Trump Eyes Pickaxe Mountain Nuclear Site Heavy Strikes: "Iran Hasn't Seen Anything Yet, We've Been Nice" Summary

• Shipping disruption: Houthi threats forced two Saudi oil tankers to turn around in the Red Sea as Hormuz traffic slowed sharply after more tanker attacks.
• Escalation in Gulf: Iran claimed strikes on infrastructure in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan, while Kuwait reported a second day of attacks on power and desalination plants.
• Trump vows more to come: The US launched fresh strikes on Iranian targets, Trump vowed retaliation, and Reuters reported a proposed 10-day ceasefire. "We've been nice," Trump says, warning of more attacks to come.
• Oil surges: Crude prices hit multi-week highs amid shipping disruptions, with warnings oil could reach $120 if fighting continues.
• Pentagon scrutiny: The New York Times reported the Pentagon withheld information about dozens of US troops injured in Iranian attacks before the deadly Jordan missile strike.

//--> //--> Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by August 31?
Yes 14% · No 87%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

*  *  *

Trump Gives Wide-Ranging Comments on Iran: Doesn't Want to Talk, "We've Been Nice"

President Trump issued a series of big claims to reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday. For starters he asserted that Iran wants to "desperately" meet but said "we" have no interest, and that the US military is not finished at all with Iran, and so there's no interest in talking at the moment.

And amid polls that show the war is increasingly unpopular among American voters, he stated that Iran is "probably" trying to hurt his and his Republican Party's chances in the upcoming congressional elections in November by seeking to control Strait of Hormuz, and with the latest attacks on international shipping. "I'm just going to do the right thing," Trump claimed, before saying that "The election, I can’t think about that having to do with this. I think people are very impressed."

He also revisited the Obama-era JCPOA, saying if the US hadn't "terminated the nuclear deal" then "you wouldn’t have Israel right now because they would have had a nuclear weapon years ago." He added that "if we didn’t do the B2 bombers knocking out the nuclear sites a year ago, one of the first things we did early in the administration, they [Iran] would have a nuclear weapon, and you wouldn’t have Israel." Trump continued, "And in my opinion, you wouldn’t have various other countries in the Middle East [as] they would have been terminated, extinguished."

He continued to be pressed on what the 'plan' and end goal is, and what the stopping and exit point might be. The president's response:

Reporter: There are no signs that Iran is ready to stop fighting. So, what is the plan?

Trump: How would you know? How would you know if there are no signs? Why?

Why do you know something that I don’t know?

You don’t know what dialogue is taking place behind the scenes. They… pic.twitter.com/xxAObQnkuk

— Clash Report (@clashreport) July 21, 2026

Another big threat and warning came when Trump declared that "Iran hasn't seen anything yet" as "we've been nice" so far. Below is a quick rundown of some key statements from the fresh press interaction:

• No interest in meeting Iran until they are ready.
• Iran has very evil people leading the country.
• Our deal will not let Iran have a nuclear weapon.
• We'll hit any site Iran is thinking about for nuclear.
• Iran probably trying to impact elections with Hormuz.
• Iran hasn't seen anything yet; have been nice.
• On Pickaxe Mountain, will hit that area soon and very heavily.

Israel has meanwhile been alleging that Iran is concentrating its nuclear program at highly fortified Pickaxe Mountain. Trump in the comments suggested the US military will take direct aim at the underground complex:

Trump says the U.S. will be hitting Pickaxe mountain in Iran "pretty soon very heavily and there is nothing they can do about it"

This is nothing but a lie to continue the war. https://t.co/DCwFew6SB1

— Brett Erickson (@BrettErickson28) July 21, 2026

'Slip through Jordan'... where American troops were killed:

Trump on Iran:

We are degrading them at levels that nobody thought was possible. They’re being degraded really seriously.

They did slip something through in Jordan. pic.twitter.com/Dprd7zOjtP

— Clash Report (@clashreport) July 21, 2026

Two tankers carrying Saudi crude make U-turns in Red Sea after Houthi warning

The just-declared (as of Monday) Houthi blockade on Saudi maritime shipping has already begun to witness ill-effects, as reports emerge of two oil tankers having made U-turns while initially en route toward the Suez Canal. The reports say their crews received threats from Houthi militants in Yemen. The emerging details:

Two ⁠oil ⁠tankers which loaded Saudi crude for China ⁠and India made ⁠U-turns in the Red Sea and headed toward ‌the Suez following a warning from Yemen’s Houthi militia.

...The group, in an email sent to shipping companies, warned them not to load or discharge cargo at Saudi Arabian ports and said such activity may result in being targeted “in any location”.

Dollar and yields spiking as oil rises.... West Texas Intermediate (WTI) has reached six-week highs on Tuesday.

MAP OF THE DAY: Starting to see some oil tankers either U-turning or slowing down on their approach to the Bab El-Mandeb Strait (near Yemen). First sign that the Houthi treat is having an impact -- HOWEVER, many otherS are still going ahead from the Gulf of Aden into the Red Sea pic.twitter.com/7aYhuLz5b9

— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) July 21, 2026

Iran state media taking note of inflicting pain...

The price of Brent crude oil has crossed the $91 per barrel mark amid rising tensions regarding US escalations in the West Asia region.

Follow: https://t.co/h0eMpifVIe pic.twitter.com/oOuuh20WMF

— PressTV Extra (@PresstvExtra) July 21, 2026

IRGC Says it Attack Amazon's Main Data Hub in Bahrain

Amid a spate of fresh attacks on Gulf states, the IRGC claimed its cruise missiles destroyed Amazon's central data infrastructure in Bahrain and also hit US air defense systems. Bahraini, US and Amazon officials issued no response in the immediate aftermath.

The IRGC said its Aerospace Force targeted and "destroyed" the central data infrastructure hub in Bahrain using several cruise missiles. It further stated that "US air defense systems and radar installations in the Bahraini areas of Muharraq and Riffa were also targeted" in the attack.

If accurate this highlights yet again that billions of dollars worth of infrastructure is going up in flames in the Gulf, and that defense against missiles and drones has been waning 

Kuwait Water Desalination & Power Plants Attacked for 2nd Consecutive Day

For a second consecutive day, Kuwait is reporting attacks on power-generation and water-desalination plants. The fresh assault caused fires and disrupted electricity generation, amid an emergency response and efforts begin restoring affected units. 

Further attacks on Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan are also being reported, as well as new IRGC strikes on foreign tankers seeking 'unauthorized' transit of the Strait of Hormuz. According to some latest via Al Jazeera:

• A desalination facility and power plants caught on fire and suffered serious damage in Kuwait after new Iranian strikes targeted the crucial facilities, along with areas of Bahrain and Jordan, following a 10th-consecutive night of US bombing.
• “Massive fires” broke out on two tankers that “took an unsafe route” in the Strait of Hormuz, says Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

On Tuesday Kuwait has confirmed it is dealing with inbound Iranian drone and missile attacks yet again, also with sirens continuing to sound in Bahrain.

Iran Seeks To Hold Hormuz Leverage 'At All Costs'

Despite daily US saturation strikes on Iran, and in turn Iran's daily attacks on Gulf states, nothing has really changed in what seems a stalemated situation and quagmire. 

Amin Saikal, emeritus professor at Australian National University, has described that "Both sides have really been trying to inflict heavy damage on each other, and they’ve come really to a point of saturation in many ways." He continued, "Logically, that should really lead them to negotiation. But of course, that is not really happening at the moment simply because the United States wants to gain control over the Strait of Hormuz, and that’s something the Iranians will never give up."

Saikal called Hormuz “a reward” for Tehran, while pointing out that "Because of this unprovoked war, the Iranians have gained this leverage, and they want to retain it at all costs."

Still, President Trump is warning that Iran will pay "many times over" for the deaths of American soldiers, and has said he gave his Pentagon leaders directives for carrying this out. 

10th Strait Day of Escalation

The tit-for-tat escalation between the US and Iran entered its tenth day as another tanker was struck in the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, the Iran-backed Houthis threatened shipping at a second strategic chokepoint in the southern Red Sea.

US Central Command launched strikes targeting Iranian command and control centers, missile and drone launch sites, and air defenses to "further degrade Iranian military capabilities used to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz."

Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas, was killed by an Iranian attack on Jordan on July 17, 2026

President Trump wrote on Truth Social, "Every time Iran kills an American soldier, they will pay for that killing many times over!"

Still, Pakistan and Qatar are urging both sides to return to their positions before the latest escalation began on July 9. Iran says it remains open to diplomacy but will not negotiate under attack, while the Trump team has signaled that strikes will continue until Tehran stops attacking tankers and bulk carriers in the critical waterway. Reuters reported that mediators have proposed a 10-day ceasefire.

Hormuz Traffic at Near Standstill as Another Tanker Struck

Shipping flows in the Hormuz have all but slowed, according to new Bloomberg data. As of Tuesday morning, just six vessels have transited the critical waterway. The data doesn't account for ships turning off transponders.

Bloomberg reports that Iran struck another tanker in the strait:

Visible traffic through Hormuz came to a near standstill on Monday following Iranian attacks on vessels over the weekend.

An oil supertanker called the Acheloos and a smaller fuel tanker were both struck in the waterway, according to Dynacom Tankers Management Ltd., the ships' manager.

Early Tuesday, the UK Maritime Trade Operations said that a tanker had been struck by an unknown projectile in the strait northeast of Oman's Limah, citing multiple reports, without identifying the vessel. The notice indicates a separate attack to those on the Dynacom tankers.

The flare-up in violence sent Brent crude oil futures surging in recent weeks to over $90 a barrel, with Goldman commodity expert Daan Struyven warning on Monday that oil prices could rally to $120 if there is no de-escalation.

"Escalation in the Middle East and the decline in estimated Persian Gulf flows to below 45% of pre-war levels have pushed oil prices back up," Struyven said in a note to clients.

Related:

• "We've Burned Through All Buffers": Oil Traders Warn Market Running On Fumes

US Consumers Feeling the Pinch

Meanwhile, US consumers are feeling the pinch again at the pump, with the national average for regular 87-octane gasoline topping $4 a gallon once more. This is the politically sensitive line in the sand at which the Trump administration takes notice and consumer behavior begins to shift down at convenience stores, gas stations, and QSRs (quick-service restaurants).

Pattern of Pentagon Concealing US Casualties: NYT

The New York Times reported Monday that the Pentagon withheld information that US troops had been injured in Iranian attacks on Jordan in the week before the missile strikes that killed at least two US soldiers and left one missing.

"Those attacks injured dozens of U.S. service members and damaged several helicopters, according to several U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters," the report says. "But the Pentagon did not disclose the earlier strikes, nor the casualties and damage they inflicted."

The slain soldiers in Jordan were reportedly staying in flimsy prefabricated housing at the time of the deadly ballistic missile attack. US officials described a situation that suggests American forces were essentially sitting ducks, and that not enough has been done to protect the Pentagon's Mideast bases.

NYT painted a picture of a US admin pattern of concealing the true extent of American casualties. "In statements after airstrikes against Iranian military sites last week, U.S. Central Command said it was retaliating for Iran’s attacks against commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, never mentioning Iran’s strikes on bases in the region, including in Jordan," it noted.

Overnight Headlines

courtesy of Bloomberg...

US-Iran Tit-For-Tat

• The US and Iran have exchanged strikes for a 10th consecutive day, with US Central Command targeting Iranian military command centers, launch sites, maritime capabilities, and air defenses.
• Iran has retaliated by attacking US military sites in Kuwait and Jordan.
• Trump vowed Tehran "will pay" after Iran killed three US soldiers.
• According to the Washington Post, US intelligence reports suggest US strikes are unlikely to move Iran.
• Iran's Khorramabad area in Lorestan Province was attacked earlier today.

Diplomacy & Ceasefire Efforts

• Iran's Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni began meetings Tuesday with mediators in Pakistan as diplomats sought to salvage a collapsed interim deal.
• Mediators have proposed a 10-day ceasefire between Iran and the US to revive the interim deal, according to an unidentified senior Iranian official cited by Reuters.
• Iran's president said communication with Supreme Leader Khamenei has increased, per Tasnim reports.

Regional Risks

• The Kaifan, an oil-products tanker owned by Kuwait Oil Tanker Co., was struck by an unknown projectile in the Strait of Hormuz northeast of Oman's Limah.
• The Houthi militant group in Yemen is threatening to blockade Saudi Arabia and target shipping in the Red Sea, adding to regional maritime risks.
• Southeast Asian nations expressed "serious concern" over the conflict, warning of spillover effects on regional trade, food security, and energy markets.

Energy & Market Impact

• Goldman Sachs says Brent crude could top $120 per barrel by the fourth quarter if Strait of Hormuz disruptions persist, though its base case remains $80 per barrel assuming de-escalation.
• European natural gas futures extended gains, surging more than 20% over the previous seven sessions, as the conflict tightens supply ahead of winter.
• Pakistan and Bangladesh were forced to buy some of their most expensive LNG shipments in years due to supply disruptions from the conflict. Pakistan LNG paid about $21.88 per MMBtu, its highest since 2022, according to traders with knowledge of the matter.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/21/2026 - 12:10

Trump Reaches For A 1930 Tariff Law To Hit Canada With 50% Duties - But Not On These Items

President Donald Trump signed three proclamations Monday imposing an additional 50 percent tariff on a broad list of Canadian goods, accusing Canada of discriminating against American dairy, alcohol, and auto exports. The White House said the president was acting to hold Canada accountable for what it called "continued discrimination" against U.S. commerce, according to The Epoch Times. The duties take effect in 30 days.

American whiskey is seen on the shelves of a SAQ liquor store in Montreal on March 4, 2025. The Canadian Press/Christinne Muschi

This is not a blanket levy on everything crossing the northern border, and what got left out is as revealing as what got hit. Oil - of which Canada is the largest foreign supplier to American refineries - is exempt. So is potash, the fertilizer input U.S. farmers depend on and cannot readily source elsewhere. Fish and critical minerals are out. So are goods already carrying national-security tariffs, including steel and many auto parts, per the White House fact sheet.

