The post Trade Deficit Soars in August: The Tariffs Don’t Seem to be Working appeared first on CEPR.

Mystery Shrouds Destruction Of US Spy Satellite

A mysterious breakup of a decades-old American spy satellite has sent debris hurtling through low-Earth orbit, with the U.S. Space Force now tracking the fragments for potential threats to other spacecraft, according to Space-Track.

The satellite, known as USA 32, came apart on September 13 at approximately 5:13 p.m. ET, according to U.S. Space Forces-Space. Officials have not publicly determined what caused the nearly 40-year-old spacecraft to suddenly fragment.

"All tracked debris are being incorporated into routine conjunction assessment screenings to support spaceflight safety," U.S. Space Forces-Space said in a notice. "No immediate threats have been identified; further analysis is ongoing."

USA 32 had been circling Earth since the final years of the Cold War.

The National Reconnaissance Office satellite blasted into space aboard a Titan II rocket on September 5, 1988. Public records identify the spacecraft as an electronic and signals intelligence satellite designed to collect information from orbit.

USA 32 has also been identified as FARRAH III, part of a secretive family of American intelligence satellites whose name was inspired by actress Farrah Fawcett.

The satellite was traveling in an orbit roughly 480 miles above Earth when it broke apart. Officials have yet to disclose how many fragments were produced.

That uncertainty matters because debris traveling at orbital speeds can pose a hazard to functioning satellites even when the individual pieces are relatively small. Space Force tracking systems routinely monitor objects around Earth and screen their trajectories for possible collisions.

Exactly what happened to USA 32 remains a mystery.

A collision with an untracked object is one possible explanation for an unexpected satellite breakup. Aging spacecraft can also fragment because of failures involving batteries, pressurized tanks or other components. There is currently no public evidence establishing any of those scenarios as the cause of USA 32's demise.

Tyler Durden Thu, 10/01/2026 - 08:29

Amazon Secures 20 Years Of Nuclear Power From Constellation As Goldman Sees Industry-Wide Win

Goldman analyst Carly Davenport views Amazon's nuclear power deal with Constellation Energy as "positive for industry broadly" as the "Powering Up America" theme and nuclear theme continue as Big Tech scrambles for the cleanest form of stable power to fuel data centers chip stacks. 

Davenport said Constellation Energy's 20-year deal to supply Amazon with 690 megawatts from Maryland's Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant is positive for both the utility and the broader power complex. 

Calvert Cliffs has two nuclear reactors, with a combined generating capacity of about 1,790 megawatts, enough to power 1.3 million homes. The deal unlocks power to Amazon's data centers across the 13-state grid overseen by PJM Interconnection. 

The deal also supports more than $3 billion in infrastructure investment at the nuclear power station, including upgrades adding 190 megawatts of generating capacity between 2030 and 2032. It also provides Constellation with revenue certainty. 

Davenport explained the deal:

Terms of the agreement: CEG and Amazon signed a 20-year PPA for nuclear power at the Calvert Cliffs Clean Energy Center, Maryland’s largest carbon-free energy facility and only nuclear plant.

Amount of capacity: The PPA is for 690 MW of total capacity, which includes a 190 MW of uprates scheduled to come online between 2030 and 2032.

Capital commitment: The agreement enables $3 bn+ in infrastructure investment to fund state-of-the-art upgrades across the entire 1,790 MW facility.

PJM implications: All electricity from Calvert Cliffs will continue to flow into the PJM regional grid. The parties have entered a separate but related retail supply agreement to support Amazon’s operations across the 13-state PJM market.

Beyond the agreement: The company highlighted the contract provides the long-term revenue certainty necessary for Constellation to pursue a 20-year license extension for the facility and explore further development of new clean energy power plans on-site.

Financial implications: While the release provides no color around pricing, we would point to the company’s disclosures which include a sensitivity on FCFbG upside from data center PPAs. CEG noted that 1 GW Nuclear PPA at a $20-$50/MWh premium to the PTC floor would translate to $125M-$325M FCFbG upside, implying FCFbG uplift of ~$86mn-$224mn if applied to the total 690 MW contract with Amazon.

Davenport added, "We view the PPA announcement as a solid update for the company and industry especially given it is for capacity in PJM, which has been a challenging environment recently due to regulatory uncertainty within the market, and investor confidence has been low in incremental data center PPAs being announced in the near term." 

"This agreement demonstrates how private investment can strengthen critical energy infrastructure," said Constellation CEO Joseph Dominguez.

Because of the AI data center buildout, nuclear power is getting new life, and grid upgrades will help buffer the fragile PJM region during peak demand. 

More importantly, the added capacity may help Maryland after years of 'climate-friendly' policies transformed the grid into a mess that collided with the era of data centers and electrification. One has to ask what the Democrat-run state was thinking over the years as it focused on everything but preparing the state for the next evolution of the modern economy. 

Constellation shares were up nearly 4% in pre-market trading. Davenport maintains a "Neutral" rating on the utility, with a 12-month price target of $305.

Tyler Durden Thu, 10/01/2026 - 08:15

Lilly's "Incredible Hulk" Obesity Combo Delivers Record 23% Weight Loss In Diabetics

Eli Lilly's experimental combination of eloralintide and Mounjaro delivered average weight loss of up to 23% in people with diabetes, strengthening the company's competitive edge against Novo Nordisk in the obesity and diabetes treatment market.

Participants who received the highest dose lost an average of 54 pounds over 48 weeks. Their A1C, a measure of average blood sugar, fell 2.9 percentage points from a baseline of 8.1%, with up to three-quarters reaching normal blood sugar levels, according to Bloomberg.

"This could open up even a next frontier in weight loss," Ken Custer, president of Lilly's cardiometabolic unit, stated.

Custer said the study sets a "new, even higher bar" but cautioned against comparing different studies.

Lilly shares rose as much as 2.6% earlier today before paring gains. Year to date, shares are up a little more than 10%, while competitor Novo Nordisk has slumped more than 20%.

The Study

The Phase 2b trial, announced by Lilly Wednesday and presented at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) meeting in Milan, randomized 367 adults with obesity or overweight and type 2 diabetes in the US and Argentina to placebo, eloralintide alone, tirzepatide alone, or one of four combinations of the two. Tirzepatide is the active ingredient in both Mounjaro and Lilly's obesity shot Zepbound. Lilly calls the combination EloraTZP.

Eloralintide mimics amylin, a hormone the pancreas releases alongside insulin that slows digestion and signals fullness to the brain. Tirzepatide hits two gut hormone receptors, GIP and GLP-1, so the combination works on three appetite and blood sugar pathways at once.

The results at 48 weeks, from an average starting weight of 232.4 pounds:

Arm Weight change Pounds A1C change Eloralintide 9 mg + tirzepatide 15 mg -23.3% -54.1 -2.9 Eloralintide 6 mg + tirzepatide 10 mg -19.9% -46.2 -2.6 Eloralintide 6 mg + tirzepatide 5 mg -19.4% -45.1 -2.7 Eloralintide 3 mg + tirzepatide 5 mg -13.2% -30.7 -2.2 Tirzepatide 15 mg alone -14.8% -34.4 -2.4 Eloralintide 6 mg alone -12.3% -28.6 -1.4 Placebo -3.0% -7.0 -0.3

Source: Eli Lilly. Efficacy estimand, i.e. assuming all participants stayed on treatment.

In other words, adding eloralintide to the top dose of Mounjaro bought an extra 20 pounds of weight loss. Oddly, the highest dose of eloralintide on its own (9 mg) did worse than the 6 mg dose, at 11.1%.

Weight loss is typically harder to come by in diabetics, which is what makes the number stand out. Analysts at Citi wrote that the 23.3% figure is "comparable to tirzepatide in patients without T2D" and came in "comfortably above our 17% bar." For comparison, Lilly's triple-hormone shot retatrutide produced 20.8% weight loss in diabetics in its Phase 3 TRIUMPH-2 trial, and that took 80 weeks.

Study investigator Julio Rosenstock offered a very colorful description of the new GLP-1 wonder drug. Having nicknamed Mounjaro "King Kong," with retatrutide already claiming "Godzilla," Rosenstock called the new combination the "Incredible Hulk." Rosenstock, a University of Texas diabetes researcher, coined the first two in 2023: "We know that tirzepatide (Mounjaro) is the King Kong of the GLP-1s. And when I look at retatrutide, I think that there is no question that Godzilla is smiling."

The Catch

Rosenstock cautioned that not all patients need to lose that much weight. At the highest dose, 27% of participants stopped taking the drug because of side effects. More than four-fifths reported a side effect of some kind, with roughly half experiencing nausea.

Across the four combination arms, Lilly reported discontinuation rates due to adverse events of 10.8% to 27%, versus 2.9% for tirzepatide alone. The side effects were mostly gastrointestinal and hit hardest during dose escalation. Citi's analysts blamed starting both drugs at once and said a gentler Phase 3 titration "could preserve efficacy while improving adherence." Custer told CNBC Lilly will adjust the dosing, "and we expect that we'll end up with a very favorable balance of efficacy and tolerability."

Lilly vs. Novo

The results add competitive pressure on Novo, which pioneered the approach with CagriSema, a combination of its amylin treatment cagrilintide and semaglutide, the active ingredient in its blockbuster Wegovy.

That drug has already been bloodied by Lilly. In February, CagriSema failed to prove it was even as good as Mounjaro in the head-to-head REDEFINE 4 trial, with 23% weight loss after 84 weeks versus 25.5% for tirzepatide. Novo filed CagriSema with the FDA in December 2025 and expects a decision by late 2026.

Novo also lost the fight for the next amylin drug. In November, Pfizer outbid it for Metsera in a roughly $10 billion bidding war over the biotech's monthly amylin candidate. Meanwhile Mounjaro overtook Merck's Keytruda as the world's best-selling drug in the first quarter, with $8.7 billion in sales.

Lilly plans to begin late-stage studies of the new combination by year-end, using a single co-formulated injection rather than the two separate shots used in this trial. Eloralintide is already in Phase 3 on its own, after producing up to 20.1% weight loss in non-diabetics in a 48-week Phase 2 study.

Tyler Durden Thu, 10/01/2026 - 08:00

Canada Has A Ukrainian Blindspot

Authored by Ted Snider via The Libertarian Institute

On September 10, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky landed in Canada where he and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney signed a 100-year partnership "elevat[ing] the relationship between their countries into a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and confirming their aligned nature."

Canada already has a special relationship with Ukraine. Before the war, Canada had the largest Ukrainian community in the Ukrainian diaspora with 1,209,805 Ukrainian-Canadians. Canada is the fifth largest financial contributor to Ukraine after only the United States, the European Union, Germany, and the United Kingdom with over $16 billion in military, financial and humanitarian aid.

Carney said that “Canada will always stand in solidarity with Ukraine” and that “there is no qualification to our commitment.” There is little wrong with that: Ukraine was invaded by Russia and taken advantage of by the West.

But there are two problems with the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. The first is practical.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Canada has contributed $8.5 billion in military support to Ukraine. The Comprehensive Partnership includes a joint declaration on defense and security co-operation. During the official visit, Carney announced new investments to support Ukraine’s defense, including $350 million for interceptor missiles for air defence.

