Zero Hedge

BlackRock's ETF Holdings Top 700,000 Bitcoin; Far Above Saylor's 'Strategy'

BlackRock's ETF Holdings Top 700,000 Bitcoin; Far Above Saylor's 'Strategy'

BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund has just crossed over 700,000 BTC in assets under management, far surpassing Michael Saylor's stash at (Micro)Strategy...

"New milestone… iShares Bitcoin ETF now holds over 700,000 BTC," Nate Geraci, president of NovaDius Wealth Management (formerly The ETF Store), said.

"*700,000* in 18 months. Ridiculous."

ETF inflows continue to build...

In just 18 months, IBIT's AUM topped $75 billion; an achievement that took GLD (the gold ETF) over 15 years to achieve...

As The Block reports, the combined assets held by all U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs are now at approximately 1.25 million BTC ($135 billion), according to CoinGlass data - nearly 6% of bitcoin's total 21 million supply.

IBIT accounts for approximately 56% of that AUM alone - greater than Strategy's 597,325 BTC ($65 billion) stack, for comparison.

Meanwhile, as CoinTelegraph reports, US Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, combined with Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, have purchased more Bitcoin than the supply generated by miners almost every month so far this yearaccording to Galaxy Research.

Strategy and the US Bitcoin ETFs have collectively bought Bitcoin worth $28.22 billion in 2025, while Bitcoin miners’ net new issuance has amounted to $7.85 billion during the same period.

As of June, the combined entities have bought more Bitcoin than the new supply being generated each month, except in February, when the combined entities sold Bitcoin worth $842 million.

All of which supports the trend higher in bitcoin along with global liquidity surging...

...and increased adoption, with US leading UK and EU...

Deutsche Bank's recent survey shows younger, high-earning respondents continue to have the highest adoption.

Male consumers boast a higher adoption rate and believe they have a better understanding of crypto vs. female consumers.

But, despite regulatory breakthroughs, lack of understanding and high risk continue to rank as the top barriers for crypto usage.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/08/2025 - 14:40

Oil Markets Are Tighter Than They Look

Oil Markets Are Tighter Than They Look

Authored by Neil Crosby via OilPrice.com,

  • Diesel spreads and refinery margins are no longer reliable on their own for gauging oil demand, as extreme weather and supply chain issues distort short-term signals.

  • Refinery closures in the West and lagging new capacity in Asia are creating regional imbalances, with physical tightness building despite weak headline indicators.

  • China’s slowing demand and India’s rise as a refining hub, combined with “missing barrels” and potential new US sanctions, could drive unexpected bullish shifts in oil markets

The global oil market has entered a period of increasing volatility, with unpredictable supply, deceptive demand signals, and factors such as geopolitical uncertainty and souring economic sentiment all tugging at prices. 

Crude flat prices have been somewhat volatile but have on the whole suffered over the last month or two. Diesel timespreads (or “spreads”), which measure the physical need either to store barrels or release barrels from storage, have historically been a reliable indicator of broader market trends and of economic growth. Recent disruptions, however, suggest that traders must look beyond even this proxy to understand the evolving landscape fully. What’s more, the increasing complexity of supply chains, the rise of alternative energy sources, and shifting regulatory frameworks further complicate market assessments, making a more comprehensive approach to analysis essential.

Disruptions in short-term market indicators

Over the past few months, diesel spreads probably failed as a reliable indicator of medium-term oil demand. A major driver of this distortion was extreme weather conditions in Europe and North America. Cold spells, more frequent and severe than in previous years, led to increased heating fuel demand and logistical disruptions. This distorted pricing signals, creating regional shortages and surpluses that do not necessarily align with average conditions in the market expected through the year. Furthermore, ongoing supply chain constraints and transportation inefficiencies have exacerbated these distortions, making it increasingly difficult to predict market trends using conventional indicators alone.

Recent market indicators illustrate this complexity. The March ICE Gas oil contract expired at an exceptionally high level of “backwardation” at roughly +$20 per tonne, suggesting significant tightness in the physical market. This contradicts other market movements, such as the so-called "Trump Slump," which drove crude flat prices down substantially over parts of Q1, alongside US equities (crude has since made some recovery on supply concerns brought about by US sanctions on Iran and Venezuela).

Diesel cracks, a measure of the economics of refining crude into diesel, weakened from $21 per barrel to below $17 since mid-February, leading some to conclude that the market is beginning to reflect an oversupply issue. However, a deeper analysis of current spreads, particularly post-winter, as well as refinery economics, suggests that fundamentals may not be as bearish as headline numbers imply.

The key indicators traders should watch

While diesel spreads this winter likely overestimated medium-term oil demand and the broader state of global economic growth, they still remain a more reliable indicator than the crude flat price, particularly with cold weather impacts fading. In fact crude oil, diesel, and other fuels markets are “backwardated”, which signals little incentive or need to store barrels. A contango structure, which incentivises storage, has not been observed for an extended period, reinforcing the view that immediate supply/demand conditions are not overly loose. This divergence between futures market pricing and physical market pricing highlights the importance of a multi-layered approach to analysis.

Refinery margins provide another critical signal. Despite broader economic concerns, margins remain historically healthy, even after a sentiment-driven sell-off in diesel cracks specifically (since diesel demand in theory suffers the most during a recession). High sulphur fuel oil and naphtha cracks are also strong, indicating a need for maintaining high refinery operating rates.

This comes at a time when the refining sector is already facing a significant reduction in capacity and with little evidence thus far of a demand collapse implied by markets. Approximately 400,000 barrels per day of refining capacity will be lost in Europe due to upcoming closures, including Grangemouth and several German refineries. In the US, LyondellBasell's Houston refinery has already shut down, and further closures are possible later in the year on the US West Coast.

Refinery closures and their market impact

One of the critical unknowns in the months ahead is the extent to which refinery closures are already priced into the market. While traders actively factor in expected changes, the full impact of these closures may not be realised until inventories begin to decline. Much attention has been paid to the new Dangote refinery in Nigeria, which has almost fully ramped up already. This additional capacity should be offset by losses elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere.

A key signal to watch will be the arbitrage movement of Middle Eastern & Indian barrels to Europe. Over the past few months, Europe has not had to rely heavily on Middle Eastern imports. However, if these arbitrage routes reopen consistently (via prices), that will be indication of tightening conditions and an increasing need for external supply. Refinery closures often have a lagging impact, as inventories act as a buffer in the initial stages. However, supply constraints will likely become more apparent as stocks deplete, particularly in distillate markets.

Supply chains may also be whip-sawed by renewed tensions in the Red Sea. The trade route through the Suez Canal, closed off due to Houthi attacks for some time now, had looked likely to reopen more completely in recent weeks, drastically cutting diesel transit times to Europe. But recent renewed tensions look likely to cut the nascent recovery short.

The refining sector's response

With steady demand at least for now, the Western Hemisphere's refining sector is positioned for a period of moderate bullishness. Strong margins should incentivise refiners to maximise throughput where possible, but this will not be enough to fully offset the lost capacity. As a result, regional imbalances are likely to persist, contributing to localised price volatility and disruptions in supply chains. All this is also ultimately bullish for the outright price of oil.

What is more, new refining capacity in China is unlikely to alleviate global supply constraints significantly. Many of the country's additions are focused on petrochemical feedstock production rather than diesel and gasoline output. Furthermore, China's long-term strategy involves rationalising its refining sector, particularly in Shandong, by phasing out older units. Consequently, while new capacity is coming online, its net contribution to the global supply of road fuels will be less than expected.

India is another country to watch here and it continues to expand its refining footprint, positioning itself as a growing force in the global downstream market. However, the extent to which Indian refining capacity can offset declines in other regions remains uncertain, and some domestic supply will go to servicing domestic growth in oil demand – India is one of the primary sources of global growth here.

China's slowing growth and India's rise

The shifting dynamics of Chinese oil demand growth remain a significant uncertainty for global markets. While official statistics are often unreliable, crude import data provides a clearer picture of underlying trends. In 2024, China experienced a notable slowdown in oil imports, exerting downward pressure on the crude market. Given China's dominant position in global seaborne crude imports, a decline of 500,000 to one million barrels per day has significant market implications, however the market managed to absorb these losses reasonably well.

At the end of 2024, Chinese agencies forecasted another substantial decline in domestic gasoil demand for 2025. This raises two possible scenarios: China will reduce crude imports again, creating a bearish environment for crude prices, or it will increase refined product exports, weighing on refining margins elsewhere. While neither scenario has fully materialised yet, this remains a key factor to watch for global markets, and also with respect to ongoing stimulus efforts from the Chinese government.

The 'missing barrel' phenomenon

One persistent challenge in oil market analysis is the so-called 'missing barrel' phenomenon, the discrepancy between reported supply figures and observable market conditions. Year to date, the inventory picture looks substantially tighter than official supply vs demand statistics and forecasts suggest.

This discrepancy complicates market outlooks, as some traders base decisions on official data while others rely on observed physical conditions. The timespread structure is the most reliable way to cut through this noise. A highly backwardated market reflects more genuine tightness in physical supply, regardless of what balance sheets suggest. With this in mind, any successful ratcheting up of efforts to cut down on oil exports from Venezuela and Iran as part of US foreign policy would be a bullish black swan scenario for the market this year.

Macroeconomic developments, particularly trade policies and potential tariff escalations, which could alter global end-user demand patterns, will eventually shape the market, but over the course of the next few quarters. While economic concerns continue to dominate sentiment, supply-side factors, especially refining capacity reductions, will likely support product prices in the near term.

In this environment, traders must go beyond traditional indicators and focus on real-time physical market conditions. With structural tightness persisting in multiple product markets, the broader narrative of weakening oil demand may not hold up for long under closer scrutiny.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/08/2025 - 14:20

Amazon Prime Day Kicks Off With Disappointing Early Sales

Amazon Prime Day Kicks Off With Disappointing Early Sales

U.S. consumer health remains a mixed picture. Goldman Sachs sees signs of cautious optimism, while UBS highlights a rebound in confidence among low-income households. Still, stubborn inflation and high interest rates persist, casting a dark cloud over long-term outlooks.

New data from Momentum Commerce offers an early snapshot of Amazon's Prime Day performance, with sales down 14% in the first four hours compared to the same period last year, according to Bloomberg. It's not the kind of number investors were hoping to see as a high-frequency snapshot of midsummer consumer sentiment, and it may signal deeper caution among shoppers. 

Momentum Commerce, which manages $7 billion in Amazon sales across brands like Crocs and Beats, provides uniquely valuable data often viewed as a barometer of consumer sentiment and the broader U.S. economic outlook. Investors appeared to take the report negatively, with Amazon shares down 1.5% in early afternoon trading in New York. 

Bloomberg noted weaknesses could be attributed to:

  • Prime Day expanded from 2 to 4 days this year, complicating year-over-year comparisons.

  • Consumers may be waiting for deeper discounts. 

  • Tariffs imposed by the Trump administration are discouraging deep sales from sellers, unable to capture sales from value-seeking consumers. 

Other observations of the sale:

  • Amazon's own devices, like Echo, saw fewer discounts this year.

  • Essentials, not tech, are driving competition, with deep discounts on groceries rather than electronics. So, back to basics.

  • Apple offered standout deals, including AirPods 4 at $89, cheaper than last Black Friday.

Ah, yes, the usual malarkey from Amazon sellers... 

Consumers aren't rushing to panic-buy junk from China on the e-commerce platform. While multiple factors may be at play, one undeniable reality remains: as we've noted repeatedly, the consumer is still under pressure. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/08/2025 - 14:00

Ugly, Tailing 3Y Auction Sees Record Directs As Foreign Demand Slides

Ugly, Tailing 3Y Auction Sees Record Directs As Foreign Demand Slides

With bond long-ends blowing up across the globe, driven by among other things, justified fears of a looming surge in supply, moments ago the US Treasury sold $58 billion in 3Y notes. And while the auction consisted of relatively low duration paper, one could feel modest cracks in demand all the way near the front-end of the curve.

Here's what happened: the auction prices at a high yield of 3.891%, this was about 9bps lower from the 3.972% last month, but it tailed the When Issued 3.887% by 0.4bps, the same tail as June and the 4th tail in the past 5 auctions.

The bid to cover was also subpar at 2.51, down from 2.52 last month, and the lowest since April as well as below the six-auction average of 2.61. 

It was the internals that were most notable however, with Indirects awarded 54.1%, the lowest since Dec 2023, and with Dealers getting 16.5%, in line with the 15.1% recent average, Directs were left with a whopping 29.4%, the highest on record as they salvaged today's auction which saw foreign bidders fade away.

Overall, this was an ugly, tailing 3Y auction which saw foreign demand slump and only the record surge in Directs managed to avoid what would have been a very ugly outcome to the short-end of the yield curve on a day when the long-end is already blowing up.

