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"Moving The Goalposts": BofA Downgrades Nike, Slashes Target As Turnaround Story Delayed

Nike shares fell 2% in New York premarket trading after BofA retail analyst Lorraine Hutchinson downgraded the world's largest athletic footwear and apparel company, warning that its "turnaround is taking longer" than expected. With shares trading at 2014 levels, the downgrade adds new woes to a recovery story that might not materialize until 2028.

In the report published earlier today, titled "Moving the goalposts," Hutchinson downgraded Nike to "Underperform" from "Neutral" and cut her price target to $30 from $47, implying 17% downside from Thursday's close of $35.99.

Hutchinson now expects a sales decline through 2027, abandoning her earlier call for a 1H27 recovery and pushing the turnaround into 2028. She cut fiscal 2027 and 2028 earnings estimates by 11% and 12%, respectively. Her 2027 forecast of $1.43 a share sits roughly 14% below Visible Alpha consensus.

She added color:

Risks are rising, downgrading to Underperform

We see downside risk to EPS estimates and valuation as Nike's innovation continues to be overshadowed by a pressured classics business, while category and macro pressures build. We are cutting F27E/F28E EPS by 11%/12%; we now expect negative sales growth through F27E versus our prior view of a Spring inflection. Our F27E EPS is 14% below VA consensus. The dividend payout ratio is over 100% and, as a result, we are reducing our income rating to 8 (same/lower) from 7 (same/higher). Our $30 PO (was $47) is based on a 16x P/E (was 22x), now aligned with the peer average.

Wholesale momentum should slow as sell-through lags

NA wholesale has been an area of strength, growing 14% in F26 vs. flat total sales growth. In some instances, sell-through is lagging sell-in due to declines in classic styles and new launches that are missing expectations. This puts forward order books at risk as retailers become less willing to make a bet on newness until success is proven. We see progress slowing in 2Q as the business laps 24% growth, and remaining challenged in 2H as the current issues pressure Spring orders. We model NA wholesale sales declines beginning in 2Q through the rest of F27.

China reset faces a tougher demand backdrop

China is in flux, and Nike's reduction in partner online sales will likely cause promotional pressure through 2Q. After that, Nike is expected to present the brand more cohesively online. Competition is intense; the quest for newness is higher than ever, and we see risk that sales decline at least through F27. BofA's Luxury Goods team's China fieldtrip takeaways included weak sports demand, with product newness not resonating, moderation of running outperformance, and excess inventory driven by low demand. 

Despite Nike's 44% year-to-date bear market, Hutchinson said it's "unlikely that the stock will hold a premium multiple in the face of further EPS cuts. We see some green shoots on product innovation, but those have been dwarfed by weaker larger casual categories."

She added, "We think the multiple could compress as the turn is pushed to F28."

According to Bloomberg data, there are 15 "Buy" ratings, 25 "Neutral" ratings and 7 "Sell" ratings on the stock, with a 12-month price target of $46.10.

The stock is already down 80% from its 2021 high of $177. Where stabilization occurs and halts the vicious bear market remains to be seen, but it could materialize next year as Wall Street analysts see a turnaround ahead. Yet BofA analysts have pushed that expectation back to 2028. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/25/2026 - 13:35

Suspected US Drone Strike Kills Alleged Al-Qaeda Member In Yemen

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

A suspected US drone strike hit a vehicle carrying two alleged al-Qaeda members in Yemen's southeastern Hadramout province on Tuesday, China's Xinhua news agency has reported.

A local security source told the news agency that one of the men in the vehicle was killed while the other was wounded. So far, there's been no confirmation of the strike from the US, but the US hasn't officially acknowledged an airstrike against Yemen's al-Qaeda affiliate, known as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) since 2020, even though it has continued the drone war.

Earlier this year, the Yemen Data Project reported that from January 2025 to March 2026, it found 21 reports of US drone strikes in Yemen through an investigation of open-source material, attacks that were separate from the US bombing campaign against Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, that took place last year.

The report of a US drone strike in southeast Yemen comes as fighting continues to rage in western Yemen between Ansar Allah and Saudi-backed forces since the war reignited back in July due to Saudi airstrikes on the Sanaa International Airport. The US is backing Saudi Arabia's airstrikes with targeting and intelligence support, as it did during the war from 2015 to 2022.

US weapons sold to Saudi Arabia and the UAE throughout the conflict ended up in the hands of militants linked to AQAP, according to a 2019 report from CNN, and the coalition was known to recruit al-Qaeda fighters in southern Yemen to fight against Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis.

Ansar Allah is known to be a fierce enemy of al-Qaeda, and before the US supported the Saudi-led coalition's intervention in Yemen in 2015, the US was cooperating with Ansar Allah and sharing intelligence with the group as part of its strategy against AQAP.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/25/2026 - 13:20

Chinese Hacking Groups Used Shared Attack Tool Against US Aerospace Firms, NGOs

Authored by Arthur Zhang via The Epoch Times,

Chinese cyber-espionage groups used the same sophisticated hacking tool in campaigns targeting U.S. aerospace companies, nongovernmental organizations, mining companies, and commodity traders, according to two cybersecurity firms that separately investigated the activity.

A member of a hacking group is using his computer at their office in Dongguan, Guangdong province, China, on Aug. 4, 2020. Nicolas Asfouri/AFP via Getty Images

Volexity, a Virginia-based cybersecurity firm, said on Sept. 21 its discovery of another Chinese hacking group using the same tool added to evidence of coordinated sharing within China's cyber-espionage community.

The company said the widespread adoption "suggests a coordinated effort within the Chinese CNE community," referring to computer network exploitation, and assessed that the core tool was likely shared, customized, and used by multiple groups.

Proofpoint, a U.S. cybersecurity company, separately documented on Sept. 9 the same capability in campaigns against a small number of U.S. NGOs, mining companies, commodity-trading firms, and multiple U.S. aerospace companies. It found several espionage groups adopting the tool within days of one another, with most of the observed clusters having a suspected China nexus.

Neither company has publicly identified who developed the tool or how it reached the different hacking groups.

The Epoch Times asked both companies whether they had identified its developer or distributor and whether they had found additional U.S. targets. Neither responded by publication time.

Same Tool, Different Targets

The hacking groups pursued different victims and installed different spying software after gaining access, but researchers found that they relied on the same underlying break-in capability.

The attacks took advantage of previously unknown weaknesses in Google Chrome and Microsoft Windows. If successful, they could allow hackers to install spying software and maintain access to a victim's computer.

Volexity said the additional Chinese operator it identified used the same attack chain on Sept. 3 and 4, when the vulnerabilities were still unpatched.

The company cautioned that what Volexity and Proofpoint have observed may represent only part of the activity.

"The full scope and impact are likely far broader," Volexity said.

Fake Websites Used to Reach Targets

The newly identified group also used fake versions of trusted news and policy websites to lure intended targets.

In one campaign, Asian government entities received a Chinese-language email centered on imprisoned Hong Kong activist Chow Hang-tung. The link led to a fake site impersonating China Digital Times, a U.S.-based publication covering China, censorship, and politics, according to Volexity.

Another fake site impersonated the Center for American Progress (CAP), a Washington-based policy organization.

Volexity also identified fake sites mimicking two publications; The Conversation, which publishes articles by academic researchers, and the Borneo Bulletin, an English-language daily newspaper in Brunei. The company said the range of impersonated organizations may offer clues about the intended targets.

The Epoch Times has reached out to CAP and China Digital Times for comments. Neither responded by publication time.

Separate China-Linked Activity

Separately, cybersecurity firm ESET on Sept. 17 identified a China-aligned espionage campaign targeting governments and other organizations across Latin America, including a Panamanian legal entity involved in the dispute over two major ports near the Panama Canal. ESET has not identified a technical link between that activity and the campaigns documented by Volexity.

Barbara James, a public relations specialist at ESET, told The Epoch Times on Sept. 23 that malware was deployed on some computers in the Panamanian organization's network in late December 2025 and January 2026, with further attempts between February and June of 2026.

James said ESET's assessment of the likely espionage purpose was based on which organization was targeted and when.

ESET did not directly observe the hackers accessing or removing materials related to the port dispute. James said the limits of the company's anonymized data meant it also could not rule out that such access occurred.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/25/2026 - 12:45

Zelensky Claims 'Final Decision' Made To Let Ukraine Build Patriots, After Trump Reversed Pledge

Back in July President Trump strongly signaled that he was greenlighting the ability of Ukraine to produce its own patriot anti-air defense missiles. Trump declared in the context of a Turkey-hosted NATO summit that Washington would give Ukraine "the right to make Patriots" - after Zelensky had been relentless in his requests, framing it as urgent and for the protection of cities and civilians.

But since then there's been denials and ambiguity surrounding the pledge. President Trump had at the time of the summer NATO summit admitted the risks involved, also while trying to press ahead to get the warring sides to the peace table, conceding, "It's an escalation but it’s also an escalation that can help lead to an end [of the war]."

On Friday while attending the UN General Assembly meeting in New York, Zelensky told journalists that the White House has made its 'final decision' to okay the Patriot production scheme.

Getty Images

The Ukrainian leader claimed: "At our last meeting, President Trump emphasized to me that yes, I have made a final decision. Ukraine will receive licenses for the production of Patriot missiles."

However, the White House has yet to affirm this, and hasn't issued comment on Zelensky's latest assertions. It seems premature, and a ploy to pressure Trump into agreeing.

The Guardian reviews that Trump had publicly backed down from the Patriot plan by mid-summer:

Donald Trump has backed off a promise to let Ukraine manufacture its own Patriot air defense interceptors, telling reporters that handing over the underlying technology was “a hard thing to give away” during a cabinet meeting at Camp David.

The retreat, billed by the White House as “something different” for the cabinet to experience together, was the first such meeting at the presidential compound of Trump’s second term.

It also became the venue for the US president to unpick, in real time, a commitment he made to Volodymyr Zelenskyy just a few days earlier.

Asked whether he was ready to grant Kyiv a license to build Patriots domestically – something he had suggested at a Nato summit in Turkey just this month, and which the Ukrainian president described as a productive topic in their White House meeting on Tuesday – Trump was noncommittal.

"We have not agreed to that," Trump had said at the Camp David meeting, reversing course. "We’re talking about it, but it’s a hard thing to give away that kind of technology."

Trump had said that an interceptor can go "8,600 miles an hour" - and that "Nobody else has that capacity" - strongly suggesting that he's averse to giving away such technology to a foreign ally.

Zelensky reveals the number of Patriot missiles fired during Iran War:

Just between us, PAC-3 missiles in the Middle East — the countries there have used about 800 or more missiles during these attacks.

Ukraine has never had that many missiles during all this time to repel… pic.twitter.com/WUz9E4hait

— Clash Report (@clashreport) March 5, 2026

But now Zelensky is claiming that Trump has reversed once again on the issue. Again, there's nothing at all indicating that this is what has come from the White House, in any official capacity.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/25/2026 - 12:25

Efforts To Curb Data Center Speculation Gain Ground Across The US

By Brian Martucci of UtilityDive,

“A fraction of proposed data centers will get built. Utilities are wising up.”

That was the headline on a May 2025 Utility Dive article that explored the conundrum speculative data center requests pose for U.S. electric utilities. More than a year later, it’s unclear how much has changed.

Sections of the Stargate Oracle AI data center undergo construction on Aug. 26, 2026, in Abilene, Texas. Community opposition has emerged as a major barrier to data center development as utilities and their regulators introduce new vetting requirements. Brandon Bell via Getty Images

Community opposition has emerged as a major barrier to data center development, with other challenges including construction labor shortages, long lead times for critical electrical equipment, limited power availability in key markets and uncertainty around consumer demand for artificial intelligence tools.

More than $170 billion in AI data center capacity has been “blocked, withdrawn, or stalled” by community opposition since January 2024, the energy advisory company Relae, formerly Carbon Direct, said in June.

 A person holds a sign at a city council town hall on data centers on Sept. 14, 2026, in Mason, Mich. Public backlash to data centers, based in part on their enermous energy demands, is driving states to pursue stricter development standards or even moratoriums on new facilities. Nic Antaya via Getty Images

That’s a sizable chunk of the roughly $581 billion Goldman Sachs expects the big tech companies known as hyperscalers to spend in the U.S. on AI infrastructure, including data center construction, this year.