The practical problem is that Ukraine is black hole into which money intended for defense disappears. This is a problem well known to Ukraine’s partners who, nonetheless, keep pouring money in with a blind eye to the problem. Earlier this month, following close on the heels of a U.S. $100 billion European Union loan to Ukraine, Kiev surprised the European Union with a request for an additional $27 billion to address a shortfall that was difficult to explain. The request “unsettled” European officials, some of whom privately worried “whether money is being spent efficiently or whether needs are being overstated.”

A recent New York Times investigation found that seven of Ukraine’s ten top military contractors continued to be awarded contracts after Kiev knew they were facing investigations for fraud, corruption, or failure to deliver on deals they were paid for. Eighteen companies won contracts despite defaulting on previous ones. Millions were thrown away by inexplicably, and conveniently, awarding contracts to the highest bidder. Government audits show that in one year of the war alone, Ukraine lost $1.2 billion in U.S. foreign aid to “fraud, waste and mismanagement.” Sending hundreds of millions more to Ukraine sounds great. But to whom will it go?

There is a second problem with the 100-year Comprehensive Partnership that is deeper. Carney said the Strategic Partnership is based on the two countries “aligned nature.” But there are important aspects that do not align.

Canada is a federalist country that officially recognizes more than one culture and language. The Carney administration recently walked away from negotiating a trade agreement with the United States partly in defense of its sovereign right to protect French culture, French language, and its official bilingualism. Ukraine has been locked in a civil war since 2014 to protect the opposite: a monist vision of Ukrainian society that rejects federalism and recognizes only one culture as Ukrainian while suppressing the language, culture, and religion of ethnic Russian citizens of Ukraine in Crimea, the Donbas, and the southeast. It specifically denies the pluralist alternative that is a defining feature of Canadian identity. Rather than aligning in their natures, in this essential aspect, the two countries are the antithesis of each other.

Canada has confronted this blind spot before. In 2023, Yaroslav Hunka received two standing ovations in Canada’s Parliament as “a Ukrainian Canadian war veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians” and as “a Ukrainian hero and a Canadian hero,” despite having served in the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of Adolf Hitler’s SS.

Carney insisted that “Canadians understand in our bones the importance of your struggle” and explained that the reason “there is no qualification to our commitment” to Ukraine is “because your cause—freedom, democracy, sovereignty—is our cause.”

A standing ovation from the Canadian parliament and then he also got a personal meeting with Trudeau and Zelensky.

'Waffen SS' veteran Yaroslav Hunka must feel very loved in Canada...... pic.twitter.com/5BjwrWsWtS

— Richard (@ricwe123) August 17, 2025

It may be “our cause,” but the historical record is less clear that it is their cause. Zelensky has formally banned eleven opposition parties, including the Opposition Platform for Life party that was once the second largest party in the Ukrainian parliament, though they all condemned Russia’s invasion and contributed to Russia’s defence.

He has restricted freedom of information, unifying all television sources into a single source of television news, and increased the censorship powers of the state over print and online media.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Ukraine’s largest church organization, has been banned by Zelensky though Ukraine’s constitution protects freedom of religion, despite that the Primate of the UOC expressed the church’s loyalty to Ukraine and condemnation of Russia’s invasion.

Cultural and linguistic rights for minorities have fared no better than political and religious rights and freedom of expression. Pursuing the monist interpretation of Ukraine, Zelensky has gone down a path of abolishing any hint of Russian culture. Legislation has erased the Russian language, making Ukrainian the sole language of government, schools, universities, culture, publishing and media.

It is fine for Canada to “stand in solidarity with Ukraine.” But we should not be blind to Ukraine’s struggles and challenges. If Ukraine is to avoid civil war after the war with Russia and if Ukraine is to have a chance of joining the European Union and orienting toward the west, they, too, are going to have to confront these challenges.

Tyler Durden Thu, 10/01/2026 - 07:40

Tennessee Botches Execution: Inmate Still Snoring After Two Doses Of Pentobarbital, Hauled To Hospital

The State of Tennessee spent Wednesday trying to carry out a death sentence it has had on the books for thirty years, and ended the night with the condemned woman in an ambulance.

Christa Gail Pike, 50 - the only woman on Tennessee's death row - was still breathing, audibly snoring, and maintaining a heartbeat after prison staff administered two doses of pentobarbital at Nashville's Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. Media witnesses were escorted out around 8:53 p.m. local time while her snoring could still be heard. Pike was subsequently rushed to an off-site hospital, prompting Governor Bill Lee to halt all remaining executions for the year and order a third-party review.

Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the torture-murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a Job Corps classmate she lured into the Knoxville woods in January 1995 at age 18 - where she bashed the girl's skull in with a chunk of asphalt after carving a pentagram into the victim's chest with a friend. Pike started showing off pieces of Slemmer's skull at school, at which point she was arrested (with a chunk of skull found in her pocket). 

Fox 17 investigative reporter Kelly Avellino posted that Pike "appeared to receive 2 doses of pentobarbital, and she was still awake 40 minutes after" before being transported. 

Unbelieveable. Officials were unable to carry out the execution of Christa Gail Pike, witnesses said, after the lethal injection was administered. Pike appeared to receive 2 doses of pentobarbital, and she was still awake 40 minutes after. Pike is now en route to the hosptial. https://t.co/oUfWXlhAsx

— Kelly Avellino (@KellyAvellino) October 1, 2026

A day that started in court and ended in an ambulance

Pike was scheduled to die at 10 a.m. She would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in roughly 200 years, and the 19th woman executed in the United States since 1976.

That morning, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a short 2-1 stay. The Tennessee attorney general immediately asked the U.S. Supreme Court to vacate it. Just before 6 p.m., the Court complied, issuing a two-sentence order devoid of reasoning. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, with Sotomayor writing that "Tennessee's desire to expedite Pike's execution by a few days or even weeks cannot outweigh her 'fundamental interest in [her] own life.'" She added that in capital cases, an "appreciation of our own fallibility" demands caution "before acting irretrievably." With the legal roadblocks cleared, the state proceeded.

The judicial scramble followed Governor Lee's denial of clemency two days prior. On Sept. 28, he announced that after "deliberate consideration," he would uphold "the sentence of the State of Tennessee."

What the witnesses actually saw

Tennessee Lookout and the Tennessean reconstructed the chaotic scene inside the chamber using accounts from media witnesses, including reporters from WBIR, WKRN, WVLT, the Nashville Banner, and the AP:

• 6:41 p.m. Witnesses enter. Curtain closed. Groaning and crying are audible before the microphone is turned on.
• 7:26 p.m. Curtain opens. Pike, strapped to the gurney, delivers her final statement. She says she is "going to leave this world the way I spent most of my life, and that is in love," extending that love even to people "hating on her." She closes with, "I'm at peace. I'm ready to be free. This is a happy day."
• 7:34 p.m. "My arm feels like it's about to burst open," Pike says. A witness also reports hearing, "One spot is really throbbing."
• 7:39 p.m. Pike is still lifting her head, taking deep breaths, and kicking her feet hard enough to knock the sheet off.
• 7:41 p.m. An employee places a rock in view of the witnesses - the protocol's signal that the inmate appears comatose. However, Pike's jaw is still moving. Minutes later, she opens her mouth in "a very large yawn."
• 7:46 p.m. Curtain drops.
• 7:49 p.m. Curtain rises. Pike is loudly snoring. A spiritual adviser is brought back into the chamber.
• 7:54 p.m. Pike grunts, lifts her head, and opens her mouth.
• 7:56 p.m. Her body jolts off the gurney into a "V" shape, head and legs lifting simultaneously.
• 8:01 p.m. The rock is placed a second time. Pike is still breathing, snoring, and flexing her neck.
• 8:05 p.m. Curtain is closed for good.
• Until 8:53 p.m. Rhythmic snoring continues behind the curtain, punctuated by the sound of doors opening and closing. The microphone is cut, and witnesses are escorted out. As far as they know, Pike is still alive.

WKRN's Tori Gessner, a veteran of multiple Tennessee executions, told the Lookout: "Nothing about today was normal, typical at all, and the court delay was just the tip of the iceberg." Nashville Banner's Steven Hale added: "I cannot emphasize enough how much of whatever just happened, happened behind a closed curtain... When Christa Pike was still alive, we could still hear her breathing, but we could not see what was going on."

Shortly after 9 p.m., ambulances and fire trucks were seen departing Riverbend with their emergency lights activated.

The state's line, and the lawyers' line

More than two hours after the botched execution, Tennessee Department of Correction spokeswoman Dorinda Carter issued the following statement:

"The Tennessee Department of Correction followed every step of the State's lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General's Office. The lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening. Christa Pike has been transported to an off-site medical facility."

So if two rounds fail to kill the inmate, protocol dictates the execution ends and the inmate goes to a hospital.

Pike's attorneys offered the following statement:

"Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution. We take no pleasure in being right, but the concerns raised by Ms. Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy."

In an emergency motion filed while Pike was still in the chamber, her defense informed the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee that she "has not lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat and is audibly snoring." Attorney Kelly Gleason stated Pike desperately needed immediate medical care, noting that counsel couldn't get state officials on the phone to halt the process. Judge Clifton L. Corker ultimately ruled the motion moot because the state had already informed the court that medical care was underway. Pike's current condition remains unreleased, though one of her lawyers told the BBC she was "being provided life-saving measures."

Dr. Joel Zivot, a medical expert retained by the defense, told the BBC it is "very possible that as a consequence of the delay of the beginning of resuscitation she will have a brain injury." He suggested Pike likely never absorbed a sufficient blood level of pentobarbital to stop her breathing and circulation. Notably, no independent toxicology report has been produced.

Lee hits pause

At approximately 11:16 p.m., Governor Lee halted another execution scheduled for later this year. Via the Tennessean:

"Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the State's most serious responsibilities, and the people of Tennessee expect it to be done in a manner that is not only legal and constitutional, but is effective. ... Therefore, the remaining scheduled execution will not be carried out this year."

Lee ordered a "comprehensive, third-party review" of the Pike debacle - while Gary Wayne Sutton, who was scheduled to die on Dec. 3 for the 1992 murders of Tommy Griffin and Connie Branam in Blount County - was spared for now. 

Lee had explicitly declined to halt Pike's execution. His attorney general's office spent the afternoon racing to the Supreme Court to ensure it happened Wednesday night rather than next week. The protocol the AG approved is the very same one Carter proudly claimed was followed to the letter. Whether it was "effective" is a separate question, and on Wednesday night, the undeniable answer was no.

Tyler Durden Thu, 10/01/2026 - 07:00

"Zero Hormuz": Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Readies Tens Of Billions To Turn Fujairah Into Hormuz Bypass

On March 3, just days after the first US and Israeli strikes on Iran, when most of the market was still busy pricing the closure of the Strait of Hormuz as a temporary inconvenience, we pointed out something that seemed rather obvious (to us): the UAE's oil port of Fujairah, which sits on the Gulf of Oman and bypasses the strait completely, was far too small for its strategic importance - and that would change.

Surprising Fujairah is not a bigger oil terminal: it bypasses the straits completely.