Not surprisingly, 10Y yields are trading near session highs with the news of the ugly auction not helping one bit. 

 

 

 

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/08/2025 - 13:47

Illiquid, Overvalued

Illiquid, Overvalued

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

As "dip buyers" get eviscerated, more dominos fall, and at a tipping point, the herd realizes the tide has reversed and it's time to sell--but alas, it's too late.

Illiquid, Overvalued describes a great many assets that are on the books as "rock-solid investments." Illiquidity means there are few if any buyers for the asset being offered for sale, and this can arise from various conditions.

1. Credit is tight and expensive, limiting the pool of potential buyers to those with cash.

2. Nobody wants the assets because they're grossly overvalued.

3. The pool of buyers with the expertise and financial backing needed to buy the asset is inherently limited.

4. "Animal spirits" have left the room and buyers are "on strike" due to caution / fear of future losses.

Bill Ackman outlined some useful principles of illiquidity in a recent commentary on X in his discussion of the illiquid nature of many assets held by Ivy league university endowment funds:

"Harvard's endowment is principally invested in illiquid private assets including real estate, private equity, and venture capital funds.

Real estate and private equity funds are highly levered so relatively small changes in asset values can have a large impact on equity values. For example, if a real estate fund's asset values decline by 15% and the assets are levered 60%, the fund's equity value will decline by 37.5%.

The increase in cap rates and interest rates have impaired real estate and private equity asset values. These funds do not generally mark to market as public assets are marked leading to a wide disparity between public values and private values when overall values decline.

Venture funds generally mark their assets to the last round valuation so these marks can also be overstated as these values can become stale.

I believe that a substantial part of the reason why many private assets remain private despite the stock market near all time highs is that the public market will value private assets at lower values than they are being carried at privately."

In other words, assets held privately can be "marked to fantasy" because they're not exposed to the market's appraisal of their liquidity and value, which are two sides of one coin: if nobody has the cash and willingness to buy the asset, its value is essentially zero, regardless of its "book value."

When Alan Greenspan issued his mea culpa in late 2013 about missing the subprime mortgage implosion and the resulting Global Financial Meltdown (Why I Didn't See the Crisis Coming Foreign Affairs), he identified two sources of his failure to "see it coming":

1. He assumed markets would remain liquid, i.e. that a buyer would emerge for every seller

2. The total failure of everyone's sophisticated models to predict the collapse of confidence.

The core failure lay in the models' reliance on the notion that humans make decisions rationally as Homo economicus, when the reality is we are extremely prone to irrational exuberance (a.k.a. running with the euphorically greedy herd) and panic (running off the cliff with the herd). He invoked Keynes famous "animal spirits" as the missing variable in economic models.

Irrational "animal spirits" generate "tail risk," events that supposedly happen only rarely but when they do happen, they trigger outsized consequences, and the Fed's models failed to accurately account for "tail risk" because they happen more often than statistical models predict.

All this boils down to illiquidity caused by a panic-button urgency to sell and a profound reluctance to buy: When "animal spirits" are confident in ever-higher asset valuations, participants place a constant bid under the market because prices will keep going up so I'll make more money. This constant bid is called liquidity: cash is flowing into the asset class, be it stocks or housing or cryptocurrencies or commodities.

When "animal spirits" turn to panic, sellers rush to sell as buyers vanish as they fear that prices will keep going down so I'll lose more money. Buying into a downtrend is known as "catching the falling knife": the initial "buy the dip" players have their heads handed to them on a platter, and those on the sidelines decide not to try to catch the falling knife.

This is an illiquid market: the bid keeps dropping until buyers are willing to gamble that "this is the bottom." But should asset prices continue sliding after an initial euphoric pop higher--"the bottom is in, buy!"--then those who held back find their caution reinforced: that wasn't the bottom after all, and everyone who jumped in lost money.

As every surge of "buy the dip" players loses, the market goes bidless--everyone who wanted to play "catch the falling knife" has been burned, and those who have lost the "animal spirits" to gamble stay out. Bids (offers to buy) dry up and asset prices crash to levels no one in the greed-euphoria stage could imagine were even remotely possible.

Those who follow liquidity assume that the more cash sloshing around the system, the more money will flow into assets. But this assumes participants are rational and prices are "fair value". When panic takes hold of the herd, no matter how much cash is sloshing around, none of it will be gambled on a losing bet.

Take a look at this chart of the Nasdaq dot-com bubble, and note the bubble symmetry: what shot up soon plummeted back to pre-bubble levels. Stocks that had reached $60 per share were recommended as "buys" at $45--a rational play perhaps, but wildly off the mark, as the stock eventually bottomed at $4.

When sellers desperate to sell swamp buyers, prices decline. If bids dry up, prices crash.

There is a domino-like effect to euphoria /liquidity turning to caution and then to panic / illiquidity. When overvalued illiquid private assets are sold at huge discounts, this topples the first domino of caution in professional money managers, who then move to sell the overvalued assets on their books to credulous "retail" investors and overseas buyers.

As "dip buyers" get eviscerated, more dominos fall, and at a tipping point, the herd realizes the tide has reversed and it's time to sell--but alas, it's too late.

The Federal Reserve can pump billions of dollars of credit "liquidity" into the financial system, but if nobody wants to "catch the falling knife," the credit will just sit there untouched, as everyone who was dumb enough to borrow money and gamble it away--leaving the debt still to pay--has already been wiped out.

Illiquid and overvalued: two sides of the same coin.

*  *  *

Check out my new book Ultra-Processed Life and my new fiction/novels page.

Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

Subscribe to my Substack for free

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/08/2025 - 12:45

NY Fed Inflation Expectations Tumble To Pre-Tariff Levels, As Consumer Sentiment Blossoms

NY Fed Inflation Expectations Tumble To Pre-Tariff Levels, As Consumer Sentiment Blossoms

So much for the Democrats' panic that the US is about to be hit with hyperinflation (because Toyota is footing US tariff costs). 

Moments ago, the NY Fed reported that consumer expectations for future inflation have return to levels last seen at the beginning of the year, before the announcement of aggressive new tariffs, as the fake panic that Trump is about to spark the same runaway inflation that his predecessor unleashed, fade away. 

The June survey showed median expectations for consumer price increases one year ahead decreased for the second straight month in June, falling back to 3%, back to where they were at the end of 2024 and before Trump had launched his tariff strategy. Estimates for annualized inflation three and five years ahead remained unchanged at 3% and 2.6%. Inflation uncertainty, or the uncertainty expressed regarding future inflation outcomes, decreased at the one- and three-year-ahead horizons and was unchanged at the five-year-ahead horizon

Median home price growth expectations remained unchanged at 3.0%. This series has been moving in a narrow range between 3.0% and 3.3% since August 2023.

Median year-ahead commodity price change expectations increased by 1.5 percentage points for gas to 4.2%, by 1.9 percentage points for the cost of medical care to 9.3% (the highest level since June 2023), by 1.6 percentage points for the cost of college education to 9.1%, and by 0.7 percentage point for rent to 9.1%. Median year-ahead expected change in food prices remained unchanged at 5.5%.

Overall household sentiment also benefited, as unemployment and job loss expectations improved. To wit, mean unemployment expectation, or the mean probability that the U.S. unemployment rate will be higher one year from no, decreased by 1.1 percentage point to 39.7%...

... while the mean perceived probability of losing one’s job in the next 12 months decreased by 0.8% to 14.0%, the lowest level since December 2024. The decrease was broad-based across age and education groups

Median one-year-ahead earnings growth expectations fell by 0.2 percentage point to 2.5% in June, remaining below its 12-month trailing average of 2.8%. The series has been moving within the range between 2.5% and 3.0% since May 2021

While spending growth expectations slightly declined, household income growth expectations increased: the median expected growth in household income increased by 0.2 percentage point to 2.9% in June, equaling its 12-month trailing average.

Households were also more optimistic about their year-ahead financial situations and credit access

Finally, after sliding to a record low 33.8% in March, household expectations for higher stock prices one year from now rose to 36.0%...

... and while expectations for growth in government debt also rose to a 7.3% annual increase, the highest since October, the real number will be much, much higher now that Trump's BBB (and future US credit rating) has passed.

 

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/08/2025 - 12:25

Will Japan's Rice Price Shock Lead To Government Collapse And Spark A Global Bond Crisis

Will Japan's Rice Price Shock Lead To Government Collapse And Spark A Global Bond Crisis

A little over a month ago, we first (and the Economist about a month later), summarized the plight of Japan's soaring inflation and contracting economy with one word: rice.... well, technically it was a few more words. This is what we said:

What is ironic, is that Japan does not actually have high core inflation; it does however have soaring rice prices which have skewed inflation expectations across the population as rice is a huge component of the overall CPI basket. Meanwhile the BOJ is scrambling to contain inflation - which has tumbled ex food with real wages near record lows - and is tightening conditions by raising rates even though it has zero control over food inflation. However, as a by product of its monetary policies and strong yen, the bond market is crashing every day now, and soon this bond crash will spread to Japan's banks and global markets, sparking a global crisis.  

TL/DR: Japan will unleash the next financial crash because the Japanese are now poor farmers.

Fast forward to today when, with just two weeks until a critical election in Japan, attention is finally turning to this most important commodity for Japan... and perhaps the world. And it starts with Japan's Nikkei profiling what we said was ground zero of Japan's inflation crisis: rice farmers. 

On a lush green plain bordered by mountains in northern Japan's Yamagata prefecture, Nobuhiko Kurosawa does what 20 generations of his family have done before him: He grows rice. There is, however, a problem. 

Tending to seedlings under a piercing June sun, Kurosawa finds himself in territory unfamiliar to his predecessors. A shortage of the commodity kickstarted by an extreme 2023 heat wave and compounded by an inability of the zombified, extremely heavily-subsidized local rice industry to quickly adapt to changing conditions, has sent rice prices skyrocketing, doubling within a year. 

That shortage has brought rationing of sales in big-city supermarkets and made the humble staple of the Japanese diet the focus of a fierce cost-of-living debate in a campaign for an election to the upper house of parliament on July 20. Were the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to lose its existing majority in the upper house, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's position could be at risk, sparking a political crisis in Japan that could have profound consequences for both fiscal and monetary policy, not only in Japan but across the globe.

From his 30 hectares of paddies, Kurosawa supplies rice far and wide, from a nearby rice ball shop to businesses across Japan and overseas.

"We received inquiries from new customers, but we were unable to sell to them because we already had contracts with existing customers," he told Nikkei Asia. "Our company also experienced a shortage of rice, and last year we had no choice but to narrow down our business partners before the summer."

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ishiba leads his conservative LDP toward the upper house elections with moribund approval ratings hovering in the mid-30% range, and inflation identified as the biggest issue of concern among survey respondents, according to a Nikkei/TV Tokyo poll. Just like in the US before Trump crushed Kamala Harris in every battleground state. 

Having lost its majority in lower house elections under Ishiba's stewardship last year, the LDP, the dominant force in Japanese politics for much of the last 70 years, needs to hold on to the slim majority it holds in the upper house, with a coalition partner, or face daunting challenges in pursuing a policy program as a minority administration in both houses. If the LDP performs poorly, Ishiba's premiership will be in doubt, the Nikkei warns. 

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, left, speaks at a meeting on stabilizing rice supply, flanked by recently appointed Agriculture Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, July 1.

He faces a daunting uphill climb: the outrage around the soaring price of rice - hitting its highest this year for 30 years - has coursed through mainstream and social media debate in Japan for months. Recently even Donald Trump weighed in, criticizing Japan for not agreeing in increasingly tough trade talks to tackle the crisis by importing more U.S. rice, a move that would be viewed in a dim light by Japan's farming lobby, a key LDP electoral base. It would, however, send the price of rice plunging, demonstrating once again just why government subsidies are always a two-edged sword.

"The rice shortage that began in the summer of 2024 was due to a shortage of rice produced in 2023," according to Masayoshi Honma, distinguished professor at the Asian Growth Research Institute. "To compensate for this, advance purchases of 2024 crop rice have also occurred, driving up prices."

Last year, demand for rice also surged due to the growing number of foreign visitors to Japan - a record 37 million - thanks to the plunging yen (which in turn sparked a burst of non-rice inflation higher) as well as a growing appetite for dining out and the relative affordability of rice compared to bread and noodles, said Kunio Nishikawa, a professor at Ibaraki University specializing in agricultural economics. Overall, Nishikawa calculates, "a supply-demand gap" of approximately 440,000 tons developed, an amount he estimates to be the equivalent of 1.8 months' rice sales volume at supermarkets nationwide in Japan.

Since then, Japanese television news and talk shows have been filled with daily reports on people waiting in lines to buy rice, how to cook old rice so that it still tastes good and politicians' statements about rice. In May a furor engulfed the then-agriculture minister after he said he had never bought rice himself as it was always presented to him as a gift by supporters.

