Zero Rss

FOMC Minutes Tilt Hawkish: 'Inflation Risks Skewed To The Upside' Due To AI

While today's market moves (post-Bessent's OpTwist bailout) are changing things rapidly, since the last FOMC meeting, on July 19th, where Warsh held rates (hawkishly) unchanged (in the biggest surprise to market expectations in decades) amid multiple dissents, gold, bitcoin, and oil have outperformed, the dollar and bonds have lagged, with stocks solidly green in the middle...

And rate-hike expectations have plunged, erasing the hawkish shift since Warsh's first Fed meeting (thanks mostly to weak macro since the meeting)...

With Fed-watchers up in arms about him not giving the book away (ending forward guidance), they are hoping for some signs on the tea-leaves today of The Fed's reaction function (don't hold your breath) or what they are watching (still don't hold your breath).

Market participants expected the Minutes to show that hawkish sentiment on the committee was broad-based, despite the decision to hold rates steady. That could re-energize market bets on an imminent rate hike, bets that have subsided since July’s weak jobs and retail-sales data and modest CPI inflation.

However, bear in mind that the FOMC minutes are backward-looking, of course, but the editorial process – which requires sign-off from top officials – allows the Fed to selectively underscore certain messages. Given the sharp upward movement in long-term bond yields recently (before today) and concerns about Fed credibility, many are expecting officials likely to give the minutes a hawkish edit.

So what do Warsh and his new pals at The Eccles Building want us to know?

As expected, a hawkish tilt to the Minutes:

As we already knew, the members were mixed:

• Most participants assessed higher rates would likely be necessary if inflation did not fall; 

• “Many participants assessed that policy tightening would likely be necessary if inflation did not decline,” the minutes said.

• Most participants at Fed's July 28-29 meeting supported keeping interest rates unchanged, but several favored an increase

• Various participants said tighter financial conditions over intermeeting period reflected strong economic growth and expectations for Fed to adopt more restrictive stance before long

• A few of the participants who favored raising rates at the meeting judged doing so would likely help forestall need for further hikes

Fewer meetings possible:

The minutes also showed Warsh raised the idea of reducing the committee’s annual number of policy meetings from eight to six.

“The Chairman observed that six scheduled meetings per year, held roughly every two months, would allow more information to accumulate between meetings than under current practice and provide policymakers and the staff more time to consider strategic monetary policy issues,” the minutes said.

Warsh then asked for input from the committee on the idea. The minutes made clear the number of meetings would not be adjusted this year. A reduction in the number of policy meetings would mark a significant shift in the way the central bank operates.

It was all about inflation:

“Most participants anticipated that inflation would step down over the rest of the year as the effects of tariffs and earlier energy price increases wane, but many participants noted the possibility that inflation might be more persistently elevated,” the minutes said.

• Fed staff economic outlook showed inflation outlook was similar to one prepared for June meeting but economic outlook was 'a touch weaker'

• *FED: PARTICIPANTS JUDGED INFLATION RISKS WERE SKEWED TO UPSIDE

• *FED: SEVERAL SAW AI INVESTMENT HAVING BROADER EFFECT ON PRICES

• *FED: SEVERAL SAID TARIFF PASS-THROUGH WAS NOW LARGELY COMPLETE

• Several participants noted price increases over last year were broad based, spanning various categories of goods and services

• The record showed participants’ inflation outlooks were “highly uncertain” and the re-escalation of the Iran war “clouded the inflation outlook.”

Labor:

• Officials described the labor market as stable, with labor demand and supply in balance.

Balance Sheet

• A couple of participants noted ample-reserves regime had helped maintain orderly market functioning during brief payments outage during intermeeting period.

Interestingly, in line with his lack of forward guidance (and the potential for fewer meetings), the Minutes appeared more sparse of actionable detail than usual.

Read the full Minutes here.

 

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 14:05

US May Halve Canada Metals Tariffs As Friday Deal Deadline Looms

Summary:

• US-Canada Trade Deal Would Cut Metals Tariffs to 25%: Report
• Trump: "It's good for everybody, but our farmers are going to be thrilled. Our manufacturers are going to be thrilled."
• Trump Pauses 50% Canada Tariffs At 11th Hour, Declares "We Have A Deal"

US-Canada Trade Deal Would Cut Metals Tariffs to 25%: Report

Sources told Bloomberg that a tentative trade deal would cut US tariffs on certain Canadian steel and aluminum exports to 25% from 50%.

The report continued:

The details have yet to be finalized and are not expected to apply across the board. Different rates could apply to some derivative products that include those metals, said some of the people, who requested anonymity to discuss terms of the agreement before it is announced.

US and Canadian trade advisers continued negotiations Wednesday, less than 24 hours after President Donald Trump paused planned 50% tariffs on billions of dollars of Canadian goods for three days.

The metals concessions could help the two countries reach a broader agreement before the pause expires Friday.

President Trump earlier nodded to US concessions in the trade talks.

🚨 BOOM: President Trump just confirmed he's reached a deal with CANADA, the tariffs are paused

Keystone XL pipeline is also set to be REVIVED 👏🏻

"We've come to a deal with Canada. As you know, the 50% tariffs across the board were going on against Canada today, and they called…

— 𝑃𝑎𝑟𝑜𝑑𝑦 Donaldo Trumpo Nesara Global (@IlDonaldo20061) August 19, 2026

"Got to give something, and we're doing certain things. We're paying a high number. We're reducing it a little bit," Trump told reporters. "It's good for everybody, but our farmers are going to be thrilled. Our manufacturers are going to be thrilled."

Trump Pauses 50% Canada Tariffs At 11th Hour, Declares "We Have A Deal" 

The Canadian dollar climbed against most of its Group-of-10 peers after President Trump delayed 50% tariffs on billions of dollars of Canadian goods for three days, claiming on Truth Social that a trade deal was pending. The last-minute reprieve will ease trade tensions in North America.

"I have paused the 50% Tariffs against Canada, that were scheduled to kick in tomorrow morning for a three day period, based on the fact that Canada and the U.S.A., subject to the finalization of documents, have a DEAL! The great Keystone XL Pipeline, long ago killed by Sleepy Joe Biden, may be awoken from the grave!" Trump wrote on Truth Social late Tuesday night.

The United States Trade Representative wrote on X, "The deal will include comprehensive market access for all American goods, economic security commitments, digital trade alignment, and many important provisions that will continue to protect our market and American workers, along with our Canadian partners."

Congratulations Mr. President. The deal will include comprehensive market access for all American goods, economic security commitments, digital trade alignment, and many important provisions that will continue to protect our market and American workers, along with our Canadian… https://t.co/YSQ4rNmKAv

— United States Trade Representative (@USTradeRep) August 19, 2026

A White House proclamation explained that the tariffs were suspended after Canada committed to removing discriminatory treatment across US automobiles, dairy products, and alcohol.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney released a statement offering a more cautious view and stopped short of confirming that a final deal had been reached.

"Substantial progress has been made, although there is important work still to be done," Carney said in the statement. "While we continue this work, Canada remains focused on building a stronger, more independent, and more competitive economy at home."

Analysts at Jefferies added more color: 

Trump says U.S., Canada have trade deal, pauses new tariffs for three days Globe and Mail reported that U.S. President Donald Trump announced a tentative trade deal with Canada and paused planned 50% tariffs for three days, less than two hours before they were due to take effect. 

Trump said the agreement remains subject to final documentation and did not disclose specific terms or confirm whether the tariffs would be permanently withdrawn. 

The announcement followed intense negotiations between Canadian and U.S. officials, including multiple discussions between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Trump. 

Sources indicated negotiators believed they had developed a proposal capable of resolving the impasse, but the final decision rested with political leaders. The threatened tariffs, under Section 338, would have applied to about US$20B of Canadian exports including electronics, dairy, alcohol and wood products. Talks also covered existing Section 232 tariffs on autos, metals and forest products. 

Reports suggest the U.S. may reduce, but not fully remove, some tariffs in exchange for Canadian concessions such as lifting provincial bans on U.S. alcohol and removing certain countertariffs. 

Key sticking points remained auto and lumber tariffs, with Canada seeking exemptions for North American auto content and provinces demanding meaningful lumber relief. 

The outcome represents a significant political test for Carney, who has balanced pressure to protect Canadian interests with business demands for greater trade stability.

Scotiabank's Derek Holt provided his first take:

Great, there's a possible deal. What's in the deal? Dunno. Do I trust there is a deal because Trump said so? Not really. Do markets trust there is a deal? Not so much, as CAD only appreciated by about a quarter cent since Trump's social media post last night, CGBs are flat, and so are TSX futures. All he did was to go TACO and postpone the 50% tariffs for three days just 1¾ hours before they were to have been applied against $20 billion of imports from Canada sans CUSMA exemption. Canada's retaliation is similarly postponed. That's a positive for now, since otherwise everything would have skidded off into the ditch, but the rest is still uncertain. 

What's in the deal? Haven't a clue. Is it good for both Canada and the US? Dunno. Trump's post merely says the two countries have a deal while intimating that the Keystone XL pipeline is back on. We'll see about that, given a guarded industry toward the pipeline that has moved on given the wild unpredictability of successive US administrations, the long project timelines and the varied competing interests. 

We also have this post from the USTR that claims "comprehensive market access for all American goods, economic security commitments, digital trade alignment, and many important provisions that will continue to protect our market and American workers, along with our Canadian partners." We'll be the judge of that, not the White House.

Canadian PM Carney's post was much more measured. It noted that "substantial progress has been made, although there is important work still to be done." On that count, massive shout-outs to the Canadian team for working so tirelessly and on something so mindless as zero-sum beggar-thy-neighbour trade policies out of the US that divert precious management time by leaders and businesses away from more meaningful pursuits. You've served your country well so far.

And so we need details. What's in the agreement, what are the enforcement mechanisms, what are the timelines for implementation, and of course, how exactly comprehensive is this? Is it a meaningfully comprehensive CUSMA extension, or just the opening salvo? How much did PM Carney give away from a salability standpoint at home? The provinces will need to be briefed and their reactions and cooperation will be important. And is Trump's signature going to actually mean anything on this 'deal' given his pattern of not honouring much of what he commits to doing?

Throughout all of this I have stuck to a cautious optimist line that Canada would get a trade deal before the midterms or before the new US Congress convenes in January. The odds of this happening just went up. That has been part of a macro narrative for improved growth and modest tightening by the Bank of Canada as the case for last Fall's insurance cuts to persist would be removed at a minimum. I hope that's true, but I'll jump on the 'Let's Make a Deal' stage when I see something meaningful. Until then, post on to your heart's content, we want details!! 

If a deal that extends CUSMA and lowers uncertainty in a meaningful way were to be achieved, then it would be positive for Canadian economic growth and negligible for US growth. It would buoy market and business sentiment toward Canada. It could put at ease consumer worries. 

And be wary toward the possible confirmation bias in gloomier quarters. I wouldn't want talk to see some of the research gloomsters who were adopting a negative stance on trade and how damaging it could be to Canada's economy and markets while making rate cuts more likely then turn around and say a deal doesn't mean much. Nothing to see here. Don't want to see it because it goes against all of their other views that deliberately excluded the cautious optimists. #accountability. The BoC wouldn't dismiss a deal; amid multiple uncertainties, removing or materially dropping trade uncertainty would be another step toward modest tightening.

Trump's announcement signals possible progress ahead of the review of the North American trade agreement between the US, Canada and Mexico. The US and Canada traded $900 billion in goods and services last year. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 13:59

Prosecutors In Charlie Kirk Slaying Case Say Evidence Supports Death Penalty

Authored by Janice Hisle via The Epoch Times,

Prosecutors on Aug. 18 urged a Utah judge to uphold all charges, including one carrying a potential death sentence, in the case against Charlie Kirk’s accused killer.

In their 19-page filing in Utah County’s Fourth District Court, prosecutors rebutted an Aug. 11 memo from lawyers representing the defendant, Tyler James Robinson, 23.

Robinson’s defense team had argued that evidence presented during a preliminary hearing last month failed to support the death penalty. They said that the evidence also did not establish “probable cause”—a reasonable belief that their client committed the alleged offenses. Under Utah law, that standard must be met for the case to proceed to trial.

Prosecutors counter-argued that defense lawyers ignored important facts damning to their client while misconstruing legal standards to favor him.

Further, prosecutors said evidence clearly shows that others besides Kirk were at great risk of being killed—an “aggravating” circumstance that supports a death-penalty-level charge, they argued.

A gunman, alleged to be Robinson, fatally shot Kirk in the neck on Sept. 10, 2025, as he spoke to a crowd of about 3,000 people in a courtyard at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. Some attendees were “in the line of fire,” while other people were near Kirk, putting them in the “zone of danger,” prosecutors said.

Those basic facts show that other people’s lives were imperiled, they argued.

Defense lawyers had said, “The State has failed to show that the actual conduct created a ‘high probability’ that someone other than Mr. Kirk would be killed.”

However, prosecutors pointed out that defense lawyers made no challenge to evidence showing that Robinson “was the person who crawled to the sniper’s perch ... fired the fatal shot ... hid the rifle in a wooded area, got rid of some of the clothing he was wearing, and told his roommate to delete their texts about the shooting.”

Robinson is accused of aggravated murder, a capital offense, in the highly publicized assassination case.

Kirk was a 31-year-old father of two who founded Turning Point USA, a conservative youth political movement that spread internationally.

Prosecutors allege that Robinson targeted Kirk because he opposed Kirk’s political and religious stances.

The defendant also faces six other charges: two counts of obstructing justice, two counts of witness tampering, and a count each of causing serious bodily harm by discharging a firearm and committing violence in the presence of a child.