Yet market analysts see no sign that the AI-driven construction boom will disappear anytime soon, despite challenges.

Goldman Sachs said in May it sees U.S. data center power demand more than doubling from its 2025 levels to reach 66 GW in 2027. Only about half of data center capacity scheduled for the next one to two years is expected to come online on time amid delays and cancellations, it said. 

The Electric Power Research Institute, a research nonprofit, said in February that data centers will represent 9% to 17% of U.S. electricity demand in 2030 and up to 20% by 2035.

Questions persist around the scale, timing and location of new data center load. If anything, the uncertainty is growing amid public backlash to data centers that is fueling state-led efforts to impose stricter rules on data center development, up to and including moratoriums on new facilities in some places.

Firmer answers would benefit not only the utility planners and regulators ensuring that the electric grid is neither over- nor under-built, but also the millions of other customers who could bear the consequences of a disorderly buildout, industry experts say.

Texas hits the brakes on large loads as states assert control

Many utilities and their regulators have turned to large-load tariffs to try and weed out speculative load by requiring minimum contract durations, minimum billing demand and collateral requirements, upfront payments for impact studies, exit fees and specific ramp schedules. Some states have also introduced incentives for developers that bring their own capacity, agree to be flexible in their energy use or commit to state clean energy or economic development goals.

The question of just how much data center capacity is going to come online, and when, is particularly urgent in Texas, which has paused new data center interconnections pending an audit of its 474-GW queue. That’s more than five times the Texas grid’s recent all-time peak demand record of a little over 90 GW set this summer. 

Few experts expect all that load to materialize. Pablo Vegas, president and CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, is among the skeptics. 

“We believe this forecast to be higher than expected future load growth,” Vegas said in an April statement, citing uncertainty around protocols for identifying, verifying and incorporating large load demand into long-range planning. Vegas said ERCOT would work with the Public Utilities Commission of Texas to adjust its forecasting methodology.

Thomas Gleeson, the PUCT’s chairman, was more blunt in an appearance on the Energy Capital podcast in June.

“The projections are extremely high, and what we know is that a lot of that load will not actually come here. A lot of it is speculative,” Gleeson said in comments made before the interconnection pause.

The sheer number of large-load interconnection requests compounds the state’s challenge. Texas’s load growth — not only from large computing and industrial loads, but also garden-variety residential and commercial demand — is leading to congestion in load pockets that previously had capacity to spare, Gleeson said.

That creates unwelcome uncertainty for large-load customers eager to put steel in the ground.

“That has been the problem we have been trying to solve for the past eight or so months — that when [a customer has] an interconnection agreement and they are ready to move forward, they know that the capacity will be there to serve them so they can make proper business decisions,” Gleeson said.

Texas has developed “gating” conditions to discourage speculative interconnection requests, balance load and capacity and “make sure that no one is harmed by these large loads,” Gleeson said. 

Last summer, Gov. Greg Abbott, R, signed Senate Bill 6, a sweeping measure requiring prospective large-load customers to demonstrate site control, substantially cover necessary grid upgrades, disclose duplicative interconnection requests elsewhere in Texas and accept curtailment during firm load shed events, among other provisions. 

On June 18, the PUCT adopted a cluster study framework for prospective loads larger than 75 MW that officials said would streamline a “lengthy and repetitive” sequential study process as ERCOT stakeholders work to develop a comprehensive transmission planning framework later this year. ERCOT said at the time that it expected to publish a final transmission plan for the first study cluster, known as “Batch Zero,” in late 2027.

The Stargate Oracle AI data center campus is seen on Aug. 26, 2026, in Abilene, Texas. The state has paused new large-load interconnections pending an audit of data centers in its 474-GW queue.
Brandon Bell via Getty Images

Gleeson said on the podcast that the cluster study and transmission planning frameworks will mitigate uncertainty for large loads, grid operators and generation owners across Texas. Together, they assure loads that “once they interconnect, they will get the electricity they need to fully energize,” and they assure other stakeholders that “all the loads coming here are real and will stay,” he said.

But before the state could announce the first study cluster, Abbott in August effectively directed the grid operator to freeze new interconnection approvals until it completes an audit of all data centers in the queue. ERCOT responded by delaying the Batch Zero process.

The grid operator has since said that it aims to complete the audit by December. In the meantime, Bloomberg NEF estimated that the interconnection “pause” could delay 20% of the total U.S. data center pipeline, and possibly more if it extends into next year.

Uncertainty in regulated markets, too

Large-load uncertainty is a headache in regulated utility markets, too. There, it’s up to vertically integrated utilities — with increasing scrutiny from state policymakers and regulators — to sort out speculative requests from those more likely to get built.

Brad Viator, president of Power for Tomorrow, a trade association for vertically integrated utilities, insists they are up to the challenge. 

In an email, Viator said many utilities are raising load interconnection study fees as request volume increases. They’re also structuring electric service agreements to prevent large loads from ramping power demand “in ways that would strand costs or compromise reliability for other customers,” such as by requiring customers to pay upfront for substation upgrades and other infrastructure. And they’re keeping generation that would be required to support a large new customer out of load forecasts until the contract is “actually executed or near execution,” he said.

“The structure is designed to ensure that by the time a customer reaches a contract — and certainly before any new generation is committed — the utility has high confidence they’re dealing with a real project, not a tire-kicker,” Viator said.

For legitimate large-load customers, vertically integrated utilities’ ownership of generation, transmission and distribution ensures adequate generation and grid capacity, maintaining reliability as they interconnect, Viator said. He said that’s one factor in regulated utilities’ comparatively short interconnection queues — one to five years compared with eight or more in deregulated portions of the PJM Interconnection, he said.

“In markets like PJM, where new generation simply isn’t getting built, you can’t move customers through the queue because there’s no new generation to serve them,” Viator said.

Some regulators and consumer advocates have raised concerns, however, that the return on equity in the vertically integrated model incentivizes spending on new infrastructure more than it does scrutiny of potential large loads.

Karl Rábago, principal at Rábago Energy and a former commissioner at the Texas Public Utility Commission, said because vertically integrated utilities own power plants, poles and wires across sometimes vast territories, they have more leverage over regulators, and the for-profit companies among them have strong financial incentives to build more.  

“I get no sense that utilities are excited about serving this load as much as they are excited about spending the capital necessary to serve the load,” Rábago said. “They are promising big [earnings per share] growth … to shareholders, and the transmission and generation [they build] to serve data centers is the only way to get that.” 

Their data center load growth projections — those shared publicly, at least — thus deserve some skepticism, he said.

“If they have good estimates of load growth — realistically discounting for the opposition that is gaining traction — it is not in their interest to share,” Rábago said.

Some independent grid modelers seem to agree. In November, Grid Strategies, a power sector consulting firm, said the aggregate data center load forecasts that utilities submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission came in about 40% higher than credible industry projections for data center development through 2030.

Rábago said “cross-jurisdictional cooperation” could help state regulators develop more accurate data center load projections, but he’s not aware of any such efforts. Right now, “utilities are playing the tune that makes regulators dance — if you don’t let us do this, the grid could collapse under all that load,” he said.

Utilities look to smaller data centers as scrutiny of large loads intensifies

Some investor-owned utilities appear to be angling for smaller data centers that can interconnect to the grid more easily, arouse less community opposition and appear likely to become more common as AI use increases. 

In late March, for example, NorthWestern Energy filed a large-load tariff proposal with the Montana Public Service Commission that would exempt loads under 50 MW from direct regulatory oversight. And in May, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, R, signed a law requiring data centers over 50 MW to cover the full cost of connecting to the grid, aligning with large-load tariffs state regulators approved for Florida Power & Light, a vertically integrated NextEra subsidiary.

NorthWestern Energy CEO Brian Bird said in a statement that his company’s proposal would “[position] our state to compete for high-quality economic development.”

But Anne Hedges, executive director for the Montana Environmental Information Center, told the Daily Montanan in April that the proposal created a loophole that would — in theory — allow NorthWestern to connect multiple 49-MW data centers without adequate ratepayer protections.

Such “vague” large-load tariffs maintain utilities’ leverage without shedding much light on future power demand from computing facilities, Rábago said.

“We really have no visibility on the shape of the whole market — what is the mean or mode of size distribution for data centers and where is it heading?” he said. “I feel like it is generally smaller than the large load size thresholds utilities are getting in large load tariffs.”

Data center load growth projections also depend on factors outside utilities’ control. One big wild card is customer demand for AI, cloud services and other products of data centers’ computing capacity. 

In May, xAI said it would lease already-operating servers at its Memphis data center to Anthropic, the fast-growing company behind the Claude large-language models. Bloomberg reported on July 1 that Meta would launch a cloud computing business — similar to Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon’s AWS — that could help it recoup the many billions of dollars it has spent on computing equipment over the past several years.

The developments suggest xAI and Meta have more computing capacity than they need for themselves in the near term, though not necessarily that no one else has use for it. As Bain & Co. put it in October, hyperscalers are moving from an initial “scramble” for AI computing capacity into a more “disciplined, selective and execution-focused phase of growth.”

The upshot of this transition from hype to execution is that “the ‘wildcat’ predictions for data centers are dead in the water,” said Advait Arun, senior associate for capital markets at the Center for Public Enterprise.

“The only ones that are getting built are ones that are, upfront, supported by hyperscaler cash,” which is “barrelling through a lot of problems” facing the industry, Arun said. 

That’s bad news for the speculative neocloud data center operators that lease computing capacity to hyperscalers, Arun said, but it’s not necessarily an indication that evidence-based data center load forecasts are overshooting the mark.

The transmission fault that caused 1.5 GW of data center load to trip offline in Virginia in 2024, and the North American Electric Reliability Corp.’s more recent warning that large computing facilities may pose systemic reliability risks, are evidence that the grid needs to expand to accommodate even modest data center growth, he said.

“I think utilities shouldn’t be concerned with overbuilding. There’s a baseline level of new investment into interregional transmission and large-scale capacity that’s necessary for resilience,” Arun said.

“Now, that’s not to say ratepayers won’t feel the bite,” he added. “And that’s a big problem with the way the system works.”

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/25/2026 - 12:05

Appeals Court Backs Department Of War's Anthropic Blacklisting In Blow To Dario

The Trump administration scored a legal victory Friday morning after a federal appeals court rejected Anthropic's challenge to its designation as a national-security supply-chain risk. This means the Department of War can blacklist the AI frontier firm from all contracts.

In a 2-1 decision today, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit found sufficient grounds for the DoW to designate Anthropic's products a supply-chain risk. The court pointed to restrictions embedded in Claude that prevent it from performing certain critical tasks.

"The Department had ample support for its conclusion that the continued integration of Claude into the Department's information systems, by the Department or its contractors, presented a statutorily covered national-security risk," the court wrote.

It continued, "As Anthropic admits, the company encodes restrictions into Claude that prevent the model from performing tasks that Anthropic wishes to prevent."

Anthropic has opposed allowing its AI to be used for autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance.

Dario Amodei's Anthropic has warned that such a designation could cause significant "reputational stigma" and cost it hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

Or perhaps it could complicate things as the company pushes for an IPO debut after the US midterm elections in November.

Last night at the White House, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Sam Altman, and Tim Cook were among those invited to the state dinner with President Trump and Melania Trump, as well as Trump's Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, and his wife.

Dario was not invited.

If Anthropic were smart they would terminate Dario tomorrow https://t.co/Dxtv011mzk

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) September 25, 2026

Will Chamberlain noted on X, "If Anthropic were smart they would terminate Dario tomorrow." 

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/25/2026 - 11:50

Senate Narrowly Defeats Iran War Powers Resolution

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com

The Senate narrowly defeated a War Powers Resolution on Thursday that would have directed President Trump to end the war with Iran, though the vote doesn’t negate the Iran War Powers Resolution that was passed by both the Senate and the House several months ago.

The resolution failed Thursday in a 49-50 vote, with four Republicans — Senators Rand Paul (R-KY), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Thom Tillis (R-NC) — supporting the measure. It marked the first time Tillis, who is not running for re-election, voted to end the war.

C-Span screengrab

Just one Democrat, Senator Jon Fetterman (D-PA), voted against the bill, something he’s consistently done, and Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD) wasn’t present for the vote.

If Alsobrooks did vote in favor of the resolution, Vice President JD Vance could have cast a tie-breaking vote to kill the bill, as he did with a Venezuela War Powers Resolution earlier this year.