Former prime ministerial aspirant Shinjiro Koizumi, a rising star in the LDP and son of a former premier, was swiftly appointed agriculture minister with a brief to get a grip on the rice crisis. Koizumi immediately pledged to halve rice prices to 2,000 yen ($14) per 5 kilograms, releasing government-stockpiled supplies in late May. Emergency stockpile sales, however, were promptly halted just hours later, after retailers snapped up all they could buy in apparent rationing amid soaring demand Still, shelves in the capital Tokyo are frequently empty as of early July as stores sell out, often rationing sales to one bag per family per day.

Which goes back to what we said almost two months ago: because the Japanese have become poor rice farmers, a global financial may be imminent. Some more background.

While many in Japan seek out rice for daily consumption, as the world's fourth-biggest economy has developed (not to mention aged), so too have tastes for fancier and foreign foods. Demand for rice as a staple has dropped over recent decades to levels well below those seen in developing economies - to 73.5 kilograms per capita in 2022, according to World Population Review, equal to a third of Vietnam's consumption. 

As production of staple rice for Japanese consumers has fallen broadly in line with the demand decline in recent decades, production of rice for other uses - including animal feedstock and a small amount of exports - has begun to take off.

Shunsuke Orikasa, chief researcher at the Distribution Economics Institute of Japan, points out that as a result of a prolonged surplus of rice before 2023, "The price of rice had fallen to the point where producers would incur losses if they continued to grow rice as usual. For farmers, it was more profitable to switch to producing rice for non-staple use as instructed by the government and receive subsidies for it, so they moved toward reducing the amount of rice produced for the table."

And then prices exploded.

Back in Yamagata, farmer Kurosawa said the delicate staple rice supply-demand balance has been upended. "Japan has been producing just enough to meet demand, so the extreme heat of the year before last was too much to handle," he said.

On the other end of the supply chain, consumers are also concerned about the long term. A 26-year-old man living in Tokyo told Nikkei Asia he used to eat rice every day, but has changed habits due to the rise in rice prices since last summer.

People line up outside a store in Tokyo before opening hours to buy rice released from government stockpiles, June 1.

"I've started eating pasta and udon noodles instead of rice, and I buy rice less often," he said. While he welcomed lower prices since Agriculture Minister Koizumi was appointed, "I can't say I approve of him because I don't know what will happen to rice prices in the long term, and I don't plan to go to vote."

A 54-year-old woman living in Kanagawa Prefecture to the west of Tokyo said she also now shops differently. "The branded rice I used to buy online became too expensive, so I stopped buying it," she said.  "However, since rice is something I eat every day, I now buy rice sold at a nearby cheap supermarket."

She welcomed Koizumi's intervention, saying, "If he had not been in power, we would have had to buy rice at a higher price, so I'm grateful." But she added, "I don't want the LDP to become a one-party system, so I won't vote for them."

There is some good news: according to Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, the average price of rice at supermarkets dropped 3.0% in the week to June 22, the latest date for which numbers are available, versus the previous week. But the news is mostly bad: at 3,801 yen per 5kg bag, the price was still up 71% year-on-year, although granted the price had been twice as high as the same period last year until recently.

Japan's image as a global giant in rice is rooted in history: According to U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization data, it was the world's fifth-biggest producer in 1970, but by 2020 it was in 11th position, one rank behind the U.S.

That decline began when Japan's government implemented a policy of reducing staple rice production to maintain prices, starting around 1970, in part to retain the support of the farming lobby for the LDP, which has been in power for all but a few years since the mid-1950s. Although the policy was abolished in 2018, production adjustments continued through the system, such as subsidies for converting to other crops such as feed rice.

 

Yoshihisa Godo, professor at Meiji Gakuin University, said that what Japan is now dealing with is not a "rice shortage," but a "shortage of staple rice." The conversion of staple rice paddies to other crops has progressed, and the area of non-staple rice paddies has increased to more than 10% of total rice cultivation, according to Godo.

Amid the change in the rice business, the role of Japan Agriculture (JA), the national cooperative organization through which many farmers do business, is changing. Kazuhiro Koutsusa, a former JA employee and agricultural management consultant, said the percentage of rice sold through agricultural co-ops has declined significantly compared to several decades ago. Farmers can now communicate with buyers while working in the fields, finding customers themselves thanks to the spread of mobile phones, social media and the internet.

While the current staple rice price is roughly double that of last year, it remains at the same level as 30 years ago. In fact, Shigeru Someya, a rice farmer in Chiba Prefecture near Tokyo, said, "The rice prices of just a few years ago were less than half of what they were 30 years ago."

Over the past few decades, the cost of machinery, materials, and fertilizers used in rice farming has risen, Someya said. At the time, the selling price of rice not only failed to increase but actually declined. Along with industrialization in adjacent areas offering new job prospects, that contributed to many abandoning rice farming. Someya currently cultivates rice on approximately 155 hectares of paddies, but the expansion of his operation was made possible by the fact that around 350 to 400 farming households that used to operate around his farm ceased rice production.

* * * 

The government's efforts to tackle rice price rises have been met with skepticism from the rice industry, with farmers and experts dismissing them as merely election-year measures that don't address structural problems.

"Everything Koizumi is doing is election strategy; he is not talking about fundamental reform," said Asian Growth Research Institute professor Honma, and he is right: what Koizumi is doing is literally identical to what Joe Biden did when he drained half of the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve to keep gas prices low in 2022 and 2023.

For the Distribution Economics Institute of Japan's chief researcher Orikasa, the issue has wider implications. "From a broader perspective, the government's attempt to control the price of a specific commodity in a free market economy is a challenge to capitalism," he said.

Farmer Someya, meanwhile, expressed concern about Koizumi's introduction of a standard price of 2,000 yen per 5kg bag. "While the government might say, 'It's 2,000 yen because it's stockpiled rice,' consumers might come to see 2,000 yen as the standard price even for new rice," Someya said.

In the meantime, Japanese consumers are showing greater interest in imported rice than ever before, indicating a potential solution at least for buyers. Imports of staple food rice, subject to high tariffs, exceeded 10,000 metric tons for the first time in May, an increase of 126 times from the monthly average last year, according to data from the Ministry of Finance.

Aeon, Japan's largest retailer, began selling blends of Japanese and American rice in April. In early June, it started selling California-grown Calrose rice, which it says is "selling better than expected."

Reflecting at the end of a long day in his Yamagata paddies, farmer Kurosawa didn't hide his concern for the future.

"The Japanese government has already released most of its rice reserves, so if this summer turns out to be as hot as the year before last, it could be disastrous," he said. "If we have no reserves left and the quality of the rice has deteriorated due to the extreme heat, Japan may have to import a considerable amount. The food problem is not [just] a problem for farmers, but a problem for everyone who eats."

At that time, Japan's rice inflation - which also happens to be a component of the country's core CPI - will explode and spark total chaos at the BOJ which will be scrambling to hike rates just because Japan's farmers are unable to feed the country's giant appetite for rice; in the process they will spark an economic depression.

Turning to the political dimension of the rice crisis, Bloomberg chimes in and writes that "a shortage of rice in Japan has caused the price of the household staple to surge, exacerbating the country’s cost of living challenges and fueling resentment among the population."

As of June, a 5-kilogram bag of rice cost on average ¥4223 ($29.15) — almost double what it did a year ago. In some cases schools have cut back on the days they serve rice for lunch. Shops and restaurants have hiked the prices of their rice dishes.

A year ago, a 5kg bag of rice cost about ¥2,130. In May this year it had doubled to roughly ¥4,280.

With people angry over the record high prices, the issue has the potential to inflict damage on Ishiba and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in elections this July.  

The problem for Japan is that the outrage against Ishiba comes at a crucial time for Japan (the world's most indebted nation by far): when it is facing a domestic fiscal crisis, coupled with trade war with the US.

In a note published today by SocGen's Jin Kanzaki (available to pro subscribers), the strategist reminds us that the Upper House election is scheduled for 20 July, and writes that following the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election held on 22 June, the LDP is no longer the largest party there. However, both the cabinet's and the ruling party’s (LDP and Komeito) approval ratings in early June rose by 6.0 and 4.7%, respectively, from May. This rise is thought to be due to a degree of appreciation for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Koizumi's efforts to lower rice prices, namely dumping emergency stockpiled rice at low prices (in the process assuring much higher prices in the long-term). However, a survey conducted at the end of June showed that approval ratings for the cabinet and the ruling party had again fallen by 5.0 and 4.0%, respectively, from early June.

The election will test the performance of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s minority government and the opposition parties. Key issues include inflation countermeasures—such as consumption tax cuts and cash handouts—and social security reform. A total of 522 candidates are expected to run for 125 contested seats, with the ruling coalition aiming to secure a majority when combined with its 75 non-contested seats. Opposition parties seek to prevent the ruling bloc from winning a majority of the contested seats. The outcome of tariff negotiations with the US, government efforts to lower rice prices, and the results in 32 single-member districts (where vote splitting among opposition candidates could benefit the ruling party) are expected to influence the election

As the ruling LDP has 75 seats that are not up for re-election this time, it can secure a majority with just 50 seats. Assuming that Komeito wins 10 seats and that the LDP wins a record low of 12 seats under the proportional representation system and one seat in each of the 13 multi-seat districts, the number of seats the LDP must win in single-seat districts to avoid losing its majority will be 15 seats. But given that the opposition parties are split among themselves while there are only 32 single-seat districts and the cabinet’s and ruling party’s approval ratings are declining again, at this stage SocGen only sees a 50-50 chance of the ruling party being able to maintain its majority.

There's much more in the full note (see here), but here is SocGen's conclusion on the four most likely scenarios following the Upper House election:

Scenario 1 (50%): the ruling party maintains its majority

  • The ruling party maintains its majority and Prime Minister Ishiba continues in office. In this case, cash payments will be implemented as part of the autumn economic measures, fiscal concerns will subside, and long-term interest rates will remain stable.

Scenario 2 (20%): the ruling party loses its majority and the next PM is Koizumi or Hayashi

  • The ruling party loses its majority and Prime Minister Ishiba resigns. However, the ruling party will continue to form the government with a minority in both houses of the Diet as the opposition parties will refuse to join the coalition government. Either Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Shinjiro Koizumi or Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi are likely to be selected as the next prime minister. In this case, as part of the autumn economic measures, the consumption tax rate on food will be lowered to 5% and the provisional tax rate on gasoline abolished. Meanwhile, long-term interest rates will rise initially, but eventually return to the level of Scenario 1.

Scenario 3 (20%): the ruling party loses its majority and the next PM is Takaichi

  • The ruling party loses a majority, and Prime Minister Ishiba resigns. However, the ruling party will continue to form the government with a minority in both houses of the Diet while the opposition parties will not join the coalition government. Former Minister of Economic Security Takaichi will be selected as the next prime minister. Under this scenario, as part of the autumn economic measures, the consumption tax rate on food will be lowered to 0%, while long-term interest rates will rise from the beginning of the government’s term and remain high. In addition, the view that the BoJ will postpone rate hikes will become stronger, so the yield curve will steepen.

Scenario 4 (10%): a coalition government centred on the opposition parties is formed

  • The ruling party loses its majority, and Prime Minister Ishiba resigns. As a result, a coalition government centred on the opposition parties (opposition parties + ruling party or opposition alliance) will be formed. Under this scenario, as part of the autumn economic measures, the consumption tax rate on food will be lowered to 0% and the provisional tax rate on gasoline abolished, so long-term interest rates will rise significantly from the beginning of the government’s term and remain high.

Bottom line: according to the French bank, there is a 50% chance that the outcome of the Japanese election in two weeks leads to a government crisis, which sends bonds yields in Japan soaring. And since global rates - especially at the long-end - are painfully interconnected in this day and age of soaring budget deficits, a bond market crash in Japan would also immediately result in a bond crisis around the globe.

Finally, what does all this mean for the yen? For one answer, we go to UBS Japan Execution Sales trader Sara Onozato who writes that "USDJPY is showing more signs of stagnation, with limited movement due to a lack of strong buying incentives for the yen and ongoing dollar selling driven by expectations of US interest rate cuts."

As of June 30, the yen was trading around 144, with minimal monthly depreciation compared to more pronounced shifts in April and May. This stagnation is attributed to simultaneous weakness in both currencies. The dollar index has fallen to its lowest level since February 2022, while the yen has also weakened against European currencies, reaching 170 in EURJPY and 182 in CHFJPY.

In the futures market, net short positions in the dollar against major currencies have reached their largest levels in nearly two years. This trend is driven by expectations that the Federal Reserve Borad (FRB) is leaning toward a more dovish stance, favoring interest rate cuts. Market participants have fully priced in two rate cuts in the second half of the year and anticipate further declines in interest rates and a weaker dollar. Speculative net long positions in the yen are still high, limiting further upside.

