Zero Rss

Oprah Audience Calls For 'Same Passion' For Black Child-Killers As For Lindsay Clancy

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

Oprah Winfrey flew into Massachusetts to host a "watershed" conversation about Lindsay Clancy.

What the cameras captured was not a sombre conversation regarding her three dead children. It was a room brainwashed into treating a child-killer as a ideological cause - and then demand the same energy for black women who have murdered their kids.

Yes really. The takeaway from this particular creepy corner of culture is no longer "killing your children is unthinkable." Rather, it is "lets make sure we support child killers of color just as much as white child killers."

As we now know, Clancy strangled her three children - 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan - with exercise bands in the family basement on January 24, 2023, then cut herself and jumped from a second-story window. She has never denied the killings. Her defense argued postpartum psychosis and a lack of criminal responsibility. Prosecutors said the acts were planned. After 21 days of testimony and more than 80 witnesses, the jury hung. A mistrial was declared in early September.

Days later Oprah's podcast put the case on a soundstage with medical experts, legal voices, a former colleague who testified at trial, and women describing their own postpartum breakdowns. Official branding called it "Understanding Postpartum Psychosis." The clip that detonated online was something else entirely.

A doctor in the room told the audience she wanted the same passion for women "who don't look like Lindsay."

Okaaaaaay. "Passion"?

"I want us to have the same passion for people who don't look like Lindsay, who don't have her same access... who don't have her same access and education, her melanin, her privilege," she said.

Right, you can see where this is going.

"There are women of color sitting around this country in prisons for this same thing that we've never heard of. And I just want to remind us to have the pink shirts and the energy for them as well."

The room cheered.

Room full of women on the Oprah show starts cheering after a doctor says that black female child murderers need to be supported too, not just the white child murderers like Lindsay Clancy.

"I want us to have the same passion for [female child murderers] who don't look like... pic.twitter.com/VbaQfq9BYi

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) September 10, 2026

What the actual fuck is this? It's demented.

The moral argument slid, in one breath, from mental-health treatment to racial bookkeeping for filicide. Not "stop this." Not "the children come first." The demand was representation - pink shirts and energy for other mothers who killed their kids.

Once the killer is recast as the victim, the next move is to complain that some victims of this new compassion have the wrong skin tone.

AND OF COURSE they're trying to make child murder"more racially inclusive" now.

Throw this whole timeline into the Sun. It needs to be purged https://t.co/HSyi8sr3df

— TrippyLiberty (@TrippyLiberty) September 11, 2026

Let's be equally empathetic to black mothers who kill their babies. pic.twitter.com/YuJD0h7AIu

— Gad Saad (@GadSaad) September 11, 2026

If you tried to write the darkest possible parody of this movement, I don't think you could do much better than "it's important to support child-stranglers of color" https://t.co/S0a48D8gLi

— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) September 11, 2026

There was a break in the madness. A young woman stood up and said the sentence the rest of the room had spent an hour avoiding.

"I do believe she's a murderer..."

Oprah answered: "After all you've heard today?"

Oprah Brought together a bunch of crazy ass women to normalize what Lindsay Clancy did...

One young woman wasn't buying it, and stood up amongst the crowd, and she brought the entire room to silence.

Girl
"I do believe she's a murderer..."

Oprah:
"After all you've heard today?"... pic.twitter.com/Qu0n3gmEzH

— MJTruthUltra (@MJTruthUltra) September 10, 2026

Belief that a mother who strangled three small children is a murderer was treated as a failure to absorb the program. The safe answer in that room was not the names Cora, Dawson and Callan. It was the sermon: hormones, sleep, the medical system, "access," "melanin," "privilege."

Mothers are supposed to be the safest place for children. That used to be the one thing that did not require a panel debate.

The rest of the taping ran on the same track: identification with Clancy, regardless of the murdered children.

One woman described hearing a man's voice whispering in her ear to drown her baby. The camera found tears on cue.