Expect major infrastructure push here after the war. https://t.co/Do1gK7KBDQ

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 3, 2026

Six days later we went one step further:

After this crisis, every Gulf pipeline has to end either in Yanbu or Fujairah alongside massive terminal infrastructure https://t.co/fNBywD3Wr1

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 9, 2026

Seven months later, the "major infrastructure push" has a name, a sponsor, and a checkbook. According to a new Bloomberg Big Take, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed Al Nahyan - who took the helm of the emirate's $300 billion L'imad Holding sovereign fund weeks before the war began - is now the point man for what the UAE is officially calling its "Zero Hormuz" strategy (wonder if he was reading Zero Hedge at the time). And the centerpiece of that strategy is, you guessed it, Fujairah.

Follow the money (to the Gulf of Oman)

Here are the Bloomberg report highlights:

• L'imad has announced plans to take Abu Dhabi Ports Co. private at a valuation of nearly $9 billion, and people familiar say the fund is now likely to spend tens of billions of dollars more on new port infrastructure outside the strait.
• The crown prince and his inner circle are expected to be "particularly focused" on expanding ports in Fujairah, which sits just outside Hormuz and opens into the Gulf of Oman.
• In May, L'imad struck an agreement with BlackRock (via its Global Infrastructure Partners unit), Temasek and ADNOC to jointly target up to $30 billion of infrastructure investment in energy transportation, logistics and water. Abu Dhabi did not want such a large push funded solely by state money - which is a polite way of saying Larry Fink gets a toll road around Iran.
• Sheikh Khaled also chairs the executive committee of ADNOC's board, which is building a second oil pipeline to double export capacity through Fujairah; at a May meeting he directed the company to accelerate delivery.
• Meanwhile Dubai's DP World is separately pushing new container terminals in Fujairah - meaning that a relatively small stretch of coastline under the Al Hajar mountains is about to become some of the most crowded (and most valuable) real estate in the Gulf.

The UAE's trade minister Thani Al Zeyoudi summed up the doctrine back in June: the country wants to move to Zero Hormuz dependency regardless of whether the strait is open or not. Translation: even if Tehran signs a peace deal tomorrow, the leverage it enjoyed over Gulf exports for decades is never coming back.

Regular readers will recognize every step of this progression. On April 2 we noted that Gulf states were dusting off costly bypass pipeline plans; on May 15 we reported that ADNOC would double its crude export capacity bypassing Hormuz with the new pipeline to Fujairah, due in 2027; and on July 13 we wrote that DP World's plan for a new east coast port in Fujairah "signals the beginning of the end" of Iran's Hormuz leverage. That same day, as peace talks went nowhere, we also offered an alternative engineering solution:

At this rate it will be faster to dig a canal through the UAE to bypass Hormuz than to wait for a peace deal

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 13, 2026

Abu Dhabi, it appears, has opted for the slightly less ambitious version: pipelines plus a lot of concrete.

Goldman: 60% of Gulf exports insulated from Hormuz by 2028

So how far can this go? Goldman's commodity team (Alexandra Paulus, Yulia Grigsby, Daan Struyven and Filippo Cuscito) ran the numbers in a July note titled "Gulf Exports: Short-Term Uncertainty, Long-Term Pipeline Hedge" (available here to pro subs), and the conclusion is that while Hormuz still dictates prices in the short run, the long run looks very different. The bank estimates that enough pipeline capacity will be added in the region to insulate over 45% of pre-war Persian Gulf exports by end-2027 and more than 60% by end-2028 from any future Hormuz shock.

Some of the details:

• Goldman measures current effective bypass capacity as the flows out of Yanbu (East-West pipeline), Fujairah (ADCOP pipeline) and Ceyhan (Kirkuk-Ceyhan). In its base case, that capacity rises by 3.8mb/d by end-2027 and 7.3mb/d cumulatively by end-2028, to over 14mb/d - versus ~23mb/d of pre-war exports from the seven Gulf producers that need pipelines to dodge Hormuz.
• The UAE features prominently: the West-East pipeline (ADNOC's second line to Fujairah) is one of only two projects already under construction, while a Hamriyah-Fujairah pipeline sits in Goldman's "Accelerated Scenario" - which would insulate 75% of exports by end-2028 (vs. just over 45% in the "Conservative Scenario").
• History is on the builders' side: across Goldman's sample, the median construction time for Mideast pipelines was 2.5 years, and single-country projects get built faster, especially in response to supply disruptions. Multi-country projects (looking at you, Iraq-Syria) not so much.
• Total cost across the seven projects: roughly $30-48 billion - or, put differently, about one BlackRock/L'imad infrastructure platform.

And here is the punchline for oil bulls: Goldman raised its long-dated Brent assumption (3-year-ahead futures) by $9 to $76/bbl at the peak of the war, mostly on a higher structural security premium. But the bank warns that the eventual expansion of bypass capacity poses downside risk to that long-dated assumption. In other words, every barrel that Sheikh Khaled routes to Fujairah is a barrel of risk premium Iran can no longer charge the world.

The plumbing is already working

The "adaptation" is already visible in the export data. As we reported earlier today, Goldman estimates that Persian Gulf oil exports (including "dark exports") recovered to 23.3mb/d over the past week, in line with their 2025 average, after doubling in September. Crude accounted for nearly 90% of the recovery, reaching 19mb/d (108% of the 2025 average), while refined product exports remain stuck at about half of normal. Crucially for this story, Goldman notes that oil exports from the UAE - which shockingly exited OPEC shortly after the Iran war started - are also above their 2025 average, "with likely further upside" - while Iran shipped no crude by sea at all in September.

Drill down and Fujairah is doing a lot of the heavy lifting: Goldman's late-September breakdown puts flows via Fujairah at 3.6mb/d (crude, products and LPG combined), more than Yanbu's 2.6mb/d, and more than double the ~1.7mb/d Fujairah handled before the war.

Source: Goldman

And by country, the UAE is already running at 110% of its 2025 export average - second only to Saudi Arabia's dark-transit-fueled surge - while Iran sits at 19%.

Source: Goldman

The UAE in particular has been the most creative workaround artist of the war: as we noted in July, its crude output hit an all-time high of 4.1mb/d in June after it quit OPEC, with ADNOC selling cargoes for loading off Fujairah and Sohar, outside the strait. Back in March, we reported that Fujairah crude loadings had already hit ~1.9mb/d - about the max the existing 1.5-1.8mb/d Habshan-Fujairah line can carry. The only real constraint was pipe. Which is exactly what Abu Dhabi is now paying to fix.

Bypassing the strait is not the same as bypassing the drones

None of this makes Fujairah safe. It is roughly 80 miles from Hormuz and well within range of Iranian drones and short-range missiles - a point LSE professor Steffen Hertog makes in the Bloomberg piece. Tehran knows exactly what Fujairah represents: the port was in flames on March 14, was attacked at least seven times in the first four weeks of the war, and on March 31 Iran explicitly threatened to target the port and its pipeline "in order to close the UAE's route to bypass the Strait of Hormuz." On May 4, another Iranian strike on Fujairah's oil zone sent Brent above $114.

Saudi Arabia offers the cautionary tale. Its 7mb/d East-West pipeline to Yanbu - the region's single biggest Hormuz bypass - was shut down on September 11 after drone attacks by pro-Iran militias, before restarting on September 28. Goldman's September 14 Oil Tracker pointed out that an April strike on the same pipeline cut flows by just 0.7mb/d for four days, while the latest attack was far more severe and threatened the remaining ~2mb/d of Yanbu exports. The Saudis promptly pivoted back to shipping through... Hormuz. Meanwhile the Houthis are advancing on Bab el-Mandeb, threatening the other end of the Red Sea route.

Which brings us to Treasury Secretary Bessent, who predicted on September 1 that in two years Hormuz will be "a worthless piece of water." Qatar's energy minister promptly called that "completely wrong" - which is easy to understand when you are Qatar, have no geographic alternative route, and have watched your gas revenue drop sharply. The truth is somewhere in between: Hormuz won't be worthless, but if Goldman's math is right it will be worth a lot less to Iran - and a lot more to whoever owns the ports on the other side of the mountains.

As Chatham House's Sanam Vakil puts it, a "No Hormuz" policy is now of utmost importance for the UAE - but with Iran's proxies extending their reach, Abu Dhabi will also have to prepare for infrastructure targeting outside Hormuz too. Expect the next line item in the L'imad budget to be air defense.

For now, the bottom line is the one we flagged on day four of the war: the Gulf's most important real estate is no longer inside the strait, it's on the Gulf of Oman - and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi has just put tens of billions of dollars (and BlackRock's money) behind that view.

Tyler Durden Thu, 10/01/2026 - 06:35

Taiwan Plans $930 Million Sea Drone Buildout As China Expands Maritime Pressure

Taiwan is moving quickly to build a large fleet of unmanned vessels as it looks for cheaper, scalable ways to complicate any Chinese attempt to blockade or cross the Taiwan Strait, according to Nikkei Asia.

The emerging strategy combines something Taiwan already does well, building ships and sophisticated electronics, with American expertise in autonomous systems, artificial intelligence and military command networks.

The potential scale is significant. Taiwan’s navy is considering roughly 1,320 small attack drones for the water, with spending estimated at about NT$29.6 billion, or $930 million. The Coast Guard is pursuing unmanned vessels as well, creating what could become a meaningful new domestic market for maritime defense technology.

Taiwan does not need to build the industry from scratch. It already has shipyards capable of designing and producing the physical platforms, along with a deep electronics manufacturing ecosystem. What it needs are many of the technologies that turn an unmanned boat into an effective military system: secure communications, autonomous navigation, sensors, AI, command-and-control software and the ability to coordinate large numbers of vessels simultaneously.

Photos: Nikkei Asia

That is where U.S. defense technology companies are increasingly entering the picture. CSBC, Taiwan’s government-backed shipbuilder, recently partnered with Rhode Island-based Havoc to develop autonomous surface vessels using Taiwanese manufacturing and American autonomy technology. Saronic, Anduril, MARTAC, VATN Systems, Albacore, Shield AI and Auterion have also established relationships with Taiwanese organizations, including the government-owned National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology.

Havoc CEO Paul Lwin described the model simply: “American autonomy software, Taiwan-built platforms, Taiwan workforce.”

Nikkei Asia writes that domestic companies are positioning themselves for the spending wave. CSBC has developed its Endeavor Manta unmanned boat and says it has capacity to manufacture about 40 annually. Established shipbuilders Jong Shyn and Lungteh are competing for contracts, while companies better known for drones and semiconductors, including Thunder Tiger and Myson Century, are moving into unmanned maritime systems.

The attraction is partly economic. Instead of attempting to match China ship for ship, Taiwan could deploy large numbers of smaller and cheaper autonomous platforms capable of surveillance, targeting, protecting undersea infrastructure and, in some cases, carrying weapons. The war in Ukraine has provided a real-world demonstration of how unmanned systems can impose substantial costs on a conventionally superior military.

But producing thousands of drone boats is only part of the equation. They must continue communicating, navigating and coordinating in a contested environment where satellites, communications infrastructure and command centers could themselves become targets.

“The key gaps are resilient communications, AI-enabled autonomy and C2, and multi-vessel coordination,” said Cathy Fang of Taiwan’s Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology.