The resolution previously passed through the House, where seven Republicans voted in favor, the most support from the GOP that a bill to end the Iran war has received.

Back in June, both the House and the Senate passed a concurrent War Powers Resolution directing President Trump to end hostilities against Iran, marking the first time Congress has approved a concurrent resolution under the 1973 War Powers Act directing the termination of an unauthorized war.

Section 5(c) of the 1973 War Powers Act states that "at any time that United States Armed Forces are engaged in hostilities outside the territory of the United States, its possessions and territories without a declaration of war or specific statutory authorization, such forces shall be removed by the President if the Congress so directs by concurrent resolution."

Thursday’s vote, or any of the other recent War Powers bills that have been defeated, does not repeal H. Con. Res. 86, the resolution that was passed in June. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) has said in his articles of impeachment that he introduced for Pete Hegseth that the Pentagon chief is in violation of the 1973 War Powers Act by continuing the war with Iran without congressional authorization.

Massie also argues that the war was unlawful from the outset because Congress never declared war on Iran or provided authorization for the hostilities.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/25/2026 - 11:25

Jefferies, Goldman, Now Stifel: Wall Street Races To Cover Almonty As "Owning The Bottlenecks" Theme Gains Momentum

A sense of urgency is building across Wall Street as notable desks push clients toward the critical materials theme we already laid out for readers, as the Trump administration accelerates efforts to rebuild conflict-free supply chains and reduce dependence on China. Resource nationalism and the looming rearmament supercycle are turning secure access to critical materials into both a national security priority and a multiyear investment theme.

For miners already producing conflict-free critical materials outside China, the opportunity lies in supplying Western buyers seeking alternatives to Beijing's quasi-monopoly, which is expected to persist through 2030. The US government's deals with junior miners have generated news headlines, but new projects can take years to reach commercial production. As Western supplies tighten, the immediate market advantage belongs to producers capable of delivering material today. Government funding can accelerate development, but it cannot eliminate the time required to permit, build and commission a mine.

Wall Street Piles Into Almonty Coverage As Tungsten Producing Miner Ramps Up To Challenge China's Stranglehold

At the start of the month, Jefferies initiated coverage on Almonty Industries and assigned a "Buy" rating, highlighting the miner's direct public-market exposure to Western tungsten supply, with a 12-month price target of $26.25.

Jefferies initiates critical mineral companies Almonty, Materion, USA Rare Earth and Neo Performance with Buy; the firms are expected to benefit from increased demand for supply outside of China.

Almonty (buy, PT $26.25)

Sees Almonty offering public exposure to Western tungsten…

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 2, 2026

By Thursday, Goldman Sachs launched coverage on Almonty, describing the miner as "at the center of the Western tungsten investment narrative."

Now it's Friday, and Stifel critical materials analyst Brock Cannon has initiated coverage of Almonty with a $25 price target, telling clients that the Nasdaq-listed miner is set to be a major beneficiary of Western efforts to reduce dependence on Chinese tungsten, which is critical to defense and advanced manufacturing.

Almonty rated new Buy ($25 PT) at Stifel as it sees the miner benefiting from increased production and higher tungsten prices. “Tungsten prices are up ~775% since the start of 2025 as China’s export controls have structurally changed the market”

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 25, 2026

China accounted for roughly 80% of global tungsten mine production in 2025 and about 85% of downstream ammonium paratungstate refining capacity, according to Cannon.

Almonty's production ramp is timed just perfectly to help Western buyers break China's stranglehold on tungsten supply: its Sangdong mine in South Korea is ramping up Phase I, while Phase II is expected to nearly double annual ore throughput to 1.2 million tonnes in 2027.

"Almonty is a global tungsten mine operator with assets across Western countries and the US. The company has recently started Phase I commercial production at its Sangdong, South Korea mine with plans to execute Phase II (~2x production) in 2027," Cannon wrote in the note.

Alongside an expansion at its Panasqueira mine in Portugal, that should substantially increase output over the next two years. Cannon estimates Sangdong alone could account for roughly 40% of Western and allied tungsten supply once both phases are fully operational.

Cannon noted, "The company is also expanding production at its Panasqueira mine which (along with Sangdong) would result in the company leading Western Tungsten production by the end of 2028."

Cannon added more color: 

Financial Snapshot

Investment Thesis

Key Investor Debates

Global Supply

Tungsten Demand Market Segments

Tungsten in Defense

The Korean Trinity: Almonty's Long-Term Buildout at Sangdong

Tungsten Pricing: China Exit Creating New Market Dynamic

Almonty Tungsten Production Ramp: Ahead of the Game

Almonty Leads Western Tungsten Project Pipeline

US Tungsten: No Operating Mine, Five Domestic Projects

Long-Term Catalysts: Upside From Further Expansion Projects

Cannon named Almonty the "first name in our new Critical Materials coverage," which is outlined in a theme called "Owning the Bottlenecks." 

Why this theme should work: 

The race for conflict-free tungsten and other critical materials is a theme that Jefferies, Goldman, and now Stifel are backing, as Washington's multiyear effort to rebuild critical supply chains will reward early movers, including producers like Almonty.

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

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/25/2026 - 11:10

Netanyahu Brings Ominous Prop To UN Speech, Blasts 'Moral Cowards'

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday issued a fiery address to the UN General Assembly in New York, raging against his international critics and batting down genocide allegations.

He slammed widespread accusations that the Israeli army conducted a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Gaza as "the biggest lie of the century" while calling his decision to obliterate Hamas and wage war in the strip "one of the easiest decisions I've ever had to make." He added: "if we hadn't done it, we'd all be dead."

via Reuters

Dozens of UN delegates walked out during the speech, and at times jeers and boos were heard, after which Netanyahu berated them from the podium as "moral cowards".

At one point he said that "in the last three years," Israeli soldiers have "fought a war on seven fronts."

"Do you know of any other country the size of New Jersey that can fight for three years on seven fronts?" he posed. 

The big walkout...

Netanyahu with a slight grin: "If there are any other moral cowards who haven’t yet left this hall, please do so now, thank you very much."

🇮🇱 Mark Rutte was apparently surprised delegations would walk out during Netanyahu’s UN speech...

That’s like being surprised someone brought cocaine to Miami in the ’80s.

Writer: Oliverpic.twitter.com/EQ0AvaVtnY

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) September 24, 2026

"They organized to erase us from the face of the Earth. Instead of collapsing, we delivered devastating blows to all of them with our great American friends and crushed the Iranian army and its nuclear facilities," Netanyahu also said.

Given he was standing at the UN building in New York City, Netanyahu called out Mayor Zohran Mamdani. He chastised him as the "antisemitic mayor" - and added:

"Shame on you. Shame on you for distorting the facts. Shame on you for inverting the victim and aggressor. Shame on you for spitting in the face of truth."

Netanyahu further asserted that "many Jews no longer feel safe in New York" since Mamdani got elected. The longtime member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and former NY state assembly member had previously called for Bibi's arrest as a war criminal should he step foot on American soil.

Israel is publishing the coordinates, dates and exact local times of public protests in other countries.

The J-SOC reports appear on the Ministry for Diaspora Affairs website as part of a wider effort to protect Israel’s international image.
Here are 2,000 forecast entries. pic.twitter.com/pcfb38ftdR

— S.B.S (@Wallface) September 25, 2026

"Mr. Mamdani, you tried to stop me from coming here. You tried to silence me. Well, you can't silence me, and you can't silence the truth," Netanyahu said in his speech.

He also quite provocatively brandished a pager while reminding the UN audience Israel's devastating September 2024 operation against Hezbollah leaders (and in some instances their families). He's been on many occasions touting Israeli intelligence's pager bombs - though this will likely been seen by many on the UNGA floor as a veiled threat to not oppose Israel.

Speaking of veiled threats...

🚨🇮🇱 WATCH: A member of the Israeli delegation walking around the UN hall to check which countries had left during Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech pic.twitter.com/MeYXEe6TLc

— Politics Global (@PolitlcsGlobal) September 25, 2026

Netanyahu has long been known for somewhat theatrical speeches on the UN floor, and almost every time be brings some kind of prop or visual. Iranian President Pesheshkian also brought some visuals to present before the delegates.

Clash of visuals: Iran President vs. PM Netanyahu

Starlink snub: Iran and Israel take UNGA clash beyond words pic.twitter.com/l6oOiKvLtg

— Viory Video (@vioryvideo) September 25, 2026

In this latest Thursday address, some critics have noted that the overall threatening tone of the speech (with us or against us type rhetoric) reveals some level of desperation on the part of the Israeli government as it finds itself more and more isolated on a global stage. Even the UK has of late announced sanctions on Jewish settler groups in the West Bank, which has been met with anger in Tel Aviv.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/25/2026 - 11:00

"More Signaling, Less Substance": Barclays Pours Cold Water On Trump-Xi Summit

President Donald Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping for a White House state dinner late Thursday, calling for closer ties while offering limited details on progress in addressing trade and geopolitical disputes. This was Xi's first White House visit in over a decade.

On Friday morning, Trump issued a fresh Truth Social post related to the evening with Xi, but fixated on his term "Super Intelligence". Apparently Trump wants this to be his legacy in connection with the early history of AI...

Trump last night praised Xi and his wife as "truly outstanding, amazing people" and said the two superpowers should "continue to build a relationship that promotes prosperity and security."

Xi called for a relationship defined by "strategic stability" and urged both sides to "act as responsible major countries."

Behind the scenes:

Behind the scenes at the @WhiteHouse #StateDinner with President @realDonaldTrump, First Lady @MelaniaTrump, President Xi, and Madame Peng—With guests in the beautiful East Room… pic.twitter.com/kDhBrIWajI

— Dan Scavino Jr.🇺🇸🦅 (@DanScavino) September 25, 2026

Earlier on Thursday, the two leaders held bilateral talks in the Oval Office. Trump described the discussions as a "great meeting" but did not elaborate on what was said. Xi told dinner guests that the two leaders had "reached common understanding on many issues," without providing further details.

Barclays senior China economist Yingke Zhou provided clients with his first take on the Trump-Xi state visit and said it was "more signaling, less substance."

"The Trump-Xi summit was primarily about stabilizing relations rather than resolving disputes. Beyond a short trade-truce extension, progress was limited. The absence of Chinese CEOs suggests China viewed the summit as a strategic dialogue, not a deal-making exercise," Zhou said.

Zhou added more color:

What was the key message?

The Trump-Xi summit's main achievement was symbolic rather than substantive. The two sides projected a constructive tone and a willingness to keep talking, but delivered little concrete progress on the core issues, including trade, AI and geopolitics. We think the summit was primarily about stabilizing the relationship, rather than resolving core disputes.

Speaking at the arrival ceremony at the White House, President Xi repeatedly emphasized building a "constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability." Overall, we think President Xi's speech was less about concessions and more about signaling predictability, stability, and openness to continued economic engagement, despite the competition in technology, trade, and geopolitics.

For comparison, President Trump repeatedly emphasized his personal relationship with Xi and the value of engagement. The summit's key message, we think, is that both sides want to lower escalation risks and maintain dialogue, even as strategic competition remains firmly intact.

What was the most concrete deliverable?

The main deliverable was a two-month extension of the existing trade truce to 10 January 2027, removing an immediate source of policy uncertainty. However, the extension was shorter than the 3-6 month rollover many market participants had expected, and shorter than indications from Jamieson Greer ahead of the Trump-Xi meeting.

For context, China continues to face the highest effective US tariff rates among major trading partners, with an effective tariff rate of roughly 23%, compared with an average US effective tariff rate of around 7% for the rest of the world. The lack of progress on tariff reductions suggests that both sides are prioritizing stability and continued dialogue rather than pursuing a meaningful trade reset.

Board of Trade: Ahead of the summit, reports¹ suggested the US and China were considering reciprocal tariff cuts on around USD30bn of goods under the proposed Board of Trade framework. USTR said on 21 September that establishing a stable 'Board of Trade' is a key goal for the summit, with aims to secure a stable subset of goods, including agricultural and medical products, away from active trade disputes. So far, few concrete announcements have emerged. We await the details post the summit.

What the delegations tell us?