In an effort to sympathize with Lindsay Clancy, woman who says she had postpartum depression says she heard the voice of a man whispering in her ear to drown her baby.

Make sure you watch the woman at the end of the clip crying just in time for the camera.... https://t.co/QVZFCIgboX pic.twitter.com/zyP37MxXqw

— MJTruthUltra (@MJTruthUltra) September 10, 2026

Another told Oprah she sat in her son's bedroom and saw his toys as weapons. She played out strangling him in her mind. When Clancy's case hit the news, she said she recognized the same intrusive thoughts. "The reason my story ended differently is because who my husband is," she stated.

Oprah told her she had "a lot of courage."

Oprah:
You have a lot of courage.

Woman:
Before I was hospitalized— I sat in my son's bedroom and I saw all of their toys as weapons. I played out in my mind me strangling my son.

And when I saw that play out in real life with Lindsay Clancy, I said this is a lady who had the... https://t.co/hj2Mwcj2l7 pic.twitter.com/Fk6UJPGwyK

— MJTruthUltra (@MJTruthUltra) September 10, 2026

A third guest said she began hearing voices telling her that her daughter was the second coming of Christ and that she wanted to rewrite the Bible. She said she improved after 17 days in a hospital. The point of the story, in that room, was kinship with Clancy.

This woman tells Oprah she sympathizes with Lindsay Clancy because she started hearing voices telling her that her daughter was the second coming of Christ and she wanted to rewrite the Bible... and she got better after being hospitalized for 17 days https://t.co/WLp1iQywHI pic.twitter.com/vVuNyDhc9y

— MJTruthUltra (@MJTruthUltra) September 10, 2026

An 'expert' then offered "Society expects women to be perfect. So what are we supposed to do? This bliss-myth of what it is to be a mother is so society engrained, it's very hard to ask for help."

Expert defends Lindsay Clancy:

"Society expects women to be perfect. So what are we supposed to do?

This bliss-myth of what it is to be a mother is so society engrained, it's very hard to ask for help."https://t.co/vLSGQY6H5D https://t.co/O2AEX3tRwN pic.twitter.com/AFNp7yPwfQ

— MJTruthUltra (@MJTruthUltra) September 10, 2026

Most mothers have been exhausted. Most mothers have not treated their children as a problem to be solved with an exercise band.

Ladies... I'm listening to this thing Oprah hosted and it is absolutely scary insane to me— the common theme they're trying to push is that hormones and sleep deprecation is a justifiable reason for women to murder their children.

Most of you have had kids. Did you ever once... https://t.co/QVZFCIgboX

— MJTruthUltra (@MJTruthUltra) September 10, 2026

The pink-shirt movement formed outside Plymouth Superior Court. In mid-August, hundreds of women in pink treated Clancy's van like a homecoming. Organizer Renee Kimball said, "I think that every one of us women believe that it could be any one of us." She added that women who have dealt with anxiety, depression and postpartum "just know that any one of us could be sitting in her chair."

Days earlier the same scene was already apparent online: TikTok mothers filming themselves relating to a confessed child-killer while holding their own babies, a GoFundMe for Clancy's parents swelling toward seven figures, and comment threads that talked more about her treatment than about the murdered kids.

Bill Maher, no MAGA activist, asked the question the pink crowd still will not. "What I don't get is why does she have fans?" He compared the courthouse scene to the folk-hero treatment of Luigi Mangione. He could grant that postpartum illness is real. He could not explain the merch, the cheers, or the need for a fandom.

Joe Rogan was less delicate. "If those ladies could see the crime scene and see those dead kids with their vacant eyes staring up because their mother took their life, the last thing that they saw was their mother standing over them, choking them to death, I don't think they would feel so bad." He added that if she walks, "her supporters should have to let her babysit."