The next step in the case is set for Sept. 1, when the lawyers will make oral arguments to Judge Tony Graf Jr. in his courtroom in Provo, Utah.

Graf is tasked with deciding whether prosecutors provided sufficient evidence of probable cause.

In a July 28 court filing, prosecutors told the judge that a four-day preliminary hearing earlier that month produced clear-cut evidence against Robinson.

“This is likely as straight-forward a bind-over decision as this Court will ever see,” they wrote, adding: “This isn’t a close case. The State presented more than enough evidence to support a probable cause finding on all seven charges.”

Prosecutors said that the defendant admitted to “several friends, including his roommate and romantic partner, that he assassinated Charlie Kirk.”

Robinson surrendered to police following those alleged admissions, and DNA evidence links him to gun parts and other items found near the shooting site, in addition to eyewitness testimony and surveillance, they pointed out.

It is unclear whether Graf will rule immediately after the Sept. 1 hearing. Attorneys representing Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, requested that Graf issue his decision no later than that date.

If Graf finds probable cause, he must “bind over” the case for trial; otherwise, the judge is required to dismiss the charges—although prosecutors could resubmit the case.

Felony criminal cases may bypass a preliminary hearing when prosecutors present evidence directly to a grand jury and secure an indictment.

However, Robinson was charged under a prosecutor’s “information.” That requires prosecutors to present evidence at a preliminary hearing and obtain a judge’s probable-cause ruling unless the defendant waives that right.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 13:45

Ugly, Tailing 20Y Auction Prices At 2nd Highest Yield On Record; Would Have Been Highest If Bessent Hadn't Panicked

After today's stunning announcement by the Treasury it was doubling the size of long-end buyback operations to boost liquidity in the space, many were closely watching today's 20Y auction - which is viewed as the proximal catalyst to trigger Bessent's panic as it was going to price at the highest yield in the history of the 20Y auction - to see how much demand there was for this key paper. As it turns out: not a whole lot.

The auction priced at a high yield of 5.204%, up materially from 5.163% a month ago, and like in July today's auction tailed the When Issued by 0.5bps which is the first red light: despite today's massive intervention by the Treasury, demand was still at best lackluster.

But looking closer at today's 20Y yield moves, we can see why Bessent panicked: had he done nothing, today's high yield would have been the highest in 20Y history... and following the recent ugly 30Y auction, this is not what the bond market would have wanted to see. So to make sure the August 2026 auction priced inside the record high set in October 2023 with a 5.245% yielding auction, Bessent announced the buyback boost, which was enough to send 20Y yields 8bps lower, or enough to make today's auction yield the second highest on record.

The bid to cover of today's 20Y auction was 2.53, down from 2.64 in July and down sharply from 2.75% in June. It was also the lowest since February and one of the lowest on record. 

The internals were also a mess: foreign buyers (Indirects) were awarded just 62.9%, down sharply from 69.1% and the lowest since February (also well below the recent average of 66.7%). And with Directs taking 24.6% of the auction, or the highest since February (oddly enough, Directs now surge whenever Indirects tumble and vice verse, almost as if they have a direct mandate from the Treasury), Dealers were left holding 12.5%, down from 14.7% but in line with the recent average of 11.5%.

Overall, this was a very lousy 20Y auction, but it could have been much worse had the Treasury not stepped in this morning. The flip side, of course, is that even with the Treasury's intervention, this was a barely passable auction and suggests that just like Bessent's yentervention, the half-life of his latest attempt to stabilize the bond market will be measured in weeks if not days.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 13:40

Another Top Zelensky Aide Fired Amid Corruption Probe, House Raid

Another top official has been dismissed in Ukraine's government, accompanied with the usual police raids on homes amid fresh corruption probes... but this time the scandal once again runs straight through Zelensky's office.

"Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau said it had launched an operation linked to an alleged criminal organization involving current and former MPs and senior officials in the presidential administration," EuroNews reports.

"Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy fired the deputy head of the presidential office Iryna Mudra on Wednesday, his office announced, on the same day the country's anti-corruption investigators launched a major operation targeting an alleged criminal organization involving politicians and senior government officials," the report adds. A presidential office statement confirmed: "Iryna Mudra shall be dismissed from the post of deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine."

Via Ukrinform

While no names have been disclosed as specifically part of the fresh ongoing actions and investigation by the NABU and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), Ukrainian media has cited sources alleging that senior officials from the President’s Office of Ukraine also involved.

And so Iryna Mudra 'shock' dismissal on the very day of these raids and newly unveiled investigations is obviously more than just coincidence. 

Ukrainian and regional media says her properties are being searched: 

According to information from Ukrainian parliament member Oleksiy Honcharenko, investigators searched the premises of Iryna Mudra, deputy head of the President’s Office. He gave no further details about the case.

The outlet Zerkalo Nedeli reports that the NABU and SAPO operation also involves Vadym Stolar, a lawmaker from the former Opposition Platform — For Life party, and Maksym Mykytas, a former member of the Ukrainian parliament, in addition to Mudra. Officials from the Justice Ministry and representatives of Sense Bank (formerly Alfa-Bank Ukraine) also appear in the case.

The operation was code-named “Forrest Gump.” NABU released a fragment of an audio recording capturing conversations among people named in the case, in which they mention “four sacks” and the President’s Office. “Only a moron would register stolen money and tuition payments in his own children’s names,” a voice on the recording also says.

All of this follows on a series of prior investigations by NABU and SAPO into corruption at the highest levels of government, which has taken down many officials and been an ongoing source of embarrassment for Ukraine.

And as a reminder, back in May of this year:

Ukraine’s anti-corruption court Thursday ordered the arrest of Andriy Yermak, a close ally of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and former head of his administration, on money-laundering charges.

The court also set bail at 140 million hryvnias ($3.19 million), which would allow Yermak, who has denied the allegations, to be released pending a final ruling in his case.

However, these investigations tended to get spun as if 'heroic' Zelensky is on a mission, destroying the rot from within...

The EU wants to pressure their unruly satrap Zelensky so that his clan embezzles a little less conspicuously, if that’s not too much to ask https://t.co/sf7bTB3xZX

— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) August 19, 2026

And there's this from the same journalist, Mark Ames...

Every shocking Zelensky corruption scandal - and they keep getting worse - is PR’d away as “proof that Ukraine is a functioning western democracy fighting corruption”, as if it’s always one corruption scandal away from turning the corner & becoming Denmark.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 13:25

Why Are White Liberal Women Identifying With A Child Murderer?

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

Three innocent children are dead. Their mother has admitted killing them. And yet a growing chorus of white liberal women on TikTok and beyond is racing to cast her as the real victim, pouring money into her family's fundraiser and filming themselves relating to the confessed killer while cradling their own babies.

Lindsay Clancy strangled her three children - Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, then 8 months - with exercise bands in the basement of the family's Duxbury, Massachusetts home on January 24, 2023. She then cut her wrists and neck and jumped from a second-story window, leaving herself paralyzed and wheelchair-bound.

Her defense does not dispute that she killed the children. Attorney Kevin Reddington has told the court she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and was not criminally responsible. Prosecutors maintain she acted intentionally, rationally, and with premeditation.

?? UPDATE — A GoFundMe linked to Lindsay Clancy has reached nearly $900,000 from over 27,000 contributors after she admitted murdering her three children.

Clancy's attorney described her future as one of daily grief over the killings she committed.

Supportive comments on the… pic.twitter.com/K3ecHakgze

— The Patriot Oasis™ (@ThePatriotOasis) August 18, 2026

The trial is ongoing in Plymouth Superior Court; the prosecution recently rested after calling more than 70 witnesses, and the defense is now presenting its case, including testimony from Clancy's mother about her daughter's mental decline and pleas for help.

Three children are dead.

Lindsay Clancy killed them. That is the central fact of this case.

Her defense is arguing postpartum psychosis and that the medical system failed her. Her mother testified about her mental decline, the anxiety, the suicidal thoughts, the medications… pic.twitter.com/DzjKM3deQg

— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) August 18, 2026

None of that has stopped the online transformation of a triple child murder into a cause for certain women. Clancy's parents, Mike and Paula Musgrove, have a GoFundMe that has rocketed past $900,000 - approaching $1M from more than 27,000 donors - with a $2 million goal.

The money is framed as covering the couple's travel, lodging, and living costs after they relocated from Connecticut to stand by their daughter through the proceedings. Supportive comments on the page frequently emphasize her mental-health struggles more than the three dead children. Funds are earmarked for the parents' ongoing costs during the trial.

Critics note that crowdfunding platforms have rules against funding criminal defense, and some have called for the campaign to be reported. Others see the outpouring as further evidence that large numbers of women are prioritizing gender solidarity over the basic reality that three children were murdered by their own mother.

That solidarity has spilled into TikTok in especially unsettling ways. Women have posted videos declaring Clancy the winner of a trial that is still underway, claiming she "proved" postpartum psychosis the moment she killed her children. The jury has not decided anything. The judge has not ruled on the central question of criminal responsibility. Yet creators speak as if the outcome is already settled in her favor.

TikTok feminists are already declaring Lindsay Clancy the winner of her murder trial… claiming she "proved" postpartum psychosis the moment she killed her 3 children.

The problem?

The jury hasn't decided a single thing.
The judge hasn't ruled on anything.
The trial is still… pic.twitter.com/UajaVQ7mFG

— International MAGA News. (@MagaIntNews13) August 18, 2026

Others go further, insisting Clancy is actually innocent despite her own admissions, her lawyer's opening statements, her husband's 911 call in which he screamed that she had killed the kids, and the civil lawsuit she filed against her therapists that explicitly acknowledges she killed her own children.

Some have hung out windows or filmed themselves in performative displays to argue her innocence. One widely circulated reaction asked whether these women are bored, lonely, or simply completely detached from reality.

Retards are hanging out their windows to try to prove Lindsay Clancy is innocent despite the fact she has already admitted to murdering her children.

Are women bored and lonely or just retarded? pic.twitter.com/45edakwVK0

— Retard Finder (@IfindRetards) August 18, 2026

The pattern is familiar to observers of recent high-profile cases: a refusal to accept female accountability when the facts are inconvenient. As one commentator noted, it does not matter to this cohort that Clancy admitted the murders, just as it did not matter that Amber Heard admitted lying about abuse. The priority is that women not be held fully responsible.

It doesn't matter to them that Lindsay Clancy admitted to murder.

Just like it doesn't matter that Amber Heard admitted to lying about being abused and admitted to being the abuser.

They don't want justice for victims, they don't care about victims. They want women not to be… https://t.co/HgcH6oiBZE

— Becky?????? (@JustBotBecky) August 18, 2026

Even more alarming are the videos in which mothers film themselves relating to Clancy while holding their own infants. Women have recorded themselves discussing identification with the child killer while cradling babies.

Bad enough to "relate" to a child killer. To do it while holding your baby is, to put it mildly, an alarming decision. pic.twitter.com/AyVCtxyBPQ

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) August 18, 2026

What does she mean "when I wished it would?"

This looks corny and performative and very "I'm a single mom" pic.twitter.com/KJoepzrsTT

— Luka (@LukaLev) August 18, 2026

Critics have called the decision to film such material with children an alarming one, with some arguing it should prompt child protective services involvement.

Report her to CPS, the child is in danger. pic.twitter.com/qwMIAH7whQ

— Kangmin Lee | ??? (@kangminlee) August 18, 2026

This disturbing AI video has been circulated widely on TikTok:

OUR WOMEN ARE NOT OK

Open up the asylums. Open them now. pic.twitter.com/ga2o8UbRpG

— Luka (@LukaLev) August 17, 2026

One single mother went further still, asserting that any man who believes Clancy should go to prison for murdering her children probably abuses his wife. She added that she is "just waiting for some man out there to prove to me that there are some good ones."

Single mom says any man who thinks Lindsay Clancy, who admitted to murdering her kids, should go to prison probably abuses their wife.

"I'm just waiting for some man out there to prove to me that there are some good ones."

Ma'am, you need a man so he can take your phone away. pic.twitter.com/uIK1fwQrZc

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) August 18, 2026

The response was swift and withering: the women who claim to be searching for good men are often the same ones who date the worst of them, and the demand that men prove themselves by refusing to call a child killer a child killer is a particularly inverted form of accountability.

Clancy's defense attorney admitted in opening statements that she killed her children. She has filed a lawsuit against her therapists that also admits the killings. Her husband testified about the night he discovered the bodies and about a later phone call in which she described hearing a man's voice telling her that if she did not act she would lose her chance.

Lindsey Clancy's defense attorney admitted that she killed her children in opening statements

Clancy has also filed a lawsuit against her therapists that explicitly admits that she killed her own children.

That hasn't stopped the conspiratards. pic.twitter.com/8YvYAFIGDb

— Douglass Mackey (@douglassmackey) August 17, 2026

None of this has deterred the conspiracy theories that the husband somehow framed her, or the broader insistence that the medical system alone is to blame and that Clancy herself bears no criminal responsibility that should result in prison.

Here's an example. This has 396k likes. https://t.co/43Avr9IWIW pic.twitter.com/uahrdXsqbP

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) August 16, 2026

Mental illness is real. Postpartum psychosis is real and can be considered at sentencing. But it does not erase what happened. Three children are dead because their mother killed them. That is the central, undisputed fact of the case.

The spectacle of women identifying with the killer, fundraising for her parents at near-million-dollar levels, and filming themselves relating to her while holding their own kids reveals something deeper than sympathy for mental illness. It reveals a cultural refusal, concentrated among a particular demographic of women, to prioritize murdered children over a narrative of female victimhood.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 13:05

Jeffrey Tucker Reveals The Insidious Reason For The Lockdowns

Jeffrey Tucker - founder and president of the Brownstone Institute, says top FDA and NIH officials told him that the purpose of the COVID-19 lockdowns were "to delay the onset of natural immunity… until after the shots were online."