The summit delivered few concrete policy outcomes, but the composition of the delegations sent an important signal. The US side prominently featured leaders from AI and semiconductors (e.g. Nvidia, AMD, OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta), other technology (Apple, Tesla, and Dell), and finance (Citi, JPM, Blackstone, GS, and Mastercard), underscoring that technology, capital, and investment ties remain at the center of the US-China relationship.

In contrast, President Xi's delegation consisted almost entirely of senior government officials and policymakers, including economic, trade, and foreign-affairs officials. No major Chinese entrepreneurs, technology leaders, or corporate executives were part of the official delegation. In our view, the absence of Chinese CEOs suggests China wanted to frame the summit primarily as a state-to-state diplomatic engagement, rather than a platform for commercial deal-making.

What are the key takeaways on geopolitics?

The summit built guardrails, not solutions. On geopolitics, the focus was on managing risks rather than resolving disputes.

On Taiwan, Chinese state media reported² that President Xi urged the US to "adhere to the correct position of opposing Taiwan independence," underscoring that Taiwan remains Beijing's foremost geopolitical red line and the most sensitive issue in US-China relations.

On Iran, President Xi expressed support for the US and Iran returning to the June memorandum of understanding aimed at ending the conflict and reopening the Strait of Hormuz³. More broadly, China appears relatively insulated from the energy shock. Kepler data suggest that China's crude oil inventories have declined by less than 5% since the Middle East conflict began. At the current pace of drawdown, China has ample energy buffers and could sustain supply disruptions for at least 10 years.

The Trump-Xi meeting comes amid uncertainty over two conflicts raging across Eurasia, from Russia-Ukraine to the Gulf conflict, alongside intensifying resource nationalism and competition for technological leadership. The world is on an uncertain glide path into 2027 amid a global refining crisis.

* * *

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/25/2026 - 10:55

Frenemies: "China May Be Exporting Two Pandas, But It Would Much Rather Export Millions Of Cars"

By Molly Schwartz, cros-aset macro strategist at Rabobank 

Frenemies

The US-China summit officially began after Xi arrived in Washington, DC, late on Wednesday. Topics including trade, the Strait of Hormuz, and the AI (AGI?) races are expected to arise, but little tangible progress is anticipated.

After all that, Trump and Xi agreed to... rename AI to SI https://t.co/gLaNhLT18I pic.twitter.com/YZ9s2pvGBA

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 25, 2026

Instead, the goal is to “prevent something very bad from happening.” Frenemies, Xi and Trump, hailed “healthy competition,” rather than competition “in which one wins and one loses.” In a show of friendship (frenemyship?), China is sending two giant pandas, Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, to Zoo Atlanta. According to Politico, “one person close to the White House” said: “Trump likes to be like, ‘oh, we get along great,’ and it’s like, okay, well, at the same time, these guys are a massive threat to us. We’re in an AI race with them. They’re supplying Iranians with intelligence and weapons…He’s missing the message here. No one cares whether you’re friends with the guy or not… are you advancing [the US’] objectives or not?”

But a friendly veneer is unlikely to temper the tensions simmering below the surface. Although Trump and Xi may have a “personal rapport”, their respective objectives are diametrically opposed. China may be exporting two pandas, but it would much rather export tens of thousands of Chinese-made electric vehicles. For now, the US-China trade-war truce has been extended to January 10, 2027, but what follows remains unclear.

Moreover, the trade-war truce still accommodates a slew of US and Chinese trade barriers, including legacy Section 301 tariffs related to Chinese forced labour from 2018, new Section 301 tariffs, and broad-based Section 232 tariffs. Meanwhile, China continues to enforce its own 10% retaliatory tariff on US goods, alongside barriers affecting American agricultural products.

A similar pattern emerged in the AI discussion: both leaders again emphasized cooperation over confrontation, but few are convinced that either will slow the development of their respective AI capabilities.

The UN General Assembly is still under way in New York City. Some question the organization’s effectiveness in fulfilling its stated mission, which includes “saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” Scourge or not, brent has continued to surge, rising another $5 after gaining $5 the previous day, to close at $107/bbl.

After briefly diverging yesterday morning, with the 2-year yield edging lower and the 10-year yield creeping higher, both were again pulled into line with intraday moves in Brent crude. The 2-year yield has struggled to break above resistance at 4.90% but remains near Wednesday’s two-year high, while the 10-year yield continues to reach levels not seen since 2002, most recently at 5.16%. With Brent still climbing and little currently pushing back against inflation expectations, the OIS curve suggests investors are pricing a 68% probability of a hike at the October meeting and more than 93bp of tightening by October next year.

By extension, the USD is the best-performing G10 currency for a second consecutive day. The Brent crude à higher yields à stronger USD pipeline was in full swing, sending EUR/USD to 1.13—its lowest level since late July. The 14-day RSI suggests EUR/USD is somewhat oversold, and nearby support at 1.1325 indicates that a reversal may be imminent. Rabobank’s head of FX strategy, Jane Foley, recently revised her EUR/USD forecast and now expects the pair to trade sideways around 1.14 over a one-month horizon before retracing to 1.16–1.17. Read more here.

The Danish Defence Intelligence Service published a report yesterday stating that there is a “low but growing risk that Russia will launch a limited military attack against one or several NATO countries bordering Russia,” although it remains “highly unlikely that Russia will launch an invasion.” The report also highlights an intensification of Russian cyber and drone attacks, including “the foiled drone attack on Leipzig/Halle Airport, which…had been planned by Russia over a period of several months.” Meanwhile, reports indicate that an AI agent hacked into an Australian government health-data portal in June. As the AI race continues, the risk of hybrid warfare across both land and fibre-optic networks is growing rapidly.

Banxico held the overnight policy rate at 6.50% yesterday but adjusted its statement. Previously, the Bank had indicated that it was satisfied with the reference rate; however, the Fed’s decision to hike a few weeks ago has put Banxico in an uncomfortable position. Banxico has historically followed the Fed to some extent, and diverging policy paths could have significant consequences for USD/MXN, which is quickly approaching 17.8. The peso is particularly sensitive to interest-rate differentials because of its status as an attractive carry currency. Three-month USD/MXN implied volatility has risen from 9% to 10.3%, which is the highest level since April. Elevated volatility, combined with expectations of rapidly narrowing interest-rate differentials between Mexico and both the US and Japan, could point to USD/MXN moving above the 18-handle. However, Rabobank is currently maintaining its forecast of USD/MXN predominantly trading between 17 and 18. Read more here.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/25/2026 - 10:40

UMich Consumer Confidence Slides In September As Republicans Lose Faith

After July's rebound to pre-war levels, a re-escalation in the MidEast (and soaring fuel costs) has sent confidence back towards YTD lows. Today's final September data was expected to show UMich headline sentiment sliding further (and inflation expectations re-accelerating).

And while sentiment is lower overall (month to month), it did actually pick up modestly intra-month from preliminary levels.

Consumer sentiment ticked down less than four index points in September, reaching the lowest reading in four months and back down notably from January 2026.

Views of current and year-ahead expected personal finances also both weakened notably this month, with concerns over high prices continuing to climb.

Year-ahead inflation expectations jumped from 4.0% last month to 4.6% this month, the highest reading since June. The current reading substantially exceeds the 3.4% seen in February before the Iran conflict began, along with all 2024 readings. Long-run inflation expectations ticked up to 3.4%, ending three consecutive months at 3.3%. These expectations remain higher than their 2024 range of 2.8% to 3.2%.

Democrats are the most fearful of inflation once again...

Since the start of the year, consumer sentiment has declined for all groups by age, education, geography, political party and income, according to the report.

A gauge of the outlook for the economy in the year ahead slumped in September to the lowest since 2022. Consumers' expectations for their personal finances also deteriorated.

Buying conditions for durable goods improved slightly, but it was partly “due to a perception that completing such purchases now would help consumers avoid higher prices in the future,” Joanne Hsu, director of the survey, said in a statement.

Perhaps most ominously from the report is the finding that after particularly large declines in sentiment this month, Republican sentiment is now 20% lower than January 2026; Democrats are down 13% over the same period.

“Despite political differences, consumers unanimously believe that the outlook for the economy has diminished,’’ Hsu said.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/25/2026 - 10:10

New York Audits Utility AI Use, Cites Risk In "Growing Dependency"

By Robert Walton of UtilityDive

The New York Public Service Commission last week launched an inquiry into public utility use of artificial intelligence, noting that AI systems “create risk for organizations” but are also increasingly used to perform basic tasks.

The Sept. 17 order requires electric, gas and water utilities to respond within 60 days with “a written inventory report that describes all use cases of AI systems in their operations.”

Consolidated Edison, which serves New York City, said it uses AI for a range of uses, including customer service and system inspections. “As technology evolves, we will continue to evaluate opportunities,” a spokesperson said in an email to Utility Dive.

Public utilities are increasingly using AI systems for day-to-day operations, and New York regulators are concerned they are “susceptible to hallucinations, algorithmic biases, transparency issues, data privacy concerns, misconfiguration errors, cybersecurity attacks, and functional brittleness.”

“These potential risks may have negative consequences for the safety and reliability of New York’s critical infrastructure,” they said.

The PSC’s order directs utilities to file “a complete inventory” of all AI use cases in their operations and “disclose their policies, procedures, and protocols” around the burgeoning technology. The commission said it will “evaluate those procedures and protocols for adequacy and robustness against commonly accepted AI Governance frameworks.”

The commission’s order defines an “AI system” as a machine-based system that “can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations, or decisions influencing real or virtual environments.”

New York utilities are already utilizing AI systems in various ways, including model outage predictions and electric usage. National Grid has deployed a system known as GridCARE to help free up interconnection capacity for large-load customers, regulators pointed out. The New York Power Authority has used AI to analyze drone-captured data for enhanced vegetation management.

Con Edison told Utility Dive the utility is using AI “to improve customer service, proactively identify potential equipment issues before they affect customers or public safety, and to strengthen our inspection and mapping capabilities.”

But more broadly, regulators noted “the actual extent and scope of AI systems in New York utility operations remains unclear.”

“The rapid evolution of AI is a double-edged sword for utilities,” PSC Chair Rory Christian said in a statement. “While AI can be a powerful tool that can result in cost efficiencies and improved operations, it also presents serious risks that must be evaluated and addressed appropriately.”

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/25/2026 - 09:55

Citizenship Is Not A Product: Rubio Hits Birth-Tourism Fixers After SCOTUS Blocked Broader Ban

The United States is no longer pretending that a tourist visa plus a delivery room equals a legitimate path to American citizenship.

On September 23, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a new visa-restriction policy under Section 212(a)(3)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act aimed at the people who actually run the business: owners and managers of commercial birth-tourism networks, visa "fixers" who coach applicants to lie, foreign medical providers who arrange the trips and allegedly tap Medicaid, and anyone else who knowingly enables the trade. Family members of those targets can be swept in as well.

In short, people selling packages to facilitate US entry are on notice (perhaps they should focus on EB-5s like the Kushners).These foreign commercial networks advertise U.S. citizenship as a package - collecting tens of thousands of dollars to coach clients on what to say at the consulate, book housing near hospitals, and deliver a passport-eligible infant. The State Department's position is that this is fraud against the immigration system, not "tourism."

With six weeks until midterms, Rubio's announcement follows of President Trump's August 6 Executive Order 14419, Ending Birth Tourism - aimed at those entering on a nonimmigrant visa for the purpose of giving birth on U.S. soil - or helping someone else do it - and directed State and Homeland Security to deny visas, revoke them, bar re-entry, and act against facilitators. Days after Trump's EO, a Birth Tourism Prevention Task Force was assembled. About a month ago, officials said more than 750 visas tied to suspected birth-tourism activity had been revoked, with more coming. Meanwhile, embassy investigations earlier in the year claimed to have dismantled networks in West Africa (100-plus cases with fraudulent documents and fixers), Europe (400-plus suspected cases since 2024 tied to at least six companies), and North Africa (100-plus visa revocations).

Here's How The Sausage Is Made

Pregnant women - disproportionately from China, Russia, Nigeria, Turkey, and a handful of other countries - fly in on B-1/B-2 visitor visas, stay in "maternity hotels" or rented houses, deliver, obtain a birth certificate and Social Security number, and leave. The child is treated as a U.S. citizen, and when 21 years later, that child can petition for parents. Neat trick.