Prosecutors in Frankfort, Illinois, say Corie Walsh hanged her 2-year-old son, Barrett, from a basement rafter, then tried to kill herself. She told police the boy was the "devil" and the "anti-Christ." Witnesses said she had become "very invested" in the Clancy trial and was still texting friends about it hours before the child was found.

Meanwhile the living victim of the original crime - Patrick Clancy, the father who came home to three dead children - has been hunted online by the same ecosystem. His attorney, Howard Cooper, said Patrick and his family have been "subjected to a relentless, escalating and destructive defamation campaign" from "minor celebrities, so-called influencers and outright conspiracy theorists." Cooper's demand was simple: "Enough is enough - this spread of blatant and baseless falsehoods must stop."

Lindsay confessed. Nobody in the courtroom argued Patrick did it. The pink movement needed a villain who was not the woman with the bands in her hands, so they invented one.

Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz has said "This case has always been about those three children. We are here today because they are not."

Latarsha Sanders was convicted in 2022 in the same county, before the same judge, of stabbing her sons Edson, 8, and La'son, 5, in their Brockton apartment in 2018. Prosecutors said the boys were found in bed after being stabbed roughly 100 times between them. Sanders received two mandatory life terms.

Erin Merdy of Brooklyn pleaded guilty this year to drowning her three children - Zachary, 7, Liliana, 4, and 3-month-old Oliver - in the ocean near Coney Island in 2022. Relatives had said she may have been struggling with postpartum depression. A judge sentenced her to 20 years to life. Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said, "No sentence can fully measure the loss of a seven-year-old, a four-year-old and a three-month-old baby, or the grief their loved ones will carry forever."

None of this requires a studio audience to cheer a racial audit of child murder.

A movement that cannot say "do not kill your children" without attaching a demographic rider has abandoned all morality.

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Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 17:24

Is An Elite 'Clash Of The Titans' Looming?

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Clusterfuck Nation,

Light and Dark

"It's astonishing that anything exists."

- Ludwig Wittgenstein

Is this a week to drain our souls, or what? Yesterday, the memory of Charlie Kirk, a decent young man known for acting nobly in an ignoble era, cut down (it is alleged in court) by a pathetic product of Woke cultism - the trans avenging angel, avatar of our national mental illness. And today, the memory of 9/11, for which no alt-theory or engineering lecture can obviate the lonely arc of those little bodies free-falling out of the flaming towers into nothingness.

So, we move on because there is nothing else you can do, really. . . sad, furious, or what. . . and then do what you can to fix this joint. If this was a house in a storm, you'd be hearing the joists groan and the rafters squeak as they torque out of true, like just before the whole shootin' match goes down. Meanwhile, news is out that Joe DiGenova, the former DC federal attorney supervising the grand jury action in Florida concerning RussiaGate and associated treasons, is out. He said he "resigned." That's usually a cover. Somebody gave him the boot, and it was either Todd Blanche or President Trump. Cuz, why? I suppose we'll find out.

Trollish insinuations are flying in the usual channels that he couldn't get enough evidence to bring any proper cases, but I don't believe that for a horse-face Hochul's New York minute, nor that Mr. DiGenova actually said anything like that. Anyway, at least twenty million civilians 'out there' have been following this constitutional death dance closely for years. We know the names, the acts, the memos, the emails, the money trails, the dots and the receipts by heart. Many can even recite long legal memoranda on the likes of John Brennan, Adam Schiff, Jim Comey, Hillary, Strzok, Page, blah blah, dates, times, document numbers.

Joe DiGenova is old, others say. Not a good organizer, turns out. . . not a good team leader. . . things like that. Well, maybe his force of personality or renowned avidity to correct epic insults to the nation concealed all that. Anyway, he was brought in to replace a federal attorney name of Maria Medetis Long, and I bet none of you even know her name. She was on the case down there in Florida during Pam Bondi's unfortunate commission, too blah even to go down in infamy. To the casual observer, the whole wicked business begins to look like a Chinese fire drill.

