Trump Holds Off On Option To Seize Iranian Tankers, Fearing Sharp Oil Rise Another big piece of leverage that Washington is holding over Tehran is the potential seizure of Iranian oil tankers. The US intercepting and boarding tankers on the high seas has been a trend related to Venezuela of late, as well as Russia’s so-called dark fleet, ratcheting tensions with Moscow. But President Trump is said to be holding off for now when it […]

CBO Director Warns US Fiscal Path Is ‘Not Sustainable’ ; Projects Additional $1.4T Deficit Swell Under Trump Agenda The Congressional Budget Office raised its 10-year deficit estimate by $1.4 trillion, citing Trump’s 2025 reconciliation act, higher tariffs and lower immigration. Annual deficits are projected to remain historically large, totaling $23.1 trillion from 2026 to 2035 and reaching 6.7% of GDP by 2036. The 2025 tax […]

WTI Slides On Biggest Crude Build In A Year, Production Rebound; But… Oil prices continued their recent rally this morning as traders hiked its risk premium as Israeli PM Netanyahu arrived in Washington to pressure President Trump to take a hard line in talks with Iran, even as the API report overnight showed a huge rise in US inventories last week. “Oil trades firmer, with Brent back above USD 69 as Middle East tensions sustain […]

Zelensky’s Office Quashes False ‘Rumors’ Of National Election For Spring There are conflicting reports that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is actually planning on holding elections in a few months. It all started with this Wednesday FT headline: “Zelenskyy plans spring elections alongside referendum on peace deal after US push.” Financial Times as well as the UK Times says that Zelensky is planning to announce a spring […]

‘Our Institutional Geo-Economic Architecture’ Won’t Just Ride This Out, Rabobank Warns Authored by Michael Every via Rabobank, 24 Hours US retail sales soft, yields down, stocks up, oil up. That’s one way to look at the last 24 hours.  Or one can look at it –and the next 24 hours– more deeply. Let’s start with geopolitics, then look at AI, and try to tie it all together into a better market take than the above. As […]

Duffy: FAA And Military “Acted Swiftly” To Combat “Cartel Drone Incursion” On US Border Update (0950ET): Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed on X that the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of War “acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion” at or near the border town of El Paso. “The threat has been neutralized, and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region. The restrictions have been […]

Canadian School Shooter Reportedly Identified As Transgender Ten people including the shooter are dead after ⁠an ⁠assailant opened fire at a high school in western ⁠Canada in the town of Tumbler Ridge on Tuesday in one of the country’s deadliest mass casualty events in recent history.  Initial reports by local police and the Canadian media described the shooter as female. However, the authorities reluctance to release the […]

Bibi Seeks US Muscular Action On Iran In Seventh Meeting With Trump “I am now leaving for the United States for my seventh trip to meet with President Trump since he was elected for a second term,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said prior to his departure to Washington. “This, of course, does not include his unforgettable visit to Israel and his speech in the Knesset.” (Seven since Trump took office again!) He and President […]

‘Across-The-Board’ Strong Jobs Report… But Take It “With A Grain Of Salt” Via Academy Securities’ Peter Tchir, There is almost nothing to nitpick about this report (though we do have some caveats). Big beat on jobs 130k vs 65k expected. Private jobs crushed it, adding 172k (yes, public sector jobs shrank). Downward revision for prior 2 reports was “only” -17k. The benchmark revisions were -862k. A big number but -825k […]

US Unexpectedly Adds 130K Jobs In January, Most Since 2024, Amid Massive Negative Revisions Ahead of today’s jobs report, the Trump admin unleashed a full court press to warn markets about what was expected to be a very weak numbers, with Peter Navarro saying “we have to revise our expectations down significantly for what a monthly job number should look like” and Kevin Hassett told CNBC on Monday to “expect slightly smaller job […]

AI ‘Disruption’ Fears Go Global: France’s Dassault Crashes Most On Record After ‘Weak Guide’ Dassault Systemes, which Nvidia has recently described as being at the epicenter of the “next frontier of artificial intelligence,” suffered its largest intraday decline on record in Paris trading after issuing weaker-than-expected guidance. The miss reinforced the latest market narrative that some software firms are vulnerable to AI-driven […]

Electricity Demand Is Surging, The Grid Isn’t Ready: IEA By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com International Energy Agency says global electricity demand is growing at its fastest pace in 15 years, set to rise more than 3.5% annually through 2030. While renewables, nuclear, and natural gas are expanding rapidly, grid infrastructure is becoming the key bottleneck, with over 2,500 GW of power and load projects stuck in […]