It's not just the poors either - packages have been marketed for $20,000 to $100,000: housing, nannies, shopping trips, coaching on how to answer consular questions, and sometimes advice on how to keep hospital bills off the books or shift them onto public programs. In 2019, federal prosecutors in Southern California took down operations charging Chinese clients six figures. This month, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced a Houston-area postpartum center had agreed to close after the state alleged it facilitated more than 1,000 births to Chinese nationals. Gov. Greg Abbott had already ordered state agencies to hunt licensed providers participating in the schemes. The 2020 Trump-era consular rule already advised officers they could deny visas if they believed the primary purpose of travel was to obtain citizenship for a child.

The H-1B pipeline is getting the same treatment: a wage-weighted lottery cut FY2027 registrations 38%, even as the courts have blocked Trump's $100,000 fee.

How Many Are We Talking About?

The conservative Center for Immigration Studies, using older Census-to-vital-records comparisons, has estimated 20,000 to 26,000 tourist births a year. CIS research director Steven Camarota told Congress this month that if those rates held, 200,000 to 300,000 children were born to birth tourists over the last decade. CDC data show fewer than 10,000 births in 2024 to mothers listing a foreign address - a figure almost everyone agrees undercounts women who use a U.S. hotel or rental as their "residence."

Globally - Jus soli in its American form is an outlier among developed states. Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Ireland, and much of Europe require a citizen or permanent-resident parent. The United States and Canada remain the G7 holdouts. A Conservative amendment to Bill C-3 that would have required at least one citizen or permanent-resident parent was voted down in October 2025; Canadian citizenship still attaches automatically to nearly anyone born on Canadian soil, diplomats excepted. The United States spent decades treating a plane ticket and a due date as sufficient allegiance.

Supreme Pivot

After the Supreme Court struck down Trump's broader day-one attempt to withhold birthright citizenship from children of illegal aliens and temporary visa holders, the White House went in a different direction - going after visa fraud, commercial facilitation, and the use of nonimmigrant categories for a permanent benefit.

Here's their angle:

1. Integrity of citizenship. A passport is not supposed to be a concierge product.
2. Taxpayers foot the bill for their medical care to a disputed extent.
3. Security and chain migration. A U.S.-citizen child creates a future immigrant-petition pipeline - with officials singling out China and Russia as high-volume sources. Whether one accepts the "hundreds of thousands" rhetoric from some administration figures or the lower CIS range, the screening problem is the same: the parent was never vetted as a future American.

So - in about three seconds, advocacy groups will call it racial profiling of Chinese and Russian applicants. Hospitals that marketed "birth packages" will lawyer up. Fixers will move advertising off open WeChat groups and into quieter channels, and pregnant women will keep trying to make it onto US soil. The order also contemplates denial of entry and removal for prior participants.

Legislation is already in the hopper - including a Ban Birth Tourism Act that would make seeking admission as a B visa holder for birth tourism an explicit ground of inadmissibility. The administration is not waiting for Congress.

American citizenship shouldn't have loopholes. 

* * *

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/25/2026 - 09:35

Yen Jumps As Japan PM Admits Weak Currency "Problematic"

President Trump reportedly expressed concern over the weakness of the yen when he met Japan’s prime minister this week as the currency came under more pressure against the dollar.

The FT reports that Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama Satsuki Katayama told reporters in Tokyo that Trump and Sanae Takaichi discussed the yen in talks in New York on Tuesday.

The US president “expressed his concern” while Takaichi told Trump that she saw an undervalued yen as “problematic”, Katayama said.

The yen jumped around 1% against the dollar following the remarks - its best day in two weeks...

The finance minister also said she would continue to coordinate with her US counterpart Scott Bessent, reinforcing the signal that both governments are paying close attention to the currency’s depreciation.

“In light of [the Trump-Takaichi] meeting, Treasury secretary Bessent and I will continue to communicate closely on a range of matters, including foreign exchange,” Katayama added.

Last week, the BoJ raised rates to the highest level in 31 years, but the move did little to structurally strengthen the yen, even as the central bank’s governor Kazuo Ueda hinted strongly that there could be further tightening this year.

Options sentiment toward the yen turned more bullish lately, reflecting increased hedging demand against the risk of Japanese intervention.

“Intervention risk should put a ceiling on further yen weakness,” said Moh Siong Sim, a strategist at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp.

“More importantly, the yen may be nearing a turning point as Trump’s concerns over its weakness point to deeper US-Japan coordination to support the currency.”

Japan and the US carried out their first coordinated yen-buying intervention since 1998 this summer after the currency weakened beyond 160. Japan spent a record ¥15.4 trillion ($97.4 billion) intervening in the month through Aug. 26, according to Finance Ministry data.

“This is largely another way of jawboning in my view,” said Charu Chanana, chief investment strategist at Saxo Markets.

“Unless it is followed by actual policy coordination, intervention or a clearer BOJ tightening path, I don’t think it changes the underlying yen story materially”

Bessent has also continued to signal support for a stronger yen, potentially giving Japanese warnings greater weight with traders than in previous episodes of currency weakness.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/25/2026 - 09:12

Ukraine Drone Strike Knocks Out Russia's Novoshakhtinsk Refinery

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.ocm,

Another Russian refinery was taken offline on Friday following a Ukrainian drone attack, in a sign that Ukraine and Russia continue to trade strikes on energy infrastructure despite separate talks with U.S. officials in New York aimed at de-escalation.

The Novoshakhtinsk refinery in the southern Russian region of Rostov was hit by drones and had to be taken offline, regional governor Yury Slyusar said in a post on Telegram early on Friday.

As a result of the drone attacks, the Novoshakhtinsk refinery, which has the capacity to process 110,000 barrels of crude oil per day, was damaged and halted operations, the official said.

25 September 2026: Reported Ukrainian strikes overnight hit at least five sites across Russia and occupied Ukraine:

• Novoshakhtinsk Oil Products Plant, near Novoshakhtinsk, Rostov Oblast
• NPP Zavod Iskra, Ulyanovsk, Ulyanovsk Oblast
• Lukoil-Permnefteorgsintez refinery,… pic.twitter.com/9E3lHv9MtV

— OSINT Intuit™ (@UKikaski) September 25, 2026

Ukraine continues its campaign to cripple Russian refining capacity, fuel supply, and export revenues. Due to the low refinery production, Russia has been forced to ban diesel exports for months and is likely to extend the ban beyond September 30. The ban was initially introduced in July as Ukraine has continuously taken Russian refineries offline.

Last week, Ukraine hit an oil refinery near Moscow, damaging a processing plant co-owned by Rosneft and Gazprom Neft.

Recent attacks from both sides show that there isn't any truce in attacking energy sites.

Ukraine's forces hit the refinery in Yaroslavl with drones last week, while Russia attacked infrastructure in Kyiv.

Russian daily Vedomosti reported last week that the government would extend its ban on diesel exports for all fuel producers to October 31, due to delayed refinery maintenance and the need to rebuild fuel reserves before winter.

Russia has been suffering from a gasoline and diesel crunch since the spring, when Ukraine intensified its drone attacks at Russian refineries, aiming to cripple fuel supply to the front lines and to the domestic Russian market.

The Russian ban on diesel exports has added to the Middle East crisis to tighten global middle distillate markets.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/25/2026 - 09:01

AI Spend Lifts Core US Durable Goods Orders Rise For 17th Straight Month In August

With PMIs soaring to multi-year highs earlier in the week, US durable goods orders were expected to be mixed in preliminary August data.

And mixed it was (with plenty of revisions)... the headline print was unchanged MoM (better than the 0.3% MoM decline expected) with a small revision lower for July.

Boeing reported fewer orders in August compared with the prior month.

However, Ex-Transports disappointed, rising just 0.3% MoM (half the expected 0.6% MoM rise) with a revision higher for July. That leaves core orders up 11.1% YoY - the highest since Q2 2022.

But, that is still the 17th straight monthly rise in core durable goods orders...

Additionally, Capital Goods Orders (non-defense, Ex-Air) soared 1.6% MoM (more than double the 0.56% MoM expected)

Under the hood, the big driver appears to be AI Spend (rather unsurprisingly)...

This segment includes:

• Telephone Apparatus: Wired and wireless telephones, private branch exchange (PBX) equipment, and VoIP equipment.

• Broadcast and Wireless Equipment: Radio and television broadcast antennas, cellular tower electronics, and two-way radios.

• Network Equipment: Routers, switches, local area network (LAN) and wide area network (WAN) equipment, and fiber-optic transmission gear

Is it any wonder that Trump doesn't want a 'pause' on AI Spend.

Finally, shipments figures (which actually plug into GDP) were in line with expectations (with July revised up), suggesting resilience to Q3 forecasts.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/25/2026 - 08:43

Futures Rise As Oil, Yields Drop On Iran Diplomacy Hopes

US futures erased earlier losses and are trading at session highs led by tech, as bonds steadied (with the 10Y at multi-decade highs of 5.17%) after oil’s latest rally lost steam, helping US stocks to extend gains for the week. As of 8:00am ET, S&P futures are up 0.4% setting up the benchmark to post its first weekly advance in three; Nasdaq futures gain 0.7% with chipmakers and memory storage names bouncing and Mag 7 stocks mostly higher, led by NVDA (+0.7%) and TSLA (+0.8%). Overnight, focus remains on the improved US-Iran rhetoric since noon yesterday: Iran proposed a 7-day plan to end the war (NYT), and the president says Tehran wants a deal with the US before the midterm elections (NBS). However, the reactions from the oil market were fairly modest, suggesting the market is still pricing a meaningful geopolitical premium; WTI fell 1.8% to $92.98. Bond yields fell 2-3bp at the front end; precious metals are higher, and ags are lower. US economic data slate includes August durable goods orders (8:30 a.m.), and the September University of Michigan sentiment (10 a.m.).

In premarket trading, Mag 7 stocks are mostly higher (Tesla (TSLA) +1.1%, Nvidia (NVDA) +0.7%, Amazon (AMZN) +0.6%, Alphabet (GOOGL) +0.4%, Apple (AAPL) +0.1%, Microsoft (MSFT) little changed, Meta Platforms (META) -0.5%).

• Akamai Technologies (AKAM) rallies 20% after the cloud provider inked a seven-year $11.6 billion deal to provide computing power to Anthropic.
• Atlas Energy (AESI) gains 6.9% after it announced a purchase agreement with Wyoming Machinery Company for $340.5 million of Balance of Plant equipment for a power generation project. The companies also separately agreed to a 328 megawatt power deal under an agreement with Caterpillar Inc.
• Comcast Corp. (CMCSA) is down 1.9% after KeyBanc Capital Markets cut its recommendation to underweight from sector weight on weakness in broadband.
• Nike Inc. (NKE) is down 2% after BofA cut its recommendation on the athletic footwear and apparel company to underperform from neutral, and pushes the expectation for a sales turnaround into F2028. Nike reports 1Q earnings on Oct. 1.
• People Inc. (PPLI) jumps 9.9% on a report that MGM Resorts is discussing making a bid to purchase the Barry Diller-owned media giant.
• Twilio Inc. (TWLO) is down 3.5% as HSBC downgrades the communications software company to reduce from hold, seeing “limited evidence that Twilio will capture higher-margin AI software” revenue.
• Zscaler (ZS) falls 3.4% after the security software company announced the appointment of Ross Tackett as chief revenue officer, effective Oct. 1.

In other corporate news Elon Musk said Colossus 2, an AI computing cluster built by his xAI business, may more than double its current Nvidia chip count by the end of the year. Shares of People Inc. rise 6.5% after the Wall Street Journal reports that MGM Resorts is discussing making a bid to purchase the Barry Diller-owned media giant. Temasek names BlackRock co-founder Susan Wagner to its board with effect from Oct. 1, according to a statement.

Fluctuations in oil prices are likely to remain a key driver for markets at a time when elevated energy costs are stoking inflationary pressures and underpinning the outlook for further monetary policy tightening. Swaps fully price three additional Federal Reserve quarter-point hikes over the next year, a prospect that could hold back risk appetite and keep bond yields high for some time.

“We are in a one-factor world over the coming days, with oil prices driving rates and rates driving all asset classes,” wrote Mohit Kumar at Jefferies. “Equity markets have behaved relatively well despite the rise in rates. Optimism over AI and demand for AI infrastructure has helped.”

Longer-dated bond yields continue to reflect fiscal concerns and the likelihood of strong government borrowing, said Francisco Simon at Santander Asset Management. While the prospect of restored crude flows from the Middle East will ease pressure on rates, a run of strong economic data suggests the global economy can withstand tighter financial conditions, he said.

