's far-right was set for a major victory after elections in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt.
• 10yr JGB futures were subdued in the absence of any major fresh drivers or tier-1 data from Japan.

Commodities

• Crude futures mildly gained after the US and Iran conducted tit-for-tat attacks on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz during the weekend, but with upside capped as it was also reported that Iran's top security official Rezaei said Tehran will declare a restricted zone near the Strait of Hormuz and announce a new shipping route agreed on with Oman in the coming days and weeks.
• Major OPEC+ countries stuck with the plan to keep oil output quotas unchanged for October.
• Iraq raised oil export capacity to over 3mln bpd, according to state media.
• US Energy Secretary Wright said the Trump administration is focused on boosting crude and fuel supplies rather than curbing US exports, as a way to reduce prices. Wright also said that US Navy escorts that are assisting tankers across the Strait of Hormuz are vital in sustaining crude flows and suggested they will continue to do so until Iran backs down.
• Russia’s Vostok Oil project loaded its first crude for shipment via the Northern Sea route.
• Iran is to increase gasoline prices for heavy consumers using more than 110 litres per month, effective on Tuesday.
• Spot gold retested the USD 4,400/oz level to the downside following last week's stronger-than-expected US jobs data, which supports the case for the Fed to hike rates this month.
• Copper futures ultimately declined with early indecision on the recent key market themes including US data, Fed rate expectations and ongoing geopolitical tensions.

Geopolitics: Ukraine

• Ukrainian President Zelensky sees no quick end to the war with Russia following a meeting with US envoys Witkoff and Kushner, and is seeking a package from allies that would cover defence reinforcements, as well as energy, including US LNG.
• Russian President Putin ordered troops not to fire on Kyiv for three days during US envoys Witkoff and Kushner's visit to Ukraine’s capital, according to Kremlin spokesman Peskov. However, it was reported that Russia and Ukraine exchanged a wave of strikes prior to the US envoys’ visit to Kyiv.
• Russian Kremlin aide said talks between Russia and the US were highly useful and lasted for over three hours, but gave no indication of a breakthrough.
• White House official said US and Russian officials discussed substantive plans for the next steps in talks aimed at ending Russia’s war in Ukraine, which will be announced in the coming weeks.
• France’s far-right National Rally chief Bardella wants Ukraine to pay for Europe’s help and said France’s unconditional support for Ukraine should be replaced by a more transactional relationship.

Geopolitics: Other

• North Korean leader Kim said North Korea's navy nuclear armament will put nuclear combat systems to practical use and will restrain the enemy's invading fleet, while he added that their new warship can carry out annihilating retaliatory strikes on the enemy at any time.

DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

Morning all. Tough times in our house this weekend with 8 nine-year-old boys sleeping over for our twin's birthday party. They were very noisy. However, we were kept awake not by them but by an illegal rave in a field a few hundred yards away. I say we but my hearing isn't the best so I didn't hear it. My wife has the hearing of an owl and couldn't sleep through it and felt that I should be woken up to be made aware of the noise I couldn't hear. So I could do with the weekend to start again. Thankfully it's US Labor Day so it should be relatively quiet.  

I was asked to do an op-ed for the FT today on the recent yield sell-off in bond market. As I said in the piece, the moves over the summer are just another leg to the normalisation trade that has been going on post Covid. In the unlikely event that you'd been on a desert island since just before the GFC and came back ashore today, I'm sure you'd look at current yields as pretty normal given all the spot info and history of bond markets you had at your disposal. I also don't think the recent concerns are fiscal related, even if the higher yields go the more worries we will have further down the line for several countries. Finally while the pressures that have been there for higher yields are likely to continue, we have to accept that bonds are being bonds again. That is the coupon is helping maintain returns even in the face of yield rises. For example, its been nearly 4 years since the UK mini-budget crisis and 10yr Gilt yields are +65bps than the peak, while index returns are up around 12%. Clearly not spectacular but its getting harder to get outright negative returns in government bonds over the medium-term. So while the news flow will likely to continue to be negative, at least bonds are being bonds again. See my op-ed at the FT here for more. 

The main headline this morning is Germany’s political landscape shifting further to the right after the AfD secured around 44% of the vote in the Saxony-Anhalt state election yesterday, its strongest result in any German election to date and more than double its support from 2021. Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU slumped to roughly 17%, its weakest showing in the state, as voters expressed growing frustration over economic stagnation, energy costs and migration policy. While the AfD fell just short of an outright parliamentary majority, the result nonetheless marks a major symbolic breakthrough for a party that remains shunned by mainstream rivals under Germany’s long-standing political “firewall”. The outcome will intensify pressure on the federal government and is likely to reinforce concerns about political fragmentation. More broadly, it underlines how anti-establishment and populist parties continue to gain traction across parts of Europe despite robust labour markets and relatively subdued inflation.  

The main focus in the Iran conflict over the weekend was a tit-for-tat escalation targeting commercial shipping in and around the Gulf. According to Reuters and other major news agencies, several tanker incidents and maritime attacks heightened concerns about the security of energy supplies moving through the Strait of Hormuz, with both sides accusing each other of responsibility. Brent is up +1.05% this morning to $97.29/bbl so we remain a distance from a resolution.