Tucker sat down for an hour-long conversation with Dr. Jessica Rose, where he says that 'multiple sources' who were involved in the response confirmed the bombshell revelation "without a shadow of a doubt." 

As Vigilant Fox notes - 

The lockdowns that wiped out small businesses. The school closures that sent children's reading scores back to 1971. The plexiglass, the masking, the stay-at-home orders. None of it was about keeping us safe. “It was exactly the opposite,” as Tucker put it.

Watch:

Jeffrey Tucker just revealed that top FDA and NIH quietly admitted the real reason for Covid lockdowns, masking, and social distancing to him.

It sounds like a “wild conspiracy theory.”

But it’s the truth.

The real reason for all of it was to “delay the onset of natural… pic.twitter.com/QPfjvXg2nx

— Brownstone Institute (@brownstoneinst) August 11, 2026

TUCKER: “We all have what we consider to be the most shocking feature of the COVID response. But for me, I still can’t get over the fact that I was told by top FDA, NIH officials that a major reason for social distancing, lockdowns, masking, Plexiglas, stay-at-home orders, and everything else was to delay the onset of natural immunity, to delay rising seroprevalence levels, to delay endemicity until after the shots were online.

“So, it wasn’t just that all these tactics, these sort of social engineering tactics, were designed to keep us [safe]. Well, no, it was exactly the opposite. It was to keep us from gaining natural capacity to resist the virus.

“So that they could wait until the injection came along. So the injection could be deployed and experimented upon us and, and thereby get all the credit for having solved the issue.

“That sounds like a wild conspiracy theory, but that’s what they meant by ‘flatten the curve.’ Flatten the curve meant to prolong the pain, delay the solution. And it sounds crazy until you hear it from people who were there on the ground, in the agencies, in the companies, watching all this unfold.

“And multiple sources have confirmed this without a shadow of doubt in their mind that was the real purpose of the school closures, the business shutdowns, the stay-at-home orders, the travel restrictions, and everything: to delay the point at which we would have solved, essentially solved, the problem through natural exposure and immune upgrades.”

h/t Vigilant Fox - give him a follow!

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 12:25

Cherokee Nation In The US Bans Data Center Development

By Jason Ma of DataCenterDynamics

The Cherokee Nation in the US has banned data center development on its lands, according to an announcement made by its Chief Chuck Hoskin on August 5, Thursday.

“It’s clear that our Cherokee Nation Administration, Council, and citizens have serious concerns about the construction of hyperscale data centers on our tribal lands, which affect our resources and cultural lifeways. Our primary responsibility is to protect our citizens and tribal communities from these threats, so we will not support any hyperscale data centers on our reservation without proper consultation,” Chief Hoskin said.

“We want these companies to know that we expect them to engage with us early and transparently, as these projects impact every Cherokee.”

On the same day, the Cherokee Nation also released a report on data centers, which found that 64 percent of the 1,593 Cherokee Nation citizens surveyed did support hyperscale data center construction within the Reservation, a 7,000 sqm (75,347 sq ft) area in northeastern Oklahoma where the nation has legislative, executive, and judicial powers. Only 14 percent supported their development, and 22 percent remained unsure.

The report states that two data center projects – Project Clydesdale, a $1 billion campus in Tulsa County, and Project Mustang, potentially located in the Claremore Industrial Park – are currently under development within the Cherokee Nation Reservation.

But the report also emphasized that the nation had an interest in “continued reliable, secure, cost-effective access to colocation and cloud services for government and business operations, disaster recovery, and sovereign systems including tribal registration and vehicle tag administration.”

In August, a broadband data center was built in the Hoopa Valley Reservation, home to the Hoopa Valley Tribe in northwest California.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 12:10

"This Is Huge!": Trump Hails Ibogaine Application Gift Aimed At Helping Veterans With Mental Illness

Authored by Kimberley Hayek via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump said that the University of Miami has given its original 1994 investigational new drug application for ibogaine to the federal government, a move he said would accelerate development of the psychedelic substance as a treatment for serious mental illness.

The gift aims to speed work on the substance as a possible treatment for serious mental illness suffered by veterans.

The 1994 application was the original filing that made early research into ibogaine possible.

Trump made the announcement on Aug. 18 in a Truth Social post.

“Today I am announcing that Secretary Kennedy has received a Historic Gift from the University of Miami, who has given the Federal Government its original 1994 Ibogaine Investigational New Drug application,” he wrote.

“This will give everyone direct access to the foundational FDA authorization to accelerate its development as a medical treatment in the U.S. This is HUGE! Special THANK YOU to the University of Miami, who has done this to ensure that Americans are helped as quickly as possible.”

Trump tied the donation directly to an executive order he signed in April. That order sought to accelerate medical treatments for serious mental illness, with a specific focus on psychedelic drugs including ibogaine.

“In April, I signed a very important Executive Order to accelerate medical treatments for serious mental illness — Specifically, psychedelic drugs, including IBOGAINE,” the president wrote.

“This is something that has helped so many of our amazing VETERANS and true American Heroes who were here in the Oval Office with me, and Joe Rogan.”

Trump said the university’s action builds on steps already taken since April, including substantial Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) research funding, collaboration between HHS and the Department of Veterans Affairs, and Food and Drug Administration guidance.

The president stressed the need to move quickly to bring potential new treatments to market.

“We are moving FAST, so that our Veterans with serious mental illness have a RIGHT TO TRY here in the U.S.,” he wrote.

“We hope to see more companies and institutions join us in this very important work. Our Veterans DESERVE it!”

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has fully supported the administration’s efforts to speed up experimental treatments.

“Thanks to the leadership of President Trump, under this historic Executive Order, @HHSGov will accelerate research, approval, and access to new mental health treatments, including psychedelic therapies such as ibogaine,” Kennedy said after the April order.

At a Senate hearing in April, Kennedy described ibogaine as the “most promising treatment for depression and PTSD that anybody’s ever seen.”

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 11:30

La-Z-Boy Crashes Most Since 2022 As Frozen Housing Market Crushes Sofa Demand

La-Z-Boy shares suffered their steepest decline in 4.5 years on Wednesday after the furniture maker's second-quarter guidance missed expectations, providing even more evidence that weak housing turnover has suppressed demand for big-ticket discretionary goods such as sofas and recliners. With mortgage rates elevated and home prices near record levels, affordability remains severely stretched, keeping transaction volumes depressed, thus limiting replacement purchases that typically drive furniture demand.

La-Z-Boy forecasted second-quarter sales of $475.7 million, down 3% from a year earlier and well below the $537 million average analyst estimate tracked by Bloomberg. It forecast an adjusted operating margin of 3.9% to 4.8% and a reported operating margin ranging from negative .4% to 4.5%.

KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst Bradley Thomas said the company issued sales and implied earnings guidance below consensus, pressured partly by continued investment.

The soft guidance followed a weaker-than-expected first quarter. Adjusted earnings came in at 43 cents a share, compared with 47 cents one year ago and below the 49-cent analyst estimate. On a reported basis, La-Z-Boy lost 6 cents a share, compared with earnings of 44 cents a year earlier. 

Sofas and recliners are considered highly deferrable purchases - non-essential goods. The stock's 14% plunge suggests investors view the dismal evidence as further evidence that households are delaying discretionary spending and that the trend will persist, with the 30-year fixed mortgage rate remaining around 6.7%.

The broader read-through is that dismal housing conditions have also dampened home-improvement demand at Home Depot and Lowe's, as confirmed in this week's earnings. Wayfair, RH, and Williams-Sonoma have also experienced sluggish demand for big-ticket household items. 

La-Z-Boy is another canary in the coal mine, warning that America's frozen housing market continues to dampen consumer demand for big-ticket items. Last week, July retail sales were a major disappointment, with discretionary categories seeing sharp pullbacks. This all comes as the national average for gasoline at the pump is over $4 per gallon, continuing to dent consumer sentiment.  

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 11:10

WTI Rises As Distillate Stocks Draw, Cushing Back Near 'Tank Bottoms', SPR At 43-Year Lows

Oil prices are chopping sideways (to modestly higher) for the second day in a row as traders weighed the 'dark fleet' transits with renewed tensions in the Middle East further clouding the outlook for flows through the vital Strait of Hormuz.

“A combination of the escalation between the UAE and Iran, coupled with a market increasingly pricing a ‘closed for longer scenario,’ keeps oil and refined products supported,” said Arne Lohmann Rasmussen, chief analyst at Global Risk Management.

Combine that with the ever-decreasing poll of global inventories (to soak up any supply shortage)...

...and every incremental report on supply and production matters (especially for refined products).

API

• Crude -328k

• Cushing -1.4mm

• Gasoline +1.1mm

• Distillates -2.8mm

DOE

• Crude +4.41mm (-707k exp)

• Cushing -1.314mm - biggest draw since mid-June

• Gasoline +688k

• Distillates -1.53mm

After last week's massive crude inventory build, expectations were a calmer week (API showed a small draw). The official data showed a sizable build (4.41mm barrels) for the 3rd week in a row while Cushing stocks slipped back. Products were mixed with Distillates drawing down for a 3rd week...

Cushing stocks remain near 'tank bottoms'...

The SPR saw another drain...

...pushing stocks back to ever lower lows (1983 lows now)...

US crude production rose last week, edging closer to record highs as rig counts continue to rise...

Crude imports eased after a big surge a week earlier mostly thanks to a significant slide in volumes from Canada. Still, shipments from Venezuela remain very strong holding above 700,000 barrels a day and near the highest levels since 2017. 

WTI Crude is rising on the report back up near $85...

Finally, as we have noted numerous times recently, it's not crude that is the center of the current crisis but refined products with fuel prices, especially diesel, having rallied much harder than oil, as the war between Russia and Ukraine has also contributed to tighter energy markets following attacks on refineries.

That’s heaping cost pressure onto drivers, truckers and farmers, as well as overall industry, and leaks into inflationary impacts for the 'average joe' far quicker.

The margin for making diesel from crude oil in the US has topped $100 a barrel, setting all-time highs. In Europe, gasoil futures have more than doubled this year.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 10:41

Fuel Rationing Reaches Moscow Amid 'Second Wave' National Shortages

Already Russia has been subject to many months of a ramped-up long-range drone campaign out of Ukraine, chiefly targeting oil refineries as well as industrial sites - and most recently expanding to online retail companies and attacks on private sector businesses. 

Tuesday saw one of the single biggest drone waves on Moscow of the war, for example, with at least 600 sent against against the capital region, resulting in widespread panic and some casualties. Making matters worse for the Russian population, several gas station networks have introduced new restrictions on fuel sales - which is a rarity for the capital.

Getty Images

Gazprom Neft as well as Tatneft have confirmed via representatives and their customer service lines that limits have now been placed on petrol sales at Moscow filling stations.

Long lines of cars have been observed at filling stations in and around the capital city, with Reuters detailing the following:

• A customer hotline ​operator at ​Gazprom Neft said gasoline and diesel ​sales at the company's automated ‌filling stations in Moscow were limited to 40 litres [10 gallons] per customer.
• At Gazprom Neft's other filling stations, diesel sales remain unrestricted, while gasoline purchases are capped at 60 litres per vehicle.
• Rosneft, Russia's largest oil producer, said gasoline sales at all its filling stations across Russia ‌were limited to 30 litres per vehicle [about 8 gallons], ​while diesel sales faced no restrictions.

These companies have also been warning customers to be prepared for longer waiting times for fill-up due to heightened demand.

One reason being offered by Russian energy giants for the delays is "unscheduled refinery maintenance" - which is a vague but obvious reference to damage left in the wake of Ukraine's constant drone attacks on the nation's oil and refining infrastructure.

As for the latest attacks, on Wednesday it's being widely reported that Ukrainian drones struck an oil refinery and a residential building in the republic of Bashkortostan, regional head Radiy Khabirov also confirmed.

The incident once again demonstrates the very far reach of Ukrainian drones, given that Bashkortostan is fairly remote from the Ukraine border, lying north of Kazakhstan.

Frustration returns at the pumps...

Russia’s fuel crisis is back—and so are the queues.

Recent videos show drivers waiting for petrol across Moscow and multiple Russian regions. In some places, frustration is spilling into fights at the pumps. 🧵

(Video: @ASTRA_PRESS) pic.twitter.com/6i06lHrAiY

— New Eurasian Strategies Centre (NEST Centre) (@nestcentreorg) August 17, 2026

"We're currently assessing the damage, but preliminary reports indicate that a unit undergoing maintenance was hit. As always, falling debris damages pipes, so there’s minor damage," Khabirov told TASS. "I expect everything will be repaired in a couple of days," the official added.

Starting late last week, Russian officials began openly acknowledging a renewed fuel shortage crisis. Oil companies are "taking the necessary measures to increase deliveries to the most vulnerable regions," a somewhat rare Kremlin statement said at the time. This current crisis has been deemed the 'second wave' fuel shortage to hit Russia.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 10:20

SK Hynix Unleashes South Korea's Biggest-Ever 'Buyback Bazooka' To Halt Stock Rout

Asian equities fell sharply overnight as the regional semiconductor rout intensified following another downdraft in US chipmakers on Tuesday (read morning wrap). Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan led the regional declines, while Chinese stocks also weakened despite the blockbuster IPO of humanoid robotics maker Unitree.