That technological gap helps explain why the growing U.S.-Taiwan partnerships matter. Taiwan can supply the shipyards, electronics manufacturing and eventually the production scale, while American defense technology firms provide much of the software and autonomy layer.

If the navy ultimately proceeds with its proposed 1,320-vessel program, the result could be more than another Taiwanese weapons purchase. It could provide the anchor customer needed to establish an entirely new domestic defense industry built around producing autonomous vessels in large numbers, with Taiwan manufacturing the hardware and U.S. companies supplying much of the technological nervous system.

Tyler Durden Thu, 10/01/2026 - 02:45

The Disastrous UK Disability Signal That Corroborates The US Data!

Authored by Ed Dowd: Beyond the Narrative via Substack,

The Disability Signal Across the Atlantic

On August 11 I wrote US Disabilities Hit an All-Time High of 37 Million In July: UP 23% Since Feb 2021. The BLS Current Population Survey printed 37,029,000 Americans 16 and over reporting a disability. That is seven million more people since February 2021, a 3-to-4 sigma break from the pre-2020 plateau that has not mean-reverted.

The inflection is February 2021 with the Covid vaccine rollout not in 2020 when Covid was at its most virulent strain. Alternative explanations fail the timing and the magnitude test. The UK PIP system corroborates that US survey signal with something the American series cannot give you: medically assessed new claims broken down by body system and underlying cause.

If you want to know whether that US survey signal is real, stop arguing about survey design and look at an administrative system that actually diagnoses people.

Go back to the UK Disabilities (PIP) Project we published at Phinance Technologies. The page is still up...use it. It was built so researchers, doctors, and ordinary citizens could see the same thing we saw in 2023. You can look at total body system new claims or by underlying cause new claims (best viewed on desktop) within a body system. You can pick absolute new claims, excess new claims, percent excess new claims and excess new claims z score. We also break it out by monthly and yearly data. Finally you can sort it by age group as well. Play with data and be horrified like we were in 2023. Interactive charts...all done by Phinance Technologies for free.

PIP is not the protagonist from Charles Dickens's novel Great Expectations. It is the UK's main working-age disability benefit officially known as the Personal Independence Pension program by the UK Department of Work. Claims are medically assessed. Decisions, "clearances," as noted above are coded by body system and then by underlying cause. The positive award rate has been stable at around 40 percent, so you are not looking at a sudden collapse in standards. You are looking at more people presenting with more illness...new claims, not just the stock of existing claimants, sorted monthly or yearly and by age band versus a 2016-2019 trend.

That is the advantage over the US survey. The BLS series tells you that disability exploded after early 2021 with the vaccine rollout and not in 2020 with the virus. PIP tells you where in the body it exploded, and it lets you watch the timing against the vaccine rollout curve on the same chart.

Two Body Systems Make the Point

Hematological (blood) disorders went off the rails. New excess clearances rose about 217 percent in 2021 and then 522 percent in 2022 while 2023 declined but still at an absurd 374 percent above trend. Over 300 percent above trend two years running. When looking at new claims on a monthly basis Hematology jumped early and hard almost coincident with the first doses. That is a regime change in medically assessed claims. I have posted those charts more than once on X in 2023. Something broke and the administrative system recorded it at a scale that alone should have produced a public-health investigation...it did not.

Musculoskeletal claims tell a different, equally inconvenient story. Monthly clearances sat near a "normal" 10,000 through 2020 and early 2021. Then, around September 2021, they jumped and stayed elevated above 18,000 a month. The rise did not arrive with the first lockdowns or the first COVID wave. It arrived after the mass rollout and into the booster period. Inflammation, joint and soft-tissue disease, the conditions that take people out of work and onto daily-living and mobility awards. The timing is not subtle.

Those two systems are not the whole file. Cardiovascular and neurological claims rose. Breast-cancer clearances showed large excesses in 2022 and 2023 with high z-scores. Different latencies, same calendar: the break is 2021, not 2020. That is why the UK file is useful. It is not one blob called "disability." It is a set of body systems with different clocks, all accelerating after the intervention that was supposed to end the emergency.

People will say PIP is being gamed by fraud. Look at the body-system split before you buy that. A fraud wave does not preferentially light up hematology in early 2021 and musculoskeletal in late 2021 while neurological claims print 20 plus-sigma years. An awareness campaign does not move breast-cancer clearances. Two independent disability systems, two countries, both detecting the same inflection period in 2021.

The fiscal piece is already visible in Britain. Claimant counts have roughly doubled since 2019. Psychiatric disorders are now the largest single category. Spending is on a path that forces politicians to talk about "sustainability" and tighter points tests instead of asking why so many working-age bodies failed in the same window. The US version of that conversation is coming. A permanently larger disabled share of the 16-plus US population is lower labor force participation, higher absence, higher insurance cost, and more pressure on SSDI and Medicaid. You can ignore a chart. You cannot ignore the payroll.

Bottom Line

I am not a clinician. We said that on the site in 2023 and asked doctors to explain the findings...mostly crickets. The charts are still there. Pick a body system. Pick an age band. Look at the cumulative dose curve. Watch across the many body systems how in 2020 they stay close to trend and then in 2021 they leave the trend. That is the instruction. The US disability series tells you that the population got sicker after February 2021 in the US. The UK PIP file tells you which systems broke and when.

Together they are the corroborating signal no one in official public health circles wants you to see.

The great cover up continues into 2026 and the damage is slowly compounding.

Tyler Durden Thu, 10/01/2026 - 02:00

Brazil Election Polls Too Close To Call, But Polymarket Gives Bolsonaro Clear Lead

Brazil's presidential race is entering the final stretch ahead of Sunday's first-round vote. 

HSBC strategists led by Nicole Inui wrote in a note that the latest polls show socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva slightly ahead of right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, though the race remains neck and neck.

Both candidates remain statistically tied. If no candidate wins more than 50% of valid votes, the two will face a runoff on October 25.

Lula (Left); Bolsonaro (Right)

"Brazil's presidential elections are entering their final stretch with first round elections to be held Sunday, 4 Oct. If no candidate wins more than half of the valid vote, a run-off will be held on 25 Oct," Inui wrote in the note. 

Inui continued, "If no candidate wins more than half of the valid vote , a run-off will be held on 25 Oct. First-round election results could be a major market-moving event, we think. The key variable is the margin between the leading candidates. Latest polls point to a tight margin of 5ppts between current president Lula da Silva (PT) vs. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro. 

"A narrower lead for President Lula or stronger performance by third-party candidates could add to policy change expectations, which could support risk-on sentiment. However, history suggests some caution: since 1989, every first-round winner has secured the presidency in the run-off of elections," the analyst said. 

However, Polymarket bettors see a clearer favorite, giving Bolsonaro a 60% chance of winning, compared with 39% for Lula.

Here's more from HSBC analysts on market impacts: 

What to look out for:

Brazil heads to the polls on 4 October, with a second round scheduled for 25 October if no candidate wins more than 50% of valid votes. Recent polling is pointing towards a highly competitive presidential race, with neither candidate expected to garner enough votes to win in the first round. Since 1989, all but one went to a second round. Leading candidates received between c42-c53% in the first-round vote and all went on to eventually win. In other words, first round winners prevailed and they won the first round by c42%-49%. In the last election cycle, the margin of victory was the tightest in recent history at 1.8ppts (50.9% for Lula vs 49.1% for Bolsonaro), with Lula's vote share only increasing by 2.5ppts between rounds, compared with c9-15ppts for winners in previous five runoffs. This is a useful benchmark for a highly polarized election, we think, especially considering there are no relevant left-wing candidates besides Lula in the first round.

Initial upside, not necessarily sustained

In the first trading session following the 2022 first round election, the IBOV surged 5.5%, while real strengthened against the dollar. In the 2022 elections, privatization hopes drove the largest immediate gains in SOEs at the time (Copasa, Sabesp, Cemig), and interest rate futures immediately fell, with consumer discretionary accounting for 50% of the top 10 performers. The move likely was attributed to Bolsonaro’s stronger-than-expected (vs polls) first round results and the composition of the incoming Congress, which together reduced the policy risk premium investors had considered before the vote. However, the Ibovespa came down from its highs leading up to the second round, declining 1.4% from the close after the first round, but still 4.1% above pre-first-round level. The BRL and iShares MSCI Brazil ETF (EWZ Index) followed a similar pattern, but the EWZ saw greater appreciation from 1 September 2022 than the Ibovespa around the run-off. Leading up to the run-off, reduced perceived risks of government intervention continued to support utilities and energy, which retained gains, while consumer discretionary's initial rally faded as interest rate futures rose again.

A similar story could occur for 2026. An outsized reaction could occur immediately after 4 October if investors mark down the perceived fiscal/policy-risk premium based on a tight first round outcome, like what occurred in 2022, but would not necessarily extend into a three week straight rally. Subsequent price action would depend on polling, endorsements, campaign economic proposals, the congressional result, and the long end of the Brazilian rates curve. We believe a first round result associated with lower long-term fiscal risk would likely produce a broader domestic risk-on trade, with SOEs, domestic cyclicals, and bond proxies potentially experiencing the most upside. If first round results are tighter than in the prior elections, equity markets could react positively on expectations of fiscal consolidation ahead.

And post-election results? We see asymmetric returns for equity markets

We expect an initial knee-jerk reaction following the run-off as markets reassess the likelihood of fiscal consolidation under the incoming administration. A result that increases confidence in a more credible fiscal path could drive a relatively rapid rerating through lower-end yields, tighter risk premia, and stronger performance in domestic cyclicals and bond proxies where valuations are sensitive to fiscal and rate outlooks. Conversely, a result that reduces expectations for fiscal consolidation could trigger an initial derating, but we see some valuation support limiting the downside in parts of the market. Many election sensitive names including Petrobras are already trading close to historical trough valuations on an EV/EBITDA basis, leaving less room for further multiple compression Petrobras, 16 Aug. And Banco do Brasil is trading at a P/B of 0.7x and a 69% discount to Itau, close to a historic high, Brazilian Financials, 14 Sept.

Given the close race, we would emphasize segments that can participate in a relief rally without requiring an aggressive risk stance. Lower-beta yield names and selected bond proxies appear better placed to capture upside from lower long-end rates while offering more resilience if the market reaction is short lived. Politically exposed names and higher beta domestic cyclicals could outperform in a market-friendly scenario, but they would also be more sensitive to any reversal in fiscal expectations.

Polls suggest the race remains too close to call, while Polymarket odds point to Bolsonaro as the favorite.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/30/2026 - 23:55

Uranium Term Prices Hit A Record... So Why Is Nuclear Getting Nuked?

If you only looked at the price of the fuel, you'd think the nuclear trade has never been better. Long-term uranium prices are sitting at $96/lb, an all-time record and up ~12% YTD, taking out the $95/lb high set in mid-2007 at the peak of the last uranium mania (per UxC data compiled by TD Cowen). Spot has followed along to roughly $90/lb, up ~11% YTD.

If, however, you looked at anything with a ticker attached to it, you'd think the nuclear renaissance had been quietly cancelled somewhere between the "AI will need infinite power" phase and the "wait, who's paying for all this capex?" phase.

