Semiconductor Stocks Tumble After Microsoft Balks At $3B Oracle Cloud Deal Chip stocks tumbled even further in late Tuesday trading following a report that Microsoft just walked away from talks with Oracle about leasing the company’s cloud infrastructure because of concerns over security and compliance.  The deal, according to Business Insider, would have been worth over $3 billion – as large Silicon Valley tech companies are […]

FBI Raids Soros-Connected Ohio Voter Mobilization Group In Fraud Investigation Via American Greatness, Federal investigators executed search warrants at the headquarters of a Soros-aligned voter mobilization organization in Ohio as part of what sources described as an ongoing fraud investigation. FBI agents searched the offices of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative on June 11 and conducted interviews with members of the […]

Gavin Newsom And The DOJ Probe Opened Under Biden: Behested Payments, Family Nonprofits, & Questions Of Influence California Gov. Gavin Newsom has launched an aggressive counteroffensive against a federal investigation he calls a politically motivated “fishing expedition” – for a probe which was opened under the Biden adminisgration.  In a video posted to X and a formal letter to the Department of Justice, Newsom demanded […]

San Francisco Judge Dismisses xAI Trade Secret Lawsuit Against OpenAI Authored by Kimberley Hayek via The Epoch Times, A federal judge dismissed a trade secret lawsuit filed by Elon Musk’s xAI against OpenAI, ruling that the plaintiff failed to demonstrate the competing artificial intelligence company improperly obtained confidential information. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin issued the order Monday in San Francisco, dismissing […]

Thune Signals Senate Will Pursue Stand-Alone FISA Renewal Despite Trump’s Demands Via American Greatness, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, (R-SD,) said Monday that Senate Republicans are moving forward with plans to renew a key federal surveillance authority as a stand-alone measure, despite President Donald Trump’s insistence that it be tied to election legislation. Thune told reporters the Senate is working to revive […]

Hardline Israeli Politicians Livid Over Iran Deal, Want Netanyahu Out So They Can Do ‘Real Regime Change’ Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett didn’t mince words on Monday: the clock for regime change in Iran starts ticking the moment Israel gets a new government. Chairman of the “Together” party and former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett speaks during a press conference at the Knesset in Jerusalem, May 20, 2026. (photo […]

Stellar 20Y Auction Stops Through, With Highest Foreign Demand In 2 Years In a quiet day for stocks, which are now trading near session lows, which in turn is prompting a bid for safety, the Treasury complex was already trading at the best levels of the day ahead of today’s Treasury auction. Then just after 1pm, the stellar results from today’s 20Y auction (technically a 19 Year 11-month reopening of cusip UV8), confirmed the solid […]

QatarEnergy Plans Rapid LNG Production Restart As Hormuz Reopens Qatar shut the world’s largest LNG facility early in the U.S.-Iran war after Iranian Shahed one-way attack drones struck critical energy infrastructure, triggering chaos across global gas markets, just as the Hormuz maritime chokepoint was shuttered. Now, with a U.S.-Iran peace deal set to formally reopen the waterway by Friday, there is encouraging news on the supply […]

Deal Doubts Arise As Lebanese, Iranian Officials Say US Must Rein In Israel To Secure Regional Peace Summary: Iran Says Peace Deal Requires Israeli Withdrawal From Lebanon Hormuz Fears Ease As Trump, Ghalibaf Virtually Sign US-Iran Deal, But Energy Flows Remain Months From Normal Polymarket: Israel x Hezbollah permanent peace deal by June 30, 2026? Yes 26% · No 74%View full market & trade on Polymarket Lebanese Parliament […]

Trump Calls On Putin To Reach Deal With Ukraine After Zelenskyy Meeting Authored by Emel Akan via The Epoch Times, U.S. President Donald Trump kicked off his G7 summit meetings on June 16 in the French spa town of Evian-les-Bains, joining a roundtable discussion with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other G7 leaders. (L-R) U.S. President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr […]

Oil Experts To Spar On Iran Deal: Crude To $150 Or $50? With oil prices plunging after the announcement of a U.S.-Iran ceasefire agreement and plans to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, traders are asking: Is the geopolitical risk premium gone, or is the market setting up for another shock? Tonight at 7pm ET, veteran commodities strategist Jeff Currie and energy economist Anas Alhajji join host Erik Townsend to debate where oil heads […]

Supreme Court Rejects Bid By 98-Year-Old Appeals Judge To Be Reinstated Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times, The U.S. Supreme Court on June 15 declined to take up the case of a 98-year-old federal judge’s challenge to her ongoing suspension from an appeals court in the nation’s capital. The court’s new decision in Newman v. Moore took the form of an unsigned order. No justices dissented. The court did not explain […]

Sign(s) Here, Here, And Here By Michael Every, global strategist at Rabobank After pricing in nearly 40 pronouncements of US victory since early April, markets have naturally embraced a US-Iran ‘deal’ now e-signed –with a thumbs up emoji?– so all that’s left is a ceremony to mark the event on Friday. That and the details of what was signed, which are still lacking from the US. In their absence, we get more polymetis spin […]