Against that bearish backdrop, SK Hynix announced the largest share buyback in South Korean history, a highly aggressive attempt to arrest a six-week selloff that has erased roughly half of its market value. The scale of the buyback shows just how concerned management is that the drawdown has become disconnected from the company's fundamentals and underscores its desire to put a floor under the stock.

Nikkei Asia reports that SK Hynix's stock buyback program totals a staggering 40 trillion won, or $28.6 billion, and will involve purchasing 24.1 million treasury shares in the open market from Thursday through Nov. 19 to improve shareholder value.

"The decision stems from the assessment that the company's intrinsic value -- underpinned by its business competitiveness, robust cash generation capability, and mid-to-long-term growth potential -- is not fully reflected in its current stock price," SK Hynix said in a statement. The company noted that progress toward its financial health targets remains on track, affirming its "commitment to maintaining a stable financial structure while delivering sustained shareholder value."

SK Hynix's announcement followed a nearly 10% drop in the stock during overnight trading in South Korea, as rising bond yields, persistent inflation, and the deepening US-Iran crisis sparked a broader move out of semi stocks. Samsung Electronics also tumbled nearly 8%, while South Korea's main equity index, the Kospi, fell 5.8%.

Jefferies analyst Lloyd Byrne warned clients on Monday that rising energy prices and an elevated rate environment, especially in the US, have sparked a rotation out of semiconductor stocks and into high-quality energy and materials stocks (read report).

Here's more color on SK Hynix's buyback program from the Japanese outlet:

SK Hynix said the buyback program marks the largest treasury share cancellation ever conducted by a South Korean-listed company. The Lee Jae Myung government encouraged listed companies to buy back and cancel treasury shares to address the so-called Korea discount, in which investors have historically undervalued the country's stocks due to poor corporate governance and low shareholder return.

Macquarie analyst Daniel Kim provided clients this morning with why the buyback program is very important: 

Why it matters

• More to come. Won40tr might be short of the market’s high and hasty expectations. However, we still think that this is just the beginning. We calculate the remainder to be returned to shareholders to be Won243tr in case of 50% FCF and Won358tr in case of 70% FCF. This is equivalent to 22% and 33% of its market cap, respectively.
• Optimal capital structure. We estimate its net cash position to mushroom from Won69tr in 2Q26 to Won192tr in 2026-end and to Won523tr (50% of its market cap) in 2027. This would be way higher than the level of cash on hand the company wants to keep to cover 2 years’ capex, or over Won120tr.
• Additional ADR issuance. Assuming SK Hynix issues the same 24.07mn shares, or 240.7mn ADR (10 ADR to 1 underlying), the company can bring in Won59tr proceeds due to a 47% ADR price premium, resulting in even higher net cash balance. In other words, its cash balance should continue to swell, and we think its war chest should be strong enough to return even 100% of FCF like its US peers.
• Likely a big increase in cash dividend. We expect Hynix to increase cash dividend substantially from 2026. This should be positive for SK Square (402340 KS, Outperform), which owns 20% stake in SK Hynix. Hynix increased capital surplus by Won4tr in 1Q26, which could be paid as tax-free cash dividend for 2026. Thanks to ADR issuance, Hynix now has more room to raise capital surplus and accordingly is able to increase tax-free 2027 cash dividend.
• Upside to 50% of FCF. Management alludes the upside to the current 50% FCF rule and the mix of capital return could be skewed to share buybacks versus cash dividend. Different from its local peer, SK Hynix will not count the spending on M&A in FCF calculation.

What now

• SK Hynix, in our view, is in oversold territory, considering strong earnings momentum, continued shareholder value enhancement. Outperform.

SK Hynix's shares in Korea are down 45% on the year. US ADRs are up 6% in early trading. 

SK Hynix accounted for 21.43% of the Kospi's market capitalization at Tuesday's close, making it the index's second-largest constituent, behind Samsung Electronics at 27.71%.

Any reversal in SK Hynix could help stabilize the broader equity index...

... and are about to blow up all over again https://t.co/vU9i4jXYXk

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 19, 2026 Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 10:00

DOE Cancels 3 National Transmission Corridors, Citing "Green New Scam"

By Diana DiGangi of UtilityDive

Summary

• The U.S. Department of Energy will not move forward with the designation of three proposed National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors that the Biden administration selected for review in 2024, saying in a Wednesday release that the corridors were selected as a “means to advance” that administration’s “Green New Scam agenda.”

• “Transmission policy must serve the American people,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in the release, “not special interests or a climate-alarmist agenda that drives up costs, worsens reliability, and disregards the concerns of local communities.”

• DOE’s release alleged that the “current designation framework proved ineffective in strengthening grid reliability and reducing electricity costs. In some communities, it also contributed to confusion and concern about the scope and intent of NIETC authority.”

The three cancelled corridors are the Lake Erie–Canada Corridor, the Southwestern Grid Connector Corridor and the Tribal Energy Access Corridor.

The DOE’s webpage about the NIETC process no longer includes details about the three projects. A cached version, from March 2026, said that the three proposed corridors would serve various purposes, including providing needed resource adequacy support to the PJM Interconnection, providing “cross-interconnection and interregional connections” between the Southwest Power Pool and WestConnect regions, and facilitating Tribal energy and economic development “by addressing a lack of extra high-voltage transmission.”

According to the current DOE webpage, a NIETC designation can unlock federal financing tools, “specifically public-private partnerships,” as well as allow the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to “issue permits for the siting of transmission lines within the NIETC under circumstances where state siting authorities do not have authority to site the line, have not acted on an application for over one year, or have denied an application.”

DOE said a NIETC is an area of the country where the agency has “determined the lack of adequate transmission harms consumers and that the development of new transmission would advance important national interests in that area, such as increased reliability and reduced consumer costs.”

Cattle producer-only trade association R-CALF USA praised DOE’s decision, as it had raised concerns in 2024 about the siting of the corridors for their potential to “disrupt independent livestock operations or result in the loss of essential grazing and haying lands.” Other groups, including the Environmental Defense Fund and Clean Air Task Force, criticized the cancellation and said DOE is turning down an opportunity to strengthen the grid.

The cancelled corridors were selected to “help address areas with significant transmission congestion,” CATF said in a release. “Transmission congestion increases costs and reduces reliability for ratepayers.”

“If the goal is affordable, reliable, and secure electricity, we should be making it easier to build the infrastructure the grid needs — not dismantling federal frameworks designed to facilitate it,” said Nicole Pavia, CATF’s Director of Clean Energy Infrastructure Deployment.

EDF noted that while Wright said the current designation framework had “proved ineffective,” DOE’s National Transmission Needs Study from July said that NIETC designation “enables DOE and FERC to use valuable federal financing and permitting tools to spur construction or modification of transmission facilities within a NIETC.” The National Transmission Needs Study is a triennial report, the findings of which form the basis for NIETC designations, according to DOE.

DOE’s release said the Trump administration has taken other steps to build new transmission infrastructure and modernize existing infrastructure, citing several billion-dollar loans made by its Office of Energy Dominance Financing to build, rebuild and reconductor transmission lines.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 09:30

Another AI Reacharound? Marvell Shares Rip On Chips-For-Warrants Deal With Google

The circular financing circus rolls on...

Marvell shares are soaring this morning after fabless chip designer announced an expanded chip-development partnership with Google that includes a warrant from Marvell allowing the search giant to buy as much as $12.2 billion in shares.

The two firms will collaborate on custom AI chips.

"The expanded partnership spans a comprehensive range of custom silicon programs that attach to the TPU ecosystem, including AI inference accelerators, storage controllers, network interface controllers, memory interface controllers, and near-memory compute," Marvell said in the filing.

And what does Marvell get for supplying all that?

An 'investment'... of sorts...

Google may purchase as many as 58,970,907 Marvell shares at a price of $206.58 apiece, Marvell said Wednesday in a regulatory filing.

Nearly 1.4 million of the shares vest in equal quarterly installments during the first year following the execution of the warrant, according to the filing.

The remaining shares vest based on “discretionary purchases” from Marvell’s third quarter of fiscal 2027 through the end of its fiscal 2033, with one tranche vesting for each $500 million in revenue stemming from the products the companies have developed together.

Investors are reacting positively to the strategic validation of Marvell’s custom ASIC and data center platform with MRVL up over 12% in the pre-market...

While the warrant introduces long-term potential share dilution, retail and institutional investors are prioritizing the revenue visibility created by deep integration into Google’s hyperscale AI infrastructure.

The agreement reinforces Marvell role as a key custom silicon partner for hyperscalers and the spin is that tying Google’s equity vesting directly to incremental $500 million revenue milestones aligns both companies toward massive long-term commercial scale (provides strong multi-year revenue visibility through fiscal 2033, offsetting near-term dilution concerns with guaranteed ecosystem demand.)

While this is true, the reality is, of course, that this is an off balance sheet (no liquidity required) way to lock in chip supply (a giant buy now pay later scheme).

Shares of Broadcom (AVGO), which is known for being a major partner on Google's TPU efforts, are down 3% in the pre-market.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 09:03

Futures Flat With All Eyes On Interest Rates And Oil

Futures are flat but off their lows as Tech gets a boost from a huge Hynix buyback, which erased ~8% decline to trade up as much as 2% and reversed a 5.8% drop in the Nikkei; the ADRs are +5.6% pre-mkt boosting both Memory and Korea ETFs. As of 8:15am ET, S&P futures are fractionally in the green, with Nasdaq futures down 0.1% even as momentum looks to retrace some of yesterday’s losses. In premarket trading, Semis, Memory, and Mag7 are higher with Software and Low Profitable Tech weaker. Cyclicals and Defensives are both mixed as the market has not yet decided on direction. Bond yields are flat to down 1bp, following from yesterday with USD weaker. Commodities are bid with all 3 complexes moving higher. Brent crude rose 0.8% and briefly topped $92 barrel for the first time since July with little evidence of progress toward a resolution of the US-Iran war. Today’s macro focus is on the 20Y bond auction, which is likely to need a concession, and on the Fed Minutes where investors seek clarity on the Fed’s reaction function in a tape that lacks significant catalysts. NVDA and Jackson Hole loom large.

In premarket trading, Mag 7 stocks are mixed (Amazon +0.2%, Nvidia +0.2%, Meta +0.1%, Microsoft -0.5%, Apple 0.0%, Tesla -0.2%, Alphabet -0.5%)

• Estée Lauder (EL) climbs 7% after posting quarterly results that beat estimates. The company ended a run of three straight declines in annual revenue, a sign the beauty conglomerate’s turnaround efforts are gaining momentum.
• La-Z-Boy (LZB) sinks 16% after the home-furniture maker gave a weaker than expected sales forecast for the current quarter.
• Mercury Systems (MRCY) falls 9% after the maker of display systems used in combat vehicles posted fiscal fourth quarter adj. EPS that came in a penny shy of expectations.
• Moderna (MRNA) soars as much as 100% after the company and Merck said their personalized cancer vaccine helped cut the recurrence of melanoma in a large, late-stage trial. Shares of Merck (MRK) are up 8%.
• Norfolk Southern Corp. (NSC) rises 2% as the company and Union Pacific Corp. can move forward with plans to create the nation’s first coast-to-coast freight network after a federal regulator decided to resume consideration of their joint application.
• SK Hynix ADRs (SKHY) rise 3% after the South Korean memory-chip maker said it plans to buy back $29 billion of its own shares, in a bid to assuage investors concerns about AI spending durability.
• Target (TGT) slips 1% despite the retailer’s comparable sales and adjusted EPS topping expectations, while also getting a boost from tariff refunds. Shares have climbed 56% this year through Tuesday’s close.
• WhiteFiber (WYFI) falls 22% after the artificial intelligence infrastructure firm announced its intention to offer $250 million of convertible senior notes due 2032 in a private placement.

In other corporate news Novo Nordisk is testing small doses of its blockbuster Wegovy pill in a new study that will help establish how low patients can go in their dose and still lose weight. Anthropic plans to give Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei and other co-founders shares with extra voting power as the firm prepares to make its Wall Street debut, The Information reported. Cerebras Systems introduced a new speedier computer built with the company’s chips, saying the device will give it a wider advantage over Nvidia equipment. 

Fairly benign price action in early trading contrasts with Tuesday’s cash session, when stocks struggled for direction and long-dated bonds remained under pressure as higher oil prices kept traders cautious following days of yields at multiyear highs. As noted above, tech got a boost from Hynix buyback, announced just moments after the Kospi closed to get the biggest bang for the lack of liquidity buck, which erased a 8% plunge to trade up as much as 2%; the ADRs are +5.6% pre-mkt boosting both Memory and Korea ETFs. Moderna Inc. surged more than 100% after a positive result from its personalized cancer vaccine trial with Merck & Co. Momentum looks to retrace some of yesterday’s losses even as brent crude rose 0.8% and briefly topped $92 barrel for the first time since July with little evidence of progress toward a resolution of the US-Iran war. 

Longer-term bonds trimmed early gains as Brent approached $92 a barrel. The yield on 30-year Treasuries hovered around 5.27%, while rates for most European counterparts were little changed. Investors remained on guard as concerns over major governments’ loose fiscal policy and heavy borrowing by the biggest spenders on artificial intelligence are expected to keep yields elevated. The threat of sticky inflation also lingered as the US-Iran conflict continued to curb oil flows from the Middle East.

"The question is no longer whether higher yields matter, they clearly do, but whether the strength of earnings and capital expenditure implies that the economy can absorb them,” said Florian Ielpo at Lombard Odier Investment Managers. On the other hand, the weakness in tech may be a sign that rising bond yields are starting to keep stock prices in check, he said.