The outcome of tariff negotiations between Japan and the United States is seen as a key factor, with the July 9 deadline approaching. The US administration has maintained a firm stance on imposing a 25% tariff on Japanese automobiles and criticized Japan for not importing US rice. The BoJ’s Tankan survey released on July 1 showed an unexpected improvement in business sentiment among large manufacturers. If tariff uncertainty clears, the BoJ could raise rates as early as September, potentially pushing the yen to 140 against the US. Conversely, stalled tariff negotiations could lead to further yen depreciation. The House of Councillors election on July 20 adds another layer of political uncertainty, especially after the ruling coalition lost seats in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election.

UBS concludes that while most expect USDJPY to remain rangebound between 142 and 146, several key developments could push the pair beyond this range. A move toward 140 could occur if uncertainty around US-Japan auto tariffs is resolved and broader sentiment improves, especially following the BoJ’s recent Tankan survey, which showed an unexpected uptick in business confidence. This, on top of expectations for a BoJ rate hike, could create conditions that support yen strength. In contrast, USDJPY could climb toward 150 if tariff negotiations stall, triggering yen selling—particularly as many companies are expecting a smooth resolution. Political uncertainty from the upcoming House of Councillors election could further weigh on the yen.

Structural factors - such as Japan’s persistent trade deficit and the BoJ’s distance from rate hikes -may also limit yen appreciation, even amid broader dollar weakness. Overall, July could bring renewed volatility, with USDJPY direction hinging on how these economic and political events unfold.

Much more in the Socgen and UBS notes available to pro subs.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/08/2025 - 12:11

Unmasking Russia-China Kamikaze Drone Supply Chain In One Map 

Unmasking Russia-China Kamikaze Drone Supply Chain In One Map 

After Russia invaded Ukraine, the Russian firm Aero-HIT emerged as a top drone supplier for Moscow's war effort, relying heavily on overseas partnerships with Chinese companies to bypass Western sanctions to ramp up production of kamikaze drones. 

Internal documents obtained by Bloomberg reveal how Aero-HIT—backed by the Russian government and supported by Chinese entities like Autel Robotics—worked to manufacture thousands of FPV (First Person View) drones, such as the Veles, which have been deployed in Ukraine's Kherson region. Aero-HIT plans to scale production to 10,000 drones per month later this year.

"Taken together, the documents show how sensitive technologies can move from China to Russia even if President Xi Jinping's government says it's not supplying either side," Bloomberg journalist Alberto Nardelli wrote in the report. 

To grasp how radically FPV drones have transformed modern warfare, consider the recent remarks by Erik Prince, founder and former CEO of military contractor Blackwater.

Speaking at a Hillsdale College seminar titled "AI and the Future Battlefield," Prince highlighted how "citizen innovation" in weaponized FPVs has rendered traditional snipers nearly obsolete, extending the reach of battlefield lethality far beyond anything previously imaginable, from just 1,000 yards with a sniper scope to now miles. 

FPV drones can cost anywhere from several hundred to several thousand dollars, depending on their configuration. Bloomberg noted that one order of 100 Veles models was priced at around $1,000 per drone, according to a purchase order from March.

Here are the key points from the report: 

  • Aero-HIT launched in late 2022 with state support and aims to produce up to 10,000 drones per month, scaling to even more advanced models.

  • Despite Chinese company Autel Robotics officially denying any business with Russia, documents show cooperation on technology transfer, firmware, and production of the Autel EVO Max 4T.

  • A $90 million proposal outlines plans to localize Chinese drone tech in Russia, integrating it with domestic systems and producing up to 30,000 units annually.

  • The project involved former KGB-linked individuals, shell companies, and obscure intermediaries in agriculture, seafood, and airline catering to hide the supply chain.

  • As China imposed tighter drone export controls in late 2023, some Chinese firms pulled out, but others—like Shenzhen Huasheng Industry, which was later sanctioned—stepped in.

  • Russia's Ministry of Defense coordinated with Aero-HIT, ordering thousands of drones and integrating them into the military supply chain via sanctioned intermediaries like Renovatsio-Invest and Aeromar-DV.

Our supply chain risk analysis of Aero-HIT aligns closely with the conclusions in Bloomberg's report. Aero-HIT has commercial ties to Shenzhen Huasheng Industry, which in turn is connected to Autel Robotics. The commercial intelligence and data analytics platform we used, Sayari, then maps out Autel's broader network of suppliers. 

 

Bloomberg's report exposes how Russia has exploited private and semi-private Chinese firms—despite Beijing's claims of neutrality—to build a domestic drone industrial base for its war in Ukraine. We've taken it a step further, illustrating for readers exactly how this dark supply chain operates. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/08/2025 - 12:05

Los Angeles Mayor Confronts Federal Immigration Officers At MacArthur Park

Los Angeles Mayor Confronts Federal Immigration Officers At MacArthur Park

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

After weeks of decrying federal immigration enforcement operations in Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass confronted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers on July 7 as they gathered at a city park.

Some 100 ICE agents gathered just before 11 a.m. near MacArthur Park in the Westlake area, about two miles west of City Hall. The officers were in vans and some armored vehicles on the outskirts of the park.

The federal agents were wearing vests, and about a dozen Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers were riding horses into the park. They appeared to be staging for deportation activities.

The gathering gained media attention, spurring local activists and protesters to converge on the park.

MacArthur Park is in an area that is home to longstanding criminal street gangs, many affiliated with the Mexican cartels. The park has seen gang shootings, rampant drug use, discarded syringes, homelessness, and people with mental health issues.

Bass, who has repeatedly called for an end to immigration operations in the city, was captured on video arriving at the park before noon surrounded by security officers and walking up to federal officers. Several journalists yelled questions at the mayor as she tried to speak with officers.

One Border Patrol officer called a supervising officer before handing Bass his cellphone.

Bass was seen on news video speaking on the cellphone, saying: “You’re getting ready to leave? OK. Please, can you leave ASAP? What is the issue?”

The Border Patrol agent asked for his phone back from the mayor, telling her he was leaving.

Bass told journalists at the park that the federal law enforcement presence was “unacceptable.”

“They need to leave, and they need to leave right now,” she told reporters.

The agents left apparently without making arrests.

According to Fox News, the CBP official Bass spoke with was Chief Gregory Bovino of the agency’s El Centro Sector. Bovino told Fox News, “I don’t work for Karen Bass. Better get used to us now, cause this is going to be normal very soon. We will go anywhere, anytime we want in Los Angeles.”

People watch Customs and Border Protection agents ride an armored vehicle along Wilshire Boulevard near MacArthur Park in Los Angeles on July 7, 2025. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

The mayor, a former community activist and congresswoman, held a press conference with local groups to address the federal immigration operation.

“What happened in MacArthur Park is outrageous and un-American,” Bass posted on social media. “These raids must end.”

Bass was on her way to join a press conference east of Los Angeles in Pasadena with Gov. Gavin Newsom to mark the six-month anniversary of the destructive Palisades and Eaton fires.

Federal agents ride in multiple armored vehicles down Wilshire Boulevard near MacArthur Park in Los Angeles on July 7, 2025. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

While en route to the press conference, Bass said, she was alerted that there was an ICE operation at MacArthur Park.

“I turned around, we went to the park,” Bass said.

“To me, this is another example of the [Trump] administration ratcheting up chaos and deploying what looked like a military operation in an American City.”

Bass accused the operation of being a “political agenda provoking fear and terror.”

A children’s summer camp was being held at the park when federal officers arrived, according to the mayor.

“It’s outrageous and un-American that we have federal armed vehicles in our parks when nothing is going on in the parks,” she said.

“What I saw in the park today looked like a city under siege, under armed occupation. … The administration is continuing what I have framed as an all-out assault.”

Local activists and protesters have continued demonstrations throughout the region as immigration agents remained focused on the sanctuary city and state.

ICE officials did not immediately return a request for comment about the incident.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/08/2025 - 11:45

"No Extensions" - Trump Strikes Back Against TACO Talk With Aug. 1 Tariff Deadline

"No Extensions" - Trump Strikes Back Against TACO Talk With Aug. 1 Tariff Deadline

President Trump's social media team fired off a barrage of trade warning letters on Monday, including ones sent to Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Laos, Myanmar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Tunisia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Serbia, Cambodia, and Thailand. Each letter explained the new tariff rates—ranging from 25% to 40%—on goods exported from the respective country to the U.S.

The president announced on Tuesday via his social media platform, Truth Social, that more tariff warning letters will be sent out today, and that no further trade extensions will be granted. The hard deadline remains August 1—meaning countries that have yet to strike a deal with the Trump administration will soon begin paying levies on their products entering U.S. ports.

"As per letters sent to various countries yesterday, in addition to letters that will be sent today, tomorrow, and for the next short period of time, TARIFFS WILL START BEING PAID ON AUGUST 1, 2025," Trump wrote on Truth Social at 10:45 ET. 

He continued, "There has been no change to this date, and there will be no change. In other words, all money will be due and payable starting AUGUST 1, 2025 – No extensions will be granted. Thank you for your attention to this matter!" 

An overview of the letters issued thus far (as of Monday evening):

  • U.S. President Donald Trump announced plans to impose higher tariff rates of 25%-40% on key trading partners and signed an executive order holding off the new duties until August 1.

  • Tariffs on Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Kazakhstan and Tunisia, would be 25%, South Africa and Bosnia 30%, Indonesia 32%, Bangladesh and Serbia 35%, Thailand and Cambodia 36%, while Laos and Myanmar would face a 40% levy.

  • Meanwhile, Trump suggested the possibility of additional trade negotiations and delays at the White House shortly after he sent out the tariff letters, as he said the notifications were "not 100% firm". He also said the U.S. is close in making a deal with India.

  • White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said additional letters will arrive in the coming days.

Main takeaways:

  1. The deadline was pushed towards August 1 vs. July 9;

  2. Announced new tariff levels (effective on August 1) for 14 countries

  3. Trump said that the tariffs on each country would be separate from any "sectoral" tariffs that he imposes;

  4. We should expect more deals/letters coming: Leavitt said Trump will send more letters 

Goldman's take on the effects of implemented, expected, and/or proposed tariffs on the U.S. effective tariff rate...

The U.S. Dollar and UST10Y have been tracking higher since the European market opened...

*Developing... 

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/08/2025 - 11:15

Obama Judge Blocks Defunding Of Planned Parenthood In Trump's 'Big Bill'

Obama Judge Blocks Defunding Of Planned Parenthood In Trump's 'Big Bill'

Authored by Matt Margolis via PJMedia.com,

It’s almost impossible to overstate the sheer audacity of what’s just happened in Massachusetts. In a move that defies both logic and the very foundation of our constitutional order, an Obama-appointed judge has swooped in to protect Planned Parenthood from the will of the American people as expressed through their elected representatives. 

Judge Indira Talwani, sitting on the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, decided that Congress—yes, Congress—doesn’t actually get to decide how taxpayer money is spent, at least not when it comes to the Left’s sacred cow.

Let’s be clear: This wasn’t a rogue executive order or some bureaucratic sleight of hand. Congress passed a law. The people’s representatives, accountable to voters, made a decision to defund Planned Parenthood as part of the One Big, Beautiful Bill. That’s how our system is supposed to work. If you don’t like it, you organize, you vote, you persuade your fellow citizens and change the law. That’s democracy. But apparently, that’s not good enough for the activist bench.

Instead, Judge Talwani issued a temporary restraining order, telling the executive branch not to enforce the law. Not because the law was found unconstitutional or even legally questionable—no, the judge didn’t bother to offer any real legal reasoning at all. 

The ruling simply halted the will of Congress in its tracks, leaving Americans and even seasoned legal professionals scratching their heads. How does a judge order the executive branch to ignore a duly-enacted statute without first declaring that statute invalid? On what grounds? 

This isn’t just a technicality. It’s a direct assault on the separation of powers and the legitimacy of our system. If judges can simply override Congress whenever they don’t like the outcome, what’s the point of elections? Why bother sending representatives to Washington if their decisions can be nullified on a whim by an unelected judge with a political axe to grind?

Even those who despise Donald Trump and support abortion rights should be outraged. Every time a judge pulls a stunt like this, it chips away at the credibility of the courts and the very idea of self-government. If the courts can simply invent new rights for their political allies while ignoring the plain text of the law, we’re not living in a constitutional republic anymore—we’re living under the rule of lawyers.

“These radical leftwing Democrat rogue judges will not stop as they burn through the Constitution and defy the Supreme Court,” Mark Levin said, reacting to the news on X. “This Obama fraud has blocked the defunding of Planned Parenthood in the budget bill just passed by Congress and signed by the President. Under what authority does this judge, whose very job was created by Congress and whose jurisdiction was granted by Congress, have the power to do this? NONE!”