What remains is still enormous. The covered list runs from milk and cream to alcohol, hockey equipment, food products, construction materials, clothing, furniture, technology, and car parts, ABC News reported from a senior administration official's briefing. That official put the range at "wine to hockey sticks to cement." The automobile proclamation alone lists 18 pages of eligible goods.

Rather than the emergency powers that underpinned earlier rounds, these proclamations invoke Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 - a Depression-era provision allowing duties of up to 50 percent against countries found to discriminate against American commerce. It has sat essentially unused for decades. Reporting on the action notes the statute permits exactly the 50 percent ceiling the administration went to, and that reaching for a dormant 1930 authority is likely to draw court challenges quickly. The 30-day runway before the tariffs bite is the window in which those challenges would be filed.

The duties apply whether or not the goods previously qualified for exemption under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Trump's own renegotiated North American trade deal, in other words, will not shield Canadian exporters from this round.

As justification, the administration official pointed to Canadian provincial conduct on alcohol: all but two provinces and territories have halted the purchase, distribution, or retailing of American alcoholic beverages while imposing no comparable restrictions on other countries. The official also cited Canadian tariffs on some American cars and the long-running dairy quota dispute, framing the action as "leveling the playing field for crucial American exports."

Canada is one of only two countries - China being the other - to have retaliated against Trump's earlier tariffs, and the administration has said repeatedly it intends to make an example of both. The Associated Press notes the move risks a fresh round of economic disruption, with higher consumer prices and further deterioration in a relationship that was among Washington's closest before this term. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/21/2026 - 12:00

Goldman Warns Brent Could Top $120 If Gulf Chokepoint Crisis Deepens

Brent crude futures are trading in the low $90s as the Gulf area escalation enters a tenth consecutive day. Iran attacked a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, while two tankers carrying Saudi crude reversed course in the southern Red Sea after warnings from Iran-backed Houthi forces placed another critical maritime chokepoint under threat.

For more color on energy markets, Goldman commodities expert Daan Struyven warned clients on Monday that Brent crude futures could surge above $120 a barrel by the fourth quarter if disruptions in the Hormuz maritime chokepoint persist; he noted that such an outcome is not his base case.

Struyven sees Brent around $80 in the fourth quarter and $75 next year, assuming US and Iran tensions ease, but warned that risks remained tilted to the upside as Persian Gulf flows fall below 45% of prewar levels and Houthi threats in the southern Red Sea chokepoint.

"Escalation in the Middle East and the decline in estimated Persian Gulf flows to below 45% of pre-war levels have pushed oil prices back up," Struyven said.

The key upside price risks are:

• Shipping disruptions in Hormuz--and potentially the Red Sea--as the estimated 5mb/d rise since the start of the war in pipeline flows via Yanbu to the Red Sea, to more than 6mb/d (Exhibit 3), has played a key role in offsetting part of the decline in Hormuz flows. Damage to energy infrastructure from the Middle East and Russia-Ukraine wars.

• While the Iran war has likely not caused lasting major damage to oil production capacity so far, our analysis of the 5 largest prior supply shocks shows an average 42% hit to production in the affected country after 5 years, often reflecting infrastructure damage, underinvestment, or tight sanctions (Exhibit 4).

Struyven noted, "Brent might exceed $120/bbl in 2026Q4 and average $100 in 2027 if Hormuz remains disrupted through 2027 (Exhibit 2, red line). This scenario assumes Gulf output only fully recovers by Dec27, supported by pipeline extensions."

Struyven touched on how China's retreat from the crude market has temporarily capped prices, with net seaborne imports falling 4.7 million barrels a day from a year earlier in June. Weaker refinery runs, a 21% drop in retail gasoline volumes and estimated crude destocking of more than 1 million barrels a day drove the decline. He said imports may remain subdued if prices rise, given China's estimated 2 billion barrels of inventories and its ability to substitute coal and electricity for some oil consumption.

Struyven recommends clients buy the December 2026 to March 2027 European diesel timespread to hedge persistent Middle East and Russian supply risks. Diesel markets were already tight before the Iran war, while Russian refinery outages, low inventories and seasonal demand could push spreads higher. European diesel is preferred over crude, gasoline and US diesel because of constrained refinery output, less price-sensitive demand and fewer US policy-related risks.

According to the latest Bloomberg data, Hormuz traffic is at a near standstill. Analysts at Rystad Energy AS warned in a note that the Houthi threat against crude flows means that Saudi Arabia's Red Sea export route "is now directly in the line of fire."

"If a ceasefire does not materialize, and Hormuz remains largely closed while the Houthi threat to Red Sea shipping intensifies, the risk of a significant rebound in oil prices would be substantial," said Rystad analyst Jorge Leon.

Henri Patricot, Paris-based energy equity research analyst at UBS, also has an upside scenario for Brent:

In the near term, we see the main potential upside risk coming from a breakdown of negotiations and further escalation, pushing oil prices back to ~$100+/bbl. If major oil infrastructure in the region is targeted and the conflict extends beyond the summer, prices could spike to $120+/bbl. This would drive more severe demand destruction, with limited OPEC+ ability to act. While such a price may be short-lived, a structurally higher risk premium could keep prices in the $80s/bbl range and ongoing disruptions would keep it even higher.

The big risk now is that Hormuz disruption is unfolding after global oil buffers have already been depleted, with Cushing inventories reportedly near "tank bottoms." That leaves the market with limited capacity to absorb a prolonged supply shock and will likely increase pressure on the Trump administration to revive diplomacy once the US military has sufficiently degraded Tehran's missile and drone capabilities used to threaten commercial shipping through the strait.

 Gloal inventories

The US national average for regular gasoline breached $4 a gallon on Monday, intensifying pressure on the Trump administration to pursue Gulf diplomacy.

Gas prices may go higher...

The $4 threshold is both economically and politically sensitive, as it is where lower-income consumers typically begin cutting discretionary purchases and trading down across gas stations, convenience stores and quick-service restaurants, further weighing on consumer sentiment.

Professional subscribers can read the full GS note here at our new Marketdesk.ai portal.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/21/2026 - 11:40

Why Retail Traders Consistently Underperform Over Time

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Decades of data across global markets reach the same verdict: the more frequently retail traders trade, the worse they perform. The infrastructure has never been more inviting. The losses have never been more documented. Here are some key statistics we will dive into further.

Retail traders have never had it so easy. Zero commission platforms, options on your phone, social media feeds full of “10 bagger” tips, and a Reddit thread for every stock in the S&P 500. The infrastructure for frequent trading has never been more frictionless, more democratized, or more psychologically seductive.

And the evidence is overwhelming that it is destroying investor wealth at scale.

The data is not subtle. It is not marginal underperformance that can be dismissed as noise. Across decades of academic research, multiple global markets, and every asset class retail traders favor, from stocks to complex options, the conclusion is remarkably consistent: the more frequently retail traders trade, the worse they perform. Not slightly worse. Dramatically, often catastrophically, worse.

The Behavioral Gap Is Growing

Every year, DALBAR publishes its Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior, the most comprehensive long-term study of how retail investors actually perform versus the benchmarks they chase. The 2025 report covering 2024 returns delivered yet another indictment.

The average equity investor earned 16.54% in 2024. The S&P 500 returned 25.02%. That 848-basis-point shortfall was the second-largest investor performance gap of the past decade. In one of the strongest bull markets in recent memory, retail traders left nearly a third of available returns on the table. And 2024 was not an anomaly. Retail traders have now underperformed the S&P 500 for 15 consecutive years.

DALBAR’s “Guess Right Ratio,” meaning how frequently investors correctly time their entries and exits, fell to just 25% in 2024, tying a record low. Retail traders got market direction right just once out of every four times. And yet, the urge to act, reposition, and trade around every headline only intensified.

The compounding consequences are brutal. A hypothetical buy and hold investor who started 2024 with $100,000 in the S&P 500 finished the year with $125,020. The “average” investor, mimicking the behavioral cash flows DALBAR tracks, ended with $112,774, over $12,000 less in a single calendar year, simply from repositioning at the wrong times. Extended over twenty years, that same $100,000 left untouched in the S&P would have grown to $717,503. The average behavioral investor ended up with $345,614, forfeiting more than half their potential wealth, not to the market, but to their own decisions.

The Hazardous Truth About Stock Trading Frequency

The academic literature on trading frequency and performance is unambiguous, and it dates back decades. The landmark 2000 study by Professors Brad Barber and Terrance Odean, “Trading is Hazardous to Your Wealth” (Journal of Finance), analyzed 66,465 household brokerage accounts from 1991 to 1996. Its central finding was stark: retail traders who traded most aggressively earned an annual return of just 11.4%, while the market returned 17.9%. That is a 6.5 percentage point annual performance drag attributable entirely to excessive trading.

Even the average household in the study, turning over 75% of its portfolio every year, still earned 1.5 percentage points less than a simple buy-and-hold strategy. The gross returns were nearly identical across groups. All the destruction happened after transaction costs and the accumulated impact of poorly timed decisions. Overconfidence was the root cause Barber and Odean identified. Retail traders consistently overestimated their informational edge, leading them to trade when sitting still would have served them far better.

Subsequent research confirmed the finding globally. A study of the Colombian Stock Exchange covering 5.38 million trades by over 42,000 individual investors from 2006 to 2016 found that retail investors generated negative abnormal returns of 4% to 4.4% per year, before transaction costs. The most active traders performed the worst, even on a gross basis. The problem is not just the cost of trading. It is the trading itself.

Day Trading: Where Retail Traders Go to Lose Everything

If frequent stock trading is hazardous, day trading is in a category of its own. FINRA data from 2020 showed that 72% of day traders ended the year with financial losses. Among proprietary traders, those treating it as a professional business, only 16% were profitable. A mere 3% earned more than $50,000 for the year.

The survival statistics are equally grim. 80% of day traders quit within the first two years. Nearly 40% abandon it within one month. After three years, only 13% remain active. Only 1% of day traders maintain consistent profitability over a five-year horizon.

The most comprehensive single market study, a 2020 examination of Brazilian equity index futures traders who persisted for more than 300 trading days, found that 97% lost money. Only 1.1% earned more than Brazil’s minimum wage, and all of them experienced substantial volatility. No survivorship bias. Every trader who tried was measured over an extended period.

Retail traders, undeterred by the data, have gotten more aggressive since COVID. Post-pandemic research found that poor market timing, which cost investors roughly 0.53% per year before 2020, nearly doubled to 1.01% per year since. The explosion in retail participation, fueled by social media and zero-commission apps, has not produced better outcomes. It has produced worse ones.

Options: A Wealth Destruction Engine

If day trading is a casino, retail options trading is the casino where the house advantage is structural, invisible, and relentless. The research here is particularly damning.

A landmark study by de Silva, Smith, and So (“Losing is Optional,” MIT Sloan and Stanford, 2022) found that retail traders lost approximately $3 billion in options trades over the period from January 2010 through February 2021. Market makers were the primary beneficiaries.

Bryzgalova, Pavlova, and Sikorskaya (Journal of Finance, 2023) calculated that the aggregate retail options portfolio lost $2.1 billion from November 2019 through June 2021 alone, with the bulk of those losses coming not from bad directional calls, but from the cost of trading itself. Retail traders in options incur average gross monthly losses of 1.81%, described by researchers as “economically large and statistically significant.”

The mechanics of the losses fall into three repeating behavioral traps. First, retail traders systematically overpay for options relative to the realized volatility the underlying actually delivers, especially around earnings announcements. Second, they incur bid-ask spreads averaging roughly 8% of the option’s value on a round trip, an immediate structural headwind equivalent to a 9 to 10% drag on invested capital before any directional bet pays off. Third, they hold losing positions well past the point where price decay accelerates after a catalyst passes, sitting on deteriorating contracts as volatility collapses around them.

Since the introduction of zero-commission complex options trading, retail volumes surged by more than 75%. More access did not produce better results. It produced more frequent losing trades.

The Common Thread: Overconfidence

Across every study, every market, and every asset class, the behavioral driver is the same: overconfidence. Retail traders overestimate their ability to predict short-term price movements. Unsurprisingly, they trade more after a strong recent performance, buy into momentum precisely when the easy money has already been made, and sell winners 50% faster than they sell losers. In other words, they confuse activity with skill.

Short-term trading is largely a zero-sum game. For every retail trader who profits, a more sophisticated, better capitalized, algorithmically equipped counterparty sits on the other side. The house advantage embedded in options markets alone, via bid-ask spreads and market maker flow, is the financial equivalent of playing blackjack at a table where the dealer wins on ties.

The antidote is not complicated, even if it is psychologically difficult. Discipline, lower turnover, longer time horizons, and a ruthless focus on what can actually be controlled, including cost, diversification, and behavior, remain the only reliable defenses against the retail trading trap.

Five Tactics to Navigate Risk Without Overreacting

None of the evidence above argues for passivity in the face of market risk. Risk is real, volatility is real, and periods of genuine portfolio danger require thoughtful responses. The problem is not that retail traders care about risk. The problem is that their responses to it, frequent repositioning, speculative options bets, and tactical timing, reliably make outcomes worse rather than better. The following five tactics are designed to keep investors engaged and protected without triggering the behavioral traps revealed by the data.

1. Write a Personal Investment Policy Statement. A written Investment Policy Statement (IPS) is the single most underused tool in retail investing. Furthermore, it forces the investor to commit, before any market stress arrives, to their asset allocation targets, acceptable drawdown thresholds, rebalancing triggers, and the conditions under which they will and will not make changes. When markets fall 15%, and every instinct screams to act, a pre-committed IPS replaces emotion with a predetermined framework. Writing an IPS does not eliminate risk. It eliminates the most dangerous variable in the portfolio, which is the investor’s own unguided reaction to it.