Or possibly a circle-jerk. And, of course, everybody is wondering: what's the blast radius on this one? Can the DOJ's Southern District of Florida recover some kind of equipoise and carry on and usher this pretty large troupe of scoundrels into courts of law? Or is folding like a Broadway tryout in New Haven? Does it now all get sucked into some vortex of lost causes? And wouldn't that be demoralizing?

My guess: these acts against the country and its people are too grave, too important, to just go away, and won't go away. What the diGenova fumble seems to point to is that persons and parties behind that treason - and you might suppose I'm thinking: the Intel (so-called) "community" and its many-footed ancillaries - are both desperate and powerful enough to try to derail the process. Just imagine how many retired Intel rogues are out there after seventy-plus years of, say, the CIA alone. Must be a lot of them, including the fifty-one ex-Intel bigshots who signed the Hunter Biden laptop public letter in 2020 to queer the election.

You've got to wonder whether the agency that John Ratcliffe is supposedly in charge of has an equally large shadow org of these people, perhaps operating under the likes of one ex-CIA honcho John Brennan. And then you have to wonder what machinery of government they've still got their mitts on? Or maybe they just put the word out that pursuing any just resolution of the traitorous trips laid on America by them could be bad for anyone's health. In any case, I don't hesitate to point out that the legions of ex-spooks and their bag-men all have names and records and. . . well. . . apply a little Anthropic hocus-pocus. . . we'll know where you live and what you had for breakfast before the ten a.m. break.

What I'm getting at - and I regret even having to affect coyness - is that the departure of Joe diGenova could signify some Battle of the Titans, a civil war not on the ground between plain citizens too bamboozled by sexual hysteria to put up a fight, but between the general officer ranks of two opposing elite dominions, the legitimate and the shadow, the light and the dark.

The action won't stay backstage for long. Barbarians really are at the gate, and that gate is the midterm election. America has gone so crazy that it doesn't seem to even recognize how crazy many of the candidates for high office are. The shadow dominion appears to be behind them, too: Telarico, el-Sayed, Peggy Flanagan, Becerra, Hochul. . . Lord have mercy! These are not just not-normal people. They are outright sickies, working hard to wreck the country.

Well, Labor Day is gone and the blandishments of summer with it. Time to stop sulking. All hands on deck. The bell has rung.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 17:20

Beijing Preps For Currency Wars

Authored by James Rickards via The Daily Reckoning,

The fact that China has a large quantity of gold in its official reserve position is not news. China's gold reserves have been rising substantially since 2009.

At that time, China's official gold reserves were 1,054 metric tonnes (mt). Today, those reserves stand at approximately 2,366 mt, an increase of about 124%. But that does not tell the whole story.

The official reserves are reported by the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the Chinese central bank. But China may also hold gold through other state entities, including the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE). China is non-transparent about the full extent of its gold holdings. The exact amount of any unreported gold is unknown. Estimates can be formed based on imports from Switzerland via Hong Kong, but those are inexact.

One estimate is that the amount of "hidden gold" held by Chinese state entities is approximately the same as the amount reported publicly by the PBOC. If that estimate is correct, total Chinese gold reserves would be about 4,700 mt, or roughly 58% of U.S. gold reserves of 8,133 mt.

That would make China the second-largest sovereign gold holder in the world after the U.S. and put China ahead of gold powers such as Germany, Italy and France. Still, caution is warranted. Actual official gold holdings in China could be higher or lower than that estimate.

Both the publicly reported gold reserves of PBOC and any hidden state gold reserves are in addition to the amount of privately held gold in China. That figure is even more difficult to estimate. It is widely reported that Indian citizens privately own substantial quantities of gold, with estimates often running into the tens of thousands of tonnes.

China has a population about the same size as India and an equally strong cultural affinity for gold bullion. An estimate of perhaps 10,000 metric tonnes of gold held privately by Chinese citizens seems reasonable, although it cannot be verified precisely.