Elsewhere in overnight markets, tech is lifting most boats with the KOSPI (+4.18%) leading gains, followed by the Nikkei (+1.87%). Chinese equities are mixed, with the CSI 300 (+0.19%) edging higher, while the Hang Seng (-0.97%) and Shanghai Composite (-0.34%) are underperforming and bucking the broader regional trend. S&P 500 futures (-0.11%) are trading slightly lower but activity will be light today due to the Labor Day holiday. The Yen is fairly flat after another hectic week of intervention stories.

Looking forward now and the coming week offers a busy mix of central bank decisions, inflation data and growth indicators across the major economies. The main global focus will undoubtedly be on the US inflation reports (including CPI on Friday) and the ECB policy meeting (Thursday) with the former likely to heavily influence the FOMC next week. Elsewhere, investors will look to China’s trade (tomorrow) and inflation data (Wednesday), UK monthly GDP (Friday), and industrial production releases in Germany (today) and France (Wednesday). Corporate earnings are relatively light but Oracle (Thursday), Adobe and Inditex are among the notable releases.
As noted above, the biggest event is likely to be the US August CPI report (Friday), arriving just days before the September 16 FOMC meeting. The release follows a stronger-than-expected August employment report last Friday that reinforced the view that the labour market remains resilient. Nonfarm payrolls rose by 162k, with a further 55k of upward revisions to the previous two months. Private-sector hiring remained firm (127k) and job gains continued to broaden beyond healthcare, while measures of labour demand improved further.

Although the unemployment rate edged up to 4.14%, the broader U-6 measure fell to 7.7% and participation increased to 61.6%, suggesting the labour market remains on a relatively stable footing. Overall, the report corrected some of the softer signals seen in July and supports the view that employment growth remains at or slightly above breakeven levels.

Attention now turns to inflation. Our US economists expect headline CPI (Friday) to rise by +0.38% month-on-month in August, up from +0.07% previously, while core CPI is expected to print at +0.21% month-on-month, broadly unchanged from July’s +0.22%. Higher gasoline prices are likely to support the headline reading, while core inflation should continue to benefit from gradually moderating shelter costs. If realised, the forecasts would leave headline CPI broadly unchanged at 3.38% on a year-on-year basis while core inflation edges 10 bps lower to 2.38%.

Ahead of that, the PPI (Thursday) will provide another important input into the inflation outlook. Our US economists expect PPI to imply a +0.21% month-on-month increase in core PCE, down from +0.25% in July, leaving the annual rate broadly stable. The remainder of the US calendar is relatively quiet, with markets closed today for the Labor Day holiday. However, the preliminary University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey (Friday) will also attract attention. Our US economists expect sentiment to improve to 52.5 from 51.7 in August, while the survey’s inflation expectations measures will be closely watched.

In Europe, the ECB policy decision (Thursday) will be the key event. Our European economists expect a 25bp rate increase, taking the deposit rate to 2.50%, and investors will focus on any guidance regarding the likelihood of further tightening. Our economists now expect an additional hike in December with the reasons explained in their preview note here. They have also upgraded their 2026 and 2027 economic forecasts by 0.3pp and 0.1pp to 0.8% and 1.2% respectively. See their note on it here.  Economic data will also be closely monitored, including German industrial production (today) and trade data (tomorrow), French industrial production (Wednesday), and UK monthly GDP (Friday). Inflation releases from Sweden (today) and Norway and Denmark (Thursday) will provide additional insight into regional price pressures.

In Asia, China will dominate the calendar. Our economists expect the August trade balance (tomorrow) to show stronger activity, with exports and imports forecast to grow a significant 27% and 29% year-on-year respectively. Inflation data (Wednesday) are expected to show CPI accelerating to 0.8% year-on-year from 0.5%, while PPI inflation moderates to 3.2% from 3.5%. In Japan, key releases include labour cash earnings and the Economy Watchers survey (tomorrow), followed by PPI data (Friday).  A reminder that the BoJ has an important meeting on Friday week, less than 36 hours after the FOMC conclusion.

Beyond the economic calendar, the US Treasury’s expanded long-end buyback programme begins on Wednesday, increasing support operations in longer-dated maturities. In politics, the US Republican Party will hold its first midterm national convention in Dallas on Wednesday and Thursday, while Canada’s counter-tariffs on US imports come into force tomorrow. Corporate earnings highlights include Inditex (Wednesday) and Adobe and Oracle (Thursday). Oracle will be the key given all the focus on AI capex.  

Recapping last week now and risk assets struggled to gain much traction, as a fresh rise in energy prices raised fears about more persistent inflation. That came amidst no signs of progress on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, with Brent crude oil up +7.80% last week (+0.80% Friday) to $96.28/bbl, their highest in six weeks. Moreover, the relentless rise in European natural gas futures continued, with a 4th consecutive weekly gain (+7.42%) last week (+0.20% Friday) to €72.00/MWh. So for Europe in particular, investors were pricing in a growing probability of a more inflationary shock.   