“Market direction will likely be determined by whether easing geopolitical tensions can outweigh the ongoing message from the macro data,” Simon said. “Growth remains resilient, and that is keeping upward pressure on yields despite some relief on the energy front.”

Trump’s reception for China’s Xi has been heavy on pageantry and platitudes but light on substantive announcements, with the events shadowed by the US president’s preoccupation with construction projects and personal grievances. This is how Goldman wrapped up the pageantry:

• Trade truce extended for 2 months mentioned by Bessent. Xinhua news mentioned Xi said both sides agreed on a new joint arrangement on trade.
• Xinhua news mentioned Xi hope US to insist "oppose Taiwan independence" stance, and deal with Taiwan issue with prudence. (note current official US stance is "do not support Taiwan independence" instead of "oppose")
• On AI, Xi mentioned US and China should not set up defences against each other, and should have dialogue, prevent AI being abused and ensure human control of AI.
• Chinese news mentioned Xi supports US and Iran to return to MOU and maintain talks.
• Both leaders support APEC (Nov in Shenzhen) and G20 (Dec in Miami) meetings, indicating Xi and Trump may meet two more times this year.
   
• One-Liner: So far nothing major market moving. We wait for official statement/readout. Still, the important area to watch is related to Iran (and any efforts from China to mediate talks

Elsewhere, AI is back in focus as the selloff in bond markets eases. A Goldman Sachs study (available to pro subscribers) estimates about $1 trillion in end user spending is needed to drive solid returns for hyperscalers — a hefty but “achievable” target.  Goldman strategist Ryan Hammond notes that AI applications will need to generate more than $1 trillion in revenues based on a 30% Ebit margin and a 10%-20% return on invested capital for the hyperscalers. This compares with roughly $1.5 trillion in global software spending in 2026, Hammond writes. 

Market performance reflects some of that optimism. Meta is on the cusp of joining an elite group of companies worth at least $2 trillion after shares surged 36% so far in September. The Nasdaq 100 is outperforming the equal-weighted S&P 500 and small-cap Russell 2000 by more than 7 percentage points this month. Meanwhile, rate-sensitive financials are being punished, with banks hitting a technical correction in Thursday’s cash trading. The durability of that bifurcation likely depends on where long-end yields next settle. 

The final reading of a University of Michigan’s survey due later today is likely to show consumer sentiment deteriorated in September due to higher prices at the pump, according to Bloomberg Economics.

“The economic data calendar will be quite dull until the ISM on Thursday and the labor data on Friday next week,” said Roberto Scholtes, head of strategy at Singular Bank. “Everything will continue to revolve around energy prices, bond yields and AI-related news.”

Europe's Stoxx 600 is up by 0.9%, headed for its biggest weekly gain since August, with semiconductor equipment maker ASML the biggest contributor to the gain. Here are the biggest movers Friday:

• UBS shares advance as much as 3.3% after a report said the Swiss lender is weighing options including potential deals with banks in other jurisdictions
• Glencore gains as much as 3.3% as UBS upgrades the miner to buy from neutral, with an improving risk/reward due to stronger outlook for thermal and metallurgical coal
• Outokumpu rises as much as 6.5% as BofA Global Research reinstates coverage with a recommendation of buy, saying European Union trade protection policies are offsetting weak demand in the steel sector. Peers Aperam and Acerinox also rise as BofA reinstates at neutral
• Alten shares rise as much as 8.8% after the French IT group reported first half-year operating which CIC CIB called ‘impressive,” saying the company is back on a “more positive trajectory”
• KPN gains as much as 2.9% after JPMorgan upgraded the company to overweight, saying shares offer an attractive entry point as revenue trends improve into 2027 and the “weak narrative” of 2026 fades
• HelloFresh shares fall as much as 15% to a record low after the German food delivery firm lowered its full-year sales growth and earnings targets
• Sinch declines as much as 5.3%, slipping from the highest close since January 2023, as DNB Carnegie downgrades the cloud communications group to hold as its required second-half acceleration is now partly priced in

Asian stocks are set to snap a two-day losing streak as oil slid on news that the US and Iran are exploring a phased deal that would see Tehran reopen the Strait of Hormuz, easing inflationary pressures. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index gained 0.7%, with Japanese stocks leading gains. Financials led Japan’s advance, supported by the prospect of higher interest rates. Meanwhile, Hong-Kong shares fell with a more pronounced drop in tech stocks, as traders were disappointed by a lack of progress in Trump-Xi talks. Alibaba and Tencent were among the biggest laggards. China, Taiwan and South Korea were shut today. Markets have had a relatively muted reaction to the Trump-Xi summit currently, after China’s president encouraged Trump to publicly oppose Taiwan independence. 

In FX, the yen headed for its biggest daily gain in more than two weeks after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said she told President Trump that an undervalued yen is problematic. This follows Finance Minister Katayama revealing that Trump expressed concerns over the weakness of the currency. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index is down 0.2%.

In rates, treasury yields are falling across the curve, with 10-year yields down by four basis points. There are similar moves in Europe and the UK, with investors trimming their rate-hike bets for the Fed, the ECB and the BOE. Treasuries hold curve-steepening gains in early US session with front-end 3yields around 5bp lower on the day, supported by lower oil prices after report that US and Iranian negotiators explored a phased deal that would see Tehran reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Friday’s session includes durable goods orders data and at least two Fed speakers. With longer-term US yields only 1bp-3bp lower on the day 2s10s and 5s30s curves are steeper by about 1.5bp and about 3bp respectively; 10-year is about 4bp lower near 5.17% with UK counterpart keeping pace and Germany’s lagging by about 3bp. IG dollar issuance slate empty so far, after just one deal was priced on Thursday leaving the week around $5 billion short of dealers’ $40 billion average expectation.

In commodities, WTI crude oil futures under $93 are down 2.3% near session lows with Brent crude futures down 1.2% near $106 after rising more than 7% over the previous two days. Gold prices are fluctuating around $4,300/oz. Bitcoin is a touch stronger, nudging above $84,000.

US economic data slate includes August durable goods orders (8:30 a.m.), September University of Michigan sentiment (10 a.m.) and Kansas City Fed services activity (11 a.m.) Fed speaker slate includes Kansas City’s Schmid (9:20 a.m.) and Cleveland’s Hammack (2 p.m.)

Market Snapshot

Top Overnight News

• Trump hosted Xi Jinping at a state dinner attended by Elon Musk, Jensen Huang and Tim Cook, but progress on tariffs and AI deals remains elusive. The leaders meet for tea this morning. BBG
• Iran’s foreign minister said Thursday that Tehran had proposed to Washington a seven-day plan to cease hostilities, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and then begin comprehensive talks on his country’s nuclear program. NYT
• Efforts to rekindle talks to end the war between the U.S. and Iran are running into resistance from major Persian Gulf oil producers that have swung against any accommodation of Tehran, people familiar with the matter said. WSJ
• Saudi, Turkish and Pakistani military chiefs are to meet to discuss how to support Saudi Arabia under a joint defence pact, after Saudi's top religious authority told troops to be ready to lay down their lives to fight Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis. RTRS
• US Energy Secretary Chris Wright has contacted executives at several major American refiners in recent days to gauge support for a voluntary restriction on diesel exports as the Trump administration searches for an alternative to a short-term ban, according to three people familiar with the discussions. RTRS
• The Fed is working on a plan to raise the asset thresholds that trigger stricter oversight of big banks to account for inflation and economic growth. The changes may spur mid-size bank consolidation. BBG
• The yen hit a session high after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said an undervalued Japanese currency was “problematic.” The yen strengthened as much as 0.8% to 157.67 per dollar on Friday, heading for its biggest daily gain in more than two weeks. Officials have emphasized the speed and disorderliness of currency moves rather than any specific exchange-rate level, with market participants viewing the area around 160 as where intervention risk rises. BBG
• The BOJ gauge of underlying inflation accelerated to well above the target last month, supporting the case for continuing to raise the benchmark rate as authorities warn of the risk of inflation overshooting. BBG
• The State Department wants to give state and local officials, and possibly some nonprofit organizations, access to passport records to verify voters’ citizenship. BBG
• Anthropic strikes USD 12bln deal with Akami (AKAM) for AI computing.

Iran War

• Iran Foreign Minister Araghchi said Iran presented a proposal to US through mediators this week to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and restart negotiations towards a final deal, while it called for US to meet certain conditions within 7 days, according to CNN.
• Iranian President Pezeshkian said in Fox News interview that Iran does not want a nuclear bomb. They reached an agreement with the US President that was signed, and are still ready to move forward based on the same principles, adds it wasn't Iran that closed the Strait of Hormuz and it was open. They didn't seek war and that it was imposed on them, while they don't seek war but will defend themselves. They didn't start the war but will respond decisively.
• Iranian President Pezeshkian said Iran is ready for an agreement with the US and makes demands only within the framework of international law and could give up highly enriched uranium if it reaches an agreement with the US, according to TASS.
• Iran's President Pezeshkian said Tehran wants to revive its ceasefire memorandum of understanding with the US before the November midterm elections, saying Iran does not want talks delayed until after the vote. said:. Iran is open to inspections of its nuclear facilities and denies that Tehran is seeking to assassinate President Trump or his family.
• Iran's Foreign Minister Araghchi said the Strait of Hormuz can reopen if certain conditions are met by the US and that it would be better to implement before the Midterms, according to a Sky reporter.
• IRGC spokesperson warned in the event of another attack, Iran's method of defence will change including geography of the confrontation, the type of equipment and weapons used, and targets in defensive operations in line with new conditions.
  Iranian Brigadier General Sheikh said "we seek to expand our capabilities and reconsider our tactics and technologies", via Al Mayadeen.
• Sources say a return to the June 18 memorandum of understanding between Iran and the US is no longer sought by either side, with both seeking amendments to some clauses, further complicating negotiations, Al-Akhbar reported.
• Pakistan's Defence Minister said intensive efforts are underway to establish a mechanism for ending the conflict as quickly as possible and reopening the Strait of Hormuz, according to Tasnim.

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

APAC stocks were ultimately mixed following the inconclusive handover from the US, where the major indices finished flat after the bond rout deepened, while conditions were thinned in the region owing to the holiday closures in South Korea, Taiwan and Mainland China. ASX 200 was led lower by underperformance in tech and with nearly all sectors in the red aside from financials and consumer staples, while price action was not helped by the lack of catalysts and data releases. Nikkei 225 extended on recent momentum and rose above 66,000, while the index was unfazed and Japanese banks were underpinned by a higher yield environment, which saw the 30yr yield at its highest since its debut in 1999. Hang Seng suffered despite the pleasantries at the Trump-Xi summit and state dinner, as the meeting of the leaders failed to result in any major breakthroughs, while there were losses in nearly all but a handful of the Hong Kong benchmark's constituents and the Stock Connect was shut due to the closure in the mainland for the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Top Asian News

• Japanese Finance Minister Katayama said specific monetary policy tools are up to BoJ to decide and that the central bank will conduct appropriate monetary policy while coordinating with government, adds Trump voiced concerns about yen weakness at summit. said:. Won't comment on specific FX levels or rate checks. Japan will closely coordinate with US on foreign exchange. PM Takaichi expressed concern about the yen’s weakness in general.
• Japanese Economic Minister Kiuchi said not in era to do monetary easing, adds phase of monetary easing and agile fiscal spending ended.
• Chinese VP Han said China willing to work with Serbia to lift bilateral ties to higher levels, according to Xinhua.
• Trump and Xi confirmed that they would support each other in hosting the APEC Economic Leaders' meeting and the G20 summit in 2026, Xinhua reported; new trade arrangements between China and US is good news for the global economy.

European bourses (STOXX 600 +0.8%) are entirely in the green. The IBEX 35 (+1.2%) outperforms this morning, joined closely by the DAX 40 (+1%). The bullish bias seen this morning is facilitated by increased hopes of the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. This comes after the Iranian President said that Iran presented a proposal to the US through mediators this week to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and restart negotiations towards a final deal. Whilst nothing is concrete at this stage, the path to diplomacy appears to be opening. European sectors hold a strong positive bias, with cyclical industries holding towards the top of the pile. Basic Resources tops the sectoral list, joined closely by Banks and Travel & Leisure. The latter benefits from lower oil prices and the general risk tone. Unsurprisingly, Energy resides at the foot of the pile. Food Beverage and Tobacco is the other sector in the red.
Key movers: UBS (+3%, reportedly considering a merger with a foreign company as it looks to move out of Switzerland), Airbus (-1.8%, identified a corrosion protection defect affecting more than 500 A321neos), Leonardo (U/C, reportedly involved in the Airbus defect).