By any measure, China is a gold powerhouse, even if its reported official holdings still fall short of those of the U.S. But what is China doing with its gold? What is the point of massive gold accumulation by the Chinese government and its people?

The Gold-Backed Yuan Is a Chimera

One thing that is not happening is the creation of a gold-backed Chinese yuan. China may have an enormous amount of gold, but China has an even larger money supply than the U.S. and an enormous debt burden once provincial debt issuance is taken into account.

Traditionally, gold holdings must be between 20% and 40% of the money supply to engender trust in a gold-backed currency system. China's reported gold holdings are in the low single digits as a percentage of money supply. In my view, there will be no gold-backed yuan for the foreseeable future.

The idea that the Chinese yuan, whether gold-backed or not, can replace the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency is also nonsense. Official foreign exchange reserves are not simply piles of currency. They are held largely as securities and deposits denominated in a currency. These securities are typically government bonds but can include other assets, depending on the country.

In short, you cannot be considered a major reserve currency unless you have financial markets large enough to absorb global official savings.

A bond market requires underwriters, called "primary dealers" in the U.S., a range of maturities, regular auctions, hedging instruments such as futures, options and when-issued trading, a large pool of institutional buyers and, above all, a strong rule of law.

China has a large bond market, but it lacks the depth, openness, convertibility and legal protections needed to rival the U.S. Treasury market as the foundation of the global reserve system. It will take years to build a system that does. China is simply not in the same league when it comes to reserve-currency status, with or without gold.

The latest IMF data show that the U.S. dollar accounts for about 57% of global foreign exchange reserves. The euro accounts for about 20%.

That leaves all other currencies to share the remaining 23%, with significant portions taken up by Japanese and U.K. securities, along with Australian and Canadian dollars and Swiss francs. The Chinese share is about 2%.

If a gold-backed yuan is a chimera and the yuan as a dominant reserve currency is a nonstarter due to the limitations of its financial markets, why is China buying so much gold? What is the real plan?

Follow the Gold, Not the Yuan

To understand China's gold acquisitions, we need to look at what else China is doing in the gold market.

Major Chinese banks have recently moved to suspend or restrict individual trading in precious metals linked to the Shanghai Gold Exchange. This was presented as a risk-reducing measure. The restrictions do not prohibit physical gold purchases or ownership through gold funds by everyday Chinese citizens.

In effect, China is curbing certain forms of retail "paper gold" trading while allowing accumulation of physical gold. That's an amplification of trends already in place.

Hong Kong also launched a new central clearing and settlement system for gold in July 2026. Hong Kong has a better rule of law than mainland China, although it is firmly under the control of the Chinese Communist Party.

This arrangement gives China greater flexibility to develop gold trading and settlement outside the traditional dollar-dominated system. That result is not the same as a gold-backed yuan, but it does lessen China's dependence on dollar-denominated payment systems with regard to gold.

China also changed its insurance regulations to allow ten major insurance companies to invest in gold, with exposure capped at 1% of total assets. Given the size of the Chinese insurance market, even 1% represents a potentially major increase in demand for gold.

Hong Kong is also expanding its physical storage capacity, with a target of over 2,000 metric tonnes within three years. That would make it one of the world's major gold storage centers, although the target has not yet been reached.

China's Golden Escape Hatch

Taken together, these measures show that China - already the largest gold producer in the world based on its mining operations - is building more than a massive gold reserve.

It is positioning itself as a global gold trading center, with infrastructure for investment, retail accumulation, hedging, imports, settlement, clearing and storage.

China is not troubled by the decline in the dollar price of gold between January 2026 and today. The reason is that China is in acquisition mode.

In my view, Chinese policymakers expect the price of gold to soar sooner rather than later. Any buyer accumulating gold favors a lower price for the time being because it means getting more gold for every dollar spent.

The payoff comes later if the dollar price of gold spikes higher. Whoever has the most gold then is the biggest winner.