The judiciary was never meant to be a tool of the Left, weaponized to override the will of the people. If courts can no longer be trusted to uphold the Constitution over ideology, then it’s time to consider serious consequences—up to and including impeachment. The American people deserve better, and the stakes are too high to let this stand. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/08/2025 - 10:40

Fake News Tariffs?

Fake News Tariffs?

By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

Equities and bonds sold off (a bit) yesterday, primarily on tariff headlines. Letters went out to a myriad of countries, with Japan and South Korea leading the way. Their tariffs were “reset” to roughly the Liberation Day rates.

Source: Goldman (available to pro subscribers)

We discussed the risk that the administration would take another serious stab at tariffs, in this weekend’s Big Beautiful Production for Security.

For now, the market’s muted response makes sense:

  • The messaging from both the President, but particularly from Bessent, seem to be guiding to “more negotiations” into a “newish” August “sort of” deadline.

  • Given prior pauses, extensions and pullbacks, it is reasonable for the market to assume that the latest round of tariffs (via letters) won’t amount to much (it was incredibly difficult not to include a joke about the post office losing the letters in the mail).

  • This administration has been extremely busy. The President is very “hands on” and he had to give the decision to go ahead with the strike on Iran, he had to manage the process of getting the Big Beautiful Bill passed (which, we discussed in more detail this weekend), and he went to NATO to get 5% commitments. So the admin might just need the time to get refocused on trade deals as they likely took a backseat to those pressing issues.

  • While the market is right not to get too concerned at the moment, there is a risk that it is being very complacent:

  • The tariff revenue is real and the administration may want more of it, a LOT more of it.

  • We don’t know what other countries are thinking. Messaging from many other countries seems to be that:

  • The U.S. goals seem unclear and confusing, making deals difficult.

  • Many countries seem to be thinking about tariffing “services” which they may decide is a good way for them to boost their tech industries where they are quite clearly behind and dependent on U.S. based firms (that would not be good).

Markets will be on edge, looking towards deals. Very little risk of new, higher tariffs is being priced into the market. That seems both plausible and dangerous from a positioning standpoint.

I’d rather fight the move in bond yields (10’s at 4.41%) than “buy the dip” as stock futures are already higher.

Maybe these tariff headlines are “fake news” but at the all-time highs, that is a might big assumption.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/08/2025 - 10:00

US Cancels 54 Contracts, Saves $804 Million In 2 Days: DOGE

US Cancels 54 Contracts, Saves $804 Million In 2 Days: DOGE

Federal government agencies terminated 54 contracts over two days that netted $804 million in savings, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) said in a July 5 post on social media platform X.

The canceled “wasteful contracts” had a ceiling value of $1.8 billion, it said.

These include an “$842k USAID professional services contract for a ‘director of the Armenia innovation hub within the USAID/Armenia Economic Growth Office’ and a $33k USAGM contract for ‘24/7 FM broadcast services to the Togolese Republic.’”

As Naveen Athrappully reports for The Epoch Times, DOGE’s announcement follows Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s confirmation of the shutdown of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on July 1, arguing that the foreign assistance provided by the agency failed to deliver results for Americans.

USAID was part of a “globe-spanning NGO industrial complex” funded by U.S. taxpayers, he said, using the abbreviation of “nongovernmental organization.”

In a July 6 post on X, DOGE commended the Office of Personnel Management for having cut its annual spending on federal contracts by 50 percent while “improving both the quality and scope of its services.”

For instance, the agency saved $5.9 million through restructuring the IT helpdesk while also instituting efficiency measures.

“As a result, the average ticket backlog dropped by 30 percent,” DOGE said.

According to a June 29 update by DOGE, the initiative has so far saved $190 billion in taxpayer funds through measures such as contract/lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper payment deletion, cancellation of grants, and asset sales.

This translates into roughly $1,180 saved per American taxpayer.

Some of the “strangest, most baffling uses” of government funding uncovered by DOGE include a $2.8 million grant to address “historic and systemic racial inequities” in STEM education and a $6.9 million grant for teaching social and emotional learning from an “antiracist approach.”

Agencies that have generated the most savings under DOGE include the Department of Health and Human Services, General Services Administration, Department of Education, and the Office of Personnel Management.

DOGE has been operating for more than a month without Elon Musk at its head. Musk left the initiative in May after his tenure as a special government employee expired.

Subsequently, Musk and President Donald Trump engaged in an escalating public feud over the One Big Beautiful Bill, which Trump signed into law on July 4.

Musk has criticized spending in the new law, saying it will increase the United States’ debt ceiling by $5 trillion.

Privacy Issue, Codifying DOGE Practices

DOGE has come under fire from Democrats over the issue of citizen privacy. In a June 8 letter to the acting inspector general of the Department of Education, Democrat lawmakers accused the agency of refusing to provide them with “key information” regarding DOGE’s “infiltration” of the department.

This includes DOGE employees’ access to sensitive data, the letter said.

“Because of the Department’s refusal to provide full and complete information, the full extent of DOGE’s role and influence at [the Department of Education] remains unknown,” the lawmakers wrote.

“This lack of clarity is not only frustrating for borrowers but also dangerous for the future of an agency that handles an extensive student loan portfolio and a range of federal aid programs for higher education.”

Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers introduced the “DOGE in Spending Act” last month, which aims to codify DOGE practices to identify and prevent improper and fraudulent payments, according to a June 5 statement from the office of Sen. Kevin Kramer (R-N.D.), one of the lawmakers who introduced the bill.

The act seeks to modernize the Treasury’s payment oversight system. It would require each federal disbursement to specify the purpose of the expenditure and the source of funding.

“From the moment he took office, President Trump laid out a clear agenda: eliminate waste, reduce unnecessary spending, and restore fiscal sanity to Washington,” Cramer said.

“The Department of Government Efficiency has delivered—cutting through layers of bureaucracy.

“This agency has taken a scalpel to the federal government, slashing misspending, and eliminating fraudulent and improper payments. By codifying DOGE’s best practices, we safeguard the taxpayer dollars of North Dakotans and Americans across the country.”

The bill has been referred to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/08/2025 - 09:45

Netanyahu Presents Trump With Nomination For Nobel Peace Prize As Both Downplay 'Two-State Solution'

Netanyahu Presents Trump With Nomination For Nobel Peace Prize As Both Downplay 'Two-State Solution'

Among the more interesting highlights from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the White House on Monday was that during the Trump-hosted dinner, and at a moment the Gaza war is still raging, Bibi presented the US president with a letter nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Part of the stated rationale was that Trump pushed for a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, which has held, though the whole 12-day war seemed highly planned and choreographed between Washington and Tel Aviv. Widespread reports said that Trump greenlit Israel's surprise attack and even set up a sham nuclear talks process in order to lull Iran into a false sense of comfort. The Abraham Accords were also a big reason for Netanyahu's gesture.

"The president has already realized a great opportunity. He forged the Abraham Accords. He’s forging peace as we speak in one country and one region after the other," Netanyahu said. "So, I want to present to you, Mr. President, the letter I sent to the Nobel Prize committee. It’s nominating you for the peace prize, which is well deserved."

Via Fox News

"This I didn’t know," Trump said upon receiving and looking over the letter. "Wow. Thank you very much. Coming from you in particular, this is very meaningful."

But ironically, at this very moment the region is still on fire - literally and figuratively. War is flaring up again the Red Sea and in Yemen, Israel's military is still taking on mass casualties and inflicting them on the Palestinian population in Gaza, and Syria is now overrun by various terrorist groups in the wake of Assad's fall. Israel's military is also still taking occasional shots at Lebanon, including bombing raids.

As its stands, President Trump doesn't seem in the mood to employ the standard two-state solution talking point of pretty much all past and recent administrations. He responded, "I don't know" when he was asked by reporters whether a two-state solution was possible.

Netanyahu, for his part, explained that "After October 7th, people said the Palestinians have a state, a Hamas state in Gaza and look what they did with it. They didn't build it up. They built down into bunkers, into terror tunnels after which they massacred our people, raped our women, beheaded our men, invaded our cities and our towns, our kibbutzim and did horrendous massacres, the kind of which we didn't see since World War II and the Nazis, the Holocaust. So people aren't likely to say, 'Let's just give them another state.' It'll be a platform to destroy Israel."

Netanyahu seems to be saying it's 'either us or them' in terms of who is fated for destruction. His brutal policies in Gaza also speak loudest.

"We will work out a peace with our Palestinian neighbors, those who don't want to destroy us and we will work out a peace in which our security, the sovereign power of security, always remains in our hands," Netanyahu continued.

"Now people will say, 'It's not a complete state, it's not a state, it's not that.' We don't care. We vowed never again. Never again is now. It's not going to happen again."

Another interesting moment from the White House dinner, related to Syria and regional geopolitics:

Trump has appeared generally supportive of this more hawkish and unbending stance from the Israeli leader, even as diplomats in the region continue to forge ahead on renewed ceasefire talks between Hamas and Israel, which are being conducted 'indirectly'.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/08/2025 - 09:05

Futures Rebound As Markets Celebrate TACO Tuesday

Futures Rebound As Markets Celebrate TACO Tuesday

US equity futures rise as Trump leaves the door open for more discussions despite the 14 tariff letters sent yesterday and the extension of the deadline to Aug 1 which is "not 100% firm." As of 8:15am ET, S&P futures rise 0.1% and Nasdaq futures gain 0.2% after US markets retreated on Monday from ATH on the back of increased tariffs on countries if deals are not reached (Japan/South Korea’s 25% were standouts). Pre-market, Mag7 names are all higher, while industrials are leading cyclicals with financials mixed. 10Y TSY yields are higher by 3bps to 4.41% as the curve bear steepens and the USD is higher after erasing an earlier loss. Commodities are generally weaker although Brent crude has once again rebounded from session lows to trade just shy of $70/bbl.  The macro data focus today is on Small Biz Optimism (prints in line with expectations), 1-year Inflation Expectations, and an update on Consumer Credit. 

In premarket trading, Magnificent Seven stocks are all higher (Tesla +1%, Nvidia +0.7%, Meta +0.5%, Amazon +0.3%, Alphabet +0.4%, Microsoft is little changed, Apple +0.06%).

  • Clean energy stocks including Enphase Energy (ENPH) and SolarEdge (SEDG) fall after President Donald Trump called for new rules that would restrict access to tax incentives for solar and wind projects that were already pared back in his $3.4 trillion budget bill. Enphase Energy -2.9%, SolarEdge -6%
  • Capital One Financial Corp. (COF) rises about 1% after TD Cowen analyst Moshe Orenbuch raised the recommendation on the credit-card issuer to buy from hold, seeing upside after its purchase of Discover and the potential for significant buybacks in the future.
  • Ciena (CIEN) falls 3% as Morgan Stanley cuts to underweight, citing a lack of margin upside in the near term.
  • Circle Internet (CRCL) slips about 2% after the stablecoin issuer was initiated with a second sell-equivalent rating, this time at Mizuho, with the bank seeing a 25% to 30% potential downside to consensus revenue for 2027.
  • Datadog (DDOG) falls 2.5% as Guggenheim Securities cut to sell from neutral citing to near-term OpenAI optimization risk.
  • Merit Medical Systems Inc. (MMSI) rises 2% after the the catheter maker reported preliminary 2Q revenue that topped estimates and named a veteran of Medtronic as its next CEO.
  • UWM Holdings (UWMC) is up 2.3% after an upgrade to overweight from equal-weight by Barclays, which says the stock looks discounted enough to step in.

For stock markets, TACO Tuesday’s calm reflected traders’ belief in a familiar pattern of US President Donald Trump escalating his trade war only to later de-escalate. In the latest round, Trump said he was still open to negotiations and postponed duties of 25% or more on a list for trading partners until at least Aug. 1.

“Equity markets are focused on the positive news,” said Wolf von Rotberg, equity strategist at Bank J. Safra Sarasin. “Europe is working toward securing a framework agreement with the US and the July 9th deadline was pushed out by another month. The market has learned to focus on the facts more than following the talk.”

Ongoing talks with the European Union are likely to draw particular attention. The bloc is seeking to finalize a preliminary agreement this week that would lock in a 10% tariff rate beyond Aug. 1 while a permanent deal is hammered out.

The prospect of a better-than-expected trade deal helped boost the euro. The common currency rose as much as 0.5%, extending gains for the year as traders reacted to a Politico report that said the US offered a deal that would keep the 10% baseline tariffs, with exemptions for sensitive sectors. 

“The fact that higher tariffs have become the default if no deal is reached does introduce a layer of risk that markets will have to price in,” said Daniela Sabin Hathorn, senior market analyst at Capital.com. “The dollar could struggle as this would have a negative impact on the growth outlook in the US.” 