The impact of growing demand for cash among AI hyperscalers was on display as Alphabet paid just under 7% to borrow longer-dated funds in its debut Australian bond offering, the company’s highest-ever yield on a note. The generous rate means some investors could be lured into buying bonds from tech titans rather than their stocks, according to Stephan Kemper, chief investment officer at BNP Paribas Wealth Management Germany.

“AI stocks are increasingly in competition with their own bonds,” he said. “Yields close to multiyear highs in combination with a higher visibility of expected cash flows are making a compelling case for many investors.”

Meanwhile, as we have noted extensively, the lack of a clear path to a resolution in the Middle East is putting upward pressure on oil prices. Regional tensions intensified as the United Arab Emirates said it was cutting all economic ties with Iran after accusing the Islamic Republic of firing ballistic missiles at its territory.

Elsewhere, the Trump administration delayed 50% tariffs on Canadian products for three days, citing a tentative agreement to resolve a trade dispute. Trump is said to have chosen White House policy aide Heidi Overton to lead the FDA.

In politics, Democratic Socialist Angie Nixon stormed to a surprise win in Florida’s US Senate primary against the man who concocted the Russia collusion hoax, Alex Vindman. Democrat Mary Peltola and incumbent Republican Senator Dan Sullivan will advance in Alaska’s Senate primary, setting the state up to be one of the most fiercely contested races in November that could determine control of the US Senate.

Today, top of traders’ minds are a plethora of retail earnings, Fed minutes and the ongoing investor focus on AI. Minutes from the Federal Reserve’s July meeting, due later on Wednesday, may offer investors a better sense of the degree to which officials were losing patience with high inflation. Policymakers voted 9-3 to keep rates unchanged. Money markets currently price around a 50% chance of a hike in October, with the odds of such a move rising to around 90% for December.

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 was little changed at 651.82, snapping a five-day stretch of losses after a tech-led selloff in Asia failed to carry over. Here are the biggest movers Wednesday:

• FLSmidth shares gained as much as 10%, hitting their highest level since April, after the mining-equipment maker delivered earnings comfortably ahead of expectations
• Geberit rose as much as 8.6%, the most since November 2023, following second-quarter results which ZKB says showed “surprisingly strong” revenue momentum
• Ambea gained as much as 13%, the most since November 2024 and to a record high, after the Swedish healthcare group’s earnings beat estimates
• Implenia rose as much as 9.4%, the most since early March, as ZKB says the construction, civil and underground engineering services company’s results “turned out slightly better” than expected
• Sensirion shares rose as much as 8% after the Swiss sensor technology company raised its full-year guidance and drew analyst praise for its results
• Oxford Nanopore shares rose as much as 7.8%, the most in two months, after the British DNA-sequencing company reported a narrower adjusted Ebitda loss for the first half
• Ithaca Energy shares jumped as much as 7.4%, hitting a three-month high, after the oil and gas company delivered record quarterly production and raised its dividend guidance
• Straumann dropped as much as 9.1%, the most in a year, after the Swiss dental implant maker said Christopher Norbye would replace Guillaume Daniellot as CEO. Analysts at Bernstein and JPMorgan said Daniellot was “well-liked”
• Trainline shares fell as much as 17%, the most in five years, after the UK competition watchdog opened an investigation into whether the rail-booking platform breached consumer law through “drip pricing”
• Carlsberg shares fell as much as 4.1%, the most in five months, after the Danish brewer’s first-half volumes disappointed
• Smith & Nephew shares dropped as much as 3.8% to the lowest intraday level since May 12 after the medical devices maker said Chief Financial Officer John Rogers will leave his position at the end of next month
• BKW shares fell as much as 4.6% after the power company’s first-half Ebit dropped by a more-than-expected 15%

Asian stocks slumped, led by a selloff in chipmakers, as elevated bond yields and a stalemate in US-Iran peace talks kept investors cautious. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index dropped as much as 2.3%, the most in three weeks, with chip heavyweights Samsung, SK Hynix and TSMC among the biggest drags. Most major markets were in the red, with Korea’s Kospi sliding 5.8% and Japan’s Nikkei losing 3.2%. A Bloomberg gauge of Asian semiconductor stocks tumbled 3.7%. US-listed shares of SK Hynix climbed in pre-market trading after the firm unveiled plans to buy back 40 trillion won ($29 billion) of stock and return more of its profits to shareholders in an effort to calm worries about the durability of AI spending.

A number of consumer-focused reports due before the market opens include Target, Lowe’s, TJX and Estee Lauder. Placer.ai, directionally accurate in seven of prior eight periods, estimates Target’s adjusted revenue grew 4% year-on-year in fiscal second quarter, while Bloomberg Second Measure notes that observed sales through end July are tracking above industry growth rate. Earnings from Analog Devices are also on deck.

In rates, treasuries rose, giving bond investors some respite after a sharp rise in yields that began last Friday. 10-year Treasury yields fell about 2bp to 4.68%.Long-dated bonds lagged the rest of the curve; 30-year yields were little changed at 5.28%. Front and belly of the curve slightly is richer on the day with long-end lagging ahead of a $16 billion 20-year bond auction which remains on course to be offered at the highest yield since the sector was reintroduced back in May 2020. Gilts outperform in Europe as traders pared BOE tightening bets after UK headline CPI matched estimates. UK 10-year borrowing costs fall 2 bps to 5.07%. Bunds lag following a €3.769b 10-year auction at an average yield at highest level since 2011. Treasury auctions resume with $16 billion 20-year bonds, before a $8 billion 30-year TIPS sale on Thursday. The WI 20-year at around 5.27% sits ~11bp cheaper than the July stop-out and remains around 2.5bp cheaper than the October 2023 yield stop-out. IG dollar issuance slate includes an ADB 10-year benchmark offering. Three issuers priced $6.4 billion on Tuesday after at least seven issuers decided to stand down from announcing deals.

In commodities, WTI futures higher by around 1%, adding to underperformance of bunds vs. Treasuries, rising to highest levels in almost three weeks as a spat between the United Arab Emirates and Iran heightened regional tensions.

“Some of the recovery came from equities finally reacting to the level of yields, some likely from short-covering, and some from the market taking profit on what is now looking like a very crowded steepener,” said Evelyne Gomez-Liechti, multi-asset strategist at Mizuho. Money markets price a 35% chance of a September Fed hike and 23bps of tightening by year-end.

In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index falls 0.2% as traders continued to pare bets on a Federal Reserve rate hike ahead of minutes from the last policy meeting. The yen is the strongest of the G-10 currencies, rising 0.3% against the greenback. The Aussie dollar underperforms. The Canadian dollar climbed against most of its Group-of-10 peers after US President Donald Trump delayed 50% tariffs for three days pending the finalization of a trade deal. USD/CAD dropped as much as 0.2% to 1.3872. In a social media post, President Donald Trump said he’s pausing the tariffs “based on the fact that Canada and the U.S.A., subject to the finalization of documents, have a DEAL!”. “The durability of CAD gains will depend on whether a formal agreement is reached within the three-day window,” Kristina Clifton, a senior strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia wrote in a note to clients.

Today's US economic data calendar includes FOMC minutes release from the July 29 meeting at 2pm New York. No Fed speakers scheduled for the session. earnings releases include Target, Lowe’s, and TJX

Market Snapshot

Top Overnight News

• Iranian attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz are piling up without an American military response, raising the risks of crossing the strategic waterway and frustrating some Arab allies who worry the U.S. doesn’t have a strategy to wind down the conflict. WSJ
• Iran has weighed attacking US military targets in Europe should Donald Trump escalate the war, according to people close to the regime, as Tehran considers its options to increase the stakes of the conflict. FT
• The UAE said it was cutting all economic ties with Tehran after accusing Iran of firing ballistic missiles at its territory. Oil rose with no signs of a peace deal. BBG
• Even as Iran projects resilience in the war with the United States, its leaders are worried that a threat of more economic punishment by Donald Trump could increase hardships, reignite unrest and further erode the Islamic Republic’s legitimacy. RTRS
• President Trump said he would pause a 50% tariff on certain goods from Canada for three days while the two countries seek to finalize an agreement. “I have paused the 50% Tariffs against Canada, that were scheduled to kick in tomorrow morning for a three-day period, based on the fact that Canada and the U.S.A., subject to the finalization of documents, have a DEAL!” Trump said on social media Tuesday night. WSJ
• China will expand the use of a $1.6 trillion fund to boost housing-related spending, including renovations, under revised regulations taking effect next month. BBG
• SK Hynix will buy back and cancel 40 trillion won ($28.61 billion) of treasury shares and allocate ‌more than 50% of free cash flow generated between 2025 and 2027 to boost shareholder returns, it said on Wednesday. The chipmaker's shares plunged nearly 10% on Wednesday before trimming some losses in post-market trading. The shares hit record highs in June but have since declined, partly on investor concern over the durability of AI spending by U.S. technology companies. RTRS
• Target lifted its guidance after results outpaced estimates. Shares initially rose premarket before sliding around 4%, a sign that investors were expecting even stronger results. BBG
• Big pharma is increasingly licensing drugs developed in China. For US drugmakers, the expanding tie-ups means lower costs and more access to breakthrough treatments. For critics in Washington, the deals spell risk. BBG
• Global stocks are meaningfully net bought so far in August, driven almost entirely by US equities which have been net bought for three straight weeks. Notably, on a trailing 3-week basis in % terms, the recent buying in US equities is the largest since March 2020 and second largest in the past decade. Goldman Prime Brokerage 

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

APAC stocks were mostly lower following the tech-led declines stateside, as yields remained elevated and oil continued to edge higher amid the ongoing geopolitical stalemate. ASX 200 retreated amid a deluge of earnings and with RBA Deputy Governor Hauser sticking to the hawkish script, while Australian wage data matched estimates and spurred little reaction. Nikkei 225 failed to benefit from stronger-than-expected Machinery Orders data and was pressured by the tech weakness, despite yields pulling back from multi-decade highs. KOSPI underperformed amid pressure in the tech heavyweights, while sentiment was also not helped by strained US-South Korea ties after US President Trump reduced the joint drills with South Korea and is said to be pushing for a meeting with North Korean leader Kim as soon as this fall. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp were ultimately mixed, with the Hong Kong benchmark kept afloat as participants digested earnings releases including from Baidu and Xiaomi, while the mainland conformed to the broad downbeat mood with notable losses seen in the ChiNext Nasdaq-style board.

Top Asian News

• Japanese Ministry of Defence is reportedly to request JPY 8.9tln spend in budget request, Nikkei reported.
• Japanese Machinery Orders (Jun MM) 9.7% vs. Exp. 7.8% (Prev. -12.4%).
• Japanese Machinery Orders (Jun YY) 16.9% vs. Exp. 10.8% (Prev. -1.9%).

European bourses are broadly lower, following on from the risk-off tone overnight as Asian chipmakers were weighed by the weakness stateside. Switzerland's SMI outperforms, supported by Geberit, after it reported strong results. Sectors point to a mixed picture. Construction outperforms, with Energy and Retail rounding out the top 3 sectors. To the downside is Media, followed by Banks and Food, Beverages & Tobacco. The latter has been pressured by post-earning losses in Carlsberg (-3.7%) after its H1 EBIT missed consensus.

Top European News

• UK PM Burnham said No. 10 North will take over responsibility for economic growth from the Treasury as part of a transfer of power, according to The Times.

FX

• Focus on yields remain with the USD weaker against most G10 peers today as bonds stabilise around recent lows; the oil story is similar, Brent remaining above USD 90/bbl. Action this morning has been isolated to FX, USD weakness emerging against all peers without a clear driver, EUR/USD rising back above 1.16 while Cable breached 1.3550, DXY below 99.50, familiar levels in recent sessions. The summer conditions likely a factor in the news-absent moves, especially ahead of risk events 1) FOMC minutes, and 2) 20yr auction, both of which have increased focus amid 1) the lack of Fed Chair Warsh’s communication, 2) recent weakness in the long end and it being potentially the most expensive for the Treasury in 25 years. Ahead of this, STIRS are steady with the market assigning a c. 30% probability of Fed tightening in September.
• No major GBP move to UK CPI, which, in short, continues the narrative that the BoE is comfortable at 3.75% with data continuing to not surprise vs. market and BoE’s July MPR forecasts. The headline rise reflects the Ofgem price cap introduced this month, a point which was partially offset by a decent moderation in food inflation. Services moderated as expected, while ING notes the BoE's core services measure of inflation has picked up a little to 3.8% Y/Y, which, while hotter, shouldn't be too much to encourage those on the fence for tightening. In conjunction with the soft LFS on Tuesday, both show sufficient evidence to keep the BoE on hold for the rest of the year, with risks tilted both ways.
• JPY is the G10 outperformer, benefitting from a softer Buck as the pair looks to return towards 159.00 after nearing 160.00 in the previous few sessions. Macro catalysts were light, though strength seen in KRW could have given a helping hand also. USD/JPY marked a session low of 159.05, a little off this level at the time of writing.