All of this dollar price action really says more about dollar volatility than it does about gold. That's one more reason to get out of dollars and into physical gold.

China is looking ahead to the day when a confrontation with the United States could force it to separate from the dollar payments system entirely in order to avoid asset freezes and financial sanctions.

Chinese policymakers are watching the financial sanctions that the U.S. is imposing on Russia and Iran and drawing the appropriate lessons.

China's solution to geopolitical chaos and financial warfare is to buy physical gold. Investors in the U.S. are well advised to take the same approach.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 15:40

US 2026 Budget Deficit Hits $1.97 Trillion With One Month Left; Interest At Record $1.4 Trillion

With DOGE disbanded more than a year ago, and tariffs struck down by the Supreme Court, the US is no longer even pretending that there is any hope to normalize spending, or any kind of happy ending to the US debt trajectory. 

At 2pm today the US Treasury published the latest, August, monthly budget deficit data, and it should come as no surprise to anyone that things are looking ever worse. 

Total US receipts were $360 billion, a modest improvement from the $344 billion a year ago, with individual income taxes accounting for $179 billion, or half of the total, and the bulk of the balance coming from Social Insurance and Retirement receipts of $141 billion.

On the spending side, things were ugly: total outlays were $527 billion, a modest improvement to the $689.1 billion a year ago, but much of that had to do with the calendar impact of tariffs. 

Putting receipts and spending in context, a chart of the trailing 6 months of government revenue and spending shows that the two trendlines are rapidly diverging, with spending on pace to surpass the covid all time high, even as government revenue remains stuck in a much more narrow range.

The difference between the two, is of course, the US budget deficit, which in August was $166.8 billion, an improvement from July's massive $432 billion deficit, which however was the result of some calendar discrepancies between the two months. What matters more is that fir the first 11 months of fiscal 2026 (with just one month left in the fiscal year), the total US deficit is now $1.97 trillion, identical with last year, although since 2025 saw a big drop in the final month of the year, we are confident that 2026 will be about $200bn worse than the previous year when all is said and done, and be the 3rd worst year for the US deficit on record, with just the crisis years of 2020 and 2021 worse.

Finally, turning to the elephant in the room, namely interest expense, in August the US spent $98 billion on gross interest expense, which means that with 1 month left in fiscal 2026, total US interest spending is now $1.267 trillion, up 12% from a year ago...

... while on an LTM basis, it is now a record $1.4 trillion, and is set to surpass Social Security (which was $1.66 trillion LTM but growing much slower), by the end of 2028. 

And since 23% of marketable US debt is now T-Bills, which will see an immediate impact from any Fed hikes, the moments the Fed raises rates, US interest expense is going to rise even more sharply, signaling that while the debt endgame for the US is guaranteed, the only question is whether Warsh will bring it on even faster. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 15:20

Oil Market Has Reached an "Inflection Point": Energy Aspects

By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com

Crude oil prices are poised for further increases and the trending trajectory is higher, as global inventory drawdowns have accelerated and China is back to buying significantly higher crude oil volumes than in the spring, Energy Aspects founder and market intelligence director, Amrita Sen, told CNBC on Friday.

The intensified shipping risks in the Middle East with tanker attacks in the Strait of Hormuz and the Houthi threat in the Red Sea are hampering crude oil supply to Asian refiners. If Hormuz cancellations and delays persist, the only option for Asian refiners is to reduce runs, Sen said.

Following an uptick in Strait of Hormuz oil flows in August, shippers are now cautious again amid the re-escalation of hostilities, the oil market expert told CNBC.

The oil market has reached the “inflection point” and is heading for an “upward spiral” between crude and products, Sen noted.

Earlier this week, Sen told Bloomberg in an interview that China is estimated to import about 10 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude this month. The expected volume in September would be about 3 million bpd higher than in June, when China’s crude oil imports slumped to below 7 million bpd to a decade-low.