That, in a nutshell, is the disconnect TD Cowen's uranium team (Craig Hutchison and David Liang) highlights in its two latest Uranium Monitors: the commodity is making all-time highs, while the equities, the SMR darlings and even the IPO pipeline are going in the opposite direction. And the cause, at least in the short run, is the same one that kills every rally in a physical market eventually: the buyers are balking.

A record... on thin volume

Recall that when we first flagged the record term print on Sep 10, TD noted the term price rose $2/lb w/w "despite thin volume," and that as of Aug 31, term contracting volumes were down ~15% y/y at just over 38Mlbs. TD's main hope at the time was that the World Nuclear Association Symposium in London (Sep 9-11), where utilities, fuel-cycle players and policymakers all gather, "could be a catalyst to spur increased trading volumes."

It sort of was. Term volumes rose to 42.2Mlbs by Sep 15, which narrowed the y/y shortfall to ~3%. Still, per TD's latest note, what companies heard from utilities is not exactly the stuff of a buying frenzy:

"Term pricing remains at all-time high, and based on our conversations with the companies under coverage, utilities are feeling a sticker shock on pricing and seem reluctant to contract in any meaningful way."

TD, to its credit, is not fazed and argues that "it is not a question of if term contract volumes pick up, it is a question of when," since utilities keep contracting below replacement rates. The chart below shows what that looks like: 2026 cumulative term volumes are tracking at the bottom of the past five years, well below 2023's ~160Mlb blowout and behind both 2024 and 2025 at the same point in the calendar. Utilities can put off buying fuel for a while. They can't put it off forever, because reactors don't run on "we'll revisit in Q1."

The monthly breakdown shows the same thing: outside a decent May, 2026 has undershot the prior five-year average almost every month, and last year's big November/December catch-up (~30Mlbs and ~26Mlbs) is a reminder of how lumpy, and how late in the year, utility procurement tends to be.

Spot, meanwhile, is a bit livelier. Cumulative 2026 spot volume reached 38.6Mlbs across 377 transactions as of Sep 15 (+12% y/y), though TD concedes this is "largely attributable to SPUT's sizable purchases earlier this year." The encouraging part is that September activity picked up, with weekly volumes topping 1Mlb and "participation broadening beyond SPUT," helped by the usual post-summer seasonal pickup, near-term utility needs and "more aggressive pricing strategies from major producers." Translation: Cameco and Kazatomprom are not in the mood to discount.

Note also where the spot/term spread sits: spot at a ~$6/lb discount to term, a far cry from the 2023-24 squeeze when spot traded at a $30+ premium. This is a market where end users are pricing long-dated scarcity but are not panicking about near-term delivery, which is the exact opposite of a blow-off top.

And for those wondering how "record" a record really is: $95 in 2007 is roughly $150 in today's dollars. Or, as TD put it, "considering the significant inflationary pressures since 2007, there is considerable room for the term and spot price to run." In other words, in real terms uranium is nowhere near its prior peak, as the long-term chart makes clear.

Meanwhile, in equity land...

While the fuel price grinds higher, the stocks go the other way, and fast. Comparing TD's two performance tables, here's what happened in the two weeks between Aug 31 and Sep 14, right around the WNA Symposium that was supposed to be a catalyst: 

On a longer lookback the picture is just as odd. NLR, the broad nuclear ETF, is down 12% YTD and ~35% below its 52-week high, while the AI ETF (AIQ) is up 25% YTD. So for all the talk about nuclear as the "AI power trade," the market has clearly separated the two: investors still want AI, but they're no longer paying up for the power plants that are supposed to run it.

TD's indexed chart shows the round trip: URA surged roughly 80-90% above its 2024 starting point on the Oct 2025 Westinghouse/US government $80BN partnership and again into the spring of 2026, before a vicious drawdown into July. Spot uranium, meanwhile, barely moved through all of that, which is a good reminder of which part of this complex was driven by fundamentals and which part was driven by momentum.

The carnage has been even worse further out on the risk curve. NuScale and Oklo are each down roughly 50% YTD. Holtec pulled its ~$10BN IPO last week, with CEO Kris Singh blaming "a recent market correction and cooling investor enthusiasm for the AI trade," after the recent class of nuclear debutantes (X-Energy ~37% below its April IPO price, Standard Nuclear 20%+ below its July debut) showed what happens to public investors who pay for the promise. And this week, Oklo lost its PJM interconnection queue fight after FERC said its application was deficient, which is not the first time a regulator has sent Oklo's homework back for "missing information."
 

Even the policy headlines, which used to be good for a double-digit pop, now fade within hours. The House passing the Ratepayer Protection Act on Sep 17, which would make data centers pay for their own generation and grid upgrades (effectively the "behind the meter" framework we have long argued should be mandatory), sent NuScale +10% and Oklo +13%... and then both gave back most of it the next day. And the South Korean "$100BN+ for up to eight US reactors" headline that TD flagged as a potential catalyst has, for now, turned into a $22.3BN gas plant in Texas (with no customers), with the nuclear portion reportedly on hold amid the tangle of the Westinghouse/KHNP IP settlement, Korea's talks about a stake in Westinghouse, and tariff negotiations. You can't make this up.

Goldman: "inbounds have been extremely light"

So what does the sell side hear from actual investors? Goldman's Energy, Natural Resources & Utilities sector specialist (Sep 18) gave a blunt read:

"To level set – inbounds have been extremely light on the nuclear front over the last couple of weeks – though we think is likely just a reflection of the current tape (rates, inflation, broader AI concerns)."

What makes the Goldman take useful is the distinction it draws between the long run and the near run. On the long run, "there is less doubt in the longer-term role of nuclear in the power stack." On the near run, though, "there's more focus on time to power (recips, turbines, fuel cells, batteries) and the cost profile for most projects remains a sticking point for investors." In other words, hyperscalers need megawatts in 2027, not gigawatts in 2037, and the market is pricing nuclear accordingly. GS also pointed to an NEI survey showing +7 GWe of new capacity planned via uprates, restarts, longer refueling cycles and other output increases since the prior survey, which is the unglamorous, cheap and fast way to add nuclear power, and which also happens to burn more uranium.

That brings us to the more important point for the fuel.

The supply side isn't getting any easier

While equity investors worry about rates and AI capex, the physical side of the market keeps getting tighter at the margin:

• Kazakhstan's acid problem: Kazatomprom (roughly the Saudi Arabia of uranium) delayed commissioning of its TQZ sulfuric acid plant by 6-12 months (from Q1/27 to Q3/27-Q1/28) after a regulatory suspension, raised capex guidance on acid and cost inflation, and warned that the delay will be reflected in 2027 production guidance. TD thinks "a downward revision of uranium output in 2027 is possible."
• Then Russia made it worse: Moscow banned sulfuric acid exports through year-end. As we noted on Sep 15, Kazakhstan relies on Russian acid for ~20% of its needs, and without a waiver the ban could cut ~3Mlbs (~4%) from Kazatomprom's 2027 output. Goldman's sector specialist flagged the same risk: "Kazakhstan is a major taker of Russian sulfuric acid as an input for uranium production."
• The Red Book reality check: The NEA/IAEA's latest Red Book (Sep 14) showed only a 2.1% increase in economically recoverable resources and emphasized rising mining costs, depletion of low-cost deposits, and the higher cost profile of new discoveries. At the same time, the IAEA raised its long-term outlook to 696 GWe (low) to 1,284 GWe (high) of nuclear capacity by 2060, i.e. +85% to +241% vs 2025.

The chart above is what the long-run bull case looks like: even in the high-production scenario, existing and expected capacity peaks around 2030 and then declines, while requirements climb under both demand cases.

To be fair (and balanced), TD's own model is less apocalyptic in the medium term than the bulls often are. It shows the market roughly balanced near term (-1Mlb in 2026 and 2027), then moving into a surplus from 2030-2033 as Western mine supply ramps (peaking at +27Mlbs in 2031), before the deficit comes back hard: -4Mlbs in 2034 and -42Mlbs in 2035, when total demand hits 322Mlbs vs 281Mlbs of supply. Put differently, the thesis rests on utilities having to lock in 2030s supply today, which is exactly the contracting they're currently putting off because of "sticker shock."

Throw in India opening its nuclear sector to private build-own-operate for the first time (draft SHANTI Act rules released Aug 14, a story we've been tracking since July), the DOE adding 13 more projects to its Nuclear Energy Launch Pad, and Washington's push for faster enrichment buildout, and it becomes clear that policy hasn't turned against nuclear. What has changed is how much equity investors are willing to pay for it.

The mood in London: positive, "albeit perhaps slightly less bullish"

TD hosted its 1-on-1 uranium conference in London alongside the WNA Symposium (which we will discuss in a subsequent post), which drew a record 1,300 attendees. The read: tone "positive, albeit perhaps slightly less bullish than last year," no major announcements, and investors "continue to view progress on the deployment of new nuclear reactors in the U.S. as one of the key near term catalysts." Which, given the Korean deal's detour into Texas natural gas, may take a bit longer to show up.

Still, the picture on actual reactor builds outside the US hasn't changed: 37 reactors are under construction in China alone. The US? Zero.

Meanwhile, in Japan, TEPCO just restarted Unit 6 at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, the largest power plant in the world: And that's after the public mood against nuclear in the country of Fukushima is, as one can imagine, negative to quite negative. 

Bottom line

The fuel market and the equity market are telling two different stories, and history suggests the fuel market usually wins. The same UBS analysts who in late August warned that the market is "tightening structurally" were pointing to the same combination we see now: firm term prices, long mine lead times, and sustained utility need. The difference today is that equity investors have stopped paying ahead of the utilities. Once utilities get over their "sticker shock" and resume contracting, likely in the traditional Q4 rush if last year is a guide, the question is whether the stocks will still be trading as if nuclear were just another AI-capex casualty.

For those who want to front-run the catch-up, TD keeps Cameco as its top pick among uranium equities and Denison Mines as its top small/mid-cap name (DML is down ~15% in two weeks, so it's cheaper than it was when TD last said so). And Goldman, in a note published just yesterday, reiterated its Buy on Uranium Energy (UEC) after FQ4 revenue came in ahead of expectations "reflecting solid uranium price environment," citing sharply ramping production, falling unit costs, and medium-term catalysts from "US-origin needs (e.g. NNSA)" and a potential move into conversion.

Or, to put it differently: uranium hit a record high and nobody cared. Historically, that's not how the bull market ends; it's what the middle of one looks like.

* *  *

More in the full TD Cowen Uranium Monitor notes (Sep 1 link here and Sep 16 link here) available to pro subscribers.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/30/2026 - 22:38

Protection Orders, Gun Training, And 3D Printing Laws Among Gun Bills Signed By California Governor

Authored by Michael Clements via The Epoch Times,

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a package of 10 gun bills into law that he says will enhance what he considers to be the state's already exemplary record of firearms safety.

Newsom's office announced the signing in a press release on Monday. According to the release, the laws are meant to reduce violent crime involving guns and reduce the number of illegal guns on the street, among other things.

They include a training requirement for the purchase of a gun, expanding criteria for the state's extreme risk protection orders, voluntary firearms storage by law enforcement to prevent violent crime and suicide, and a requirement for firearms blocking technology on 3D printers in the state by July 1, 2029.