So far, the US economy has held up under the threat of a spiraling global trade war. Hiring is healthy, while the S&P 500 hit an all-time high last week.  Still, some investors remain cautious that persistent policy uncertainty, along with concerns over rising levels of government debt and geopolitical headwinds, could eventually catch up with markets.

“Investors betting on the TACO trade might gradually face some disappointment,” said Raphael Thuin, head of capital markets strategies at Tikehau Capital in Paris. “There’s a real possibility that tariffs are here to stay beyond Trump’s mandate as a permanent fiscal tool to fund growing deficits."

European stocks are in a narrow range, with Stoxx 600 fluctuating between gains and losses as European Union negotiators rushed to conclude a preliminary trade deal with the US to avoid a spike in tariffs, with miners, financial services and travel stocks outperforming, while real estate shares lag. Drinkmakers gain on tariff news, while renewables drop as the Trump administration targets tax breaks. Germany’s DAX marginally outperforms. Here are the most notable European movers:

  • Kinnevik gains as much as 6.1% after the Swedish investment group reported its latest earnings. Degroof says the results were “slightly better than expected,” with net asset values above the broker’s estimates
  • Zealand Pharma shares rise as much as 3.5%, among the top performers in the Stoxx 600 Health Care Index on Tuesday, after Barclays initiated coverage on the stock with an overweight recommendation
  • Shares of drinksmakers rise after reports saying the European Union is seeking an exemption from the US tariff for certain products; Remy Cointreau gains as much as 4.2%, Pernod Ricard +3.6%, Campari +2.7%
  • Glencore shares rise as much as 2.1% after JPMorgan resumed its coverage with an overweight recommendation, citing value-accretive strategic optionality and a potential coal de-merger
  • NTG Nordic Transport Group rises as much as 4.7% after being awarded a new overweight rating from Barclays, with analysts arguing the stock is inexpensive and has significant potential upside
  • Renewables stocks fall in Europe as President Donald Trump called for new rules that would restrict access to tax incentives for solar and wind projects that were already pared back in his $3.4 trillion budget bill
  • Dr Martens and Pandora are among stocks underperforming in Europe after President Trump outlined plans to impose tariffs on goods from key supplier countries including Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia
  • TGS shares drop as much as 12%, the most since April, after the Norwegian geophysical services company reported preliminary second-quarter results. The company noted “challenging operational conditions”
  • Betsson shares drop as much as 6.1%, the most in three months, after DNB Carnegie downgrades the stock to hold from buy. Analysts note that the online gaming firm is set for a period of slower revenue growth
  • Victrex shares slump as much as 15% to the lowest since August 2009 as the polymer supplier’s trading update disappoints analysts, who see scope for double-digit cuts to full-year pretax expectations
  • AB Dynamics shares drop as much as 1.2% after the company announced that CEO James Routh is leaving the business to take up the same role at fellow London-listed Victrex
  • BNP Paribas Bank Polska drops as much as 5.1% after the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development sold 2.35m shares via accelerated book-building at discount to Monday’s closing price

Earlier in the session, stocks in Asia advanced as investors shrugged off US President Donald Trump’s tariff announcements and focused on room for further negotiations. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index gained 0.4%, with SK Hynix and Hitachi providing the biggest lift while BHP Group and Nintendo weighed on performance. South Korea and Japan both advanced on cautious hopes that the countries can reach trade deals ahead of Trump’s newly-extended tariff deadline. Trump earlier sent letters to Tokyo and Seoul, threatening levies of 25% beginning Aug. 1. Elsewhere in the region, Hong Kong shares rose, helped by a rebound in e-commerce giants Meituan and Alibaba. Their shares had been falling recently due to concerns over an intensifying price war in the food delivery business. 

In FX, we initially saw broad dollar weakness after President Trump suggested he’s open to more negotiations on tariffs beyond an August 1 deadline, but that weakness has since reversed and the dollar is trading near yesterday's highs. Aussie dollar tops G-10 peers after the RBA surprise. The yen underperforms.

In rates, bonds sell off across Europe and the US, taking their cue from jitters in Japan over the country’s political situation and associated fiscal risks. Japanese 30-year bond yields rose as much as 13 basis points. Australian bonds also slump after the RBA unexpectedly kept interest rates unchanged. That fed into weakness in the long-end across Europe. 30-year bund yields hit the highest level since March, benchmark 10-year yields up by around five basis points across countries. A flurry of supply is also weighing. 10-year Treasury yields up three basis points to 4.415%, at session highs with German and UK counterparts cheaper by an additional 2bp. Treasury auction cycle begins with $58 billion 3-year new issue at 1pm New York time, followed by $39 billion 10-year and $22 billion 30-year reopenings Wednesday and Thursday. WI 3-year yield near 3.875% is about 10bp richer than last month’s, which tailed by 0.4bp.

In commodities, gold is down by $12 to around $3,324/oz. Oil prices lower, Brent drops 0.7% to just over $69/barrel.

Looking at today's calendar, US economic data slate includes June NY Fed 1-year inflation expectations (11am) and May consumer credit (3pm). The Fed speaker slate blank, with minutes of June FOMC meeting are to be released at 2pm tomorrow.

Market Snapshot

  • S&P 500 mini +0.1%
  • Nasdaq 100 mini +0.3%
  • Russell 2000 mini +0.3%
  • Stoxx Europe 600 little changed
  • DAX +0.2%, CAC 40 little changed
  • 10-year Treasury yield +3 basis points at 4.41%
  • VIX -0.5 points at 17.28
  • Bloomberg Dollar Index -0.2% at 1194.53
  • euro +0.4% at $1.175
  • WTI crude -0.7% at $67.45/barrel

Top Overnight News

  • Following Trump announcing 25% tariffs on good from Japan starting Aug 1, Japan and the US are “actively” continuing negotiations. A Top trade negotiator from Japan said Japan's trade deal with the U.S. must include tariff concessions for its vital automobile industry. RTRS
  • Trump said Monday the U.S. would resume providing Ukraine with arms to help it withstand Russian attacks after months of trying without success to draw Moscow into negotiations on ending the war. WSJ
  • President Trump on Monday indicated there may be some wiggle room for nations to negotiate on trade despite his fresh threat of additional tariffs going into effect on Aug. 1. When asked, he said “No, I would say firm, but not 100 percent firm. If they call up and they say ‘we’d like to do something a different way,’ we’re going to be open to that. But essentially that’s the way it is right now.” The Hill
  • Apple’s top AI models executive Ruoming Pang is leaving for Meta’s new superintelligence group, people familiar said, marking another setback in the iPhone maker’s struggling AI efforts. BBG
  • Kevin Warsh, one of the lead candidates to replace Powell as Fed chief, said rates should be lower and doesn’t think tariffs will fuel inflation. BBG
  • China has strongly criticized companies and local governments for fuelling overproduction that it blames for driving down prices, as inflation figures this week are expected to show that one of the country’s longest bouts of factory price deflation is running unchecked. FT
  • China warned the Trump administration on Tuesday against reigniting trade tension by restoring tariffs on its goods next month, and threatened to retaliate against nations that strike deals with the United States to cut China out of supply chains. RTRS
  • Europe’s largest port is gearing up for a potential conflict with Russia by reserving space for ships carrying military supplies and planning where to divert cargo if war breaks out. FT
  • Samsung’s profit more than halved on inventory writedowns following US curbs on Chinese-bound AI chips. BBG
  • China's CPCA says Tesla exported 10,115 Chinese-made vehicles in June (May 23,074)

Trade/Tariffs

  • US President Trump said regarding tariffs that the August 1st deadline is firm but he is open to other ideas, while Trump said he is close to making a trade deal with India and may adjust tariffs for some countries.
  • White House announced that President Trump signed an executive order extending the tariff deadline to August 1st.
  • US reportedly offered the EU a 10% tariff deal with caveats, although negotiations are still fluid, with any trade agreement subject to final approval by US President Trump, according to POLITICO.
  • EU Commission President von der Leyen said Europe must show strength in trade negotiations with the US. Thereafter, German Finance Minister says if the EU does not reach a "fair" deal with he US, the bloc is ready to take counter-measures.
  • Japanese PM Ishiba said haven't been able to reach an agreement because Japan kept defending what needs to be defended, and will continue dialogue with the US and seek a chance of agreeing on a deal that benefits both countries. Ishiba added they were able to avert a hike in tariffs to 30%-35%, as result of past negotiations, and the US has proposed to continue talks until the new August 1st deadline.
  • Japanese Finance Minister Kato said they expect the US stance to change as they continue trade negotiations, while they will take necessary steps to help industries cope with US tariffs while communicating with other agencies.
  • Japanese Tariff Negotiator Akazawa held a call with US Commerce Secretary Lutnick. Agreed to actively engage in trade negotiations. Auto sector is core to Japan's economy, can not tolerate the fact 25% tariffs on autos, and the auto parts tariff is inflicting huge losses on Japanese firms. No point in striking a US deal without an autos agreement.
  • South Korea will step up trade negotiations with the US to win mutually beneficial results and clear up uncertainties caused by tariffs, while it added that trade talks with the US will be a chance to advance both countries' key industries through the 'Renaissance Partnership'.
  • The UK is set to miss the original deadline to close its steel/aluminium trade deal with the US, according to Sky's Conway; Insiders say still some way from a breakthrough. However, "they are hopeful Donald Trump won't raise UK tariffs from 25% to 50% for the time being, despite having promised to on July 9th".
  • Indian refiners reportedly plan to source around 10% of LPG imports from the US in 2026 in an attempt to reach a trade deal, according to Reuters sources.

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

APAC stocks mostly traded with cautious gains as participants digested the latest trade-related developments including US President Trump's tariff letters to 14 countries so far including Japan, South Korea, South Africa, and Thailand with tariff rates ranging between 25%-40% and warnings against retaliation, although he also signed an Executive Order to delay the tariff deadline to August 1st. ASX 200 was indecisive as strength in tech and gold producers offset the losses in defensives, while an improvement in NAB Business Confidence was met with little fanfare as participants awaited the RBA rate decision which ultimately disappointed as the central bank defied the broad consensus for the first back-to-back cut since the pandemic, and instead decided to pause on rates through a 6-3 majority vote. Nikkei 225 recouped initial losses as recent currency weakness helped investors shrug off the tariff-related news with Japan facing a 25% tariff which is slightly higher than the 24% rate announced on Liberation Day. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp were underpinned with the PBoC to support more onshore investors to invest in offshore bonds, while it will also expand the Bond Connect to include Chinese brokers, funds, wealth managers and insurers.

Top Asian News

  • PBoC said it will support more onshore investors to invest in offshore bonds and will expand the bond connect to include Chinese brokers, funds, wealth managers and insurers, while it will also increase the quota under the swap connect.
  • Chinese President Xi stressed developing the real economy to build up national strength and said the real economy should not be abandoned, nor should the traditional industries, according to Xinhua.
  • Chinese Premier Li Qiang said China is confident in driving economic growth and has the resources to counter external headwinds.
  • RBA unexpectedly kept the Cash Rate unchanged at 3.85% (exp. 25bps cut) with the decision made by a majority of 6-3 votes, while it stated that the Board will be attentive to the data and evolving assessment of risks to guide its decisions. RBA also noted that inflation has continued to moderate and the outlook remains uncertain although the Board continues to judge that the risks to inflation have become more balanced and the labour market remains strong. Furthermore, the Board remains cautious about the outlook, particularly given the heightened level of uncertainty about both aggregate demand and supply and it judged that it could wait for a little more information to confirm that inflation remains on track to reach 2.5% on a sustainable basis.
  • RBA Governor Bullock says there will be more data and news by the next meeting. Made good progress on inflation, been within the target range for only one quarter thus far. Effect of 50bps of cuts is still to flow through. CPI interpretation was different to the markets, decision was about timing rather than direction; monthly CPI is too volatile, the quarterly figure could be higher. Confident they are on a path to ease further. On an easing path, timing is the question. Was an active debate within the RBA boardroom, the difference between the sides was not about direction. Bullock will not say how she voted.

European bourses opened higher, welcoming Trump's confirmation that the new tariff deadline is August 1st and as Monday's letters did not have any narrative-shifting surprises. Since, benchmarks have come off best and are either side of the unchanged mark, Euro Stoxx 50 U/C. Sectors in-fitting with the above and as such are now mixed. Basic Resources lead amid gains in Glencore (+2.5%) after an upgrade by and favourable commentary from JPMorgan. Retail at the other end, hit by the tariff letters on Asian manufacturing nations which are a key destination for European names such as Pandora (-1.1%).

Top European News

  • German Finance Minister Klingbeil says they see that economic sentiment has improved.
  • UK OBR says "public finances in relatively vulnerable position and facing mounting risks", adds UK debt set to exceed 270% of GDP by early 2070s.