2. Rebalance on a Schedule, Not a Sentiment. Rules-based rebalancing, triggered by calendar dates or percentage drift thresholds rather than market headlines, captures one of the few mechanical edges available to individual investors: it systematically forces buying of what is cheap and trimming of what is expensive. Research from Vanguard and Morningstar consistently shows that disciplined annual or threshold-based rebalancing adds 10 to 50 basis points of return per year over time while materially reducing drawdown severity.

3. Replace Speculative Options with Defined-Risk Structures. For investors who use options, the research is clear about where losses concentrate: in naked or leveraged directional bets, especially around earnings announcements, when bid-ask spreads widen and volatility collapses after the event destroys premium value. Instead, use defined-risk structures, including covered calls on existing long equity positions, protective puts sized to hedge a specific portfolio drawdown threshold, and vertical spreads that cap both gain and loss, to generate a fundamentally different statistical profile.

4. Require a Three-Day Waiting Period Before Any Non-Scheduled Trade. Before executing any trade that is not part of a pre-scheduled rebalance, the investor imposes a mandatory 72-hour waiting period and writes down, in plain language, why they are making the trade, what the exit criteria are, and what price action would tell them they are wrong. Most trades that feel urgent on Monday look considerably less urgent on Thursday. The behavioral literature consistently finds that the speed of a trading decision is inversely correlated with its quality. Slowing the process forces the investor to engage their deliberate reasoning rather than their reactive instincts.

5. Calculate Your Own Behavioral Return Gap Every Year. The exercise is straightforward: take the time-weighted return of each position as if it had been held without any transactions, then compare it to the account’s actual dollar-weighted return, including every buy, sell, and repositioning decision made during the year. The difference is the personal behavioral gap, the exact cost in dollars of every trade made. For most active retail traders, this number is negative and larger than they expect. For some, it represents tens of thousands of dollars in self-imposed performance drag per year. Seeing that number concretely, attached to actual dollars rather than abstract percentages, is the most powerful behavioral intervention available.

The market will always be there tomorrow. The question is whether your capital will be, and whether the decisions you make today will compound in your favor or against you.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/21/2026 - 11:20

ASP Isotopes Targets America’s Uranium Conversion Chokepoint

ASP Isotopes announced Tuesday that its Quantum Leap Energy subsidiary signed a research agreement with the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station to advance and de-risk the commercial production of uranium hexafluoride, or UF6.

The work will focus on gathering data on the reactions used to convert uranium concentrate (yellowcake or U3O8) into UF6. The research is intended to support process design, modeling, scale-up, cost reductions, and the eventual commercialization of QLE’s conversion technology.

This is the unglamorous but essential middle of the nuclear fuel chain. Uranium miners can produce all the yellowcake they want, but commercial enrichment facilities cannot use it until it has been converted into UF6. The US currently has only one operating commercial conversion facility, ConverDyn’s Metropolis Works plant in Illinois, while the World Nuclear Association counted only four conversion suppliers globally as of 2025.

In other words, conversion has quietly become one of the tightest links in an already strained Western fuel cycle.

Our readers know we have been tracking ASPI’s attempt to position itself across that chain. We first highlighted the company as the next nuclear story stock, followed the Trump-linked investment in QLE, and more recently covered its agreements involving a major US nuclear operator, TerraPower, Fermi America, South Africa’s Necsa, and an unnamed European advanced reactor developer.

The Texas A&M agreement adds conversion research to those enrichment and HALEU ambitions, but ASPI is not alone in spotting the bottleneck. 

Uranium Energy Corp launched United States Uranium Refining & Conversion Corp last year and is studying a facility designed to produce roughly 10,000 metric tons of uranium annually as UF6. UEC received an NRC docket number for the project in March and is advancing feasibility work with Fluor.

FluxPoint Energy has separately announced plans for another 10,000-ton U.S. conversion plant. Silex Systems and Cameco-backed Global Laser Enrichment are pursuing a different route at Paducah, where depleted UF6 tails would be re-enriched to natural-grade UF6. Because that material has already been converted, the project could effectively release additional supply without first processing fresh yellowcake.

For QLE, the Texas A&M deal remains research, not production. A commercial facility will still require engineering, capital, permits, customers, and execution. 

But, it does bring attention to how America’s nuclear buildout will need far more than reactors and uranium mines. It will also need the conversion capacity connecting the two.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/21/2026 - 11:00

Kidnapping Is Not A 'Violent Felony': Appeals Court Voids Two More Whitmer Plot Convictions

A Michigan Court of Appeals panel on July 20 vacated the convictions of Pete Musico and Paul Bellar, two men a jury found guilty in 2022 of providing material support for an act of terrorism over their connection to the alleged 2020 plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer. 

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer speaks at an event in National Harbor, Md., on May 4, 2023. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

The reason? Michigan's Anti-Terrorism Act defines an act of terrorism as conduct that would constitute a violent felony under state law. Kidnapping, the judges held, is not a violent felony as that term is defined. So kidnapping cannot serve as the predicate act for a material-support conviction - no matter what the defendants did or intended.

The panel did not reach that conclusion on its own. It was bound by a June decision in the case of co-defendant Joseph Morrison, decided by a different panel, which held that kidnapping "cannot properly form the basis for defendant's conviction." Monday's per curiam opinion said the court was bound by that interpretation and that the jury in this case was tainted by the same erroneous instructions. Because the trial judge had told jurors to treat kidnapping as a violent felony, and because they heard extensive testimony about the plot, the appellate judges concluded the verdict may have rested on an invalid basis.

Both men had also been convicted of committing a felony motivated by gang membership and of possessing a firearm during a felony. Because kidnapping was the underlying felony in each, those convictions were vacated too - even though, the panel noted, jurors could reasonably have found that the Wolverine Watchmen, the group the men belonged to, functioned as a gang and appeared involved in illegal activity.

The sentences erased were substantial. Michigan Advance and the Free Press report Musico had drawn 12 to 20 years, the harshest of the three; Bellar seven to 20; Morrison 10 to 20, later corrected downward. Prosecutors had cast the trio - Morrison, his father-in-law Musico, and their acquaintance Bellar - as early members and founders of the Wolverine Watchmen, the militia that trained alongside the plot's alleged ringleaders.

The cases now return to Jackson County Circuit Court. Because the reversal rests on instructional error rather than insufficiency of the evidence, the panel left the door open for further proceedings, and Attorney General Dana Nessel says she is walking through it.

"A previous ruling used linguistic gymnastics to overturn the conviction of an extremist," Nessel said. "Now, that broken precedent has legally bound this Court of Appeals panel to reverse the convictions of two more dangerous criminals." She said her office had already begun appealing the Morrison decision and would do the same here, adding that it "will not downplay domestic terrorism." Lawyers for the three men could not be reached, The Epoch Times reported.

The Big Picture

Monday's ruling lands on a prosecution whose record was mixed long before this. Fourteen people were charged across state and federal courts. Five were acquitted outright. With three convictions now vacated, six stand.

The federal case fared better for prosecutors, but only on the second attempt. In April 2022, a Grand Rapids jury acquitted Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta of conspiracy and deadlocked on Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr., forcing a mistrial. Retried that August, Fox and Croft were convicted of conspiring to kidnap the governor and to use weapons of mass destruction, with Croft additionally convicted of possessing an unregistered explosive device wrapped in pennies for shrapnel, according to the Justice Department. Two others, Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, pleaded guilty and testified for the government.

Entrapment was the defense's central theme throughout, and it worked at least twice. Attorneys portrayed their clients as loudmouthed weekend hobbyists talked into a conspiracy by federal handlers. BuzzFeed News reported that informants working under FBI direction were involved in nearly every phase of the alleged plot including its inception, raising the obvious question of whether a conspiracy would have existed without them. Prosecutors countered that the men had discussed abducting Whitmer before the sting began, scouted her vacation home, and tested explosives. The Sixth Circuit sided with the government in 2025, calling the entrapment evidence "weak" and upholding both convictions.

None of that history has anything to do with Monday's outcome; Musico and Bellar did not win on entrapment, on the facts, or on the sufficiency of the evidence against them. They won because Michigan's legislature wrote a terrorism statute that, as two appellate panels now read it, does not reach the crime they were accused of supporting. Whether the Michigan Supreme Court agrees is the next question.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/21/2026 - 10:20

Most Adults Can Safely Drink Up To 5 Cups Of Coffee A Day: American Heart Association

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

Most adults can safely drink five cups of coffee a day, according to the American Heart Association.

The organization said in a July 20 statement that synthesizes research on caffeine that the latest studies indicate that for most adults, consuming up to 400 milligrams of caffeine a day - or up to five 8-ounce cups of coffee - without added sugar and milk is not only safe, but appears to result in a lower risk of cardiovascular disease.

A cup of coffee in Culver City, Calif., in a file photograph. Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Higher levels of caffeine, such as those found in energy drinks, may harm the heart and blood vessels, the association said.

Most of the studies underpinning the guidance come from observational research, although there are a growing number of randomized, controlled trials that examined the relationship between caffeine and various health problems, including a trial that found no impact on glucose levels.

The data suggest that moderate consumption of caffeine lowers the risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke, among other problems, but that coffee consumption does increase premature ventricular contractions, or extra heartbeats, the group said. It indicates high doses of caffeine can lead to significant increases in blood pressure, particularly in people who already had high blood pressure. And it shows that consuming unfiltered coffee, which contains the lipid cafestol, raised serum cholesterol.

"Brewing method influences lipids," Dr. Abdulla Damluji, an interventional cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic who was not involved with the new guidance, wrote on X. "Advise patients concerned about low density lipoprotein cholesterol to prefer paper filtered or instant coffee over French press, Greek or Turkish, or boiled coffee, because cafestol in unfiltered coffee raises cholesterol."

Scientists behind the statement said there is a need for more data and noted that reactions to caffeine can vary among people.

"The data suggests that up to about three to five cups may have benefit and almost certainly is not harmful, but that doesn't mean that consuming three to five drinks is better than having one drink per day," Dr. Gregory Marcus, chair of the volunteer group that wrote the guidance, said in a video statement.

"So generally, the evidence suggests that people should listen to their bodies if consuming one cup of caffeinated coffee is enough and consuming two is uncomfortable. Individuals should not increase how much caffeine they're consuming for health reasons."

Researchers should prioritize studying caffeine in isolation from other ingredients in caffeinated beverages and examine whether introducing coffee to people who do not currently drink it yields positive health outcomes, the group said.

Most of the authors did not list any possible conflicts of interest. One listed being an unpaid consultant for the Institute for the Advancement of Food and Nutrition Sciences and working with manufacturers such as Keurig, and another said he consults for Boston Scientific Corp, which makes pacemakers and other devices for people with heart issues.

The heart association in 2025 had advised children to avoid caffeine, and had in the past said that adults could derive benefits from coffee but that drinking two or more cups a day could double the risk of heart death in people suffering from severe hypertension.

* * *

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/21/2026 - 10:00

The post House Prices Are Falling and We Haven’t Solved the Problem of Restrictive Zoning appeared first on CEPR.

Border Patrol Records 14 Straight Months Of Zero Releases At Southern Border

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Border Patrol released zero illegal immigrants into the United States from the southern border for the 14th consecutive month in June.

Border enforcement is at “historic levels,” and illegal crossings last month remained significantly low, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said in a July 16 statement. Border Patrol apprehended 9,848 people at the southwest border last month, 94 percent lower than the monthly average under the previous administration. It was also lower than the number of people “apprehended in 4 days” in June 2024.

“As I have said many times, leadership and policy matter. When laws are enforced, fewer people will break the law. Under the leadership of President [Donald] Trump and [Homeland Security] Secretary [Markwayne] Mullin, CBP is fully enforcing our immigration and border security laws,” CBP Commissioner Rodney S. Scott said in the statement.

“CBP is preventing dangerous criminal aliens and illicit narcotics from entering our communities, enhancing the safety of every American for generations to come.”

Last month, the Border Patrol received a funding boost for its anti-illegal immigration efforts when Trump signed the Secure America Act into law. The legislation provides $70 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol through Sept. 30, 2029, beyond Trump’s current term.

The bill allocated $22 billion for Border Patrol to recruit, train, equip, and pay agents and staff members. Out of the $22 billion, about $13 billion was specifically set aside for immigration enforcement operations. The legislation also granted $5 billion to be used for border security technology and screening systems.

After the bill was passed by the House on June 9, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) justified the legislation, saying Democrats will not be able to defund Border Patrol and ICE for the next few years. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said the bill supported law enforcement in the country.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) criticized the funding as a “disastrous bill” to bankroll ICE and Border Patrol, according to a June 12 statement from Duckworth’s office.

“There are an infinite number of ways we could be working to help Illinoisans get by, and it’s despicable that Trump would rather bankroll ICE and Border Patrol’s reign of terror than keep his promise and lower costs for the middle class,” Duckworth said in the statement.

2025–2029 Strategy

As the CBP counters the influx of illegal immigrants into the United States, the agency has reported strong growth in its Border Patrol workforce.

In a June 24 statement, CBP said that 21,471 Border Patrol agents were serving on America’s front lines—the highest employee count in the agency’s 102-year history.

CBP credited investments from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law by Trump last year, for fueling “increased applicant interest” and enabling the agency to attract top talent.

CBP said in a July 16 statement that it was filling in mission-critical roles in law enforcement and mission operations support positions at various locations throughout the United States, and it stated that it planned to conduct a virtual event on July 23 to highlight the career opportunities open to military spouses and veterans.

“CBP is an extremely welcoming employer for veterans and military spouses,” CBP Office of Human Resources Management Assistant Commissioner Andrea Bright said in the statement.

According to the 2025–2029 Border Patrol Strategy, the agency aims to counter illegal immigrant influx by expanding physical infrastructure, such as wall barriers, checkpoints, and permanent towers, in all regions of the country.