"California has been a leader in gun safety. Today's laws continue that work - using data, prevention, and proven tools to help keep firearms out of dangerous situations and support communities affected by violence," Newsom stated in the press release.

Senate Bill 948 will make a training requirement necessary for acquiring a state firearms safety certificate for the purchase of a gun. Existing law requires the certificate for the purchase, transfer, or importation of guns within the state within 60 days of the transaction.

The new law adds a requirement for a four-hour training course that must cover firearm handling and safety as well as a live-fire component. The law becomes effective Jan. 1, 2029.

The press release also touted the state's Gun Violence Restraining Orders (GVRO), crediting them with preventing 58 mass shootings and reducing violent crime overall.

Assembly Bill 175 expands this by allowing courts to issue extreme risk protection orders even if the subject of the order has not been notified. It also prohibits courts from requiring petitioners to show that exceptional circumstances exist that make the order necessary.

Thousands of GVROs have been issued since the first laws were implemented in 2016, the press release states.

"Between 2021 and 2024, the number of longer-term GVROs issued each year in California more than doubled. In 2024 alone, California courts issued GVROs against 1,727 individuals found to pose a significant danger of firearm violence toward themselves or others," the release states.

Newsom also signed a law meant to prevent suicides by providing temporary gun storage for those who are in crisis.

Assembly Bill 1974 allows law enforcement agencies to establish programs to take temporary possession of firearms from those who request such. The law requires the agency to provide clear instructions on voluntarily transferring custody of a firearm and instructions on requesting its return.

It also requires the agency to ensure the person is not prohibited from owning a firearm. The agency must also ensure the firearm has not been reported lost or stolen, used in a crime, or part of an active investigation. Guns that are not picked up by their owners will be destroyed.

The law also exempts the agencies and gun owners from certain requirements for concealed carry and transfer of firearms.

Assembly Bill 2047 is meant to hamper the production of homemade guns that do not have serial numbers or other identifying marks. The law sets a deadline of July 1, 2029, for any 3D printer sold in the state to have firearms blocking technology.

This technology would prevent the user from 3D printing so-called "ghost guns." These guns are most often frames of synthetic materials produced on a 3D printer with metal parts purchased separately. The fact that the homemade guns have no serial numbers makes it difficult to trace them back to their source.

The press release states that the number of unserialized guns has been on the decline in recent years.

"Seventeen percent fewer ghost guns [were] recovered as crime guns in 2025, bringing the decline since 2021 to 37 percent," the release reads.

Gun rights advocates decried the package of gun laws, saying they are about gun control more than gun safety.

Adam Kraut, executive director of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), was especially critical of the training requirement, which he considers an obstacle to legal gun ownership.

"It comes after California has already passed an 11 percent excise tax on guns and ammo, and carry permits cost anywhere between $500 and $2,500 in the state, depending on the county. SAF is currently litigating against both of those abuses and will consider a lawsuit against SB 948 as its effective date in 2029 approaches," Kraut stated in an email to The Epoch Times.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/30/2026 - 21:10

Ken Griffin Pledges Record $3 Billion To Carnegie Mellon, With $2 Billion Going To Miami

Mamdani wants New York’s billionaires to cough up more money. Maybe he should call Florida and ask how they’re getting them to hand it over voluntarily.

Because Miami just scored a $3 billion pledge from billionaire Ken Griffin, with $2 billion earmarked for a brand new Carnegie Mellon campus in the city, according to Forbes.

The massive commitment represents Griffin’s latest investment in Miami’s evolution into a major center for finance, technology and entrepreneurship. The Citadel founder is directing the bulk of the money toward establishing Carnegie Mellon in South Florida, adding a major research university to the city’s rapidly expanding business ecosystem.

Under the plan announced Wednesday, Carnegie Mellon will develop a 35-acre campus in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood. Work on the project is slated to begin in 2027, with the first graduate students expected to arrive in 2028.

Another $1 billion will go toward Carnegie Mellon’s operations in Pittsburgh. That money will support financial aid and other university priorities, while a substantial portion will be directed to its renowned computer science program, which will take the new name Kenneth C. Griffin School of Computer Science.

The university says Griffin’s $3 billion pledge is the largest individual donation ever made to an American university. Griffin is also set to take a seat on Carnegie Mellon’s Board of Trustees.

Forbes writes that the deal marks another significant expansion of Griffin’s footprint in Florida. Citadel moved its headquarters from Chicago to Miami in 2022, and Griffin has since poured roughly $2.4 billion into South Florida organizations and initiatives, including substantial support for education, according to Reuters.

For Miami, the university project could ultimately have an impact well beyond Citadel’s own presence in the city. Carnegie Mellon plans to concentrate its new campus on fields including national security, healthcare, energy, climate resilience, advanced manufacturing and industrial technology, giving Miami another potential anchor as it attempts to build a larger technology and research economy.

Griffin has framed the commitment as an investment in American innovation and future job creation, particularly in industries where the United States can strengthen its competitive position globally.

The sheer size of the pledge also resets the bar for university philanthropy. Michael Bloomberg’s $1.8 billion contribution to Johns Hopkins in 2018 was among the previous benchmarks. With this latest commitment included, Reuters estimates Griffin’s lifetime charitable giving at approximately $5.7 billion.

For cities trying to figure out how to get billionaires to part with their money, Miami may be offering an interesting example: make them want to put their capital there, and the checks can get awfully large.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/30/2026 - 20:45

Ron Paul: The Coming GOP Bloodbath?

Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

Most indicators suggest that the Republicans in the House and Senate are going to face a brutal backlash from the American people in November. Polling with generic ballots suggest a big win for the Democrats and likely the loss of Republican control of both houses of Congress.

There is little reason to cheer a Democratic party victory, however Republicans in charge have for the most part earned what is coming to them. They have refused to uphold their Constitutional obligation to take leading responsibility for war powers.

Earlier this year, President Trump launched what is the most unpopular war in US history when on February 28th he ordered a full US assault on Iran. Iran had not attacked or even threatened the United States and our own intelligence community continued - and continues - to claim that Iran is not building nuclear weapons.

The February attack followed last June's US bombing of Iran after which the president claimed that the country's nuclear program was "completely obliterated."

Congress over too many years has been used to allowing the President to have his own way on matters of war and peace. Members bask in the false patriotism promoted by the media and special interests as the people "rally around the flag." Eventually, when the war has gone on for years without "victory" - as in Iraq and Afghanistan - many claim they were never really for the war in the first place.

This time is different. There was no propaganda blitz. There were no attempts to convince the American people that the "smoking gun" could be a "mushroom cloud" as we were told in the run up to the 2003 Iraq war. The majority of Americans were against the war on Iran before it started and only became more opposed over time.

As the war drags on, we have seen the national debt pass $40 trillion, diesel fuel prices at the highest ever, and inflation hitting the middle class and poor even harder. The "cakewalk" again failed to materialize.

Incumbent Republicans seeking re-election are in such a panic over voter anger about the war that they have taken to calling for a quick end to it while on the campaign trail. When they get back inside the Beltway, however, they vote to keep the war going for fear of President Trump's anger.

This is not leadership.

Late last week the Iranian delegation in New York for the UN General Assembly meeting offered an off-ramp. Essentially it was the same Memorandum of Understanding that President Trump signed last June and promptly disregarded, but on a shorter timeline. By Sunday, the President announced that he would reject the deal - a deal like one he already signed.

There is no strategy for winning this disastrous war, it is clear. From over-confidence on decapitation strikes to certainty of a quick military victory, the Administration is now promising that they will win by crippling Iran's economy. The problem is that Iran has been operating under "crippling" sanctions for decades and has a high economic pain tolerance.

Unfortunately, both parties in DC are war parties, so again it is hard to cheer the likely Republican losses. But sometimes electoral losses can serve as wake-up calls. Eventually we may see the re-emergence of antiwar Republicans in the spirit of the late Sen. Robert Taft and a restoration of the Constitution.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/30/2026 - 20:20

To Build Golden Fleet Frigate Fast, Two Shipyards Are Needed

Authored by Brent Sadler & Chase Ouellette via RealClearDefense,

In 1798, while at war with France, an exasperated British Lord Nelson exclaimed, "Were I to die at this moment, 'want of frigates!' would be stamped on my heart." It's a perennial problem: Frigates formed the backbone of navies in Nelson's time and do so today as well, and there seldom seems to be enough. The U.S. Navy's ambitious Golden Fleet shipbuilding plan aims to fill a frigate gap but will require shipyard capacity that today the nation lacks.

The Navy's 2026 shipbuilding plan plans a fleet of 66 frigates. By 2031, two Constellation-class frigates are to be completed at the Marinette, Wisc. shipyard and a modified U.S. Coast Guard National Security Cutter at the Ingalls, Miss. shipyard. But to meet the Navy's goal, a sustained delivery of more than three frigates per year will be needed by 2037. Such a production schedule is unlikely with one shipyard, and the plan all along was to have two frigate-producing shipyards.

In December 2020, just months after the initial frigate contract, the Navy reported to Congress its intention to stand up a second shipyard to expand production to three ships by 2023 and four ships from 2025. In its 2025 shipbuilding plan, the Navy laid out a proposal to expand frigate production to a second shipyard by 2030.

The Constellation frigate program and a repurposed National Security Cutter will fill the need for a multi-session surface combatant - anti-submarines warfare and limited air defense. Nearly seven years after the program's inception, zero frigates have been built.

Complicating frigate production has been persistent design uncertainty; one adjustments to original FREMM design for Constellation, and uncertainty over how the Navy will turn the National Security Cutter into a frigate. For Constellation, the intent was to build a proven allied design with little to no changes, but modifications resulted in the ship retaining only 15% of its original design. Today the design is over 95% complete, but cost and displacement have ballooned to approximate a destroyer.

The axe fell in November 2025. Then-Secretary of the Navy Phelan cancelled Constellation because it was 80% the cost of a destroyer while providing only 60% of their capability. The thinking then was to substitute this with a repurposed cutter.

The previous delivery of 10 National Security Cutters seemed to validate a pivot towards HII's Ingalls shipyard. That said, modifications will be needed before its design is Navy-ready: modest air-defense systems, torpedo magazines, added fuel storage, additional crew accommodation. But it has been years since the last National Security Cutter was built. As such, additional workforce at Ingalls will be needed and supply chains restarted, slowing renewed production of a reproposed cutter.

On the other hand, the Constellation program does benefit from Fincantieri investments of $800 million and workforce expansion of 850 that since cancellation has begun to be let go. Reversing this is still possible with a finalized design that could allow for initial delivery quicker than the Ingalls repurposed cutter. But both options today face capacity constraints.

In an August 13 memo, President Trump announced a framework to increase domestic shipbuilding capacity using the "Finland Model" that seeds domestic shipbuilding growth through initial overseas orders. This works by making conditional ship orders that see the initial hulls built at foreign shipyards while concurrently developing American shipyards to construct later ships. This model is inspired by from the 2024 ICE Pact icebreaker construction effort with Canada's Davie Shipbuilding with shipyards in Finland and Texas.