Top European News

• European Loans to Households (Aug YY) 3.1% vs. Exp. 3.2% (Prev. 3.1%).
• European M3 Money Supply (Aug YY) 3.5% vs. Exp. 3.5% (Prev. 3.4%).
• European Loans to Companies (Aug YY) 4.2% (Prev. 4.4%).
• Spanish GDP Growth Rate Final (Q2 QQ) 0.7% vs. Exp. 0.7% (Prev. 0.6%).
• Spanish GDP Growth Rate Final (Q2 YY) 2.6% vs. Exp. 2.7% (Prev. 2.7%).
• French Non Farm Payrolls (Q2 QQ) -0.1% (Prev. 0%).
• French Private Non Farm Payrolls Final (Q2 QQ) -0.1% vs. Exp. -0.1% (Prev. -0.1%).
• German GfK Consumer Confidence (Oct) -30.6 vs. Exp. -27.4 (Prev. -26.8).
• UK GfK Consumer Confidence (Sep) -13 vs. Exp. -16 (Prev. -14).

FX

• DXY is modestly softer amid lower oil prices and after the Yen-led move weighed on the index (see below), although the Buck remains underpinned by this week's rise US yields and expectations for further Fed tightening, with DXY posting four consecutive sessions of gains this week thus far. DXY currently resides in a 101.11-101.30 at the time of writing,
• JPY is the clear G10 outperformer, with USD/JPY sliding ~30-40 pips on several separate occasions overnight and this morning, price action that can also be seen across other JPY crosses. The move comes after comments from Japanese Finance Minister Katayama, who stated that US President Trump voiced concerns about yen weakness, while she reiterated Japan will closely coordinate with the US on foreign exchange.
• EUR/USD is modestly firmer, with much of the upside stemming from the JPY-induced pressure on DXY rather than any fresh bloc-specific catalyst. The pair remains tucked within yesterday's 1.1359-1.1399 range, with today's parameter between 1.1368-1.1390.
• GBP/USD is modestly firmer but remains well below 1.3300 following this week's Sterling weakness. UK-specific catalysts are light, leaving broader USD dynamics to dictate price action. Cable currently resides in a 1.3209-1.3241 range.
• Antipodeans are modestly firmer intraday with fresh domestic catalysts are limited, with moves largely reflecting the broader easing in the Dollar, whilst mainland Chinese participants were away overnight. AUD/NZD is modestly firmer but off highs in a 1.2375-1.2409 range.
• Goldman Sachs lowers USD/JPY 3-month forecast to 158.00 from 162.00, 6-month forecast to 155.00 from 163.00 and 12-month forecast to 150.00 from 165.00.

Fixed Income

• A modestly bullish start to the final session of the week for fixed, led by downside in the energy space after the overnight Strait of Hormuz related commentary. Since then, updates have been relatively light and thus the rebound in benchmarks has been modest.
• As it stands, USTs are set to end the week with downside of nearly a full point, but some 10 ticks off the WTD 104-14+ low. In brief, the week was characterised by further yield upside given geopolitical and, pertinently, diesel updates. The 30yr hit a 5.50% peak, firmer by 20bps on the week at that point, while around 5bps off highs as it stands, the move remains significant and resilient.
• Further out, the general desk view is that the move has further to run given the US economic backdrop, continued Middle East uncertainty and associated supply disruption (and elevated shipping costs, added to by record low Rhine levels), potential US diesel measures, AI spend and a credibly hawkish Fed. Factors which are all indicative of further yield upside.
• Gilts are firmer by c. 30 ticks but just off best levels. Providing some relative respite to UK yields, but nonetheless the 10yr is 6bps firmer at 5.34% WTD and over 25bps MTD, despite the BoE holding the Bank Rate at 3.75% in September.
• Finally, EGBs follow suit to the above. Bunds are firmer by around 25 ticks, just off a 119.95 peak. Specifics for the space light. Focus remains on the above points, and also the wholesale changes set to impact the ECB over the next few months, as Schnabel leaves post-December, Lagarde potentially early-2027 and Lane in May 2027.
• Japan sold JPY 649bln in 10yr, 20yr and 30yr JGBs in enhanced liquidity auction; b/c 2.95 vs. Prev. 3.20. Highest accepted spread +0.032% vs. Prev. -0.011%. Allotment of bids at highest spread 80.1862% vs. Prev. 58.2741%.
• Australia sold AUD 1bln 2.5% May 2030 bonds; average yield 5.0368% and bid/cover 4.34×.

Commodities

• WTI Nov and Brent Dec futures are softer on the session, with the complex pressured by growing diplomatic hopes around US-Iran negotiations and Hormuz. The US and Iran reportedly discussed a phased deal to reopen the Strait and end the US blockade, while Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi said Tehran submitted a proposal through mediators to reopen Hormuz and restart negotiations towards a final deal. However, Al-Akhbar subsequently reported that neither side is seeking a return to the June 18 MoU and both want amendments to some clauses, potentially adding delays. Focus also remains on US diesel policy after Energy Secretary Wright reportedly contacted major refiners to gauge support for voluntarily restricting diesel exports. WTI trades off worst levels and within a USD 92.14-94.75/bbl range, while Brent trades around USD 99.00/bbl within a USD 97.81-99.76/bbl range.
• Dutch TTF is softer alongside the broader pullback in the energy complex, with tentative progress on US-Iran diplomacy helping remove some of the geopolitical risk premium.
• Precious metals are mixed but ultimately contained, with the USD strength this week and the rise global yields continuing to act as headwinds. Spot gold has recovered off worst intraday levels and trades in a USD 4,255-4,296/oz range. Spot silver remains softer around USD 63.72/oz within a narrow USD 63.36-64.08/oz range. Base metals are subdued amid the absence of mainland Chinese participants overnight, with 3M LME copper within a USD 14,615.68-14,701.97/t range at the time of writing.
• EU Commission said that gas supply remains stable; to reconvene on October 8.

Trade/Tariffs

• EU urges the UK to increase tariffs on Chinese cars to avoid ‘made in Europe’ barriers, according to FT.
• Chinese President Xi said China and US made common understanding on many issues and that he had frank and in-depth exchange with US President Trump.
• US President Trump said in state dinner for Chinese President Xi that US and China have never gotten along better, adds can continue prosperous and secure future with China.
• US President Trump posted on Truth Social that the state dinner at the White House for Chinese President Xi Jinping will be spectacular.

Geopolitics: 

• Ukraine President Zelenskiy said that the US proposed a "technical meeting" with Ukraine and Russia in UAE; waiting on the date.
• Russia's defense ministry said it bombed a drone assembly site in the Kyiv region.
• Explosion heard near Ukraine's capital of Kyiv after a Russian drone attack.
• US envoys Witkoff and Kushner met with Russia's Dmitriev today, according to CNN.
• Chinese President Xi said North Korea, Middle East and Ukraine was discussed with US President Trump, while Xi and Trump agreed to build a stable China-US relationship.
• Russian and Iranian Foreign Ministers say there is no alternative to a diplomatic solution to the war in Iran, Al Arabiya reported.
• Yemeni Houthi official warns the coming period will be more painful for Saudi Arabia if its actions against Yemen continue, ISNA reported.
• Israel's channel 12 noted that the army will enter a new phase of fighting in southern Lebanon in the coming days. said:. Army has completed operation to destroy Hezbollah's infrastructure in the Yellow Line area.
• Israeli military will enter a new phase of fighting in southern Lebanon in the coming days, Israeli Channel 12 reported cited by Sky News Arabia. The army completed the process of destroying Hezbollah’s infrastructure in the Yellow Line area.
• Strait of Hormuz's commodity vessel crossings dropped to single digits, according to preliminary ship tracking data.
• Saudi Foreign Ministry said Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan will hold urgent chiefs of staff meetings to discuss support for Riyadh under the joint defence pact.
• Saudi Arabia's civil defence issues emergency warning for the Jazan province, but announces the danger has passed shortly after.

US Event Calendar

• 8:30 am: United States Aug P Durable Goods Orders, est. -0.3%, prior 1.1%
• 8:30 am: United States Aug P Durables Ex Transportation, est. 0.6%, prior 0.4%
• 10:00 am: United States Sep F U. of Mich. Sentiment, est. 47.5, prior 47.8

Central Banks

• 5:15 am: United States Fed’s Williams Participates in Policy Panel
• 9:20 am: United States Fed’s Schmid Participates In Fireside Chat
• 2:00 pm: United States Fed’s Hammack Participates In Policy Panel Discussion

DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

I'm pleased to announce that I've just played a very small part in what will become a new Guinness World Record, pending official verification. Yesterday, Deutsche Bank colleagues from around the world set out to walk or run the equivalent of the Earth's circumference — roughly 56 million steps in just 24 hours. In the end, nearly 30,000 of us across 50 countries channelled our inner Forrest Gump and racked up 275 million steps, covering around 138,000 miles. So we got 60% of the way to the moon.

While we were all walking, markets have had another rough 24 hours, as a fresh jump in oil and gas seemed to send bond yields in another tailspin. Brent crude rose +3.41% to $106.60/bbl, even if it did pare back some of its gain after Reuters reported that the US and Iran were exploring a phased deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the blockade. But this was not sufficient to stem the ongoing rout in bond markets, with the sell-off extending late in the US session and leaving 10yr Treasury yields (+8.5bps) at a new post-2007 high of 5.20%. Meanwhile the S&P 500 recovered from around half a percent down before the headlines to -0.02% at the close.  

One important theme at the moment is that Treasuries continue to sell-off with oil but that breakevens aren't moving, with pretty much all the move being driven by real yields. This is something I discussed in my CoTD yesterday (link here), and yesterday the trend continued with 10yr US real yields rising +9.8bps to a post-2008 high of 2.87% but 10yr breakevens actually falling by -1.3bps. The former has now risen +97bps in 2026 and the latter only +9bps. So at face value there is no concern about longer-term inflation even though oil is up around 75% so far in 2026. In addition measures of term premium have been range bound for around 18 months so the sell-off isn't really fiscal related. Overall it feels to me that breakevens are too low and that real yields might be getting too high.

By the close, the 10yr Treasury yield (+8.5bps) rose to a post-2007 high of 5.20%, whilst the 30yr yield (+7.7bps) jumped to its highest since 2004, at 5.48%. Coupled with Wednesday’s slump, this marked the biggest 2-day rise (+23.7bps) in the 10yr yield since the post-Liberation Day turmoil last spring. And with the 3yr yield (+3.5bps) closing at 5.01%, that left the 2yr (+2.8bp to 4.93%) as the only coupon-paying Treasury tenor still below the 5% yield level. Yields have pulled back a bit overnight though, with the 10yr trading -1.43bps lower.

Over in Europe, the rise in yields was slightly less pronounced but there was another set of multi-year highs as well, with the 10yr bund (+4.5bps) at a post-2009 high of 3.60%, whilst the 10yr OAT (+3.3bps) hit a post-2008 high of 4.69%. So lots of milestones being reached all round.

That rise in yields came as oil prices continued to march higher. The initial driver were escalatory comments from Iran, which played into investor concerns about an extended conflict. For instance, Iran’s Fars reported an adviser to the Supreme Leader, who said that the war may “widen further and extend to the Indian Ocean or elsewhere”. So that pushed back on the optimism from earlier in the week, when there had been speculation about some kind of diplomatic breakthrough around the UN General Assembly. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia faced an attack from the Houthis again yesterday, with a Saudi-backed coalition intercepting six ballistic missiles.

After hitting an intra-day high of $108.16/bbl Brent crude did see a mostly temporary drop of around $4 just after Europe closed as Reuters reported that the US and Iran are exploring a phased deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. We've been here many times before but the article made the valid point that it’s not just the US that has an incentive to get a deal done before midterms. The consensus seems to feel that Iran is happy to make life uncomfortable for the US ahead of the vote. However after the midterms the incentive for Trump to provide concessions probably goes down so the coming weeks might represent Iran's best chance of a stronger deal. But at this point this is still wishful thinking. Last night, we also heard the FT report that Iran offered the US a new “7-day” ceasefire proposal to reopen the Strait of Homruz and restart broader talks, but that this proposal was still built around the June MoU which the US has been reluctant to return to as it pushes for a more comprehensive agreement.  All that left Brent closing at $106.60/bbl (+3.41%), before declining by -0.91% this morning so far.