The agency seeks to deploy advanced autonomous surveillance systems as part of enhancing its detection and identification capabilities. Moreover, Border Patrol plans to proactively forecast high-risk crossing patterns and “strategically position resources to disrupt and deter illicit activities.”

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/21/2026 - 09:20

GLP-1 Fight: Novo Sues Eli Lilly Over Nationwide "Deceptive Advertising" Campaign

Novo Nordisk wrote in a press release that it is suing GLP-1 rival Eli Lilly in federal court in New Jersey, alleging nationwide "deceptive advertising" for Zepbound and Mounjaro. The company claims Lilly misleads consumers by comparing Lilly's highest doses with lower doses of Novo's Wegovy and Ozempic.

Novo claims Lilly's Zepbound advertising campaign relies on outdated studies that exclude the 7.2-milligram dose of Wegovy, approved in March 2026, which produced an average weight loss of about 19%. Novo also stated that there has been no head-to-head trial comparing the highest approved doses of the two drugs.

"A lawsuit, filed today in federal court, challenges a nationwide pattern of deceptive advertising which confuses consumers by using outdated studies to compare the highest injectable doses of Lilly's medicines against lower doses of Novo Nordisk's injectable medicines for obesity and type 2 diabetes," Novo wrote in the release.

What Novo seeks:

Through this action, Novo Nordisk is seeking a permanent injunction requiring Lilly to pull its misleading comparative advertising across all platforms and to conduct a corrective advertising campaign. We have also communicated to Lilly that if they do not voluntarily pull these ads, Novo Nordisk intends to file a formal motion with the Court in the coming days seeking a preliminary injunction to immediately block them, with evidence that consumers are being confused and misled by Lilly's ads.

The lawsuit comes as Novo and Lilly battle for share of a global GLP-1 market projected to exceed $120 billion by 2030, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Novo entered the obesity market first with Wegovy, but Lilly has since overtaken its rival with Zepbound and now leads in sales.

The divergence is reflected in their share prices: Novo's stock is flat this year and trading at lows last seen in 2021, while Lilly is at record highs.

Novo is pursuing a turnaround under its new CEO, expanding partnerships with telehealth companies and rolling out a new oral weight-loss drug. Will that be enough to reverse the stock?

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/21/2026 - 09:00

"Demand Remains Strong": GM Beats Expectations, Lifts Guidance For Second Time

GM beat Wall Street's second-quarter expectations on Tuesday, posting adjusted earnings of $3.57 per share on $48.03 billion in revenue as profitability improved despite softer vehicle sales. Adjusted EBIT reached $3.94 billion, up from $3.0 billion a year earlier, helped by lower tariff-related costs and stronger operating performance, according to Yahoo Finance.

The Detroit automaker also lifted its full-year guidance for the second time in 2026.

It's amazing what happens when the federal government isn't pressuring your business to convert entirely into an entirely new unprofitable line of products because "climate change"...

The report says that GM now expects adjusted EBIT of $14 billion to $16 billion and adjusted earnings of $12 to $14 per share, citing improving EV economics, modest pricing gains, regulatory benefits, and continued efforts to offset tariff expenses.

"Customer demand in North America remains strong driven by our very attractive lineup of pickups and SUVs," CEO Mary Barra wrote in a letter to shareholders. She added that the company's North American adjusted EBIT margin climbed to 8.6%, while GM continued to "lower our warranty costs, reduce EV losses, and increase operating efficiency."

The stronger earnings came even as U.S. deliveries slipped 4.2% to about 715,000 vehicles during the quarter. GM attributed much of the decline to discontinued models, including the Cadillac XT4, XT6, and Chevrolet Malibu, along with a steep drop in electric vehicle demand after the federal EV tax credit expired and pulled purchases into late 2025.

The company said it has recorded roughly $4.5 billion in EV-related charges so far this year, with the total impact rising to $7.2 billion when non-cash items are included. Sales of the Chevrolet Equinox EV, Blazer EV, and GMC Hummer EV all fell sharply, although GM retained the No. 2 position in the U.S. EV market behind Tesla.

Demand for GM's profitable truck and SUV lineup helped cushion the slowdown. The GMC Sierra posted a record second quarter, while the Chevrolet Traverse and Trailblazer also delivered strong sales gains. GM said it accomplished this while keeping incentives below the industry average and pushing average transaction prices above $52,400, though executives acknowledged affordability remains a headwind as elevated prices and interest rates continue to weigh on consumers.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/21/2026 - 08:20

Domino's US Sale Growth Hits Five-Quarter Low As Budget Diners Pull Back

Domino's Pizza posted its softest US comparable-sales growth in five quarters as inflation and the national average price for regular gasoline above $4 a gallon pressured working-poor consumers.

Second-quarter same-store sales rose a measly .1%, in line with estimates but trailing the growth expected across much of the quick-service restaurant industry (QSR).

Snapshot of 2Q earnings results (courtesy of Bloomberg):

Total domestic stores comp sales growth +0.1%, estimate +0.11% (Bloomberg Consensus)

• Domestic franchise comparable sales growth 0%, estimate +0.07%
• Domestic co-owned comparable sales growth +2.1%, estimate +0.55%

Revenue $1.19 billion, +4.3% y/y, estimate $1.18 billion

International comparable sales -0.1%, estimate +0.62%

EPS $4.07 vs. $3.81 y/y, estimate $4.18

Net addition of stores 209, +16% q/q, estimate 199

Income from operations $232 million, +3.1% y/y, estimate $225.5 million

Domino's shares were unchanged premarket trading. Although US same-store sales were roughly flat, the figures "were better than we and investors feared," TD Cowen analyst Andrew Charles wrote in a note.

Will the stock be able to stage another 2023-style bounce of the $300 level?

Citi analyst Sam Teeger noted:

DPZ noted that category growth in pizza is being driven by the dine-in channel as some pizza consumers are returning to pre-Covid habits of wanting a dine-in experience. Independent QSR pizza restaurants have been the biggest beneficiary of this shift. We are careful not to read too much into this as these comments were more focused on the US market.

Here is the Rothschild & Co analyst Edward Lewis' take on 2Q earnings:

Domino's Pizza reported second-quarter results that were in line on comparable sales but a miss on earnings. Revenue of $1,194m was marginally ahead of the $1,181m consensus had expected, while EPS of $4.07 fell short of consensus expectations of $4.16. Domestic same-store sales rose 0.1%, in line with flat consensus forecasts, but international same-store sales fell 0.1% consensus at +0.7%. Net store additions were mixed: domestic openings of 26 came in consensus at 35, while international additions of 183 beat consensus forecasts 158.

The top-line beat was entirely down to Supply Chain – the products Domino's sells to its franchisees – which was ahead by $17m against a total revenue beat of $14m. The Supply Chain outperformance reflects a combination of pricing and higher order growth, evidence that the value deals are working but at a cost, which is the source of the earnings miss.

The key challenge for Domino's is that it has delivered broadly flat comparable sales in the US in the first half – domestic same-store sales of 0.4% in 1Q26 (versus - 0.5% in 1Q25) and 0.1% in 2Q26 (versus 3.4% in 2Q25) – but now faces much tougher comparatives of 5.2% and 3.7% in the third and fourth quarters as it laps last year's menu innovation (stuffed crust) and the DoorDash launch.

In its prepared remarks, management emphasised order growth, which it sees as the lifeblood of the business: consumers coming into stores or through the aggregator channel can be signed up to the loyalty programme, giving franchisees the volume to leverage into profit. However, the long-term guidance still calls for 3% same-store sales growth, and we find it tough to see a path to that in the near term. There were no major announcements in the release on menu innovation or an updated outlook, and no revision to the long-term growth plans.

The shares look cheap on a P/E basis, but with no change to the long-term algorithm we see little fundamental support for a re-rating and retain our Sell rating.

Lewis summarizes the earnings call with management:

The quarter: management was at pains to flag that order count was in line with expectations; the miss was on ticket growth, as the Premium Series with Slice Sauce did not resonate as management had expected. Management returned repeatedly to the strength of order growth in a flat QSR industry as evidence of the health of Domino's core business.

Updated outlook: low-single-digit same-store sales guidance for both Domestic and International was reiterated, though International now includes any World Cup benefit (the tournament began after 2Q ended). FY26 domestic unit growth has been capped at 175, versus a prior 175-plus, as macro pressures and the weak 2Q ticket weighed on franchisee profitability. This may have ramifications for FY27 unit growth in our view. On comps, management is confident in the order-growth trajectory and expects to do a better job on ticket in the second half than in 2Q, implying sequential improvement on the 0.5% delivered in 1H26.

Strategic update: the outgoing CEO remained as positive as ever on the pizza category. He flagged a new product coming in 3Q – as yet undisclosed – that he expects to be incremental to the category, playing into an occasion where pizza does not typically do well (it sounds like an afternoon opportunity). He expects industry competition to stay elevated and has leant further into value, adding premium stuffed crust to the Best Deal Ever this quarter

Domino's maintained its forecast for low-single-digit US same-store sales growth in 2026 but trimmed planned domestic store openings to 175. As one of the first QSR chains to report quarterly results, Domino's provides an early proxy for consumer sentiment and a read-through on how restaurant operators are holding up amid elevated gasoline and diesel prices.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/21/2026 - 08:05

Kazakhstan Stops Piping Oil To Black Sea After Spate Of Ukraine Drone Tanker Strikes

Update(0803ET): This development certainly isn't going to help global oil prices stay down... Following a drone attack out of Ukraine days ago on the Caspian ​Pipeline Consortium (CPC) terminal along the Black Sea Coast, Kazakhstan has newly confirmed a halt crude transfers there.

"Kazakhstan is set to stop piping crude to a port on Russia’s Black Sea coast after a spate of attacks on tankers that's jeopardizing the landlocked Asian country’s ability to produce oil," Bloomberg reports Tuesday morning.

"The CPC Terminal at the Russian port of Novorossiysk will stop accepting piped supplies because tanker companies are too nervous to send their ships to the facility, two people with knowledge of the matter said," the report continues, describing a developing situation that parallels the ongoing situation of nervous tanker crews who have remained stopped in the Strait of Hormuz, also for fear of being attacked. "The halt is due to begin later on Tuesday," Bloomberg adds.

Additionally, CPC clarified in a statement that "Oil loading ⁠operations were suspended. No oil spill occurred and no ignition of oil in the cargo tanks ​was allowed." The pipeline terminates near the Russian port of Novorossiysk, and while mainly carrying Kazakh supply, it also transports some Russian crude. The Kremlin charged that these recent attacks are part of Ukraine's "ambition ​to further destabilize the situation on global oil markets".

That would be about 1.6 mm bopd out of 2.1 mm bopd total Kazakh exports. #OOTT https://t.co/k4Bfr0a639

— Z4 Energy Research (@ZmansEnrgyBrain) July 21, 2026

At least one of the tankers recently hit (described below) erupted in an onboard fire after it was struck on the starboard side. Reuters has detailed in the aftermath of a rescue effort that "The international crew of 22 ​was evacuated using CPC tugboats, with ​the exception of the ⁠captain and chief officer. The tanker remained afloat." Flows had initially resumed after a wave of Sunday attacks on the CPC terminal, but were halted again after strike on tanker Nelsa.

Analysts have been pointing out that as a result of Ukraine's broader drone war on Russian energy sites, Russia's oil refining output has fallen to its lowest level in more than two decades.

*  *  *

The Kremlin has accused Ukraine of orchestrating a plan to further destabilize global oil markets by carrying out drone attacks on the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC).

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in Monday remarks, "We are in solidarity with the Kazakh Foreign Ministry in its decisive condemnation of this crime against a civilian facility."

via Caspian News

"We regard this attack as yet another confirmation of Bankova's desire to further destabilize the situation on global oil markets," the top diplomat emphasized, referencing the street houses the Office of the President of Ukraine.

"For it, ensuring global energy stability, as well as a respectful attitude toward foreign partners, in particular from Kazakhstan, with whom the Kiev regime allegedly wants to develop mutually beneficial and friendly relations, is an empty phrase," she added.

The Caspian ​Pipeline Consortium (CPC) terminal, which is off Russia's Black Sea cost, confirmed Sunday that it was forced to suspend oil loadings, after a pair of oil tankers came under attack here.

Specifically the Asia and Nissos IOS tankers were attacked, with the former having caught on fire as a result, which was subsequently extinguished by emergency crews.

"There were no injuries or ​fatalities amongst CPC staff or contractors. There was no ⁠oil spill," CPC later clarified while confirming that the tankers remained afloat.

"At present, crude oil loading operations at the terminal have been suspended pending a full assessment of the consequences of the incident," CPC also said, but stopped short of identifying what entity was behind the attack.

Kazakhstan's foreign ministry was outraged. "Upon completion of this assessment, Kazakhstan reserves all rights ​available under international law to protect its legitimate ​interests, including ⁠seeking full compensation for the damage caused," it said.

This isn't the first time that sections of the key energy route have been targeted by Ukrainian drones. For example a key section of Caspian Pipeline Consortium near Novorossiysk was temporarily been taken offline in a November 2025 attack.