FX

  • USD has been giving back some of Monday's gains, upside that occurred alongside an increase in angst into the tariff letters. Ultimately, the main takeaway was Trump providing more time for negotiation and as such the TACO trade remains in play. DXY is currently tucked within yesterday's 96.89-97.66 range, currently just off highs of 97.43.
  • AUD outperforms as the RBA surprisingly kept rates unchanged in a 6-3 vote, despite markets pricing in a 95% chance of a move pre-release. AUD/USD back above 0.65 but yet to breach Monday's 0.6564 peak.
  • Upside that has pulled the Kwi along with it, NZD/USD has made its way back onto a 0.60 handle but is still some way off yesterday's 0.6063 high (current session peak @ 0.6034).
  • EUR the next best, benefitting from reports which suggest 10% baseline tariffs remain an option for the EU. EUR/USD is currently firmer, just off a 1.1765 peak within Monday's 1.1686-1.1790 range.
  • GBP just about in the green against the USD, but Cable is back to its earlier 1.36 base. A bout of further pressure emerged on an OBR risk report which laid out that "public finances in relatively vulnerable position and facing mounting risks", adds UK debt set to exceed 270% of GDP by early 2070s
  • PBoC set USD/CNY mid-point at 7.1534 vs exp. 7.1772 (Prev. 7.1506)

Fixed Income

  • Complex pushed lower by the tariff deadline extension and a packed supply docket.
  • USTs saw a slightly softer start to the day, given the constructive risk tone. Similar story for EGBs and Gilts, though the magnitude of downside has increased throughout the morning, USTs to a 110-25+ trough, taking out Monday’s 110-29 base and now teetering just above 110-25, the WTD low from the last week of June.
  • EGBs also dented, but with losses much more pronounced. Bunds lower by near 50 ticks. As referenced, pressure in EGBs has been increasing, an intensification that began alongside the constructive European cash equity open; furthermore, supply is weighing and the passing of some taps e.g. Germany failed to provide any relief (unsurprising, the German auction was somewhat soft and we await details on EU supply).
  • For the most part, an absence of specifics for the UK. No follow through in Gilts from the OBR reporting that domestic finances are in a "relatively vulnerable position and face mounting risks". Nonetheless, Gilts lag with downside intensifying and the benchmark now looking to lows from mid-June, incl. 91.16.
  • Germany sells EUR 3.754bln vs exp. EUR 5bln 2.20% 2030 Bobl: b/c 1.50x, average yield 2.26% & retention 24.92%.

Commodities

  • Crude benchmarks are lacklustre, largely unaffected by trade updates with volumes light and awaiting further geopolitical updates from the Middle-East; Brent trades within a narrow USD 69.03 to 69.61/bbl range, re-approaching overnight lows following news regarding the resumption of Israel-Hamas Doha talks.
  • Precious metals softer, dented by the broadly constructive risk tone in-fitting with pressure seen in other traditional havens (i.e. fixed and JPY). Though, downside is limited thus far with the softer USD and general tariff uncertainty, despite the welcome confirmation of an August 1st deadline, preventing a more concerted move lower. XAU down to a USD 3324/oz base and within Monday’s USD 3296-3343/oz band.
  • Base metals, in contrast, welcome Trump signing an executive order pushing the tariff deadline to August 1st (prev. July 9th) and as the first batch of tariff letters didn’t contain anything particularly shocking. 3M LME Copper holds at the upper-end of a USD 9793-9889 band. However, it remains shy of Monday’s USD 9871 peak and last week’s USD 9889 best.
  • US President Trump signed an Executive Order aiming to end subsidies for foreign-controlled energy sources.

Geopolitics

  • US President Trump said he's got great cooperation from countries neighbouring Israel, when asked about Palestinian relocation plans. Trump noted Iran talks are scheduled and that Iran will not be a nuclear state, while he hopes they don't have to do another strike on Iran.
  • White House said US Envoy Witkoff is to travel to Doha later this week for a Gaza ceasefire, while it was separately reported that Witkoff said they have an opportunity to get a peace deal in Gaza and that the Iran meeting will be in the next week or so.
  • Subsequently, Iran's MFA Spokesman told state TV: "We have not handed in any requests to meet with the Americans", via France24.
  • UKMTO says a vessel sustained significant damage and lost all propulsion after being attacked by 5 rocket grenades, 51NM West of Yemen's Hodeidah; vessel is under continuous attack and authorities are investigating.
  • Ceasefire talks with Gaza have recommenced, in Doha, via journalist Elster (08:49BST/03:49ET).
  • US President Trump said they have to send more weapons to Ukraine and that they have to defend themselves, while the Pentagon later announced the Department of Defense will send additional defensive weapons to Ukraine.
  • German Foreign Ministry says the Chinese Military has used a laser to target a German aircraft in EU operation aspides; Chinese ambassador summoned,

US Event Calendar

  • 6:00 am: Jun NFIB Small Business Optimism, est. 98.6, prior 98.8
  • 3:00 pm: May Consumer Credit, est. 10.55b, prior 17.87b

DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

A quiet day where we were all waiting for tariff news sprung into life just after Europe closed yesterday as the first major tariff news of the week broke. In a series of posts on social media, President Trump announced new tariff rates on several trading partners. He started off by announcing 25% tariff rates against Japan and South Korea, effective August 1st. This was followed by “trade letters” to a further twelve countries including South Africa (30% rate), Malaysia (25%), and Indonesia (32%). President Trump also said that “any goods transshipped to evade a higher tariff will be subject to that higher tariff,” while noting that these would be separate from the sectoral tariffs. The headline rates for most countries announced yesterday were around the same levels as the Liberation Day tariffs, but President Trump also said that if countries were to raise their tariffs in response, then “whatever number” they choose will be added onto the 25% charged by the US.

White House Press Secretary Leavitt announced that more letters will be arriving throughout the week. After sending the posts, the President signed an executive order that effectively delays the new tariff rates until August 1, prolonging the current 10% tariff rate and giving nations more time to meet the trade demands from the White House. The President continued to signal he was open to deals, saying the August 1st deadline was “not 100% firm” and that they could “maybe adjust a little bit, depending.” Overnight, Politico reported that while a US-EU trade deal had not been finalised, the US had offered the EU a 10% tariff rate with caveats. Given the higher rates seen earlier in the day for other trading partners, the EUR has rallied (+0.32%) overnight and is back to levels before the letters started rolling out yesterday. 

Stocks fell in response to the tariff news, although the S&P 500, which closed -0.79%, was already -0.6% just before the announcement in anticipation of the noon Washington timeline that had been given over the weekend with regards to letters being sent out. The index was down -1.25% at the lows of the day, before rebounding as investors priced in the possibility of trade deals getting over the line for larger trading partners before putative tariffs kick in.

Within US equity markets, the Magnificent 7 (-1.03%) underperformed while following a similar pattern to the broad index, although the index was also weighed down by Tesla (-6.79%), which saw the biggest decline in the entire S&P after Musk announced the formation of the “America Party” over the weekend. Small caps, which have less margin to absorb tariff costs, underperformed by even more as the Russell 2000 fell by -1.55%. Meanwhile, US Treasuries also struggled, with the 10yr yield up +3.4bps to 4.379%, whilst the 30yr yield (+5.4bps) rose to 4.92%. In turn, that helped to support the US Dollar index (+0.31%), which has stabilised around a 3-year low in the last week. 

President Trump posted late on Sunday that any country aligning with the “Anti-American policies” of the BRICS would face an added 10% tariff, and this didn’t help the likes of Brazil’s IBOVESPA (-1.26%). The 10 member states met in Rio Janeiro over the weekend, where they condemned US and Israeli strikes on Iran, as well as the US unilateral tariffs. So, yet another tariff threat that adds to the uncertainty.

In the meantime, one ongoing theme was the continued pressure on the Fed from the administration. That came as Peter Navarro wrote in a Substack post that Chair Powell’s policy was causing American households “acute financial pain” and that if Powell “will not voluntarily adjust course, the board must act decisively to prevent further economic harm.” We’ll get the June FOMC meeting minutes release tomorrow, so that should offer more details on how officials are thinking about rate cuts. At face value, the latest tariff letters, and the fact that the deadlines seem to be pushing towards August 1st, thus prolonging uncertainty, means a September Fed cut will become more difficult unless there is strong evidence of a deteriorating economy. 

Over in Europe, equities had put in a more positive performance, but closed before the stream of tariff headlines came through. Sentiment was also boosted, however, by hopes of a trade deal, with EU spokespeople earlier confirming to Bloomberg that they were close to a trade agreement with the US, after a “good exchange” between Von Der Leyen and President Trump. So that meant the STOXX 600 (+0.44%) and the DAX (+1.20%) both advanced. European futures are only lower by around a couple of tenths this morning. Away from the EU, the FTSE 100 (-0.19%) lagged behind yesterday. European sovereign bonds traded more in line with US Treasuries, with yields on 10yr bunds (+3.6bps), OATs (+4.2bps) and BTPs (+4.7bps) all moving higher. We also found out German industrial production rose +1.2% in May (vs. -0.2% expected), which was relatively stronger than the French and Spanish numbers last week. 

Asian equity markets are higher this morning shrugging off the threats of increased US trade tariffs as President Trump left the door open for additional trade negotiations. Across the region, the KOSPI (+1.46%) is leading gains while the Hang Seng (+0.86%), the CSI (+0.74%), the Shanghai Composite (+0.58%) and the Nikkei (+0.28%) are also higher. The S&P/ASX 200 (-0.19%) is trading lower but has hardly had time to react to a surprise 6-3 decision, just before we go to print, to hold rates rather than cut them as widely expected. The RBA's statement pointed to an "uncertain outlook" as the reason for holding rates. The Australian dollar reacted sharply, jumping to 0.6539 against the dollar, while policy-sensitive 3-year government bond yields have climbed 14bps, 10 of which have come in the last few minutes after the decision. Governor Michele Bullock's upcoming press briefing is now the focus of market attention. Elsewhere US equity futures are flat to up a tenth of a percent. 

On geopolitics, yesterday Iran announced that Israel had tried to assassinate its President during last month’s attacks, and that US strikes has severely damaged its nuclear infrastructure and equipment. In an interview with Tucker Carlson on Monday, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshhkian said that the US could resolve its differences with Iran through dialogue and talks, but said it was difficult to trust the US and asked how they could be sure Israel wouldn’t be given permission to attack again. Amidst the newsflow, WTI rose +1.39% to $67.9/bbl and Brent crude was up +1.87% to $69.58/bbl even with the surprise oil production increases announced by OPEC+ over the weekend. It's back down around half a percent this morning. 

To the day ahead now, we’ll have the US June NFIB small business optimism, the NY Fed’s inflation expectations, and Germany’s trade balance for May. Central bank speakers include the ECB’s Nagel. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/08/2025 - 08:30

Trump Confirms Arms For Ukraine U-Turn Days After Pentagon Halts Delivery

Trump Confirms Arms For Ukraine U-Turn Days After Pentagon Halts Delivery

Another drastic foreign policy U-turn by the Trump administration, after just a week ago some weapons shipments to Ukraine were halted - and now it's back ON apparently...

President Trump first unveiled Monday after last week's 'disappointing' phone call with President Putin, for which the US leader was "very unhappy", that he would send “more weapons” to Ukraine.

"We’re gonna send some more weapons we have to them. They have to be able to defend themselves. They’re getting hit very hard now," Trump said, alongside a US and Israeli delegation, on the day Prime Minister Netanyahu visited the White House.

Last Thursday night saw what was likely a record aerial attack on Ukraine which lasted for seven hours. Trump has said the US would send "defensive weapons primarily." He remarked: "So many people are dying in that mess."

Ukraine's President Zelensky has tallied that last week Russia launched around 1,270 drones and 39 missiles in total at Ukraine, doing serious damage in many places, including the capital area. The Ukrainian government reacted Tuesday by seeking clarify on the sudden policy shift from the White House:

The ministry of defense in Kyiv said in a statement on Tuesday that it had not received official notification of the change in policy and it was “critically important” for Ukraine to maintain “stability, continuity and predictability” in the provision of arms, especially air defense systems.

The statement added: "We are grateful to the United States for all its support and highly appreciate the efforts of American partners aimed at achieving genuine peace."

Adding insult to injury for much of Trump's base, which has long supported his efforts to disentangle America from Kiev - and stop sending the Ukrainians billions in taxpayers' money - the Department of Defense is actually touting this move as in keeping with 'America First'.

"Our framework for POTUS to evaluate military shipments across the globe remains in effect and is integral to our America First defense priorities," the Pentagon said in a new press release.

Ammunition for Ukrainian HIMARS, US military image

Here is the White House merely one week ago:

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told CBS News that in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war the "decision was made to put America's interests first following" a Defense Department "review of our nation's military support and assistance to other countries across the globe."