As all that was going on, there was also a sharp rise in US natural gas futures yesterday, after TC Energy Corp’s Columbia Gas Transmission pipeline system said that there was a need for “an immediate pressure reduction” on a pipeline, due to “an unexpected mechanical issue”. So US natural gas futures jumped up +9.06% on the day, their biggest daily jump since January, which only served to exacerbate the inflationary concerns.

On top of the energy moves, another factor lifting bond yields yesterday was the ongoing resilience in the economic data. For instance, yesterday saw the US weekly initial jobless claims come in at just 197k in the week ending September 19 (vs. 200k expected). That’s one of the timeliest indicators we get on the state of the labour market, and it also pushed the 4-week moving average (which Fed Chair Warsh has previously cited) down to 202.25k. So that played into the current narrative that the US economy is growing strongly, which in turn would give the Fed the space to keep hiking rates. Meanwhile, the number of new home sales also hit an 8-month high in August, up to an annualised rate of 684k (vs. 616k expected). And this wasn’t confined to the US either, as the Ifo’s business climate indicator from Germany also surprised on the upside at 89.9 in September (vs. 89.0 expected). In fact, that was the highest since 2023, and the current assessment also hit its highest since 2023 as well, at 89.5.

This backdrop led to another round of pressure on risk assets. In the US, equities did recover most of their decline following the Reuters story, but the S&P 500 (-0.02%) did still just about retreat for a third consecutive session. And the breadth of the moves was clearly negative, with almost two thirds of the S&P 500 lower on the day, led by declines for utilities (-1.02%) and materials (-1.01%).  However, an advance for the Mag-7 (+0.74%) limited the aggregate decline. Meanwhile Europe saw more consistent declines, as the STOXX 600 (-0.55%) fell back, alongside declines for the DAX (-0.57%) and the CAC 40 (-0.52%). And credit sold off on both sides of the Atlantic, with US IG (+1bps) and HY (+8bps) seeing a little less widening than European IG (+2bps) and HY (+10bps).

Asian equities are heavily affected by holiday-thinned trading, with markets in China and South Korea closed. Japan's Nikkei is trading 1.24% higher, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 is down 0.53%. US equity futures are down less than a tenth but European equivalents are back up +0.63% as I type and responding to the late rally back in the US after their close.

Looking at the day ahead now, and US data releases include preliminary durable goods orders for August, and the University of Michigan’s final consumer sentiment index for September. Then in the Euro Area, we’ll get the M3 money supply data for August. Otherwise, central banks speakers include the Fed’s Williams, Schmid and Hammack, the ECB’s Vujcic, and BoE Governor Bailey.

 

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/25/2026 - 08:37

Xi Presses Trump For Taiwan Policy Shift As $14 Billion Weapons Deal Hangs In Limbo

Following our earlier coverage of Barclays senior China economist Yingke Zhou's view that Chinese leader Xi Jinping's state visit delivered "more signaling, less substance," attention turns to Taiwan, where Xi pressed President Donald Trump to oppose Taiwan independence.

According to China's official Xinhua News Agency, Xi urged Trump to "adhere to the correct position of opposing Taiwan independence." The conversation took place at Thursday's White House summit.

For years, Washington has held the stance that it "doesn't support" the independence of Taiwan, the island Xi and his Communist Party claim as their own.

"While this may appear a semantic shift, the impact would be meaningful," said Bloomberg Economics' Jennifer Welch, who served as director for China and Taiwan on the National Security Council under the previous Biden and Trump administrations.

Welch pointed out that Beijing would use any switch in language from Trump to undermine Taiwan's confidence in US support. She added, "Opposing Taiwan independence implies an active effort to contain what Beijing sees as pro-independence forces."

This push by Xi to Trump comes as he heads toward an expected fourth term in office next year; he's ramping up diplomatic pressure to isolate the island, home to the world's most advanced semiconductor production, and block future weapons sales by the Trump administration.

For many months, Trump has delayed the $14 billion weapons package for Taiwan, which may come in the weeks or months ahead now that Xi's state dinner at the White House is over. It appears that Taipei is seeing its defense needs becoming leverage in the US-China trade spat.

In a preview of what next year might hold, China deployed a record 244 coast guard, research, and other government vessels around Taiwan this summer in what could only be viewed as a dry run for a blockade.

Beijing has warned that mishandling the Taiwan issue could lead to "clashes" between the superpowers - certainly a flashpoint. 

"The key acid test will be what Trump says on Taiwan," said Ryan Hass, director of the China Center at the Brookings Institution, who Bloomberg quoted. "Not just what Xi urges Trump to endorse."

Meanwhile, Reuters cited Taiwan's foreign ministry as saying that Xi's remarks represent "the consistent Chinese approach of distorting facts and unilaterally conveying its position and claims."

"Taiwan's sovereignty belongs to all the people of Taiwan. The Chinese Communist Party has no right to represent the Taiwanese people, and Taiwan's future can only be determined by the Taiwanese people through democratic means," the ministry added.

There were no immediate signals that the Trump administration would agree to Xi's request, a shift in wording that could carry significant implications for Washington's stance on Taiwan.

Jeremy Chan, senior analyst on China for the US-based political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, told Reuters, "It would ​erode a lot of the...strategic ambiguity of whether the US would come to Taiwan's aid in that context." 

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/25/2026 - 08:20

Proper Flock'd: What This Cop Did Raises Major Red Flags...

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

A Naperville police officer turned a statewide camera grid into a personal tracking app, ran a man's plate about 150 times, and then retired like the file never existed.

The story serves as yet another example of how the burgeoning mass surveillance grid is being abused on a regular basis.

Patrick Dowhen was not a suspect. He was the ex. After Officer Oscar Maldonado started a relationship with Dowhen's fiancée, Flock became the shortcut. No warrant. No case number that mattered. Just a badge, a login, and a national lattice of plate readers that can reconstruct where you went, when you went, and how often you go there.

"Anywhere I went in the country, I was being tracked," Dowhen told ABC7 Chicago's I-Team. "It was scary, it was really scary."

Internal records obtained by the I-Team show the pattern started after Maldonado's relationship with Dowhen's then-fiancée began. Investigators found evidence he searched Flock for Dowhen's vehicle approximately 150 times over a three-month stretch last year.

Chicago Tribune reporting, from a separate FOIA haul, put the plate runs between June 18 and Sept. 15, 2025, and said Maldonado tracked plates for non-police reasons hundreds of times.

Dowhen said the surveillance was not abstract. "My ex-fiancée would tell me where I was at, or what I was doing, and he [Maldonado] was feeding her information," he said. "He's an officer, feeding a civilian, you know, inside information." He tore his truck apart looking for a tracker. Then he went to Naperville Police Chief Jason Arres. That complaint opened the internal case last September.

Maldonado's story to interrogators was protection: the woman, himself, his family. Naperville investigators did not buy it. They wrote that the "evidence contradicts Maldonado's explanation that he only used Flock for the safety of himself, his family," and Dowhen's ex-fiancée.

The report also concluded there was "a preponderance of the evidence that shows Maldonado did commit the crime of Official Misconduct," adding that he "admitted to using FLOCK for personal reasons."

Then on May 1, 2026, Maldonado retired. Department spokesman Rick Krakow said the internal case was complete but not closed because discipline had not been imposed. "However, the officer resigned before his disciplinary meeting with the chief, which essentially closed the case."

No arrest. No plate charges. A referral to the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board. Will County prosecutors would not confirm or deny a criminal review. Dowhen later obtained a stalking no-contact order that noted Maldonado "was tracking my plate since 06/2025." That order was dropped after both men agreed to a two-year mutual no-contact deal.

"He could very well get a job as a police officer again and have, you know, all these same electronic things available to him at any time and stalk anybody you want," Dowhen said, "because at this point he has no criminal record."

ABC7 chief legal analyst Gil Soffer laid out the gap that let a 150-search campaign end in a retirement party. "It's not enough to say that a police officer violated internal laws, you'd have to show that a police officer knowingly violated a law, a statute, a constitutional provision," he said.

He added, "An official misconduct statute in Illinois won't necessarily cover the simple situation where a police officer accesses license plate information for an improper purpose."

Maldonado's own lawyer, Jeff Tomczak, made the same point from the other side of the table. "I'm a defense attorney. It should be a crime. It should absolutely be a crime. The legislature should act, create the crime of misuse of Flock. Don't require the state's attorneys to be creative."

A private company sold cities a warrantless movement database. Departments wrote policy memos. The statute book never caught up. When an officer treated the grid like a jealous-ex app, the fallback was an employee manual and a quiet exit.

The I-Team says this is not one suburban rogue. It identified 14 Chicago-area cases of officers accused of misusing Flock, with at least five sent to prosecutors. Berwyn's mayor, Robert Lovero, issued an executive order this week suspending the city's cameras.

On Capitol Hill the same day, Sen. Josh Hawley noted who did not show up: "You know who you won't hear from? Flock CEO." Sen. Dick Durbin added, "I think they're afraid to be on camera."

Nationally, a Washington Post investigation found at least 50 documented cases of officers charged with or accused of misusing automated plate-reader systems. In 26 of those cases, officers used the technology to spy on wives, girlfriends, former partners, or their exes' new partners.

Flock's system appeared in 46 of the 50. Chicago privacy researcher Matt Chapman, of Lucy Parsons Lab, put the constitutional problem in one line: "It seems that these tools are used as a means of circumventing Fourth Amendment rights."

This is the same architecture that already wrecked an innocent Florida woman's life.

Lindsey Brooke Isaacs, 23, spent 13 days in a Volusia County jail facing life after Florida troopers treated a Flock ping like a confession. Her black Dodge Durango had no collision damage. A 911 caller described a maroon SUV and a partial plate that was not hers. The camera still became the case.

"They just picked up my car off a camera and called it the end of the day. We got her," she said. Prosecutors later dropped every charge and arrested another driver whose maroon Durango and plate matched the original call.

Flock's line was corporate and tidy: "Flock cameras provide investigative leads; they do not identify perpetrators, determine guilt, or make arrest decisions."

Florida's governor had already seen enough of the dragnet. At DeSantis's direction, FDOT revoked every permit for Flock units and other automated plate readers in state highway right-of-way and put agencies on a 30-day clock. Miss it, and state crews pull the poles.

"I think these cameras, the license plate readers, I think it's out of control," DeSantis said. "I'm all about having law enforcement have tools to be able to hold criminals accountable... But I don't want to have this become a surveillance state."

He used the most Florida example available: a drive to Buc-ee's. "It's really none of the government's damn business if you're doing that, right?" He also named the stalking pattern now repeating in Naperville: "When I see, like, a police officer using this to track, like, an ex-girlfriend, I'm like, you know, what the hell's going on with this?"

Knox County, Tennessee, Mayor Glenn Jacobs - the former WWE star Kane - cut the same cord after he realized the product was not a passive hot-list ping. It is an active system that photographs every car, then builds what Flock calls a "vehicular fingerprint": make, model, color, roof racks, bumper stickers.

"The lack of transparency surrounding Flock's rollout is one of the most troubling aspects about all this," Jacobs wrote. "It's sure seems like there was a sprint towards a fait accompli before the public took notice."

The company has since shortened default retention, promised mandatory audits, and told cities they can wall off some outside searches. Semafor reported this week that Flock is now weighing a sale, with preliminary talks involving outside advisers. A spokesperson declined to comment.

Software patches after the poles are already in the ground do not rewrite the architecture: a searchable history of lawful travel, available to whoever has a login, with "audit" as the after-the-fact alibi.

Americans were sold stolen-car alerts and Amber Alerts. What got bolted to the intersection is a movement dossier with no judge on the front end and, in Illinois, no reliable felony on the back end.

Maldonado searched a man who was not charged with anything, roughly 150 times, then left with his record clean enough to wear a badge somewhere else. That is not a glitch in the camera. That is the product working as designed - until voters and governors start ripping the poles down.

* * *

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/25/2026 - 08:05