FBI Foils Alleged Suicide Drone Plot Targeting “Capitalist Elites” At UFC White House Event Regular readers know that the threat of suicide drones has expanded beyond the modern battlefields of Ukraine and the Middle East – with potential targets including data centers and critical infrastructure. Given this potential, it was only a matter of time before an FPV-style attack was attempted on the homeland. Today, Fox […]

Bank Of Japan Raises Rates To 1% For The First Time In 31 Years, Will Stop Reducing Bond Purchases As widely expected, the BoJ raised the policy rate by 25bp to “around 1%” (there was one dissent from newly appointed dovish board member Asada for a hold) taking the cost of borrowing to its highest level in 31 years as the country adjusts to sustained inflation. The 0.25% increase, which was widely expected, takes Japan to what […]

“They Will Hear From Our Lawyers”: Elon To Sue German Broadcaster Over Claim He Told Belfast Protesters To ‘Hunt Migrants’ Via Remix News, Tech trillionaire Elon Musk has said he will take legal action against German public broadcaster ZDF after it linked him to unrest in Belfast and accused him of helping instigate a “hunt” against migrants. The dispute followed the attempted beheading of a man in Northern Ireland by a Sudanese […]

China’s DRAM Giant CXMT Gets Final Nod For Largest Mainland IPO Since 2022 Chengxin Memory Technology, China’s leading maker of DRAM (dynamic random-access memory) chips, has had its initial public offering approved by the country’s securities watchdog, clearing the way for the Chinese mainland’s biggest stock market listing since 2022. CXMT’s registration to go public on Shanghai’s Nasdaq-style Star Market became […]

Yum Unloads Pizza Hut Chain As Private Equity Takes On Turnaround Challenge Yum! Brands agreed to sell its iconic Pizza Hut chain for $2.7 billion following a strategic review, separating the struggling pizza brand from its broader restaurant portfolio, which includes KFC, Taco Bell, and The Habit Burger Grill. LongRange Capital will acquire Pizza Hut’s business outside China for $1.5 billion, while Yum China will buy the China […]

Chinese Stocks, Yuan Drop After Dismal Data Dump: Worst Retail Sales Since COVID China’s consumer spending and investment slumped in May to levels unseen since the pandemic, exposing risks for an increasingly two-speed economy, as Bloomberg’s Chang Shu and Eric Zhu noted: “The supply side remains robust, driven by faster-than-expected expansion in exports and AI tech sectors. The demand side has faltered, with consumption and […]

Utterly Flocked: “We-Don’t-Track-People”-Firm Deploys Nationwide Network Of Warrantless Pedestrian-Tracking Cameras Flock Safety, the Atlanta-based private surveillance firm, insists its cameras are not tracking people. Yet its own systems, training materials, and expanding product line tell a different story -one of a rapidly growing, warrantless mass surveillance infrastructure that logs vehicle movements, follows pedestrians […]

US Housing Starts Collapsed In May To Lowest Since COVID With housing inventories at recent highs, the US housing market just suffered another sentiment setback as Housing Starts crashed by 15.4% MoM in May (far worse than 2% drop expected and worse since March 2024)), following a revised 8.5% MoM drop in April. Building Permits slipped 0.7% MoM (in line with expectations)… Source: Bloomberg That pulls the Housing Starts SAAR […]

From Hormuz To Houston: The US Takeover Of Global Energy Flows Ramps Up Authored by Simon Watkins via OilPrice.com, The Americas are replacing the Middle East as the key source of global oil supply, with crude exports from the Western Hemisphere hitting a record 14.5 million bpd while Strait of Hormuz traffic collapsed. Trump’s broader energy strategy aims to weaken OPEC’s influence and cement U.S. dominance over global […]

Stock Rally Pauses As Attention Turns To Warsh’s First FOMC US futures are flat, pausing after a three-day rally with investors shifting their focus to this week’s FOMC meeting, Kevin Warsh’s first, which begins today. As of 8:00am ET, S&P futures are up 0.1% after surging 2% on Monday; and Nasdaq futures gain 0.3%, as SpaceX continued to surge, rising 11% overnight and on track for a more than 50% jump since going public, […]

SpaceX Acquires Cursor AI In $60 Billion Deal As Coding Agent Race Heats Up SpaceX has agreed to acquire AI coding startup Cursor for $60 billion, giving Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence empire a leg up in the chatbot coding race currently led by frontier AI labs such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. The Cursor acquisition was announced in a SpaceX 8-K filing with the SEC on Tuesday morning. Details of the deal show that Cursor […]

US Residential Solar Installations Set To Stall For Years As Market Hits Wall Residential solar in the US is actively cratering after President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill resulted in the sunsetting of a key tax credit for homeowners last year – which will result in a prolonged slump in installations, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). “The market is not expected to recover to the record levels of 2023 anytime […]