It is surprising that the attacks on Caspian Pipeline Consortium are continuing, and another red line has been crossed, because for the first time in history of naval combat, tankers were attacked at loading point

— Olzhas Baidildinov, ex-advisor to Energy Minister of Kazakhstan pic.twitter.com/K7OP3oSx7K

— RTBreaking (@RT_Breaking) July 20, 2026

The consortium's over 930-mile pipeline connects oil fields in western Kazakhstan and Russian offshore fields in the Caspian Sea to a marine terminal in Novorossiysk, which means the location serves as the main export route for Kazakh oil, and is one of the world’s largest oil conduits by volume.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/21/2026 - 08:03

Futures Jump As Chipmakers Surge After Japan , Korea Bounce

US stock futures are higher led by Tech after a strong bounce in chip stocks in Japan (memory stock Kioxia traded limit up after trading limit down on Friday and Monday was a holiday) and Korea, as evidence mounts that Momentum / Semis pullback have bottomed, with supportive price action elsewhere in Asia and Europe, though the JPM EU Trading Desk is not yet seeing follow-through buying in Semis.  As of 7:20am ET, S&P futures are 0.5% higher, lagging the 1.4% bounce in Nasdaq futures helped by a report that TSMC is planning price hikes, although it is unclear if the early ramp will persist amid the re-escalating war with Iran which overnight saw Houthis impose a blocakde on Saudi Arabia. In premarket trading, most Mag 7 names are higher with semis leading (SOXX +4%). Cyclicals ex-Energy are leading Defensives with both Staples and HC net lower and AI boosting Industrials and Utils. WTI crude is trading near its highs, boosting Energy as all 3 commodity complexes move higher with silver the standout which has traded in tandem with the AI theme. The yield curve is twisting steeper with yields ranging from -1bp to +1bp with USD flat. Today’s macro focus is on the weekly ADP number and regional Fed activity.  US economic data calendar includes ADP weekly employment change (8:15am) and July Philadelphia Fed non-manufacturing index (8:30 am). Fed speaker slate is blank during July 18-30 external communications blackout period around the July 28-29 FOMC meeting.

In premarket trading, chipmakers and other AI-related firms rebound after the sector suffered some recent weakness. Movers include Intel (INTC +5.5%), Sandisk (SNDK +8.1%), Micron (MU +6.8%), CoreWeave (CRWV +3.8%), GE Vernova (GEV +2.5%) as the entire trillion-dollar sector continues to trade like a rabid pennystock.

• Tesla and Nvidia are leading Magnificent 7 stocks higher during the AI rebound (Tesla +1.2%, Nvidia +1.1%, Alphabet +1%, Meta +0.4%, Amazon +0.2%, Apple -0.4%, Microsoft -0.7%).

In corporate news, BlackRock’s coming debt sale of more than $12 billion for a Meta Platforms data center is the result of years spent transforming a public investments giant into a heavy hitter in private markets too.

• The Paramount-Warner deal, paused Monday by a federal judge, faces a legal hurdle that risks putting the deal on hold for months at a cost that could quickly climb to billions of dollars.
• Nike’s soccer boss said the World Cup ending “was not what we dreamed,” as Spain and Argentina — both Adidas teams — faced off in the final after beating Nike-clad teams in the semifinals.

Chipmakers are leading the gains in premarket trading, along with associated memory storage and semiconductor equipment names, helped by a report that TSMC is planning price hikes. Tech was also buoyed by upbeat Taiwan and South Korean export data, supportive Wall Street commentary (virtually every bank is begging for a momentum bounce knowing well that if one doesn't come it will get very ugly) and an absence of new geopolitical flashpoints. Even so, nagging worries about margin debt and inflation loom for the AI trade.  To wit, according to the trading desk at UBS, the sharp selloff in momentum stocks may be nearing its end, creating an opportunity for investors to start rebuilding positions in AI and semiconductor shares.

“While volatility is likely to remain high given the elevated concentration still present in parts of the market, the correction has been both deep and lengthy enough to alleviate some valuation concerns,” said Santiago Mateo Yanguas, head of equity at CaixaBank AM.

South Korea’s exports data adds further support for chips, with semiconductor exports climbing by a perfectly sustainable about 181% YoY for the first 20 days of July. Taiwan’s June export orders from the US rose nearly 84% year-on-year, the fastest pace on record. Whether the AI rally can extend will depend heavily on the reporting season and, as Bloomberg highlights, the biggest concern is leverage with US margin debt rising 49% year-on-year in June to a record high. AI capex “has stretched hyperscalers to the edge of acceptable investor limits,” notes JonesTrading chief strategist Mike O’Rourke. 

Others were more bearish: equity investors should look to reduce some exposure after this earnings season, according to HSBC’s Max Kettner, who warns that stretched sentiment, a fading fiscal impulse, and US midterm election uncertainty could trigger a pullback. 

TSMC is set to raise prices for advanced and mature chip production services by up to 10% in 2027 to reflect rising costs, Nikkei Asia reports. It follows a report last week of ASML raising prices for its equipment, for which TSMC is ASML’s largest customer. While price increases underpin the demand story, it will stoke concerns of inflationary pressures and traders will be on watch for corporate margin hits from memory costs during this earnings season.

Focus will soon shift to the start of the reporting season for Big Tech firms, where AI hyperscalers will update investors on their capital spending plans. Alphabet Inc. reports on Wednesday, while Microsoft Corp., Meta Platforms Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. are due next week. “The next test is no longer whether AI demand exists, but whether pricing, margins and cash flow can justify the capex bill,” said Florian Ielpo, head of macro at Lombard Odier Investment Managers. “If they can, the rebound should broaden. Otherwise, volatility remains the regime.”

A question that investors are asking themselves is whether now is the time to sell chips and rotate toward hyperscalers, which have underperformed semiconductors this year, according to Alexandre Drabowicz, chief investment officer at Indosuez Wealth Management in Paris. “Our view is that one needs to be invested in both,” Drabowicz said. “Alphabet’s earnings this week will be a real bellwether for the industry and its capacity to monetize AI. We believe the market underestimates how fast these companies will be able to monetize.”

Global trade faces a fresh headache as the Panama Canal moves to curtail some vessel-booking slots because of water-supply challenges. Overnight, the Trump admin vowed to impose a fresh 50% tariff on some Canadian goods over what it said was unfair treatment of American alcohol, cars and dairy. 

In politics, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is set to testify before lawmakers to defend the Trump administration’s request for billions of dollars in additional money for the Iran war. Trump met with a pair of key Republican senators on Monday evening to discuss a path forward on legislation that would override state laws on AI.  A federal appeals court denied Joe Biden’s request for a temporary block to stop the Justice Department from turning over tapes and transcripts to the Heritage Foundation. Seperately, the DOJ has launched a new investigation into Harvard University, alleging that some of its financial aid programs violate civil rights law by excluding American citizens. 

European stocks are up too, the Stoxx 600 rising 0.2%, also being led by the technology sector. After two days in the red, as gains in the technology sector and a slew of robust earnings counter news about the continuing US-Iran clashes.  Here are the biggest movers Tuesday:

• Mitie Group shares surge as much as 42% after agreeing to a takeover by OCS Group at a big premium to Monday’s close. The facility management company’s shares remain below the offer price
• Babcock rises as much as 8.3%, leading gains amoung European defense stocks on Tuesday after the UK’s new prime minister Andy Burnham told NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte that John Healey’s appointment as Chancellor was a “signal of his intent” on defense
• Var Energi shares gain as much as 5.9% and BlueNord rises as much as 6.7% after the former made a $1.3 billion offer to acquire the latter; Var Energi also reported 2Q results and reaffirmed its production forecast
• Bossard shares jump as much as 11%, hitting their highest level since October 2024, after first-half results from the maker of fastening devices beat expectations, which analysts said provides better visibility on the full-year outlook
• Genuit Group gains as much as 3.2% after analysts at Stifel initiated coverage on the maker of plastic piping systems with a buy rating and said they see an inflection point coming, driven by regulatory and structural drivers
• Basic resources stocks gained the most in the Stoxx 600 index as copper headed for its highest close since mid-June on signs that supply conditions in China are continuing to tighten. Gold touched its highest level in a week on dip-buying
• Boliden drops as much as 7.6%, to the lowest since May 5, after the mining company delivered revenue and operating profit below expectations in the second quarter, along with negative free cash flow
• Wartsila shares drop as much as 4.6% as JPMorgan flags the company lowering its demand outlook for the Energy division. That’s overshadowing the company’s strong beat on orders in the second quarter
• Schindler shares fall as much as 6.1%, the most in five months, after second-quarter revenues missed estimates, offsetting a better-than-expected margin performance
• Julius Baer shares declined as much as 5.3% as beats on net income and assets under management were overshadowed by the lack of update on a regulatory review and any subsequent share buybacks
• Jungheinrich shares drop as much as 5.5% after Germany’s financial regulator BaFin opened an accounting review on whether the company breached financial-reporting rules in connection with the planned sale of the company’s Russian business

Asian stocks rose for the first time in four sessions as investors rush back into chip stocks after a recent rout.  The MSCI Asia Pacific Index jumped as much as 2.3%, the most since July 15, led by TSMC, Samsung and SK Hynix. South Korea and Taiwan led the gains in the region, with most other markets also climbing higher as investor sentiment improves. Taiex’s 3.6% rise was the most in three weeks. Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 2.7% after slipping into correction territory on Friday. While investors continue to debate whether AI spending is justified, the recent tech selloff has drawn some back to hunt for bargains. Several megacap earnings due later this week, including Tesla and Alphabet Inc., will shed further light on whether the AI-driven rally can regain momentum. “The market has already undergone a fairly substantial correction,” said Ikuo Mitsui, a fund manager at Aizawa Securities. “At the same time, corporate earnings have held up reasonably well and have proved more resilient than expected.”

In FX, the dollar is fluctuating, albeit in a narrow range. The yen is lagging, while the Norwegian krone and Aussie dollar are stronger.

In rates, treasury yields are little changed in early US trading with the yield curve steeper, tracking similar price action across most developed sovereign bond markets, with oil prices and stock index futures higher inside Monday’s ranges. Tiny overnight yield ranges included less than 2bp for 10-year. US session has no major calendar events. Yields across tenors remain within about a basis point of Monday’s closing levels, the 10-year just under 4.60%. Treasury futures volumes through 7am New York time were 60% to 90% of 20-day average level.  IG credit new-issue calendar includes is blank so far, but at least one potential borrower stood down Monday as three issuers raised a combined $4.5 billion, and may return. Treasury coupon auctions this week include $13 billion 20-year reopening Wednesday and $21 billion 10-year TIPS new issue Thursday. Germany is underperforming at the long end in Europe. UK government bonds ticked higher as investors awaited fresh policy details from new Prime Minister Andy Burnham. Weak economic data dimmed bets on higher interest rates. 

In commodities, oil prices have been mostly lower for the session so far and Brent is sitting a little short of $89/barrel, while gold has come off its high but is still in the green and above $4,000/oz.

The US economic data calendar includes ADP weekly employment change (8:15am) and July Philadelphia Fed non-manufacturing index (8:30 am). Fed speaker slate is blank during July 18-30 external communications blackout period around the July 28-29 FOMC meeting.

Market Snapshot

Top Overnight News

• President Trump is nearing a decisive fork in the Iran war, with U.S. and Israeli officials envisioning only two viable endgames: Option 1: Pursue a new 10-day ceasefire aimed at reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Option 2: Launch a massive joint military campaign with Israel to force Tehran's capitulation. Axios
• Vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has slumped since U.S. President Donald Trump’s blockade took effect last week, with shipowners increasingly avoiding one of the world’s most important energy corridors as fighting between the U.S. and Iran intensifies. CNBC
• China is mounting one of its broadest efforts in years to steady the stock market, with regulators, state-backed investors, insurers and asset managers all moving to shore up confidence after a selloff in tech shares. BBG
• China’s cabinet pledged to ensure the country will meet its full-year economic goal and to forge ahead with implementing policies, after growth slipped below the official target range in the second quarter. BBG
• Chinese regulators are considering tightening export controls on artificial intelligence and semiconductor technologies, as the US-China rivalry intensifies in cutting-edge AI. FT
• The US vowed to impose a new 50% tariff on some Canadian goods, citing unfair treatment of American products. The levies would apply to items including milk and beer but exempt energy, potash and critical minerals. BBG
• London Stock Exchange plans to launch a 24/5 trading venue to support digital, algorithmic and agentic trading. It’ll operate separately from LSE’s Main Market, with ETPs set to debut next year. BBG
• OpenAI and Anthropic executives are sounding the alarm about the rise of cheap AI, particularly powerful new models produced in China, suggesting they will lead to a “dystopian” AI future and present unacceptable security risks without regulation. WSJ
• The cost of protecting Oracle Corp.’s debt against default reached a fresh multi-year high on Monday while its existing bonds sold off, as doubts grew over whether the company’s massive investments in artificial intelligence will pay off. BBG
• US President Trump signed an order to identify and fix potential national security vulnerabilities by requiring defence contractors to screen their supply chains, aiming to stop weapons makers from working with certain foreign suppliers including China.

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

APAC stocks traded mixed following the subdued handover from the US, where most major indices declined as oil prices and yields climbed amid the ongoing geopolitical backdrop, although the Nasdaq showed some resilience amid a bounce in tech and telecommunications. ASX 200 lacked firm direction with price action contained within relatively tight parameters in the absence of notable data or key macro drivers. Nikkei 225 rallied on return from the long weekend, with some bargain-hunting after last Friday's slump. KOSPI shrugged off earlier indecision and rallied amid a tech rebound, with notable strength seen in Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix shares. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp were mixed with price action range-bound as they took a breather after rallying yesterday amid stimulus hopes and China’s “national team” buying close to USD 9bln in equities.

Top Asian News

• Japan's Cabinet approved an economic framework policy document including fiscal plan, which cites BoJ autonomy and lacked sales tax decisions.
• Japan is reportedly to relax rules surrounding bank lending for M&A and incentivise pension funds to invest more in alternative assets.
• New Zealand Inflation Rate QoQ (Q2) Q/Q 1.5% vs. Exp. 1.4% (Prev. 0.9%).
• New Zealand Inflation Rate YoY (Q2) Y/Y 4.1% vs. Exp. 4% (Prev. 3.1%).
• South Korea July 1st-20th Exports rose 52.3% Y/Y, Imports rose 20.0% Y/Y and Trade Balance is at a provisional surplus of USD 12.2bln.
• Taiwan Export Orders (Jun) Y/Y 59.4% (exp. 47.3%).

european bourses are mixed and ultimately trading on either side of the unchanged mark. Tentative action which is encapsulated by the tumultuous geopolitical environment and a number of earnings from within the region. European sectors hold a slight negative bias. Tech outperforms followed by Basic Resources, whilst Optimised Personal Care and Media reside at the bottom of the pile. The Tech sector continues to bounce back from recent losses, following a similar theme seen in the APAC session, where the KOSPI gained c. 3.5%.