Panic Ensues After Trump Orders CIA To Give 2020 Election Intel To ‘Stop The Steal’ Lawyer President Donald Trump has instructed the CIA and other spy agencies to hand over intelligence related to the 2020 election, a bunch of (presumably panicked) US intelligence officials told Politico and NBC News.  The records are to be handed over to Kurt Olsen – now a temporary government employee in the White House – who four years […]

Futures Rise Ahead Of Today’s Delayed Jobs Report    US equity futures are flat ahead of today’s delayed January payrolls (full preview here) with the market now expecting a weaker print after the Retail Sales miss and weaker high-frequency data. As of 8:00am ET, S&P and Nasdaq 100 futures are both up 0.1%. Pre-market, Mag7 names are mostly lower; Discretionary, Energy, Industrials and Materials are all higher pointing to a […]

MrBeast Buys Gen Z Bank Just Weeks After BitMine’s $200M Bet Authored by Brayden Lindrea via CoinTelegraph.com, Beast Industries, the entertainment company founded by YouTuber Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson, is acquiring Step, a mobile banking app focused on teenagers and young adults, marking its most significant push into finance to date. In a post to X on Monday, Donaldson said the motivation behind the acquisition was to […]

Nickel Futs Jump As Indonesia Instructs World’s Largest Mine To Slash Output Nickel futures in London jumped on Wednesday after the world’s biggest nickel mine in Indonesia was forced to drastically reduce output, in an effort to tighten global supply to lift prices of the critical battery metal. French miner Eramet, which operates Weda Bay Nickel alongside Tsingshan Holding Group, said Indonesian authorities have capped the mine’s […]

Conservative Swiss MP Urges ‘End To Immigration From Stone Age Cultures’ As Stats Expose Prevalence Of Domestic Violence Via Remix News, New statistical data has highlighted the prevalence of domestic violence across different population groups in Switzerland, sparking a political debate over its root causes. SVP National Councillor Pascal Schmid argues that the figures identify this primarily as a migration problem, noting […]

Germany’s Decline Is A Warning Canada Should Heed Now Authored by Gwyn Morgan via The Epoch Times, Germany was postwar Europe’s greatest economic success story. Today it is a cautionary tale. Once the continent’s industrial engine, Germany has spent the past decade dismantling the foundations of its prosperity through energy and immigration policies driven more by ideology than evidence or good sense. The results have been […]

French Wine, Spirits Exports Sink To 20-Year Low As Demand Sours Trade wars, along with a generational shift away from wine, have pushed Bordeaux winemakers into turmoil, with French wine and spirits exports sinking to their lowest level in two decades. “In volume, our exports have been in a slump and are at their lowest level in at least 20 years,” Gabriel Picard, president of FEVS, the country’s federation of wine and spirits […]

PM Meloni Calls Olympic Protesters “Enemies Of Italy And Italians” Via Remix News, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called anti-Olympic protesters enemies of the country after demonstrators clashed with police in Milan on Saturday and disrupted train traffic with sabotage actions.         View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by Giorgia Meloni […]

US ‘Not Trying To Dismantle NATO’ But Europe Must Grow Up: US Envoy The Pentagon’s chief strategist is heading to NATO this week to spell out what many European capitals have been quietly dreading: the future U.S. military posture in Europe is under review – likely up for downsizing, and even Europe’s US-supplied nuclear umbrella could be up for review and negotiations. Defense Department policy chief Elbridge Colby will represent […]

German Authorities Discover Massive Fraud In Naturalization Language Tests, Iraqi Ringleader Arrested Via Remix News, Authorities in Germany have uncovered a sophisticated fraud network that allegedly deployed paid operatives to take language and naturalization exams on behalf of migrants, with the fraud taking place on a nationwide scale. The investigation, centered in Nuremberg, suggests a coordinated effort to bypass […]

Ambitious France-Germany Next-Gen Fighter Faces Crash Landing Amid EU Infighting Europe’s flagship sixth-generation fighter project is unraveling fast. Politico Europe days ago observed that the Franco-German-Spanish Future Combat Air System (FCAS) is now “on the verge of collapse” after Dassault and Airbus failed to meet critical deadlines for agreeing on work-sharing arrangements. The warnings have been building for months, with […]

New German Law Could Force Green Energy Developers To Fund Grid Links Authored by Michael Kern via OilPrice.com, Germany is proposing that renewable energy developers pay for connecting to the grid in new regulations that would replace the current system of first-come, first-served, Reuters reported on Monday, citing a new draft law it has seen.   The current congestion in the queue for grid connections and the regulations […]

Man Detained For Questioning In Nancy Guthrie Disappearance Update (1030ET): A man was detained for questioning in the apparent abduction of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of “Today” show co-host Savannah Guthrie, from her home outside of Tucson, Arizona over two weeks ago, several major outlets are reporting tonight. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department shared photos of an “armed individual” in relation to the Nancy Guthrie […]