That backdrop helped push yields up to multi-year highs around the world. For instance in Germany, the 10yr bund yield was up +6.1bps last week (-0.4bps Friday) to 3.34%, and it even reached a post-2011 high of 3.37% on Wednesday. Meanwhile in the US, the 10yr yield was up +6.3bps last week (+1.4bps Friday) to 4.78%, and on Tuesday it closed at 4.80%, its highest since October 2023.   
The yield moves got further momentum on Friday from a very strong US jobs report, which showed payrolls up by +162k in August (vs. +55k expected). In addition, there were +55k of upward revisions to the previous two months, and the unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%. So that raised investors’ confidence that the Fed would likely hike rates at their September meeting, with futures pricing in a 62% chance of a hike by the close on Friday.   

With inflationary pressures mounting and yields rising further, that generally put pressure on risk assets around the world. That was particularly clear in Europe, where the STOXX 600 fell -0.81% last week (+0.12% Friday), whilst the DAX fell -1.97% (+0.17% Friday). Elsewhere, Japan’s Nikkei also fell -2.09% (+1.26% Friday), while the MSCI EM index rose +0.24% (+1.35% Friday). In the US, equities saw a relative outperformance, but even there, the S&P 500 was still barely up last week with a +0.09% gain (-0.38% Friday). That slight risk-off tone was seen in credit as well, as US IG (+2bps) and HY (+7bps) spreads both widened, as did Euro IG (+2bps) and HY (+8bps) spreads.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/07/2026 - 09:22

Central Banks Bought 23 Tonnes Of Gold In July

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

Central banks worldwide purchased a net 23 tonnes of gold in July, in line with the overall yearly trend, according to the World Gold Council (WGC).

Gold bars weighing 1000 grams each are displayed at the Austrian Gold and Silver Refinery (Oegussa) in Vienna, Austria, on Feb. 3, 2026. Georg Hochmuth/APA/AFP via Getty Images

The largest buyer last month was China, which bought 20 tonnes, according to a Sept. 3 WGC report.

"Notably, activity from the People's Bank of China (PBoC) has picked up pace in recent months, with double-digit monthly purchases of gold since May 2026," the report said. Poland purchased eight tonnes and was the second-largest buyer.

Russia was the top net seller, with six tonnes sold. This was followed by Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Jordan, all of which sold a tonne each.

Year-to-date, global central banks reported purchasing 130 tonnes of gold, down from roughly 160 tonnes during the same period in 2025. Poland has added 90 tonnes this year, with China buying 60 tonnes. Turkey has sold 85 tonnes, while Russia's sales total 50 tonnes.

Central banks account for roughly 20 percent of all historically mined gold, according to the WGC. Bullion serves as a vital bank reserve asset, valued for its liquidity, safety, and potential returns. In times of uncertainty, gold demand tends to rise.

According to a June 16 WGC report, a survey of central banks found that 89 percent of respondents forecast global central bank gold reserves to rise over the year.

As for funding, half of the respondents said they would procure the gold locally by using domestic currencies. Thirty-eight percent said they would sell other reserve assets to purchase gold.

"The majority of respondents (74 percent) see moderate or significantly lower US dollar holdings within global reserves over the next five years," the report said.

"Respondents also believe that the share of other currencies, such as the euro and renminbi, will remain unchanged over the same period, while gold holdings will increase."

Goldman Sachs predicts central bank buying will support the rise in gold prices, according to an Aug. 28 report. Such purchases are being driven by a need to diversify their reserves.

In 2022, the G7 nations froze Russia's assets held in Europe due to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. Since then, the central banks have been buying gold at an increased rate, according to Goldman Sachs.

Spot gold ended Friday at around $4,430 per oz., up from about $4,329 at the beginning of the year. Gold hit a peak of roughly $5,595 in late January.

Unable to Withdraw Gold

The Sept. 3 WGC report cites a conflict between Venezuela and the Bank of England over gold reserves.

The Venezuelan government has roughly $4 billion worth of gold stored with the bank and has sought to withdraw it. However, because the United Kingdom has refused to recognize Venezuela's socialist government, the country has been unable to secure its gold reserves.

According to the June 16 WGC report, central banks are continuing to diversify the locations of their gold reserves. While the Bank of England remained the top choice, domestic storage was a close second, followed by the Bank for International Settlements in third place.

This week, the Netherlands' central bank announced plans to shift roughly 86 tonnes of gold from the United States and Canada to London, citing geopolitical risk.

Ewa Manthey, commodities strategist at ING Bank, highlighted the risk faced by certain nations that store gold abroad, citing Venezuela's inability to retrieve its gold from the Bank of England, according to a Sept. 4 opinion on the company's website.

"This case is exceptional - but it shows that the host country's courts and political recognition decisions can affect access to reserves," Manthey said.

"Gold held at the Bank of England remains the property of the foreign central bank, but it is physically located in the UK and is therefore subject to UK jurisdiction."

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/07/2026 - 09:15