Top European News

• UK government to remove VAT on electricity bills from October 1st, funded by cancellation of the Digital ID programme, as part of new tax cut measures.
• UK PM Burnham reportedly to slash business rates for the hospitality sector by 20% within days, Huffington Post reported. Additionally, a GBP 2 cap on bus fares is also set to be unveiled as soon as Wednesday.
• Worldpanel announced grocery inflation and sales (w/e 12th July): Grocery Inflation 2.6% (prev. 3%).

FX

• G10s are mixed against the Buck. Antipodeans lead after a hotter-than-expected NZ CPI; JPY underperforms after the Japanese cabinet excluded a sales tax decision from its fiscal plan.
• DXY is a touch lower today, with oil prices softer but lacking direction as we await further geopolitical updates. Overnight, Axios reported that senior US and Israeli officials are claiming Trump’s options were to either promote a new 10-day ceasefire or launch a full-scale war on Iran. Elsewhere, Fox reported Trump will decide in the coming days whether to expand military operations against Iran. ING opines USD risks remain to the upside, given the aforementioned factors. Given the above, focus remains on incoming Gulf newsflow with a light calendar ahead of the Fed’s meeting next week. DXY remains below the 21DMA at 100.05, currently between 100.90 and 101.
• GBP in focus today after UK PM Burnham appointed former Defence Minister Healey as Chancellor (see 09:50 analysis for more detail). Elsewhere, UK jobs saw the unemployment rate remain steady at 4.9%, whilst the Employment Change topped expectations, while the wages components were flat/very slightly firmer. Overall, a report which will have little impact on the BoE, ahead of CPI on Wednesday and Flash PMIs on Friday. GBP takes a breather just above 1.3420 in Cable, and a little weaker just above 0.85 in the EUR cross.
• JPY is on a weaker footing despite the aforementioned subdued Dollar and softer oil prices. Overnight, Japan's Cabinet approved the economic framework policy document, including a fiscal plan, which cited BoJ autonomy but lacked a sales tax decision. Amid the uncertainty given the lack of a funding plan, USD/JPY resides towards the upper end of a 162.43-162.70 range.
• Antipodeans hold on to the spoils of the prior day's outperformance, with Aussie propped up by firmer metals whilst the Kiwi is leading after firmer-than-expected New Zealand CPI data. AUD/NZD is a modest touch lower, Aussie and Kiwi both +0.4% against the Buck.

Fixed Income

• Global fixed income benchmarks trade range-bound, in line with energy prices, despite the risk-on tone seen across the equity space. Equities seem to enjoy the reporting around a possible 10-day ceasefire, with recent reporting hinting that the US is demanding a longer ceasefire.
• Gilts (+1 tick) trade higher, despite the announcement of former Defence Secretary Healey as Chancellor. Thus far, gilts have taken this as fairly positive, possibly taking comfort in the fact that he used to work in the Treasury in past governments. In terms of Burnham's policy, Bloomberg reported that the UK government will remove VAT on electricity bills from October 1st, funded by cancellation of the Digital ID programme. There have been contradictory reports over whether this measure will be fully funded. The Times reported that this will be fully funded; however, the OBR said the GBP 1.8bln figure for the ID scheme was unfunded, while former UK minister Jones suggested that Burnham's cut is also unfunded. More recently, the Huffington Post reported that Burnham is to slash business rates for the hospitality sector by 20%, while a GBP 2 cap on bus fares is also set to be unveiled soon.
• On the data front, the ONS released its May employment report; employment change 147k (exp. 85k, prev. 100k), unemployment change 4.9% (exp. 4.9%, prev. 4.9%). Despite the strong labour report, gilts have failed to react, given the focus on politics.
• Bunds (-10 ticks) rotate in a 124.59-124.81 range. Focusing on the short-end, the yield currently trades outside of the 2.52-2.76% range, driven by the recent leg higher in energy prices. Brent has recently returned above the USD 90/bbl mark, resurfacing worries of an energy pass-through into inflation. ING says that rates can take a hawkish view, with the 2yr euro swap rate touching 3%, because the EZ growth picture continues to recover. Additionally, implied bond volatility is at lower levels, compared to the early stages of the Middle East conflict.
• USTs (+1 tick) lack direction given the quiet docket this week, heading into the Fed policy announcement next week.
• Germany sells EUR 4.553bln vs exp. EUR 6bln 2.90% 2031 Bobl: b/c 1.48x, average yield 2.89%, retention 24.1%.
• The UK sells GBP 5bln 4.00% 2029 Gilt: b/c 3.42x (prev. 3.35x), average yield 4.463% (prev. 4.238%), tail 0.3bps (prev. 0.2bps).

Commodities

• Geopolitics remain fluid with constructive and escalatory updates on the US-Iran front. On the former, a 10-day ceasefire proposal was pitched, while Iran confirmed ongoing mediation talks, which keeps alive the possibility of a return to the June interim MoU. On the other hand, last night was the 10th consecutive day of US airstrikes, whilst Iran continues targeting the region and reiterated that the Strait of Hormuz is closed. US President Trump is expected to decide in the coming days whether to expand military operations against Iran and return to full-scale combat, a senior US official told Fox News. Meanwhile, senior US and Israeli officials are claiming Trump only has two realistic options: either promoting a new 10-day ceasefire with the aim of reopening the Strait of Hormuz, or launching a full-scale war on Iran, Axios reported. Further, a US official said if US President Trump decides to expand the war, the strikes will include Tehran and nuclear sites, according to Al Arabiya.
• Crude oil futures are trading subdued as market participants weigh emerging diplomatic de-escalation signals against ongoing military exchanges in the Middle East. Brent crude futures fell to the bottom end of a USD 88.08-89.45/bbl range while WTI similarly waned to the lower end of a USD 81.64-83.05/bbl range. Also on the supply side, NHC reported that Tropical Storm Bertha has strengthened, situated right in the Gulf of Mexico. Dutch TTF bucks the trend and has edged higher, back above the EUR 59.23/MWh mark, in the European morning, with analysts suggesting gas will be impacted more by the Middle East situation.
• Precious metals are on a firmer footing as the Dollar and inflation expectations ease with oil prices. Spot gold trades towards the upper end of a USD 3,999/oz to USD 4,084/oz range. Spot silver surges 4.5% at the time of writing as it rises above USD 59/oz vs Friday’s 54.77/oz base.
• Base metals also cheer the pullback in the Dollar alongside expectations of Chinese stimulus following recent weak economic data. 3M LME copper is firmer by 1.5% at the time of writing and towards the upper end of a USD 13,603.73- 13,840.00/t range.
• UAE's ADNOC has approved a USD 6.2bln project to boost natgas production, Bloomberg reported.
• Goldman Sachs said Brent may rise above USD 120/bbl in FY26 Q4 if Hormuz remains disrupted.

Trade/Tariffs

• The US is imposing an additional 50% tariff on certain products of Canada including some USMCA products, to counter Canadian bias against US commerce with respect to alcoholic beverages, dairy, motor vehicles. In response, Canadian PM Carney said Canada is ready to engage intensively to address issues with the US and said we're ready to talk with the US about modernising the USMCA. Additionally, the Ontario Premier said that Canada should impose retaliatory tariffs against the US.
• China is weighing tighter export controls on AI models and chips, according to FT.

Central banks

• ECB Bank Lending Survey (Jul): Euro area banks reported a moderate net tightening of credit standards for loans or credit lines to enterprises in Q2'26.

Geopolitics: Middle East

• It was Iran which proposed the 10-day ceasefire, i24's Stein reported, citing sources. The US said to be demanding a longer ceasefire and demanding even partial navigation of the Strait of Hormuz. The goal of these 10 days, according to the two sources, is to find a solution for the Strait of Hormuz. The mediators conveyed the proposal to the US and even added additional components to it during the talks they held with Washington and Tehran so that it would be between the territory controlled by Oman and the territory controlled by Iran and through which ships could pass.
• US Energy Secretary Wright said they will continue to attack Iran and are ensuring the flow of oil, gas and other products through the Strait of Hormuz with or without Iran's cooperation. Wright said they continue to undermine Iran's offensive military capabilities and that President Trump wants to end the conflict with a peace deal, but this will require cooperation from both sides.
• US CENTCOM announced another round of strikes against Iran in which US forces struck Iranian military command centres, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and air defence systems to degrade Iran's ability to continue attacking vessels.
• US airstrikes targeted the centre of Isfahan city and several explosions were heard in Bandar Abbas, Qeshm, Chabahar, Konarak and Shiraz, while air defence systems were activated near Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant.
• US likely does not have enough munitions to sustain a prolonged all-out war with Iran — which is already adapting to bypass US defence systems in its attacks across the region, according to an expert cited by The New York Post
• Iran claimed a strike on a US military data centre in Bahrain and stated that US radar and defence systems in Bahrain were destroyed. Iran also targeted US military facilities at Kuwait's Ahmad Al-Jaber base, US missile systems at Kuwait's Arifjan base, while explosions were reported in the Ali Al-Salem Airbase in Kuwait. Additionally, a central data infrastructure of Amazon (AMZN) in Bahrain was attacked by several cruise missiles.
• More recently, there have been reports of sirens in Qatar while explosions were heard in Jordan.
• IRGC said two tankers were hit near the Strait of Hormuz, and that the Strait of Hormuz is closed, while the UKMTO said it received a report of an incident 8NM northeast of Oman's Limah and later announced the crew had abandoned the ship.
• Yemeni Houthi commander said Saudi Arabia faces two options: either lift the blockade and stop its intervention or continue escalating, which will cost it a lot, Al Mayadeen reported.
• Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich said "the State of Israel has no interest in joining the conflict between Iran and the US - the current situation is the best for us", Ynet reported.
• Israel conducted artillery strikes on southern Lebanon, while it stated that the programme of pilot zones in southern Lebanon began on Monday, which was carried out in cooperation with US military and Lebanese armed forces. Furthermore, it will respond forcefully to any violation of the agreement.
• The Lebanese army entered Zawtar al-Gharbiya as part of the first phase of the pilot zones, Al Hadath reported, while Israeli troops departed the area.

Geopolitics: Ukraine

• Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces have struck infrastructure used by Ukraine’s military in the port of Odesa, IFX reported.
• Russia's Kremlin said that Russia will continue targeting vessels involved in supplying Ukraine’s military.

Geopolitics: Other 

• US State Department said the US calls on China to immediately cease its destabilising conduct and condemns China's dangerous and aggressive actions against Philippine Navy personnel at the Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea on July 20th.
• North Korea's Foreign Minister met with Russian President Putin in Moscow on 19th July, according to KCNA.

US Event Calendar

• 8:15am: ADP weekly employment change
• 8:30am July Philadelphia Fed non-manufacturing index 

DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

Yesterday I discussed the huge developments at the end of last week with Chinese open-source AI sparking another potential “DeepSeek moment”. Overnight Adrian Cox has published a timely report explaining what all the fuss is about. “Open-source AI 101: the battle for the future of AI” is a great insight for generalists into what open models are, how they differ from proprietary models like Claude and OpenAI’s GPTs, and why they are key to the AI boom. It’s on the Deutsche Bank Research Institute website here.

I think that if the Chinese model of AI development continues to gain traction, it could have significant implications for the highly capital-intensive, capex-led US approach. As such, the piece is well worth a read.

Onto markets, and they struggled to gain traction yesterday, with the S&P 500 (-0.19%) losing ground even as chip stocks stabilised after last week’s rout, while Middle East concerns lingered. There has been a recovery overnight though. On the Middle East conflict there was some hope as a spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry said that “ideas from some mediators have been conveyed” to Iran, but escalating rhetoric from the Houthis in Yemen as well as from President Trump meant Brent crude still closed +1.27% higher at $89.22/bbl. Meanwhile, global bonds saw a broad selloff, with 10yr Treasury yields closing +4.4bps higher, in part due to a hint of looser fiscal policy from the new UK PM Burnham. 30yr US real yields also hit their highest since 2008. 

Starting with Iran, we did see some improvement in sentiment yesterday as Reuters reported that a senior Iranian official had told them that mediators had passed a proposal to Iran, which would offer a 10-day ceasefire to try and revive the interim deal last month. But the headlines weren’t all positive yesterday, and shortly afterwards, oil prices pared back some of their decline after the Houthis said they’d impose a maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia, which risks adding to the oil supply disruption. The mood also wasn’t helped by Trump’s post that Iran “will pay… many times over” for the deaths of US soldiers, while the US has conducted a 10th consecutive night of strikes against Iran overnight. So with different counteracting forces, Brent crude settled +1.27% higher at $89.22/bbl, beneath its morning peak above $91/bbl but well off the lows just above $86/bbl. Overnight, Brent is -0.75% lower. 

Back to the bond sell-off and the UK led the way with gilts seeing a sharp underperformance after new PM Andy Burnham said that he would use “any flexibility” within the country’s fiscal rules. Potential options for such flexibility include using up the available headroom under the fiscal rules and using off-balance-sheet structures to fund targeted capital investments. The latter may lie outside the current fiscal rules but would still add to the debt burden. So the comments were seen as opening the way for more borrowing and meant that the 10yr yield ended the day up +8.1bps at 5.03%, whilst the 30yr yield (+8.9bps) closed at 5.74%. This sell-off all happened after he spoke. We’re also expecting some further announcements from the new administration this week, and Burnham said in his first speech as PM that he’d be setting out more measures from today to support with the cost of living.