What actually changed? It remains that the simplest way to wind down this tragic war is for Zelensky to agree to territorial concessions, but he won't even so much as budge on recognizing Crimea, and it looks like Washington is certainly not trying to convince or pressure him at this point. Zelensky will continue gladly taking his arms handouts from Uncle Sam without willingness to make compromise at the negotiating table. The war, and horrific killing, will go on with no end in sight.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/08/2025 - 08:05

Beware The 'Omniwar': Catherine Austin Fitts Fears 'Weaponization Of Everything'

Beware The 'Omniwar': Catherine Austin Fitts Fears 'Weaponization Of Everything'

Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

Catherine Austin Fitts (CAF), publisher of “The Solari Report,” is back with a new cutting-edge publication called “Omniwar.”  Mankind is under attack from all angles, and it’s not simply to control us but to kill us too. 

CAF says, “Omniwar is the weaponization of everything..."

"It’s the weaponization of all the different systems we use, including food, health and finance...

There are literally injections that are bioweapons, and this is the weaponization of our healthcare system.  I do a screen for a mutual fund, and one of the funeral home companies is a stock, which has more than doubled or about doubled since we bought it.  So, you’ve got a recent healthcare insurance stock going down 40%, while the funeral homes are going up significantly. 

People have been observing this because this is not the first insurance company to take a nosedive from the drop in life expectancy and  acceleration of the deaths.”

The poison we are getting is being delivered to us on purpose.  It is high tech, and it’s not just in the CV19 bioweapon injections.  Fitts says,

“We are ingesting these nanoparticles or nanobots. We have done interviews at Solari.com about the mysterious ingredients in the food.  So, it’s in the injections, it’s in the spray and it’s in the food.  This is one of the things I believe causes all this sickness. . ..  This is all part of the great poisoning.  I have subscribers who have been hip to this for more than a decade.  They understand the great poisoning is happening.  They are in a war, it’s an Omniwar and they started to take action on how they organized their health, food and finances.  You know something, they are doing great. . . . I know it’s depressing. 

As Curtis Mayfield says, ‘It’s a New World Order.  It’s a brand-new day.  It’s a New World Order, and brother, you are the prey.’  It is not supportive of your social prestige knowing you are in a war and you are the prey. 

At the same time, once you understand, and you can get in the game, you can start to protect your health, finances and food, and what a difference it makes.”

CAF talks about many war fronts in “Omniwar.”  She does a deep dive on the ever-increasing control grid.  Writer David Hughs (PhD) describes the phenomenon of “Omniwar” as “a war in every conceivable domain by a transnational ruling class against the rest of humanity.”  They uncover how evil forces are “targeting your brain.”  CAF shows how humans are being reengineered with “synthetic biology.”  CAF encourages people and shows them how freedom “starts with one person at a time.”  These are just a few of the Omniwar fronts.  CAF shows you how to fight back too with an “action check list.”

In closing, CAF points out why she is still bullish on gold.  CAF says:

“One of the reasons I am bullish on gold is what the Trump Administration is going to do with Stablecoins...they will have a lot of the big banks and other companies working on creating subsidiaries to issue Stablecoins.  This is very much like a CBDC (central bank digital currency) but more dangerous. . .. the first goal of Stablecoin is to get people not using the dollar on to the dollar. . . . I think there are going to be a lot of countries with big debt problems to switch to the dollar. 

The goal is to build a vast new market for Treasuries.  There is going to be an explosion or tsunami of Stablecoin along with credit.  That could be one of the biggest hyperinflationary events in the world.  This could give a whole new meaning to ‘helicopter money’ because it’s going to be global. 

Think of the Iraqi pallets of cash.  This is the Iraqi pallets of cash in digital form.  We are just going to spread dollars all around the world. 

This could give another 10-15 years to the dollar as the reserve currency. . .. Real assets are going to shine.  That means gold, and that means silver. . .. There is a big push to monetize gold.”

There is much more in the 59-minute interview.

To get the special Solari subscription discount promo and the free (.999) Silver Solari Coin (US subscription’s only), click here.

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes One-on-One with the Publisher of The Solari Report, Catherine Austin Fitts, as she sounds the warning on the Omniwar we all face 7.5.25.

To Donate to USAWatchdog.com Click Here

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/08/2025 - 07:20

Ukrainian Oligarchs Have Become Incredibly Rich From The War Writes Swiss Newspaper

Ukrainian Oligarchs Have Become Incredibly Rich From The War Writes Swiss Newspaper

Via Remix News,

Ukraine was widely recognized as the most corrupt country even before the Ukraine war, but since war broke out and tens of billions of euros have flowed into the country, corruption has flourished like never before.

Swiss newspaper Neue Züricher Zeitung details how a clique of oligarchs, many of them close to President Volodymyr Zelensky, have grown famously wealthy.

“These big businessmen are profiting enormously from the war, while also being patriotic, pro-Western and very discreet,” wrote the Swiss Neue Züricher Zeitung‘s (NZZ) Kyiv correspondent, Guillaume Ptak.

In other words, instead of showing off with sports cars, these new oligarchs know they have to keep their wealth hidden amid a devastating war. The paper details five individuals who have profited enormously.

“The war, which has entered its fourth year, is proving to be a profitable field for businessmen like Andri Stawnizer, Andri Kobolev, Oleksander Hereha, Andri Kolodyuk, and Vasil Khmelnitsky. The quintet has established itself in the war economy, investing in rebuilding what the Russian army destroys time and again. earns a fortune in strategic sectors such as logistics, energy, or construction materials. Typical war profiteers? Sure. But not entirely,” writes the Swiss paper.

They are making a fortune in strategic sectors. While this could be considered typical war profiteering it is also seen in a more positive light, since they ultimately support the army and the civilian population. According to the NZZ journalist, they are therefore“not like their classic predecessors, who recovered after the change of regime. They were mostly swept away by the war. The new generation does not buy TVs, newspapers or representatives, nor parties or private armies.”

NZZ writes that this new generation of oligarchs is not like the old one, and that “reins are held by President Volodymyr Zelensky.”

While Ukrainian authorities welcome most of the new oligarchs, this does not mean that they automatically have good relations with the presidential office. The paper notes that Kobolev, in particular, was known for his anti-corruption activities even before the war. He reportedly does not have the best relationship with Zelensky and has now been charged with corruption himself.

As for the other four, the paper does not make any allegations of corruption, but Ukraine is known as a country where corruption is entrenched from the top to the bottom of the system. Many leading officials have been charged with corruption, but skeptics claim that in many cases, these are only the officials who ran afoul of someone with more power, who wanted to remove a rival or settle a score.

As NZZ notes, overpricing is common in public procurement across Ukraine, which often means businessmen are taking a cut on top of any services they provide, with others in the chain of decision-making receiving a cut.

While war has been profitable for Ukraine’s new oligarchs, NZZ writes that peace will likely pay off even more for them. When the war ends, they stand to make even bigger profits through reconstruction, agriculture, and mineral resources.

The issue of public corruption has drawn criticism from officials in other European states, many who worry about integrating Ukraine into the European Union.

“Ukraine is now ruled by an oligarchic regime that increasingly survives on external support. It is a state characterized by rampant corruption and an absence of genuine democratic frameworks,” said former German Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine during an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in January of this year.

In Ukraine, high-level corruption ranks second among the main concerns of Ukrainians after the Russian-Ukrainian war, a survey conducted by the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption revealed. The results of the research previously presented by the Transcarpathian news portal Kárpáti Igaz Szó show that 71.6 percent of the population consider this to be the country’s second-biggest problem, and 73 percent of entrepreneurs think the same.

According to 87.9 percent of the population and 81.3 percent of businesses, the level of embezzlement in the country has increased compared to 2022. Many hold Zelensky responsible, with 47.5 percent of citizens and 48.3 percent of company representatives stating that combating corruption is the responsibility of the president and his office.

In contrast, 36.9 percent of respondents and 32.4 percent of business people say that the anti-corruption agency, or the Supreme Council, is the one that should take action to curb corruption. The responses also included claims that the Council of Ministers and ministries can be held accountable for the spread of corruption.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/08/2025 - 05:00

These Are The World's Most Common Passwords

These Are The World's Most Common Passwords

Most people are guilty of using a weak password at some point. But just how predictable can they be?

This infographic, via Visual Capitalist's Marcus Lu, reveals the top 25 most commonly used passwords globally, from ‘123456’ to ‘password’.

Data & Discussion

The data for this visualization comes from NordPass, which analyzed the most frequently used passwords based on a 2.5TB database of credentials exposed by data breaches.

Numbers Still Reign Supreme

The top password—“123456”—was used over 3 million times in the dataset analyzed by NordPass. In fact, six of the top 10 passwords are purely numeric, highlighting how common predictable number patterns remain.

These types of passwords are among the easiest for hackers to guess using brute-force attacks, taking a matter of seconds.

Keyboard Patterns and Simple Words

Along with numbers, users often rely on keyboard sequences like “qwerty” or common words like “password” and “secret.” While these may be easy to remember, they’re also easy to hack. Variations like “Password” or “password1” offer little improvement in security.

How to Create a Strong Password

According to NordPass, your password should be at least 20 characters long and include uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special symbols (e.g. @#$%). Some browsers, such as Google Chrome, can also suggest a strong password for you.

Additionally, NordPass suggests that you never reuse passwords. If one account were to be compromised, other accounts that share the same password could also be at risk.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out The Five Most Common Cybersecurity Mistakes on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/08/2025 - 04:15

"It's Not A Human Right To Live In Sweden" - New Integration Minister Calls For Migrant Values Survey

"It's Not A Human Right To Live In Sweden" - New Integration Minister Calls For Migrant Values Survey

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

Sweden’s new Minister for Education and Integration, Simona Mohamsson, says it’s time to stop relying on gut feelings and start using facts when it comes to integration.

The new Liberals leader called for plans to map immigrants’ values, to find out where many sit on cultural issues that may not align with those held by native Swedes.

“It is not a human right to live in Sweden,” she said in a recent interview with Dagens Nyheter.

The government has asked the World Values Survey (WVS), a global research group, to study how immigrants’ views compare with those of people born in Sweden. Mohamsson says it’s about time Sweden looked at hard data instead of assumptions.

“For too long, integration has been based on gut feeling and guesswork,” she said.

“With real facts, we can finally talk clearly about Swedish values and take proper action on integration.”

Mohamsson pointed out that Sweden is very different from many countries when it comes to things like religion, gender equality, and family roles.

“We’re an extreme country in a good way,” she said. “People coming here can find it hard to understand how our society works.”

Mohamsson said the results could lead to changes in schools, civic classes, or language courses for migrants.

Past surveys have shown that many migrants arrive in Sweden with very different views on topics like divorce, premarital sex, abortion, and homosexuality. Over time, those views tend to shift — after about 10 years, migrants’ values start to resemble those of Swedes. But Mohamsson says that’s too slow.

“Ten years is way too long,” she said. “That’s an entire generation of girls who can’t choose who they love or boys who can’t come out.”

“This isn’t about forcing people to change what they think. It’s about making sure everyone respects the core values we have in Sweden,” she said. “It would be strange to say some people don’t need to follow those values.”

However, some political parties — especially the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, who prop up the current government — consider this approach to be far too soft. They argue that Sweden has already waited too long to tackle cultural clashes and that surveys and gradual changes are not enough. Instead, they demand tough measures, including deportations or stricter immigration controls for migrants who do not accept Swedish and Western values.

The Sweden Democrats recently announced they will campaign in the 2026 general election on a pledge to stop migration to the country.

“Sweden’s safety must come first — even when it conflicts with the right of asylum,” its party leader, Jimmie Åkesson, wrote in May.

Their concerns have gained traction amid growing unrest across Sweden. Migrant gang violence has reached record levels, with deadly shootings, bombings, and grenade attacks now at an all-time high. Police regularly report surging conflicts between criminal groups, and some neighborhoods in major cities are now described as no-go zones for locals after dark.

Even the Moderate Party, which leads the current government, has begun increasing its remigration efforts and pushing for higher income thresholds for prospective migrants, in part due to mounting pressure from the Sweden Democrats and growing public frustration over crime and integration failures.

Mohamsson wants to portray her party as one that understands these concerns, stressing that people who move to Sweden have a duty to try to fit in. “It’s not a human right to live in Sweden,” she repeated. “This isn’t about opinions — it’s about finding out which values clash with Swedish ones.”

This is one of Mohamsson’s first big interviews since becoming both integration minister and leader of the Liberals. She admitted her views have changed over time — she used to oppose her party’s shift to the right, but now she’s a minister in a government supported by the Sweden Democrats.

Asked about this, she said, “Yeah, I’ve changed my mind since I first got into politics 15 years ago. When it comes to problems in schools and integration, I think the best way to fix them is through the cooperation we have now.”

Despite the current government’s hardline rhetoric on migration, 60,000 foreigners still received Swedish citizenship in 2023.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/08/2025 - 03:30

Pages