Fixed Income

• Global fixed benchmarks are mixed this morning, though yields ultimately remain near recent multi-year highs as concerns surrounding geopolitical/fiscal remain. Price action today has been fairly rangebound given the lack of pertinent newsflow. The geopolitical environment remains tense, with President Trump continuing to threaten Iran; recent Iranian sources have rejected the White House’s claim that there have been direct negotiations between Iran and the US.
• USTs (+2 ticks) currently holds towards the upper end of a 108-16 to 108-23 range. The docket is lacking for the remainder of the day, aside from the FOMC Minutes. It will be eyed to gauge hawkish sentiment among the wider FOMC, with markets currently leaning towards a hold in September. However, given recent soft US data, the Minutes could be looked through.
• Bunds (-10 ticks) are slightly lower this morning. EZ HICP Final metrics were unrevised, spurring little move. Thereafter, a poor German auction (high retention), also spurred little action in primary markets. The subdued outing is likely due to the ongoing summer lull, and as European banks taper their bond purchases as they approach their minimum reserve holdings.
• Gilts (+6 ticks) are outperforming this morning, taking lead from the region’s inflation report. Headline inflation rose from the prior (in-line with expectations), but much of the acceleration was attributed to Ofgem’s utility price hike. Dovish factors stem from a decent moderation in food inflation and cooling Services inflation (though mainly due to low air fares reading). Overall, the report will do little to shift the BoE away from its holding policy; ING expects the Bank to keep rates on hold for the remainder of the year, before delivering cuts in Spring 2027.
• Germany sells EUR 3.769bln vs exp. 6bln 3.00% 2036 Bund: b/c 1.15x (prev. 1.10x), average yield 3.26% (prev. 3.13%), retention 37.2% (prev. 25.05%).

Commodities

• WTI and Brent October futures are higher for a fourth trading day, with Brent rising towards USD 92/bbl (vs low and WTI near USD 85/bbl (USD 84.36/bbl), as the US-Iran conflict showed no sign of resolution. Furthermore, weekly API data yesterday reported a modest draw in crude stockpiles. Elsewhere in energy, Dutch TTF is modestly softer and around an intraday low after gradually fading from levels above EUR 64.50/MWh to lows just above EUR 63/MWh. In shipping, China’s seaborne crude imports averaged around 6.8mln bpd in Aug 1-15 , vs ~7.3mln bpd in the same period in July, according to Vortexa. Tanker arrivals point to a pickup in the second half of August, though smaller than initially expected, leaving Chinese seaborne buying below pre-war levels for now.
• Precious metals are mixed and within tight ranges. Spot gold remains under its 100 DMA (USD 4,381/oz) in a narrow USD 4,325-4,363/oz range vs yesterday’s USD 4,329-4,436/oz range. Spot silver is conversely subdued in a USD 62.54-64.33/oz range after dipping under yesterday’s USD 66.56/oz low. Gold edged higher as easing US bond selling reduced pressure after Tuesday’s decline, though analysts note that uncertainty over US-Iran relations and higher energy-led inflation remain potential headwinds.
• Copper eased this morning towards the lower end of a tight USD 13,887-13,990/t. Reports note that the backwardation between immediate and three-month delivery eased to USD 248/ton (vs as much as USD 545 on Monday). Bloomberg notes that LME copper inventories available to buyers rose by more than 20,000 tons on Tuesday, the largest single-day jump since April, easing a historic supply squeeze; Trafigura was behind a significant share of the deliveries.
• US Private Weekly Inventory Data (bbls) Crude -0.3mln (prev. +9.1mln), Gasoline +1.1mln (prev. -1.5mln), Distillate -2.8mln (prev. -0.6mln), Cushing -1.4mln (prev. +0.4mln)
• ADNOC is reportedly aiming to trim the amount of crude sold to Asian customers in August and September, Bloomberg reported citing sources.

Trade/Tariffs

• US President Trump posted "I have paused the 50% tariffs against Canada that was scheduled to kick in tomorrow morning for a three day period, based on the fact that Canada and the U.S.A., subject to finalization of documents, have reached a DEAL!"
• USTR Greer said the deal with Canada will include comprehensive market access for all American goods, economic security commitments and digital trade alignment.
• Canadian PM Carney said the US has agreed to postpone implementation of its 50% tariffs on a range of Canadian goods under Section 338 of the US Tariff Act of 1930 until the end of August 21st.

Central Banks

• RBA Deputy Governor Hauser said inflation is too high, adding that monetary policy needs to bring inflation down and needs to reduce demand in the economy. Hauser added that they are not seeing recession, but just a slowdown. Worried about inflation and upside risk to inflation and that if inflation doesn't come down, will have to raise rates again.
• ECB's Rehn said the wage growth and outlook remain moderate, there are no clear signs of second‑round effects and that keeping inflation expectations anchored is essential.
• Indonesia Central Bank leaves rates unchanged at 5.75%, as expected.

Geopolitics: Iran

• US President Trump told top administration envoys to halt their conversations with Iran, according to CNN citing a US official.
• US President Trump is waiting for Iran to cave to his economic pressure, but Tehran may be willing to wait even longer, according to Politico.
• A source close to Iran's negotiating team said there had been no direct Iran-US negotiations and that talks with Oman concerned sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, according to Fars News.
• Iranian Deputy Chairman of the Parliament's National Security Commission said "A 'new passage' in the Strait of Hormuz, other than the southern route, will soon be announced in the form of a joint statement with Oman."
• Iran's Foreign Minister said the framework of Tehran's foreign policy will be based on a strong Iran, an Iran that is self-confident and in control of the situation.
• Iran Foreign Ministry spokesman Baghaei dismissed UAE claims that Iran launched missiles, citing false flag operations in warning against 'baseless' accusations.
• Iran has weighed attacking US military targets in Europe if US President Trump escalates the war, according to people close to the regime cited by FT.
• Yemeni Houthis have placed Saudi Aramco and all its facilities, oil tanks, crude transfer pipelines and export ports on their list of targets, Al-Akhbar sources said. The source added that the process of monitoring and tracking Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea is ongoing.
• UAE Foreign Ministry said all trade, commercial exchanges and financial transactions with Iran have been halted until further notice.
• UKMTO has received a report of an incident 40NM southeast of Al Mukha, Yemen. The cargo vessel was unmanned at the time of the incident, however the damage has resulted in a complete constructive loss.
• The Israeli PM Office said Israel and Syria have agreed to maintain the status quo on security matters, which Syria was about to violate by allowing Turkish forces to deploy at an air base near Aleppo.
• Syria's petroleum company said an explosion occurred at the gas export pipeline at the Al-Jabsah gas plant, leading to a halt of pumping through the pipeline

Geopolitics: Other

• US President Trump is pushing for a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as soon as this fall, according to WSJ citing US officials.
• US-South Korea joint military drills schedule is expected to be cut in half, according to South Korean media. It was later stated by a US Pentagon official that the US military substantially reduces exercise with South Korea and exercises will conclude one week early.
• North Korea denounced US-South Korea military drills and said exercise of its right to self-defence will continue to completely neutralise enemies' military threat.

US Event Calendar

 

DB's Henry Allen concludes the overnight wrap

Markets had another rough session over the last 24 hours, with equities hit by a sharp selloff in chip stocks, just as several countries’ bond yields hit multi-year highs. To be honest, there was little respite for investors anywhere, and with no sign of any US-Iran talks, oil prices saw a fresh move higher as well. So, it was a bad day for the most part, with the S&P 500 (-0.69%) posting a 3rd consecutive decline, whilst Germany’s 10yr bund yield (+3.7bps) hit a post-2011 high of 3.26%. The main exception came from US Treasuries, with the 10yr yield (-1.8bps) falling back a bit. But even that was thanks to a weaker batch of US data, so it was hard to generate a positive narrative wherever you looked.

The bond selloff was the biggest story yesterday, as the relentless rise in yields showed no sign of easing. In part, that’s been driven by longer-term structural forces, including concerns around fiscal deficits and the AI boom. But near-term inflation concerns stepped up a gear yesterday, with 1-year US (+6.3bps) and Euro (+12.0bps) inflation swaps moving higher. That came as Brent crude (+0.17%) edged up to a 3-week high of $91.02/bbl, while European natural gas futures (+3.06%) also hit a 3-year high of €63.65/MWh. So that added to the pressure, particularly for European bonds more exposed to the energy shock. And that trend has continued overnight as well, with Brent crude up another +0.76% this morning to $91.71/bbl.

That backdrop saw yields hit fresh highs around the world, although Europe saw some of the biggest increases. For instance, yields on 10yr bunds (+3.7bps) hit a post-2011 high of 3.26%, 10yr OAT yields (+4.7bps) hit a post-2008 high of 4.11%, and 10yr BTP yields (+6.0bps) hit a 2-year high of 4.07%. Otherwise, there were similar records at the 30yr horizon, with German 30yr yields (+2.4bps) at a post-2011 high of 3.77%, and France’s 30yr yield (+2.8bps) hit a post-2008 high of 4.89%.

The main exception to this pattern yesterday were US Treasury yields, which initially looked set for new highs before falling back. That was thanks to a soft batch of US data, which cast fresh doubt on how rapidly the Fed could hike rates. That included data on housing starts, which fell to an annualised rate of 1.239m in July (vs. 1.345m expected). Meanwhile, industrial production only rose +0.2% in July (vs. +0.3% expected), whilst pending home sales were down -2.3% (vs. unch expected). So with all that now out, the Atlanta Fed cut their GDPNow estimate for Q3 to an annualised pace of +4.0%, down from +4.3% beforehand. And in turn, those releases helped Treasury yields to pull back again, with the 10yr yield (-1.8bps) ultimately closing slightly lower at 4.70%. Another test of demand for long-dated Treasuries will come with today’s 20yr auction, but yields have continued to fall overnight, with the 10yr yield down another -1.6bps this morning to 4.69%.

As all that was going on, there were still no signs of any negotiations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Indeed, President Trump said in a post that “There are no talks or conversations going on, or scheduled” with Iran and that the US “Naval Blockade remains in full force and effect”. Meanwhile, Iran’s parliamentary speaker Ghalibaf said that Hormuz would remain shut until the US meets conditions of the interim deal agreed in June, which include lifting the US blockade, removing oil sanctions, and unfreezing Iranian assets. So that led to growing pessimism that the Strait of Hormuz would reopen anytime soon, and we saw oil prices move up throughout the futures curve. In fact, the 12-month Brent future (+0.38%) hit a 2-month high of $78.31/bbl, with fears about a protracted period of high oil prices adding to the pressure on bonds yesterday.

For equities, the stagflationary backdrop meant it was another difficult session, with fresh declines on both sides of the Atlantic. In the US, that saw the S&P 500 (-0.69%) lose ground for a third consecutive session, with chip stocks as the biggest driver of the declines. In fact, the Philly semiconductor index (-4.98%) had its worst day of August so far. The NASDAQ (-1.33%) also underperformed, while the Mag-7 (-0.88%) was led lower by Meta (-4.42%). But the weakness was also broad-based, with the equal-weighted S&P 500 down -0.45%. Meanwhile in Europe, the STOXX 600 (-0.69%) posted a 5th consecutive decline for the first time in 2026 so far, alongside losses for the DAX (-0.80%) and the CAC 40 (-0.82%) as well.

Overnight in Asia, there’s been a similar theme, with the selloff in chip stocks contributing to sizeable losses for the major indices. South Korea’s KOSPI (-5.44%) has seen the biggest declines this morning, but there’s also been sharp moves for the Nikkei (-2.85%), the CSI 300 (-2.41%) and the Shanghai Comp (-1.96%). The main exception to that pattern has been the Hang Seng (+0.24%), with a modest advance. But equity futures are pointing to further declines today in the US and Europe, with those on the S&P 500 (-0.11%) and the DAX (-0.17%) both moving lower.

In other news overnight, President Trump announced a 3-day pause on the 50% tariffs on Canada that had been scheduled. He said this was “based on the fact that Canada and the U.S.A., subject to the finalization of documents, have a DEAL!” We don’t have the full details, but in a White House proclamation, it said that “Canada has expressed a commitment to remove the discriminations or unreasonable and unequal impositions” relating to US alcohol, dairy, and autos. Meanwhile on the Canadian side, Prime Minister Carney didn’t say there’d been a deal, but a statement from him said “Substantial progress has been made, although there is important work still to be done.” The announcement led to a small rally for the Canadian Dollar, which is up +0.13% against the US Dollar this morning.

Otherwise yesterday, UK gilts outperformed their European counterparts after the latest labour market data came in on the dovish side. It showed payrolled employees falling by -13k in July (vs. unch expected), whilst the unemployment rate was at 4.9% in the three months to June (vs. 4.8% expected). Moreover, private sector wage growth (ex bonuses) was only at +2.8% year-on-year in the three months to June, the slowest pace since 2020 during the pandemic. So 10yr gilt yields were only up +2.1bps on the day to 5.08%, a smaller increase than elsewhere.

In Germany, the latest ZEW Survey came in stronger than expected, with the expectations component rising to 34.2 in August (vs. 30.0 expected). That’s the highest level since February, before the Iran conflict began.

Looking at the day ahead, data releases include the UK CPI release for July. From central banks, we’ll get the minutes from the FOMC’s July meeting and hear from ECB President Lagarde. Finally, earnings releases include Target, Lowe’s, and TJX

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 08:34

Hellish: Ceuta Mothers Weep In Streets; Rapes Force Women To Flee; Kids' Parks Smeared In Shit

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

Spanish mothers in Ceuta are in tears on live television. Hospitals are overflowing. Beaches and parks that once hosted families are now open-air camps of garbage, feces and makeshift shacks. And the Civil Guard has confirmed at least 15 rapes since the late-July mass migrant invasion - including a 10-year-old girl allegedly assaulted by three migrant brothers.

Women are packing up and leaving the Spanish enclave. Local residents describe a city abandoned by its own government while Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez remains on vacation.

A mother broke down on live TV this week, describing the daily terror for her teenage daughter.

?WATCH: A mother in Ceuta has broken down in tears on Live TV:

"My 16-year-old daughter has to go everywhere with her father or with me because the migrants devour her. I can't take it anymore. I want them all gone."

The left-wing feminists are silent. pic.twitter.com/3dksNYd9IC

— Inevitable West (@Inevitablewest) August 17, 2026

"My 16-year-old daughter has to go everywhere with her father or with me because the migrants devour her. I can't take it anymore. I want them all gone," she stated.