In a surprise move, we then learnt that Burnham had picked John Healey, the former Defence Secretary, as the new Chancellor of the Exchequer. Healey had been voted as one of the more investor-friendly options for Chancellor in a recent Bloomberg survey, though there’s little visibility on his fiscal views. Indeed, his highest-profile recent move was accusing the Treasury of underfunding defence as he resigned from Starmer’s government last month. In other appointments, Burnham picked Ed Miliband as foreign secretary and appointed a close ally, Louise Haigh, as first secretary of state. The latter pick coupled with Healey’s as Chancellor raises the possibility that under Burnham, Number 10 will look to exert more direct control over economic policy. The pound did recover a bit of yesterday’s earlier losses following the news of Healey’s appointment, but it was still down -0.16% against the dollar. 

Whilst the UK saw the worst of the bond selloff, it was echoed around the world. In Europe, yields on 10yr bunds (+2.5bps), OATs (+1.9bps) and BTPs (+2.6bps) all moved higher, and for 10yr OATs, that took them up to a post-2009 high of 3.94%.

And over in the US, the 10yr Treasury yield (+4.4bps) was up to 4.59%. The sell-off in Treasuries was driven by real yields, with the 10yr real yield (+3.3bps) rising to 2.33%, while the 30yr real yield (+3.4bps) rose to 2.92%, its highest level since 2008. At the same time, investors priced in a more hawkish path for the Fed, with 34bps of hikes now priced in by the December meeting, up +2.3bps on the day. This has now retraced more than half of the declines seen since last week's soft CPI. 

US equities struggled to recover amid the ongoing geopolitical uncertainty and rising real yields. The S&P 500 (-0.19%) retreated for a third consecutive session with two thirds of its constituents down on the day. The Philly semiconductor index (+0.60%) did see a modest recovery after its -9.97% slump last week, so it’s no longer more than -20% beneath its record high, as it was on Friday. However, the broader tech mood was still cautious, with the NASDAQ (-0.05%) and Mag-7 (-0.07%) inching lower. And over in Europe, the STOXX 600 was also down -0.30%, with the FTSE 100 (-0.71%) leading the losses amid the broader UK asset underperformance. 

However there has been a bounce this morning in Asia with S&P (+0.42%) and Nasdaq (+1.03%) futures both comfortably higher. The tech recovery continues elsewhere as the KOSPI (+4.63%) is leading gains in the region after falling nearly 5% yesterday. Elsewhere, the Nikkei (+2.76%) is also firm after yesterday's holiday. In China, the CSI 300 (+1.76%) and Shanghai Composite (+0.62%) are posting solid gains, while the Hang Seng (+0.03%) is fairly flat alongside the S&P/ASX 200 (+0.08%). 

Early-morning data showed that South Korea’s exports surged 52.3% year-over-year during the first 20 days of July, driven largely by semiconductor shipments, which nearly tripled amid sustained demand fueled by the ongoing artificial intelligence boom. This was one of the WOW! charts in my recent pack, with exports at over 50-year highs on a YoY basis. The trend continues. 

In other overnight news, the US announced that it will impose a 50% tariff on some Canadian goods. The new tariffs were announced under Section 338 of the 1930 Tariff Act, which has never previously been used. This allows the President to impose duties of up to 50% in response to discriminatory treatment against U.S. commerce. According to US Trade Representative Greer, the new tariffs are due to take force in 30 days and will cover close to $20bn of goods, so a relatively small portion of the over $350bn of annual Canadian exports to the US. Note also that the US administration’s temporary Section 122 global tariff of 10% expires this Friday (July 24), so we may well see more US tariff announcements, especially ones justified by recent Section 301 investigations, in the coming days. 

Otherwise, there wasn’t much data yesterday, but Canadian government bonds outperformed after the country’s latest CPI print surprised on the downside. So headline CPI fell more than expected to +2.8% in June (vs. +2.9% expected), and the two core measures followed by the Bank of Canada were also beneath consensus, with median core at +1.9% (vs. +2.1% expected), and trim core at +1.8% (vs. +2.0% expected). So the 10yr yield in Canada only rose +0.8bps on the day, a smaller increase than the +4.4bps jump for 10yr Treasuries. 

Looking at the day ahead, it’s a quiet one, with data releases including UK unemployment for May and the German ZEW survey for July. Meanwhile from central banks, the ECB will release their Bank Lending Survey. Q2 earnings season will bubble in the background though.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/21/2026 - 07:39

The Democrats' Financial Situation Appears To Be Worse Than Previously Known

The Democratic Party's money problems have been an open secret for months. Federal Election Commission filings from around six months ago showed the Democratic National Committee entering the final stretch of last year with barely $12 million in its campaign account and nearly $16 million in debt, most of it stemming from a loan the committee took out the previous month. Donations had slumped just as the party needed them most.

Since then, the political environment has arguably been extremely beneficial for Democrats, with President Donald Trump's low approval ratings, the war with Iran, and high gas prices. Any one of those should have been enough to give the party the momentum necessary to get them out of their financial slump. Now, instead of turning the financial picture around, the DNC appears to be doing something stranger: hiding it.

According to a report from Axios, DNC officials required senior leadership to sign non-disclosure agreements before a private meeting on the party's finances, a departure from the committee's usual practice. Two people familiar with the conversations said the DNC requested the NDAs ahead of the recent finance meeting. The DNC asked its officers, high-ranking members of chair Ken Martin's own team, to sign the agreements, the kind of people who typically never sign confidentiality paperwork before sitting down to talk numbers.

The senior officers' meeting took place on June 25, five days before the Supreme Court handed down a ruling that upended the rules governing how parties fund their candidates. The timing alone tells its own story about how the DNC is managing its message heading into a midterm cycle it can't afford to fumble.

Martin has spent months fending off a quiet but persistent crisis of confidence among Democratic donors, operatives, and even members of his own committee, all of them watching the Republican National Committee build a fundraising advantage heading into the Nov. 3 midterms that keeps getting harder to explain away. The numbers through the end of May make the gap plain. The DNC held just under $15 million on hand against $18 million in debt, while the RNC sat on $125 million with no debt at all.

The DNC declined to comment on why it required only its officers to sign confidentiality agreements before the finance meeting, and they're trying to pass it off as inconsequential. Chris Lowe, the committee's national finance co-chair, claimed that requiring officers and board-meeting attendees to sign NDAs is standard practice in the corporate world. Lowe added that senior DNC staff already operate under confidentiality agreements and argued it would be poor practice to discuss finance and political strategy at the highest levels without them in place.

A DNC official claimed that Martin's committee has raised more money this cycle than the DNC did in 2017 and 2018, the last time Democrats headed into a midterm without the White House; however, it's not clear whether that accounts for inflation.

Ultimately, the NDA strategy will not keep the party's finances hidden, since those numbers will become public through Federal Election Commission filings. The agreements clearly exist for other reasons, such as protecting the internal deliberations, party infighting, donor threats, doubts about Martin's leadership, and any strategic response to the Supreme Court's ruling in NRSC v. FEC. The financial numbers clearly aren't good, but what the party plans to do about them is likely what they're really trying to hide.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/21/2026 - 06:55

My  morning train reads:

• Why Most Portfolios Are Under Diversified: QuantPedia’s data-driven case that even portfolios that look diversified aren’t — correlation spikes during stress, factor overlap, and the illusion of spreading risk. (QuantPedia)

• How to Find the Bargains in the Software Stock Wreckage: AI is eating away at software’s superpower: profit-rich recurring revenue. The good news? Companies—and investors—are starting to adapt. (Barron’s) but see also Big Food Is Running Out of Moves With Shoppers and Investors: Shrinkflation exhausted. Price hikes maxed out. Volume declining. The major food companies have no good options left. Investors are rightly giving up on companies like General Mills and Kraft Heinz, which are squeezed by everything from inflation to GLP-1s. (Wall Street Journal)

• The Rise and Fall of TikTok’s Real Estate Gurus: They promised passive income and generational wealth through house-flipping. Most of their followers lost money. From viral fame to class-action lawsuits. (Curbed)

• Nuclear energy could be in for a big decade: The global fleet of nuclear power plants is poised to expand quickly as climate. (Canary Media)

• The Strange Inner Life of Self-Driving Cars: What Waymo’s vehicles “see” and “think” — the hallucinations, the edge cases, the weird decisions. The AI behind the wheel is both more capable and more alien than you’d expect. (Wired)

• Boomers Were Supposed to Downsize. They Are Buying Bigger Homes Instead. Wealthy, older Americans are ripping up the traditional script for aging (Wall Street Journal) see also Miami Is Losing Its Claim to a Cheaper Cost of Living Than NYC: The migration premium has evaporated. Miami’s metro area is now more expensive than New York’s — and the people who moved south for affordability are finding out the hard way. (Bloomberg)

• Better Than Free: When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied. There are a number of other qualities similar to trust that are difficult to copy, and thus become valuable in this network economy. I see roughly eight categories of intangible value that we purchase when we pay for something that could otherwise be. Kevin Kelly’s classic essay, freshly relevant — when copies are free, value migrates to things that can’t be copied: immediacy, personalization, authenticity, findability, embodiment, patronage, interpretation, and accessibility. (Kevin Kelly)

• Why Am I Left-Handed?  I enjoy being left-handed. It grants entry into a smug little club, whose members — 10% of the human population — carry the secret knowledge that we are overrepresented among U.S. presidents, famous artists and musicians, and top athletes. An invisible difference in 10% of humans poses deep mysteries in several fields at once. An invisible difference in 10% of humans poses deep mysteries in several fields at once. (Quanta Magazine)

• Trump’s New Election Conspiracy Isn’t About 2020. It’s About November. “What is important is understanding what he’s trying to do: He’s searching for a way to legitimize interference in an election he knows his party is going to lose in November.” (Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance)

• 29 Reasons We Loved the 2026 World Cup: The Ringer’s comprehensive love letter to the tournament — the goals, the upsets, the memes, and the cultural shift that happened while nobody was paying attention to baseball. Verde’s last stand to the prophetic photo of Messi and Lamine Yamal, this summer’s World Cup delivered on and off the pitch (The Ringer) see also Top 30: from half a million World Cup photos, why I love these the most: Our picture editor chooses his favourite images from the tournament including Lionel Messi’s cathedral, that delicious diving header from Jude Bellingham and a humbling scene in Gaza. The Guardian’s photo editor picked 30 from 500,000. The results are extraordinary — the sport, the fans, the moments between the moments. (The Guardian)

Video of the day: How the Iran War Is Rewiring the Oil Market

Be sure to check out the latest Masters in Business with Jason Wenk, founder and CEO of Altruist, a modern custodian built as a clean sheet from the ground up, fully integrated with artificial intelligence. He began his career at Morgan Stanley before launching Retirement Wealth Advisors, and then FormulaFolios. The through-line of his career has been creating lower-cost, tech-enabled, financial advice.

 

Nuclear energy could be in for a big decade

Source: Canary Media

 

 

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The post 10 Tuesday AM Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

Gold & Tech: How The Whales Trick The Retail Plankton

Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via VonGreyerz.gold,

Never in my 30+ years in the markets have I seen a monetary, precious metal and risk-asset setup more obvious yet more deliberately ignored than today.

Below, we look at the converging signposts screaming from the tech/AI sector and the equally obvious (yet deliberately downplayed) signals from a precious metals market entering a watershed turning point.

How the Whales Do Their “Magic”

As warned for years, and more recently here at the precious metals symposium in Florida, the insider whales (central and commercial banks, the BIS, the IMF and the shadow banking canyons of Wall Street) are clever little magicians.

They have a devious talent for manipulating (and destroying) the retail plankton by having the masses focus on their right hand while quietly gut-punching them with a banker’s hidden left hand.

Another Classic Tech Pump-n-Dump

Take, for example, the recent headlines from the tech sector in general and the AI rabbit hole in particular.

Despite a Fed-driven S&P which is historically over-valued by literally EVERY core valuation metric, all eyes of late had been salivating over the SpaceX IPO (trading at 100X revenues) and the Wall Street meme (and gambit) that AI will save the world.

This all-too familiar mania has been nothing short of hysterical—and for all the wrong reasons.

Behind this percolating, unprofitable and VC-funded madness lies (as always and as per usual) a cadre of over-levered banks sending/lending the markets at warp speed toward yet another debilitating credit (and then equity) crisis.

As warned in September of 2025, there’s much more to the AI “Great Dumbing” than just a wholesale slaughter of blue- and white-collar jobs.

In fact, a massive, contagious and AI-driven stock and bond bubble lies beneath the headlines which, with a little help from an equally toxic private credit and private equity threat, will soon send the global financial markets into yet another historical liquidity crisis.

As warned last year, the reckless over-investment by the Magnificent 7 “tech giants” (which comprise 1/3 of the US stock market cap) into the emerging AI mania “would soon move from over-bought to massively over-sold.”

AI: Hiding the Shameless Beneath the “Norm”

The nature of this over-concentrated mismanagement almost defies belief, as the AI bubble is driven by circular financing sins which deserve no redemption.

NVDA, for example, which makes the microchips that drive AI, invests billions in AI startups, who then buy AI chips back from NVDA, pushing its valuations moonward.

Microsoft, Google and Amazon are no less shameless.

Microsoft, for example, will place billions into OpenAI, who then sends that same money right back into Microsoft.

Google equally invests hundreds of billions into Anthropic, who then sends those same billions back into Google’s AI infrastructure. Amazon, playing the same game, tosses equal capital levels to Anthropic, who in turn invests that money straight into Amazon’s cloud servicing coffers.

These “magnificent” tech giants then have the gall to report AI-driven “revenue growth” on what is little more than an insider puff-job, the equivalent of me “investing” (giving) my son $1000 and then asking him to return the cash and calling that my “growth model.”

This Familiar Movie Doesn’t End Well

This, of course, is madness, and we (along with Apollo Research) are reminding YOU that there is in fact NO sign that the tech sector is making any real money at all from AI, other than from the companies selling to each other.

This incestuous pattern is eerily reminiscent of CISCO selling routers to dot.com startups in the late 90’s, which were funded by VC companies who were themselves funded by CISCO.