Adapting the Finland Model to frigate production offers way ahead that could leverage shipbuilding capacity in Japan and South Korea - the world's second- and third largest shipbuilders, respectively. Both nations build capable frigates that have emerged as potential options for meeting urgent American frigate needs: South Korea's Chungnam-class and Japan's Mogami-class. Already, Australia has inked their own Finland Model 11-ship deal with Japan, with the first three Mogami-class vessels being constructed in Japan and follow-on production in Australia.

Thoughts of partnering with Turkey on frigate production, however, would be hindered because it hasn't made industrial investment commitments like Japan and South Korea have. Japan has committed a portion of the $550 billion of U.S. investments to modernizing America's shipbuilding industry. South Korea's Hanwha Group has followed its $100 million purchase of its Philadelphia shipyard in 2024 with a $5 billion infrastructure plan to further develop the facility, and Seoul has committed $150 billion to the Make American Shipbuilding Great Again.

While the Navy may opt to acquire foreign frigates under the Finland Model, further leveraging existing American shipbuilding capacity at Ingalls and Marinette shouldn't be overlooked to further accelerate domestic frigate construction. The Navy needs frigates, and unconventional approaches required to be clear, but only a plan that seeks added domestic shipbuilding capacity will be sustainable.

Brent Sadler is a 26-year naval veteran and current senior research fellow for naval warfare and advanced technology at the Heritage Foundation. Chase Ouellette is a member of Heritage's Young Leaders Program.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/30/2026 - 19:30

Benchmaxxed: Google's New Gemini 4 Aces SAT, Struggles With Actual Job, "Skeptical Employees" Admit

After a year in which Google's AI roadmap resembled a Waymo stuck in a roundabout, the search giant on Wednesday finally unveiled Gemini 4 "Argon", its long-awaited flagship model. The market cheered, briefly: according to Goldman's closing equities color, GOOG traded +2% after hours on the "Argon" announcement. 

Then Bloomberg reported that some of the people who have actually use the thing - as in Google's own engineers - aren't nearly as impressed as the leaderboard. The stock promptly faded. 

According to Bloomberg's Julia Love and Davey Alba, Gemini 4 "performed well on benchmarks widely used to gauge model efficacy" but "does less well when employees actually put it to work," particularly on coding. One insider said the model "isn't particularly adept at front-end design" - the part of software that decides how apps and websites look and feel. Which is a bit awkward for a company whose entire business is, well, things you look at on a screen.

Google, naturally, disagrees. It told Bloomberg it would be "inaccurate" to say Gemini 4 is underperforming in coding, and pointed back to last week's remarks by DeepMind boss Koray Kavukcuoglu, who said "it's a certainty that we are always gonna be at the frontier." Another Google employee said there is "large consensus" internally that the model is frontier-class. Which is the kind of thing one tends to say when there isn't.

The industry has a word for this. "Benchmaxxing" is when engineers optimize a model to crush standardized tests rather than to do useful work - the AI equivalent of the kid who memorizes every SAT prep book, posts his 1600 on LinkedIn, and then can't do his own laundry. Two people familiar with Gemini 4 told Bloomberg the model appears affected by exactly this.

Surge AI founder Edwin Chen put it more bluntly, calling benchmark-chasing "an incredibly pernicious problem" and comparing it to bragging about your kid's SAT score. We'd add that a generation of Silicon Valley's finest minds has now spent billions teaching machines to do what they themselves did in high school: optimize for the test, then act surprised when the real world grades on a curve.

The irony is that Google's own researchers have documented how quickly optimization turns into gaming. As we reported on September 3, a DeepMind experiment found that when math problems got hard, 9% of AI agents outright cheated and another 5% cheated "after hesitation", gaming a shared knowledge base that rewarded successful submissions. Turns out teaching to the test works on silicon too.

A $400 million detour

Gemini 4 is also the model Google shipped instead of the one it promised. At I/O in May, Google pledged Gemini 3.5 Pro for June; the date slipped (Bloomberg first reported the delay on July 16, citing tech that "fell short of internal goals") and the project was eventually abandoned altogether. Bloomberg Intelligence's Mandeep Singh estimates a frontier training run can cost as much as $400 million - before paying the researchers, many of whom have since left.

And leave they did. We noted in June that Google was losing more Gemini researchers to Anthropic, following the earlier departures of Nobel laureate John Jumper and transformer co-inventor Noam Shazeer. Then in August came the big one: Jeff Dean exited after 27 years to launch his own startup, taking several senior researchers with him and knocking 5% off Alphabet stock. Demis Hassabis subsequently kicked himself upstairs to chairman, handing day-to-day DeepMind operations to Kavukcuoglu - who now gets to defend Argon's front-end skills to Bloomberg.

Why this matters: the ROIC math doesn't grade on benchmarks

This would be a nerd-bro squabble over leaderboard screenshots if it weren't for the money involved. Gemini underpins nearly everything Google sells - Search, Maps, Gmail, Chrome, each with over a billion users - and Alphabet is one of the hyperscalers footing the largest capex bill in corporate history.

Per Goldman's Ryan Hammond (full note available to pro subs), US hyperscalers are on track to spend roughly $800 billion in 2026; consensus expects $1.1 trillion in 2027, while Goldman's house view is even higher at $1.2 trillion and $1.4 trillion for 2027 and 2028. Hammond estimates hyperscalers need about $300 billion of annual AI revenue just to break even on 2026-27 spending, and that end users may ultimately need to spend around $1 trillion a year on AI applications for everyone in the stack to earn decent returns.

Separately, Goldman's Eric Sheridan, whose ROIC framework we flagged last week, calculated that assuming a 15% ROIC target and ~$42 billion of capex per gigawatt, the six big US hyperscalers need to generate roughly $1.42 trillion in cumulative revenue during 2028-30 - about $11.6 billion per GW per year - with a range of $908 billion to $1.89 trillion depending on assumptions. As we tweeted at the time, even in Goldman's worst-case scenario where ROIC on capex goes to zero, they'd still need $920 billion a year just to cover depreciation and running costs.

Here's the rub: none of that revenue gets paid in MMLU points. It gets paid by developers and enterprises choosing whose model to build on. And Bloomberg notes Gemini 4 is "a very large model" - and big models are expensive to serve, which means pressure on margins at exactly the moment the capex hurdle is rising. Goldman's TMT desk flagged this week that the industry is already in a price war: OpenAI cut Luna pricing by 80% in July and usage rose roughly tenfold, while "Big Short's" Steve Eisman is openly asking what happens to margins if cheaper Chinese and open-weight models push prices down further. Bringing an expensive, benchmark-optimized heavyweight to a knife fight over token pricing is a bold strategy.

Meanwhile, the competition isn't waiting

The timing couldn't be worse. On the same day Google unveiled Argon, OpenAI was busy at its Developer Day rolling out "Dots" - persistent, always-on agents that live inside ChatGPT, Slack and Teams. Goldman's Sean Johnstone noted OpenAI is "increasingly competing with Microsoft 365, Google Workspace and traditional enterprise software - not simply other AI models." Per Axios, cited by Goldman's desk, OpenAI's ARR is nearing $70 billion, up from ~$40-41 billion as recently as mid-August, with enterprise sales more than doubling since July. OpenAI is now reportedly seeking $30 billion at a $1.4 trillion valuation.

And earlier this month Meta released its new agentic platform, Muse, which promptly took the app charts by storm - so thoroughly that Amazon blocked it - and sparked a 25%+ rally in META. Goldman's Sheridan now frames agentic commerce as one of AI's biggest monetization opportunities, noting that "similar to how Google captured search intent, successful AI platforms may capture shopping intent." Read that sentence again if you're long GOOGL.

To be fair, Gemini 4 has real strengths: insiders say it stands out at multimodal work like extracting metadata from video, on safety and cybersecurity (it reportedly beat OpenAI's Astra on a security benchmark), and it can spit out up to 1 million tokens - roughly 750,000 words - in one go. Whether anyone needs a 750,000-word answer is a separate question; we suspect the answer is "only for benchmarks."

Bottom line: Google has the distribution, the TPUs and the balance sheet. What it doesn't have is much time. Every quarter it spends explaining leaderboard scores, is a quarter that OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta spend convincing developers, businesses and consumers that the future of search and software runs on their platforms. Because the $1.4 trillion question isn't who tops the leaderboard - it's who gets paid.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/30/2026 - 19:04

Judge Orders New York City To Scrap Notices For Mamdani's Tax On Second Homes

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

A Staten Island judge ruled Sept. 29 that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's administration mishandled the rollout of a pied-à-terre tax on second homes in July, ordering the city to scrap the notices and start over.

Supreme Court Justice Wayne Ozzi sided with homeowners who claimed the program that in July added a special tax on second homes worth more than $5 million penalized them needlessly.

Ozzi found "the mailed notices are arbitrary and capricious, affected by errors of law, and in violation of the recipients' due process rights."

"Respondents failed to properly make individualized 'initial determinations' with regard to 'primary residences,'" Ozzi wrote in the ruling. "All previously Mailed Notices are to be canceled."

The homeowners sued on Aug. 7 and were granted a temporary restraining order by Ozzi on Aug. 10.

The lawsuit claimed the city's notices "do not constitute proper notice under Tax Law" and sought relief for over 900,000 properties and owners who were identified in a list published online by the city.

Ozzi ordered the city to remove the list from the website and replace it with properties that are subject to the surcharge.

He also ordered the city to cancel all previously mailed notices and mail new notices only to a property that has been individually assessed to be a non-primary residence and subject to a surcharge.

The city was also directed to use the most recent available tax information and current fiscal year information for the tax assessments.

The new notices were required to include information about how property owners can challenge the city's final determinations and include procedures and property records or documents to support the city's findings, along with other information.

Mamdani's office didn't return a request for comment.

Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella said he strongly agreed with the ruling.

"We have said from the beginning that it was fundamentally wrong to put more than a million people on this 'enemies list,'" Fossella said in a statement. "And, the vast majority of those who were on the list did not belong at all.

Fossella said he thought the city should apologize for needlessly putting hundreds of thousands of people in distress.

"In being irresponsible and arbitrary, the City artificially created an atmosphere of confusion and fear about receiving this tax, and their information being wrongfully exposed, for no good reason," Fossella said.

The tax on second homes was first announced by Mamdani on social media in May. Mamdani said the tax would be for the "ultra-wealthy elite - those who own $5 million apartments in New York City but don't actually live here."

The tax became effective July 1 as part of the city's fiscal year 2027 budget. The measure was expected to generate about $500 million for the city each year.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/30/2026 - 18:40

Newsom Signs Laws Banning Shock Gloves And Taxing Immigration Detention Centers

Authored by Chase Smith via The Epoch Times,

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed 21 bills on Sept. 29 aimed at limiting federal immigration enforcement in the state, including a ban on officers using shock gloves and a new 25 percent tax on private detention centers.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks in Los Angeles on Sep. 25, 2024. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

"California is taking action to strengthen transparency, accountability, and oversight around immigration enforcement in our state," Newsom said in a statement.

"This is about stepping up where the federal government has failed our communities," the Democratic governor said. "We will continue protecting our people, upholding the rule of law, and making clear that if the federal government operates in California, we will hold them accountable."