She added, "I'm not racist - my granddaughter is mixed-race, my best friends are Muslim - but they can't invade us. What's stayed here is the worst of it; there are murderers, rapists, thieves."

This is the reality two weeks after an estimated 70,000-plus migrants poured across from Morocco into a city of roughly 84,000 people. Reception centres collapsed. Thousands - largely young men - stayed behind when many others returned. Beaches became the default settlement.

Locals described the rapid transformation of once-pristine stretches such as Trampolín Beach: "We can't take our kids to the beach, we can't go. They are occupied, they are full of shacks, people are eating there, throwing food, it's full of clothes, feces, urine."

? CEUTA Residents Furious!

Small Kids Can't Go To The Park Anymore, Families Cannot Go To The Beach No More, There's P*ss And Sh*t Everywhere

This is our beautiful Spanish City in Africa, we have to defend it

Residents gathered in front of Ceuta's town hall in anger today for... pic.twitter.com/IVwZg6X3iz

— Active Patriot (@ActivePatriotUK) August 17, 2026

Children's parks across Ceuta have been left covered in human waste by the invaders, even as progressive voices continue claiming everything is under control and "normality" has returned.

Invasores llena de mierda los parques infantiles de Ceuta.

Pero los progres te dicen que todo está controlado y que impera la normalidad. pic.twitter.com/ut3OPKYV3H

— David Santos (@davidsantosvlog) August 18, 2026

Infectious diseases including scabies, tuberculosis and impetigo have surged. Ceuta University Hospital opened an emergency disaster wing. One doctor warned of a "health catastrophe."

Ceuta's basically turned into a full-on slum at this point.

Thousands of illegal migrants are living right on the beach in these rough shacks thrown together from straw and sticks.

Officials are managing cases of tuberculosis, scabies, impetigo, and gastroenteritis, while... pic.twitter.com/eHuEVKivS6

— I Meme Therefore I Am ?? (@ImMeme0) August 16, 2026

A local doctor attempted to speak with the Spanish migration minister Elma Saiz about the scourge of diseases the migrants are spreading, putting Spaniards in danger.

? LA MINISTRA DE SANIDAD NO QUIERE HABLAR CON ESTA DOCTORA

Y luego va la Mema diciendo que en Ceuta no hay colapso sanitario. pic.twitter.com/GZ12nVKqAJ

— Betania (@BetaniaTv) August 16, 2026

Decían que les importaba mucho la pandemia de la COVID-19 y nos obligaban a vacunarnos y llevar mascarillas hasta en exteriores y ahora van camino de provocar una pandemia con la situación de insalubridad que se vive en Ceuta.

Increíble.pic.twitter.com/BR0EbTggNU

— Javier Negre (@javiernegre10) August 16, 2026

Saiz made a speech literally saying that 'diversity is our greatest strength'.

She stated, "I want to highlight the responsibility, civic commitment, and maturity that the citizens are demonstrating. Ceuta is a true example of coexistence. A city in which different cultures, traditions, and faiths coexist. And which has demonstrated over decades that it is one of its greatest strengths."

Elma Saiz reivindica la "pluralidad" y la "diversidad" de Ceuta: "Quiero poner en valor la responsabilidad, el compromiso cívico y la madurez que está demostrando la ciudadanía. Ceuta es un verdadero ejemplo de convivencia. Una ciudad en la que conviven diferentes culturas,... pic.twitter.com/TZ8Kg5DEqg

— RTVE Noticias (@rtvenoticias) August 17, 2026

Another doctor, nearly in tears on television, described every hospital overrun, medicine running out, and staff afraid of being attacked. She said the streets, parks and football fields are filled with migrants and she is afraid to leave her house. Sexual assaults are rising. The Spanish government, she said, has abandoned its own citizens.

A doctor in Ceuta is almost crying on live television.

Every hospital is completely overrun with migrants. Rooms are full. Medicine is running out. They even opened a dedicated hospital for migrants, and that one is full too.

Doctors are afraid to treat them.
They're scared... pic.twitter.com/rcU2qaxViu

— Yossi BenYakar (@YossiBenYakar) August 16, 2026

The Civil Guard has now confirmed 15 rapes since the invasion. The latest reported case involved three migrant brothers allegedly sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl on Lisboa Street.

Earlier reports detailed multiple underage Moroccan girls and at least one boy treated for sexual assault at the hospital. Many of these minors have been sleeping on the streets.

Two sisters, Yoli and María José, said they left the city with their daughters out of fear.

"What we are going through is very hard and it is very hard to hear journalists justify this Government, justify everything. We can't take it anymore, we feel humiliated, trampled. I have had to take my daughters out of their house because the Government does nothing, because Mr. Pedro Sánchez is on vacation in La Mareta. Nobody cares about us," Yoli told news organisation Cuatro.

Other women described needing escorts just to walk to their front doors, or waking to find a migrant in underwear in their bed after he climbed a balcony.

One resident reported that a BBVA bank branch had to close because security could no longer guarantee customers could withdraw money after a guard was beaten by a large group of migrants while trying to stop the robbery of an elderly woman.

? "A resident of Ceuta reports that they have had to close the BBVA because the security personnel cannot guarantee that customers can withdraw money.

A BBVA security guard was beaten by 40 engineers yesterday when he tried to stop them from robbing an elderly lady."... https://t.co/gy57oLwQIy

— Nature (@TurquoiseOceanB) August 17, 2026

A pregnant woman described families feeling unsafe amid migrant-related fights and called for stronger action from Spain.

?? Ceuta woman on migration tensions.

In a viral video, a pregnant resident says families feel unsafe due to migrant-related fights and calls for stronger action from Spain. Claims unverified. pic.twitter.com/srkC1L2xUz

— Donald Andy (@today__today) August 16, 2026

Residents Pilar and Elena urged government figures to visit Ceuta and see the situation for themselves, stating "We live here, we don't just come for a weekend," while elitist leftists sitting in TV studios in Madrid scoffed at them.

?? Ceuta residents Pilar and Elena are calling on Marta Sanchís to return to the city and see what they are experiencing firsthand.

"We live here, we don't just come for a weekend," they said.
pic.twitter.com/hkwmevMWaF

— NewsForce (@Newsforce) August 17, 2026

Another local resident spoke with visible distress in a street interview, gesturing emphatically as she described the daily fear and loss of normal life for Ceuta families under the ongoing occupation of public spaces.

She notes that she feels she cannot leave the house without pepper spray as she's afraid for her life, adding that the Spanish politician "motherfuckers" have allowed rapists and convicted criminals to invade and roam free.

pic.twitter.com/HZcOWhZxKE

— Victor VS ???? (@victor_vs) August 17, 2026

Ceuta mothers are now demanding the school year be delayed. "I would not let my daughter come to school alone," one said. Another insisted the schools themselves "should be fumigated before any children are allowed back in."

Las madres de Ceuta piden el retraso del inicio escolar:

"Yo no dejaría que mi hija se viniera sola al colegio"

"Los colegios deberían ser fumigados para que los niños puedan entrar" pic.twitter.com/V3x6MZ46Gy

— Pablo Haro Urquízar (@pabloharour) August 18, 2026

This all follows the past weekend's attempt at a second mass crossing. Hundreds of migrants tried to push from Castillejos. Spanish and Moroccan security forces turned them back with tear gas and a heavy deployment. Calls for a new wave on 15 August had circulated widely online.

Nuevo intento masivo en la frontera de Ceuta.

Cientos de migrantes intentan cruzar desde Castillejos y las fuerzas de seguridad lo frenan. pic.twitter.com/duSviz0USh

— Alerta Global (@AlertaGlobal24H) August 16, 2026

Thousands of those who remained from the first wave are now holding mass protests on the beaches, demanding asylum and transfer to mainland Europe. NGOs are reportedly helping produce the signs. There is talk of a hunger strike.

?? Thousands of illegal migrants in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta are holding mass protests demanding asylum and to be sent to mainland Europe. pic.twitter.com/HoAy8Jlt8N

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) August 17, 2026

VÍDEO: ? Los migrantes siguen manifestándose en la playa del Trampolín: "No comida, asilo", en su segundo día de huelga de hambre reivindicando que no quieren volver a Marruecos pic.twitter.com/wltlumHRHf

— El Pueblo de Ceuta (@ElPueblodeCeuta) August 17, 2026

White liberal women volunteering for the NGOs continue to welcome and assist the new arrivals on the ground in Ceuta, openly supporting the occupation while local mothers flee.

White, liberal, fat, and ugly women welcome Muslim invaders in Ceuta. pic.twitter.com/t6ftTeeE1I

— RadioGenoa (@RadioGenoa) August 18, 2026

? Ceuta Migrant Crisis: These migrants ain't going nowhere, look at the help and handouts they're getting, they're demanding asylum and they will no doubt get it

Only a show of strength by both governments stopped a second wave, but how long will this show of strength last... pic.twitter.com/jUGEStUMVJ

— Active Patriot (@ActivePatriotUK) August 16, 2026

This is Ceuta. Pro-Islam white liberal women are a huge problem. They want to destroy Europe. pic.twitter.com/AgXKJAfcU0

— RadioGenoa (@RadioGenoa) August 18, 2026

What are they claiming asylum from? These are not people fleeing a country shattered by war or natural disaster. Morocco is a stable state that receives millions of tourists every year. The overwhelming majority are economic migrants seeking better opportunities, not refugees.

?? «Las ONG les incitan a la protesta para exigir el asilo. Ellas son las que incluso les están haciendo los carteles. Se habla de posible huelga de hambre si no consiguen el objetivo».

?? «The NGOs are inciting them to protest in order to demand asylum. They're even the ones... pic.twitter.com/CCe1SS1VQs

— Rubén Pulido (@rubnpulido) August 17, 2026

Footage shows new arrivals landing on the sand and immediately chanting "Allahu Akbar."

?Beach day in Ceuta just got a soundtrack no one asked for.

Clandestine arrivals from Morocco land on the sand... and the first words out of their mouths? "Allahu Akbar."

Not "hello."

Not "thank you."

Not "we're seeking safety."

Just the same chant, loud and clear.

If this... pic.twitter.com/KpuZL2MOZt

— The Patriots Voice ??????? ?? (@Proudofthisland) August 17, 2026

Camps of cardboard and plastic continue to expand along the shore, complete with football games and laundry lines on what was Spanish beach.

? Lo que no verás en la tele: así crece el campamento en la playa de Ceuta.
Chabolas de cartón y lonas. Fútbol, baños y espera.
Esto ya no es una crisis humanitaria" de unos días.: es un asentamiento permanente junto a la frontera.
El vídeo muestra otra cosa: un poblado de... pic.twitter.com/k527c5BiNE

— Jesús Vazquez ?????? (@jesusvazquezb) August 16, 2026

? It's only taken 2 weeks for third world immigrants to turn Ceuta into a sh*thole pic.twitter.com/q6N1zwSlL1

— Active Patriot (@ActivePatriotUK) August 16, 2026

Migrants have also set up an improvised mosque on El Trampolín Beach itself.

?? Inmigrantes CREAN una mezquita improvisada en la Playa de El trampolín (Ceuta) pic.twitter.com/VEyvpi0QFI

— Actualidad Noticias (@Actualidad_Pol) August 18, 2026

Throughout the crisis, Spanish government spokesmen and much of the legacy media insisted the migrants had almost all returned to Morocco and that "reasonable normality" had been restored. Left-leaning voices repeated the line.

The reality on the ground - permanent-looking settlements, daily protests for asylum, and residents too afraid to let their daughters outside - shows otherwise.

Ceuta's women are voting with their feet. Families are sending children to the mainland. Parks and beaches that belonged to locals two weeks ago no longer do.

The open-border agenda that turned a Spanish enclave into a third-world camp overnight is being defended by the same voices who claimed the problem had already solved itself.

How many more European cities will be asked to absorb this nightmare before there is meaningful action and change?

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Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 08:15

Buying Bullsh*t In "4 Easy Payments"

 Submitted by QTR's Fringe Finance

I have been gently touching on what a horrible idea one sector has been since the inception of this blog. And just this week, it looks like cracks are starting to form in the space via one of its largest and most well-known publicly traded companies.

As savings finally dry up, rates remain higher and auto loan/credit card delinquencies start rising, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a deluge of ugliness from these types of names in their next few quarterly reports.

(Chart: Zero Hedge)

I’ve said how buy now pay later “BNPL” has been a terrible idea since the inception of this blog. More recently, I named BNPL as one of the 10 areas of the market I would avoid heading into 2026.

Strip away the fintech branding, slick apps, venture capital language and the promises of “disrupting” traditional finance, and a large portion of the BNPL business boils down to something that has existed for centuries: lending money to people who don’t have enough money. And in many cases to people who don’t have enough money for a reason (i.e. they aren’t earning enough or can’t find a way to underconsume).

There is nothing particularly revolutionary about lending money at egregious rates to people who don’t have any. But when you start extending tiny amounts of credit so consumers can finance increasingly trivial purchases, whether that’s a burrito, groceries, takeout or other everyday expenses, you aren’t witnessing some great innovation in financial technology. You’re witnessing the last gasp of liquidity breath from a consumer in deep financial stress.

Credit makes sense when it bridges the timing between income and a major productive purchase. Mortgages allow people to buy homes. Business loans finance investment. Auto loans can help people purchase transportation they need to work. But when consumers increasingly need financing for a single solitary order of Large Fries from McDonald’s and other minute daily expenses, the economic signal is completely different.

If someone needs four payments to buy a french fry, the problem isn’t the absence of a sufficiently innovative payment app. The problem is that they’re fu**ing broke.