And we all remember how that -78% NASDAQ movie ended…

As of 2026, we now see a Mag-7 which has, with the help of those ever-wise TBTF banks in NYC, levered trillions into an AI gambit under the assumption that AI will make them more profitable in much the same way those same pre-08 banks thought ABS-packaged sub-prime mortgages would never fail.

And we all know how that -57% S&P movie ended too…

What’s even scarier, and not making the headlines today, is that those same banks have also seen that movie before. (Remember “Margin Call”?) After sending global markets to their knees in 2008, those same banks then issued themselves their highest bonus levels in history…

As for today, banks like Goldman Sachs are giving the retail plankton “research reports” on how undeniably significant technology like AI will save the world and the S&P.

Meanwhile, those same banks, and most notably the ever-clever JP Morgan, are quietly dumping their AI credit (junk bonds?) at a steady pace—you know, like profiteering rats leaving a ship before it sinks from their own lending practices.

Elon’s Bond Woes…

Folks, this is bad. But the hidden bad (as well as credit risk) doesn’t end in the oh-so magical AI sector. Elon’s SpaceX bonds are yet another tech-driven credit bug looking for a windshield.

Just after going public at a $1T valuation, SpaceX issued over $25B in bonds, and as of this writing, those bonds have already lost 10%.

We know that bonds are “boring” (and hence easily ignored). But as warned for years, the bond market is everything, and this latest credit signal from SpaceX is simply staggering in its implications.

Why?

Because those AI and SpaceX bonds (like those sub-prime ABS mortgages of the 2008 era) are likely part of your third-party-administered 401K and pension plans –just ticking away like a bad-debt time bomb as you read this.

From Crappy Bonds to Solid Gold

If the foregoing disconnect between media hype and hard math wasn’t bad enough, a far more lasting sea change in the global monetary system is unfolding right before our collectively closed eyes.

As the media and tourists/speculators (i.e., plankton) in the precious metals trade haggle over “peak gold” and decry short-term bear corrections in an otherwise obvious and misunderstood gold bull market, the big whales are calmly stacking metal in a deliberately manipulated fire sale as retail investors panic in the fog of daily price action.

Same Tricks, Different Asset

But again, this magic trick of blinding the plankton with hype/fear while the insider whales feast is nothing new.

The big banks from Wall Street to Hong Kong, as well as the central banks from Brazil to China, know that a UST and USD sinking under the weight of a 7% current accounts deficit and $3B/day in interest expenses on its $40T debt pile is no longer the world’s neutral collateral in actual practice.

This explains why there are more sellers than buyers of USTs.  

And this explains why sovereign bond yields are the highest in decades.

This explains why central banks now hold more physical gold than USTs.

This also explains why the COMEX has been seeing two years of physical gold (and silver) flying out its doors faster than $#!T through a goose to meet foreign delivery demands. This equally explains why central bank gold stacking has increased by 5X since Biden weaponized the USD in 2022.

Finally, this fully explains why Q1 of 2026 saw central bank gold stacking reach its highest pace in history, and why central banks net-purchased 41 tons of gold in May alone.

Love or Hate Em’—China Sees the Bigger Picture

And no one foresaw this incremental and now exponential decline in USD and UST hegemony better than the Chinese.

The PBOC just completed its 20th straight month of net gold-stacking, with a 15-ton purchase of gold in June.

Meanwhile, China imported more than 700 tons of the metal in the first 5 months of 2026 and over 14,000 tons since 2015.

Such farsighted preparation and strategic thinking (rather than flag-waving hopium) also explains why China’s largest bank, ICBC, along with four other major commercial banks, recently announced an end (effective July 24) of the paper trade (levered price fixing) of gold in favor of physical metal only—thereby undercutting (and giving a subtle middle-finger to) the paper-based farce of the NY COMEX exchange.

As the former head of the Shanghai exchange warned an overconfident West in 2014, soon China (with a partner in Hong Kong), rather than New York or London, would set the gold price, and this price will slowly become much fairer, and exponentially higher, when based on physical bars rather than paper claims.

In fact, much of that US gold is heading straight for China (see below), a nation that is essentially “de-paperizing” the gold market.

This obvious yet ignored direction of the golden “puck” also explains why Chinese citizens now invest more of their money into gold ETFs than stock ETFs.

In short, while Americans are being seduced by their “experts” into tech tops and scared out of gold-buys, the farsighted Chinese are encouraging their citizens to load up on real money rather than bad credit.

In short, each of the foregoing (and entirely media-ignored) signals confirm that China sees the longer-term direction of a gold-based monetary system(rather than gold-backed currency) far better than a debt-corned and media-misinformed West.

Rock Beats Paper

In this 2026 backdrop of trade, currency and now “hot” wars, China (and many other far-sighted nations and banks inside and outside of the BRICS+ coalition) are effectively loading their monetary guns with golden rather than paper bullets.

In other words, physical gold is no longer just another “asset,” “commodity,” or “metal” to compare against stocks, bonds or other “sectors.”

Gold is mathematically and objectively becoming the de facto global reserve asset and trusted collateral in a world now marked by an undeniable distrust in each other in general and the USD/UST in particular.

Building Their Arks Before the Rain

Stated even more simply, the central banks and central planners are preparing for a new monetary system which no one at FOX News, the WSJ or CNBC wants the US “plankton class” to see or understand.

As usual, the whales are quietly stacking precious metals in a self-made fire-sale while the retail plankton decry current price volatility as if gold were just another tech stock.

For now, and as warned even at gold’s highs in January, volatility can continue. Prices never move in a straight line, and bearish corrections are typical of secularly bullish turning points to shake out the minnows to enrich the bigger fish.

But for those who see the bigger picture (and direction) for gold, the question is not whether one times a bottom or waits for the perfect entry (a total mug’s game).

The real question is whether or not you see this generational turning point in the global monetary system and are building your golden ark before or after the rain?

Based on the signals above, the rain has already started, and the big boys are now busily building their arks. They are not looking at gold’s paper price today or tomorrow, but at gold’s physical and exponentially higher price, direction and role in the many years ahead.

Such knowledge confirms that if you grasp the history and math of gold, and posses the patience of an investor rather than a trader, this broke(n) world is literally handing you the greatest asset (and buy signal) in a generation—and one which will ensure and protect generations of wealth in the years to come.

This is not a “gold bug” fable but historical fact.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/21/2026 - 06:30

Blackstone Just Made A Physical AI Bet On Actuator-Maker Powering Humanoid Robots

Blackstone, the world's largest alternative asset manager, is making a big investment in Futronic, a 33-year-old automotive supplier whose motion-control technology has been adapted for industrial and humanoid robots, according to Reuters.

The deal values the South Korean firm at about 1 trillion won ($676.04 million), according to a person with knowledge of the matter. -RTRS 

The deal comes just ahead of the expected rise of physical AI, with forecasts from top desks indicating that global robot deliveries could begin ramping up later this year before accelerating more materially in 2027.

A recent Deutsche Bank report shows that global shipments are poised to surge.

Latest coverage:

• Mitsubishi Motors Joins Physical AI Race With Humanoid Robot Production Deal
• "Just The Beginning": Japan Buys Billions In Nvidia Rubin Chips To Power Humanoid Robots

We previously provided readers with the report "Current State Of Physical AI: Everything You Need To Know," offering a way to gain exposure to the industrial automation and humanoid robotics space. Read the full note here.

To sum up, the Blackstone deal suggests that the asset manager is positioning for the rise of physical AI, aiming to capture alpha through the company that produces actuators, motors, sensors, controllers, and other mechatronic systems.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/21/2026 - 05:45

Proposed US Deal For Saudi Nuclear Enrichment Is Without Safeguards

Via Middle East Eye

The Trump administration has greenlit Saudi Arabia's nuclear enrichment project, but with no safeguards in place to prevent the development of a bomb, CNN reported on Friday. 

The draft deal, viewed by the news outlet, showed Washington's support for Riyadh’s civilian nuclear program is still awaiting President Donald Trump’s signature, despite US-Saudi negotiations concluding in October.

via AFP

Unnamed officials cited in the story indicated that the documents, which include the mandatory "123 agreement" and safeguards protocols, have not yet been sent to Congress, potentially for fear of bipartisan pushback.

It is unclear how long the president will wait, given Congress is likely to switch hands to a Democratic majority after the November elections, stymying his policy agenda. 

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his advisors have long pushed for a deal that would allow them to enrich uranium, which they say the kingdom holds vast reserves of.

“We will enrich it and we will sell it and we will do a ‘yellowcake'," Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said last year, referring to a step in the process that comes after mining but before enrichment.

Nuclear umbrella

The Saudi push to be included under the US’s nuclear umbrella was a key issue during the Saudi crown prince's visit to the White House in November last year. Days after Israel attacked Hamas negotiators in Qatar earlier in the year, Saudi Arabia signed a defence pact with Pakistan, the only nuclear-armed state in the Muslim world.

Pakistan is estimated to possess around 170 nuclear warheads. Saudi and Pakistani descriptions of the deal said it encompassed all military options.

The Americans’ nuclear talks with Saudi Arabia have been kept under tight wraps, but one former US intelligence official previously told Middle East Eye that the idea of extending protection to the kingdom could serve a purpose. “It would pull them out of the Pakistanis’ nuclear umbrella and make the Saudis feel better than the Qataris," he said at the time.

In February, the Trump administration notified Congress it is pursuing a civil nuclear pact with Riyadh that does not include non-proliferation safeguards it has traditionally imposed on countries to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons. 

The language in the document also leaves room for Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium, as it stipulates “additional safeguards and verification measures to the most sensitive areas of potential nuclear cooperation" between the two countries, including enrichment and reprocessing, the report said. 

A nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia that does not explicitly prohibit the kingdom’s potential to enrich uranium in the future would be much more transformative for the region than a separate deal for F-35 warplanes that the Trump administration is pursuing. In nuclear agreements with foreign governments, for example, the UAE, the US made cooperation conditional on commitments that they will not enrich uranium or reprocess spent nuclear fuel.

The UAE, Morocco and dozens of European and Asian countries have signed the so-called "123 Agreements" with the US. US law generally requires a 123 Agreement to be in force before licensing significant exports of US-origin nuclear material or equipment to a foreign country.

The reported deal would allow Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium domestically under a U.S.-Saudi nuclear cooperation agreement. Riyadh would sign a 123 agreement, but apparently without first adopting the IAEA Additional Protocol. https://t.co/G4X66hJRAq

— Nicole Grajewski (@NicoleGrajewski) July 19, 2026

In addition to a 123 Agreement, US lawmakers have insisted that the US require Saudi Arabia to submit to what is called the "Additional Protocol", which allows the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) additional access to nuclear facilities, data, and undeclared sites.

The UAE, the only other Gulf state to have officially partnered with the US in nuclear energy, signed the Additional Protocol to its IAEA agreement in 2009.

Reuters reported, however, that the Trump administration sent a preliminary report to some heads of congressional committees in November, which it is required to send if it is not pursuing the Additional Protocol. The Reuters report underscores how Trump is putting deal-making at the centre of his diplomacy, even if it means chafing at the traditional concerns of the US foreign policy establishment.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/21/2026 - 03:30

Three-Quarters Of Refugee-Linked Households In Vienna Rely On Taxpayer Handouts

Via Remix News,

Three-quarters of households in Vienna connected to migrants from popular asylum-origin countries are unable to support themselves without government benefits, according to figures analyzed by Statistics Austria.

The analysis, cited by Kronen Zeitung, covered approximately 103,000 households across Austria containing at least one recognized refugee, asylum-seeker, or person granted subsidiary protection from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, or Chechnya in the Russian Federation.

Vienna recorded by far the highest rate of welfare dependence. About 75 percent of the households examined in the capital relied on minimum-income payments or comparable state support, meaning only one in four was considered economically self-sufficient.

Nationwide, 47 percent of the households included in the study could not support themselves independently, according to Exxpress.

For the purposes of the analysis, a household was considered self-sufficient when its income came from employment, pensions, unemployment insurance, or sickness benefits rather than minimum-income assistance and related welfare programs.

The findings stand in sharp contrast to the figures for Austrian households without an immigrant background. Depending on the state, between 90 percent and 93 percent of those households were classified as self-sufficient. Vienna again performed worse than the rest of the country, although its rate among non-immigrant households remained approximately 86 percent.

Integration Minister Claudia Bauer said the figures demonstrated the need to move welfare recipients into employment more rapidly.

“The welfare state should support people in becoming self-sufficient as quickly as possible,” Bauer told the Austrian newspaper. “It should never be attractive to live permanently on social benefits instead of providing for oneself and one’s family through work.”

The minister indicated that future policy would place greater emphasis on enforcing integration obligations. Recipients who refuse to participate in required integration measures could face reductions in taxpayer-funded benefits.

Officials have also pointed to Vienna’s removal of minimum-income support for people granted subsidiary protection. According to data from Austria’s Public Employment Service, unemployment among the affected group subsequently declined by more than one-third.

The government argues that the decline indicates many welfare recipients were capable of finding employment even under difficult economic conditions once benefit rules were tightened.

“Anyone coming to Austria must be able to provide for themselves and their families as quickly as possible,” Bauer said. “Work is the key to integration.”

While Vienna remains a hub for foreigners relying on taxpayer handouts, there are other areas across Austria where the percentages of foreign households raking in welfare benefits are disproportionate.

In January, separate figures showed that foreign nationals accounted for 72 percent of social-assistance recipients in St. Pölten, the capital of Lower Austria.

Of the city’s 1,278 benefit recipients, 528 (41 percent) were Syrian nationals. Another 99 recipients, representing approximately 8 percent, were Afghan nationals. Together, Syrians and Afghans accounted for nearly half of all recipients in a city with a population of approximately 56,000.

Austrian citizens accounted for 359 recipients, or 28 percent of the total, despite representing the large majority of the city’s population.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/21/2026 - 02:00