The shock glove ban applies to all officers in California, including federal immigration agents. It takes effect next year, expires Jan. 1, 2030, and requires the state Department of Justice to complete a safety study on the devices by Jan. 1, 2029.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) awarded a $16.7 million no-bid contract last month for 6,000 pairs of the gloves, which deliver an electric shock at the push of a button. ICE said at the time that the devices would help officers control resisting detainees and protesters.

"Sanctuary politicians attempting to ban our federal law enforcement from any safety equipment is despicable and a deliberate attempt to undermine and endanger our officers," the agency said in a statement at the time, responding to a group of Democratic lawmakers who urged the agency to abandon the plan.

California law enforcement groups broadly opposed the shock glove ban, including Sacramento Sheriff Jim Cooper, a Democrat and former state lawmaker.

"When the federal government does something, the state Legislature wants to ban it," Cooper said at a news conference last month.

"For me, use of force is so important. We talk about it all the time. De-escalating [to] a lower level of force. What they're doing by trying to ban this glove, and it conducts electricity - a much lower voltage than a taser - they're making our job harder."

Newsom also signed a revised ban on officers wearing masks. A federal judge blocked the state's first mask ban in February, ruling that it unfairly targeted local and federal officers because it exempted state officers. The new law applies to all officers.

Other bills Newsom signed on Tuesday restrict the use of state-owned property for immigration enforcement staging, processing, or detention, and one allows people to sue federal officials accused of violating their constitutional rights.

Another law protects people traveling to and from courthouses from civil arrest, and another bars ICE officers who have committed serious misconduct from becoming police officers or public employees in California.

A fifth law requires rental vehicles that law enforcers use for arrests or transport to display a decal identifying the agency, with limited exceptions.

Detention center taxes will go to state immigration-related services. A separate bill ends a property tax exemption claimed by some detention facilities.

Newsom's office acknowledged in its announcement that California "cannot dictate federal immigration policy." It said the state can set requirements for state property, state resources, detention facilities, public records, and law enforcement practices where federal enforcement operates in California.

Courts have mostly sided with the Justice Department in challenges to state limits on federal agents. In April, an appeals court blocked California's separate law requiring officers to wear identification, ruling that it violates the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. Federal judges have since blocked mask bans in Virginia on June 30, Philadelphia on July 2, and New York on Aug. 3.

States have fared better on other measures. On Sept. 4, a federal judge dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit challenging an executive order by New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, that bars federal immigration officers from using state property for enforcement. California's package includes a similar ban on state-owned property.

"To be crystal clear: we will not abide by unconstitutional mask bans," a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in an emailed response to an inquiry from The Epoch Times on Tuesday.

"The Supremacy Clause makes it clear that California's sanctuary politicians do not control federal law enforcement. No tax will stop ICE from deporting criminal illegal aliens to make California safe again. We need California to cooperate with our officers and stop releasing criminals from their jails into California's neighborhoods. Seven of the 10 safest cities in America cooperate with ICE."

The spokesperson said that enforcing immigration law is a federal responsibility under the Constitution. Concerning the shock gloves, the spokesperson said that ICE reviews its equipment to make sure it is "consistent with all applicable law enforcement policies and standards," and that officers are "highly trained in de-escalation tactics and regularly receive ongoing use of force training."

Lauren Bis, a White House spokeswoman, responded to Newsom's move in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times.

"Gavin Newsom has no authority over federal law enforcement," she said. "The Trump administration will not abide by his unconstitutional legislation. Our law enforcement officers will continue arresting and removing criminal illegal aliens from American communities while radical Democrats in California refuse to cooperate and instead choose to release criminal illegal aliens from their jails into communities to terrorize innocent Americans."

A Department of Justice spokesperson said in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times, "The Department of Justice will continue to challenge illegal sanctuary policies designed to thwart federal immigration enforcement or impede lawful federal operations."

California is one of 17 states with Democratic-controlled legislatures that have passed more than 100 bills this year aimed at limiting immigration law enforcement, according to an Associated Press analysis.

The most common goal of those bills has been to bar local authorities from cooperating with federal immigration agents.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/30/2026 - 17:00

Hegseth Orders Cyber Command, Intel Agencies To Counter Foreign Threats To Midterms

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has directed U.S. Cyber Command and the Pentagon's combat support agencies to focus intelligence and cyber tools on foreign efforts to interfere in the 2026 midterm elections.

The Department of War (DoW) memo circulated Monday and dated Sept. 22 was addressed to the Cyber Command chief and the directors of the National Security Agency (NSA), the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

"In America, the people rule - and we must ensure that their voice remains sovereign, secure, and entirely undiluted," the memo reads.

Hegseth wrote that secure voting plays a critical role "in sustaining the strength of our democratic system," and that the department "will effectively wield its capabilities to protect and uphold the reliability of America's voting mechanisms against external manipulation and disruption from foreign actors."

Cyber Command and the combat support agency directors "will prioritize the use of DoW intelligence and cyber capabilities to ensure foreign actors do not meddle in our democratic systems," the memo says.

Hegseth also ordered the Defense Intelligence Enterprise to "execute collection and production on foreign threats to our elections, in accordance with the law, regulation, Executive direction, and DoW policies and directives."

He told Cyber Command to use its authority "in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security to counter potential cyber threats from foreign actors targeting our elections."

As Kimberly Hayek further reports for The Epoch Times, Monday's DoW release directed Cyber Command and the combat support agencies to "prioritize and deploy advanced intelligence and cyber capabilities to identify, disrupt, and neutralize foreign interference in U.S. democratic processes."

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the agencies would work with state and local election officials.

"Free and fair elections are the foundation of our republic," Parnell said. "By working in lockstep with federal, state, and local partners, U.S. Cyber Command and our defense intelligence teams will defend the integrity of America's voting systems, expose foreign malign influence, and ensure our democratic processes remain secure from external manipulation while protecting the fundamental freedoms of the American people."

Gen. Joshua M. Rudd, who serves as Cyber Command chief and NSA director, described the assignment as work the two organizations already conduct.

"U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency are closely partnered to identify and defend against cyber threats to our nation. The Command and the Agency regularly counter actions by malicious foreign cyber actors including those with the intent to interfere with our democratic process," Rudd said.

Hegseth called protection of the vote a "no-fail mission" and part of a "whole of government effort."

The memo also orders the entire Defense Intelligence Enterprise to "mobilize every authorized asset, capability, and partnership under your command to defend our election infrastructure from foreign malign influence and ensure that every lawful voter can cast their ballot free from foreign intimidation, coercion, or fear."

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/30/2026 - 16:40

Micron Flat After Strong Revenue Guidance Offsets Slight Margin Miss

The highly anticipated Micron earnings (since memory is the one place in the sector in the market where all those massive new bond sales are funding) are finally out and they painted a solid, if slightly mixed, picture compared to buyside bogeys.

As we said in our preview, what would matter today is not what the company did in Q4, but how it guided to Fiscal Q1 (ending next calendar quarter), and sure enough Q3 was solid across the board:

• Adjusted EPS $33.42, beating estimates of $31.83
   
• Adjusted revenue $54.23 billion vs. $11.32 billion y/y, and beating estimates of $51.49 billion
  • Core Data Center revenue $18.00 billion, beating estimates of $11.34 billion
  • Cloud Memory revenue $16.28 billion, beating estimate $15.14 billion
  • Mobile and Client Revenue $13.11 billion vs. $3.76 billion y/y, beating estimates of $12.95 billion
  • Automotive and Embedded rev. $6.82 billion, beating estimates of $4.73 billion
     
• Adjusted gross margin 87% vs. 45.7% y/y, beating estimates of 86.2%
   
• Adjusted operating income $44.64 billion vs. $3.96 billion y/y, beating estimates of $42.75 billion
• Adjusted operating income margin 82.3% vs. 35% y/y, missing estimates of 82.8%
• Adjusted operating expenses $2.57 billion vs. $1.21 billion y/y, beating estimates of $1.68 billion
  • R&D expenses $1.91 billion, +83% y/y, estimate $1.38 billion
  • Adjusted operating expenses $2.57 billion vs. $1.21 billion y/y, estimate $1.68 billion
     
• Cash flow from operations $43.97 billion vs. $5.73 billion y/y, estimate $33.87 billion

From the slideshow:

“Micron delivered record fiscal 2026 results, and we expect an even stronger fiscal 2027,” CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said in the statement. “Memory enhances this intelligence and the competitiveness of our customers’ platforms.”

So far so good. However, what matters more is guidance and here is why the stock's after hours reaction has been muted at best:

• Q1 adj. EPS 38.15, beating exp. 35.40.
• Q1 revenue 61.5bln (+/- $1.5BN), beating exp. 57.024bln. 
• Q1 gross margin 86.3%, missing exp. 86.7%, and notably below buyside bogeys of 87.5%-88.0%

And this is how the company guided:

• We anticipate fiscal Q1 to be the floor for gross margins in fiscal 2027. As Sanjay mentioned, we made a decision to increase fiscal 2026 incentive compensation in fiscal Q4. Most of the increase in fiscal 2026 incentive compensation pertaining to manufacturing was absorbed into inventories in fiscal Q4. As a result, the effects from the sale of these higher cost inventories principally impact fiscal Q1 gross margin. September 30, 2026 September 30, 2026
• Fiscal Q2 benefits from less of this fiscal Q4 related compensation expense, but this benefit is offset by the impact of higher fiscal 2027 incentive compensation. We expect higher gross margins beyond fiscal Q1 for the remainder of fiscal 2027, with a more moderate rate of price increases.
• We project operating expenses to increase by approximately $2.5 billion in fiscal 2027, primarily from higher R&D (research and development) to support an unprecedented set of opportunities in memory and storage and from higher incentive compensation plans.
• We expect a fiscal Q1 and fiscal year 2027 tax rate of around 15.5%

Micron and its rivals continue to be overwhelmed by memory-chip orders. Though the Boise, Idaho-based company is expanding its manufacturing capacity, prices are expected to remain high for the foreseeable future. Here are the highlights from the company's market outlook: 

• Micron (MU) says operating expenses are to increase by about USD 2.5bln in fiscal 2027 and expects memory and storage supply-demand conditions to be much higher in fiscal 2027 and 2028 than in 2026
• In Q1, project capex of around USD 11.5bln and anticipate first-half FY27 capex to be USD 25bln.
• Project CapEx to be higher in H2 FY27.
• Given the need for DRAM cleanroom space and supported by greater visibility from SCAs into our demand through the end of the decade and beyond, we plan to increase our capex (capital expenditures) in fiscal 2027 versus prior plans.
• Expect server unit growth in the high-teens % range in both CY26 and CY27.
• Strong server unit growth is supported by a modestly lower rate of content growth than prior expectations, amid tight memory supply.

“Near-term conditions are still very good, in our view, with strong demand and rising pricing in evidence,” Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore said in a note before the report was released. “The debate has very clearly shifted from, ‘How good can it get?’ to ‘How long can it stay this good?’”

For now the jury is out, as unlike last quarter when the stock blasted off after earnings, this time it is flat, having faded a modest after hours rise. 

Micron shares were the best performer in the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index this year, gaining 273%. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/30/2026 - 16:28