That’s what has bothered me about the evolution of BNPL. The industry has attempted to present installment payments as a technological revolution. In reality, subprime BNPL increasingly resembles a digitally optimized version of a very old business: payday lending, high risk consumer finance and, taken to its historical extreme, loan sharking.

The technology changes, the underwriting algorithms change, the user interface becomes prettier and the terminology becomes friendlier, but the fundamental economics do not. Someone has money, someone else needs money, and the lender advances the money today with the expectation of being adequately compensated tomorrow. That business has been around approximately…forever.

These businesses can look fantastic during the right portion of the economic cycle. Employment is strong, consumers are spending, asset prices are rising, credit losses remain manageable and investors extrapolate growth into the future. Then monetary conditions tighten. Positive real interest rates begin doing what positive real interest rates are supposed to do. Savings get depleted, refinancing becomes more expensive, credit becomes harder to obtain, monthly debt service burdens accumulate and consumers gradually exhaust the liquidity buffers they built during easier times.

Eventually, something breaks, and the lowest quality borrowers usually break first. That is why subprime credit can be such an important economic indicator. The trouble doesn’t necessarily begin with someone defaulting on a mortgage or declaring bankruptcy. It can begin much earlier. Consumers start financing things that historically would have been purchased with cash. Balances accumulate, payments begin competing with one another, discretionary spending slows, credit losses rise and eventually the consumer runs out of road.

And nowadays, in a nation full of gamblers and not investors…who place bets not just on stock options but on shit like what color tie Donald Trump will wear during a press conference on prediction platforms…people are getting addicted to gambling, running through their cash and desperately sourcing anyone who will lend to them faster than anytime in history. If you think people aren’t taking out loans from SoFi, Upstart and the likes to finance gambling addiction, you haven’t listened to the stories of enough gamblers in recovery.

That brings us to Klarna yesterday. The company’s second quarter 2026 results initially looked good. Revenue rose 27% year over year to approximately $1.04 billion, while the company produced a surprise quarterly profit. The reported numbers beat Wall Street’s expectations. If markets cared only about the rearview mirror, Klarna stock probably would have rallied. Instead, the shares plunged roughly 20%.

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The reason is that markets care about what happens next. Klarna lowered its full year revenue outlook to $4.08 billion to $4.16 billion, compared with its previous forecast above $4.34 billion and analyst expectations around $4.42 billion. The company also reduced expected 2026 gross merchandise volume to $149 billion to $151 billion from more than $155 billion previously. Weak retail conditions in Germany, Klarna’s largest market, and foreign exchange effects were among the factors cited.

Americans are increasingly using BNPL as actual consumer financing, according to Klarna’s latest report. U.S. purchase volume surged 27% year over year, U.S. revenue jumped 37%, and Klarna’s longer-term Fair Financing product grew 82% globally, while interest income hit $266 million for the quarter.

The numbers suggest consumers are increasingly borrowing to fund everyday spending rather than simply using BNPL as a checkout convenience. Once reliance on BNPL becomes a necessity to fund consumption, signaling an increasingly tapped-out consumer, rising defaults are the obvious risk that comes next.

At the same time, Klarna announced leadership changes. CFO Niclas Neglén and CMO David Sandström are expected to leave their positions in early 2027 as the company searches for replacements. So you had the classic combination markets hate: yesterday looked better than expected, while tomorrow suddenly looked worse. The stock got crushed accordingly about -20%.

And I don’t think investors should look at Klarna in isolation. I think they should look at it as another piece of evidence about the condition of the consumer. To be clear, Klarna itself is still growing rapidly. Second quarter revenue increased 27%, gross merchandise volume increased 18% and U.S. GMV reportedly grew 27%. This isn’t a company whose business disappeared overnight. That’s precisely why the guidance matters.

The interesting question isn’t whether BNPL continues growing. The interesting question is why consumers increasingly want it in the first place, and what happens to the economics of the model when those consumers become financially stressed. BNPL works beautifully when the consumer keeps paying. So does virtually every lending business. The real test of a credit model isn’t how rapidly it can originate loans during an expansion. As Seinfeld would say, “Anybody can just originate a reservation…”

It’s what those loans look like after years of elevated prices, depleted savings, expensive money and weakening consumer liquidity. That’s the part of the cycle investors consistently underestimate and dildo analysts on CNBC don’t want to talk about. That is, assuming they know what the business does to begin with…

There is an enormous difference between financing a $2,000 purchase because installment financing is economically convenient and financing a $12 lunch because you don’t have $12.

The app may classify both transactions as BNPL, but I don’t. One is financing. The other can be distress.

I’ve argued that the current equity market has many characteristics of a bubble, and BNPL is only one of the areas that concerns me. Markets have spent years rewarding growth narratives, financial engineering, technological disruption and increasingly aggressive assumptions about what future cash flows will be worth. Meanwhile, underneath the surface, consumers have been absorbing higher prices, higher financing costs and a steadily more restrictive cost of capital. Those two realities cannot diverge indefinitely.

Eventually the economic cycle, rates, liquidity and balance sheets matter. The first cracks rarely arrive with a giant sign announcing that the bubble is over. They appear individually. A weak consumer shows up in one company’s numbers. Credit deterioration appears somewhere else. A company beats quarterly expectations but cuts its outlook. A seemingly unstoppable growth story suddenly discovers that its customers have limits. That is how cycles turn. To quote Ray Dalio’s “How the Economic Machine Works”, the economy is a trillion little bullshit transactions all happening at once, over and over (OK, I paraphrased). Point is, they turn over gradually, one small transaction at a time, like sands passing through an hourglass.

BNPL has been marketed as financial innovation, and parts of the technology undoubtedly are innovative. The distribution is better, the checkout experience is easier, underwriting can be faster and data can improve risk assessment. But none of that repeals the basic laws of credit. If you lend money to financially stretched consumers, eventually some of them cannot repay it. If those consumers become increasingly dependent on credit to finance ordinary consumption, that isn’t necessarily evidence of a booming new financial ecosystem. It may be evidence that household liquidity is deteriorating.

I have warned about subprime lending and BNPL for years. I put BNPL among the 10 areas I wanted to avoid in 2026, and Klarna’s latest report doesn’t change my mind. It reinforces the thesis. When people need debt to buy a Coke Zero, I don’t see financial innovation. I see a warning about the consumer.

Klarna is only one data point, and one quarter doesn’t establish a macroeconomic trend. But combined with the other stresses emerging across the economy and financial markets, I believe it is another signal that the consumer is running out of liquidity. That is one of several reasons I continue to believe the current stock market bubble is approaching its final stage, with the reckoning likely coming in late 2026 or early 2027.

When it does, investors may discover that the newest revolution in consumer finance was built around one of the oldest businesses on Earth: lending money to people who don’t have it.

--

QTR’s Disclaimer: Please read my full legal disclaimer on my About page here. This post represents my opinions only. In addition, please understand I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. Contributor posts and aggregated posts have been hand selected by me, have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. They are either submitted to QTR by their author, reprinted under a Creative Commons license with my best effort to uphold what the license asks, or with the permission of the author. I cannot guarantee the accuracy of all facts and figures included in this article though I made my best effort to get them right. I have been wrong before and will be wrong again, and encourage you to always double check, do your own research and speak to a licensed financial professional.

This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. I may or may not own names I write about and are watching. Sometimes I’m bullish without owning things, sometimes I’m bearish and do own things. Just assume my positions could be exactly the opposite of what you think they are just in case. If I’m long I could quickly be short and vice versa. I won’t update my positions.

As of May 20, 2026 I am attempting to no longer actively trade as much as I once did (read my story here). My eventual goal is for investing/saving to be mostly done by recurring contributions mostly to sector ETFs and a few select equities, trusted third parties who oversee my accounts, and advisors. Such advisors or funds, through individual equities, options, index funds, mutual funds, ETFs, or other securities, may have positions in, exposure to, or holdings of names mentioned herein that I know nothing about. Basically, via index funds, ETFs and individual equities it is possible I could own, have exposure to, or not own anything at any point. As of the same date, May 20, 2026, in an attempt to lead a healthier lifestyle, I’ve also excluded myself from fantasy sports, sports betting, online and in-person casinos and prediction markets.

And all positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice and at any point I can be long, short or neutral on any position. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. If you see numbers and calculations of any sort, assume they are wrong and double check them. I failed Algebra in 8th grade and topped off my high school math accolades by getting a D- in remedial Calculus my senior year, before becoming an English major in college so I could bullshit my way through things easier.

The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. I edit after my posts are published because I’m impatient and lazy, so if you see a typo, check back in a half hour. Also, I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it twice because it’s that important.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 08:05

Holy Grail In Cancer Treatment? Moderna Erupts After Melanoma Vaccine Late-Stage Trial Success

Moderna's shares soared as much as 83% in premarket trading in New York after its personalized cancer vaccine, developed in collaboration with Merck & Co., reduced the risk of melanoma returning in a large, late-stage trial. The result marks the first positive Phase 3 trial for a personalized cancer vaccine by any company. 

The study met its primary endpoint by showing that the cancer vaccine, called intismeran autogene, combined with Merck's blockbuster immunotherapy Keytruda, improved recurrence-free survival compared with Keytruda alone. The study also met a secondary endpoint by reducing the risk of cancer spreading to other parts of the body.

Professor Georgina Long, the study's principal investigator, medical director of Melanoma Institute Australia, and chair of Melanoma Medical Oncology and Translational Research at the University of Sydney, wrote in a statement:

Today's results represent a landmark moment for adjuvant melanoma treatment. This is the first Phase 3 study to show that intismeran, a treatment designed based on the unique mutational 'fingerprint' of a patient's own tumor, given in combination with pembrolizumab, can reduce the risk of recurrence or death in patients with completely resected stage IIB-IV melanoma compared with KEYTRUDA alone.

Intismeran in combination with pembrolizumab has the potential to establish a new treatment paradigm in the adjuvant melanoma setting, helping patients remain cancer-free for longer.

Moderna and Merck did not disclose exact figures showing how much the therapy improved recurrence-free survival. The trial remains ongoing. Additional details will be presented at an upcoming medical meeting, and the vaccine could receive approval as early as 2027, depending on the regulatory review.

As of 0700 ET, Moderna shares were up 60% and trading around $100 per share. Short interest represents 13.5% of the float, equivalent to 49.8 million shares. Merck shares are up 7% in premarket as well. 

Melanoma is the most serious form of skin cancer. About 112,000 people are diagnosed annually in the US, and about 8,500 die from the disease, according to the American Cancer Society.

"Therapeutic vaccines have been something of a holy grail in cancer. People have been trying to do this for, you know, over 100 years in one way or another," Jane Healy, head of oncology early development at Merck, said in an interview with Bloomberg several weeks ago. She noted that one potential benefit of the personalized shot would be to extend survival without significantly increasing side effects.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 07:40

Georgia Man Deported From Fiji Charged Over $165 Million Crypto Ponzi Scheme

Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times,

A Georgia man accused of wire fraud and money laundering appeared in a Los Angeles federal court on Monday after being deported by Fijian authorities to face the charges following his flight to the South Pacific island.

A price chart on the Bybit website for the cryptocurrency Ethereum on a computer screen in New York City on Feb. 21, 2025. Patrick Sison/AP Photo

Prosecutors alleged the 59-year-old Edward Zimbardi, of Flowery Branch, Georgia, ran a Ponzi scheme that made more than $165 million from thousands of investors between June 2022 and August 2023.

An attorney for Zimbardi could not be reached.

U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg, who described ponzi schemers as "parasites" the day of the Department of Justice announcement, detailed the allegations.

"Zimbardi allegedly tricked thousands of people to invest in his 'Crypto Program' with false promises of enormous returns," Hertzberg said. "Instead, he spent the money on risky currency trades, payments to early investors, and treating himself to a house and expensive vehicles."

When the scam was discovered, he allegedly tried to evade federal prosecution by fleeing to Fiji before he was found by authorities and returned, the prosecutor said.

Marlo Graham, special agent in charge of FBI Atlanta, noted that Zimbardi allegedly preyed on unsuspecting individuals through a complex scheme. FBI Atlanta is seeking victim information to aid the investigation.

"Scammers are trying everything they can to defraud people out of their hard-earned money, but the FBI is doing everything we can to make sure they don't succeed, no matter where they hide," Graham said.

According to the charges and information presented in court, Zimbardi allegedly promoted The Crypto Program through videos and websites, telling potential investors it was a chance to buy advertising packages that would deliver a guaranteed 25 percent monthly return.

Investors were advised to send cryptocurrency to digital wallets, which, prosecutors alleged, were secretly controlled by Zimbardi. Thousands of people sent more than $165 million his way.

Instead of advertising packages, Zimbardi allegedly put more than $34 million into risky foreign currency trades and lost a substantial portion of it. In order to keep the scheme running, he allegedly used money from later investors to pay earlier ones. He also allegedly spent at least $10 million on personal expenses, including a house for his son, luxury vehicles, and alimony payments to his ex-wife.

The program collapsed in August 2023, and victims lost their funds. Zimbardi then traveled to Hawaii, Fiji, and other places.

In July 2025, after learning of the FBI investigation, he fled to Fiji and stayed more than a year. In May, he canceled plans to attend his son's wedding in Virginia, suspecting agents would attempt to arrest him there.

Fijian authorities deported him after learning of the charges in coordination with the FBI and the U.S. Department of State.

A federal grand jury had already indicted Zimbardi on July 8. The indictment charges him with 12 counts of wire fraud, 12 counts of money laundering, and one count of money laundering conspiracy.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 07:20