The return of China to crude buying and the accelerating inventory drawdowns are also pushing crude oil prices higher, apart from the headlines and U.S. and Iran rhetoric.

In the past two weeks alone, a total of 120 million barrels of oil were drawn down from inventories globally, Sen told Bloomberg.

All these factors are driving crude oil prices toward a “significant leg higher,” the market expert said on Wednesday, the day on which oil prices jumped above $100 per barrel for the first time since July.

Oil prices were on track early on Friday to end a trading week above the $100 a barrel mark for the first time since May.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 15:00

Coal Nears Breakout As Gulf Energy Shock Drives Utilities Back To Dirty Fuel Ahead Of Winter

Newcastle thermal coal futures are approaching the $150-a-ton breakout level as the global energy shock, most acute in industrial fuels, encourages utilities to shift toward coal ahead of the Northern Hemisphere winter while electrification trends and all things AI expand electricity demand. 

UBS metals and mining analyst Myles Allsop wrote in a note this week that thermal coal prices face a number of factors colliding at once that could push prices higher over the next few months: 

We see a number of risks that could drive up thermal coal prices over next few months, with 1) demand supported by a hot summer (increasing demand for cooling), the high gas price (due to the ME conflict) and potentially a cold winter in the Northern Hemisphere due to the 'super El Niño' (conditions to peak in Dec), and 2) supply at risk from Chinese safety checks, Indonesian government policy, Russian diesel shortages, and potentially weather-related disruption, e.g. droughts and water shortages. 

We note that most of these factors would be short-term and think the market should return to balance from March.

Geographically:

China: Imports of seaborne coal rose to 24Mt in Jul-26, ~3Mt higher than the 1H average. The Shanxi accident in May triggered a round of safety inspections across the coal industry, with raw coal production falling to its lowest level in 58 months in Jul-26, with imports (of low-CV Indonesian and AU coal) rising and domestic coal prices recovering; we see potential for the market to remain disrupted for the next 3-6 months (LINK).

India: Imports have been subdued due to monsoon-weakened power demand and pro-domestic coal policy; however, low plant stocks and post-monsoon industrial restocking should support renewed demand for SA and US coal from Sept.

Indonesia: Thermal coal exports are estimated at 38Mt in Jul-26, down from ~40Mt in June due to supply constraints (tightening production quotas under the RKAB framework and stricter enforcement of 25% DMO, LINK) and logistical bottlenecks (low water levels along the Barito River in Central Kalimantan disrupting barging). We note the bottlenecks should ease with the onset of the rainy season in Sept.

JKT: In Japan, thermal generation has stepped up due to the heatwave and a nuclear outage (Tonati #3 due to restart in Aug-26), while Taiwan has maintained adequate LNG supply (despite the restart of two retired 600MW units); in South Korea the five state-owned utilities are being merged into one entity, with coal purchasing set to shift towards more long-term contracts (from spot).

Europe: Higher gas prices (Fig72) support coal power demand but low water levels on the Rhine have limited coal shipments and resulted in higher ARA inventories.

Russia: Coal railings have lifted 12% y/y in Jul YTD (eastbound +20%) while overall production is slightly lower y/y, with diesel availability/cost challenges; prices have strengthened due to disruption of supply of flows through the Black Sea.

More color: 

Iron ore prices rose ~$1/t this week to ~$100/t, in line with higher freight rates (AU-CH now ~$19/t and BR-CH ~$41/t vs $9/t and ~$23/t in Jan/Feb; Fig34) and destocking at ports; on a FOB basis, iron ore prices are close to ~18-month lows (Fig31). Fundamentals remain challenging, with shipments strong so far in 2026, while demand is soft.

On the key signals: 1) Iron ore port inventories in China are down w/w to ~150Mt (Fig26), although we note >60% of these support blending and mill inventories, and are not available for spot purchases; iron ore inventories at steel mills (Fig30) have increased w/w and above usual seasonality trends; 2) Iron ore shipments from traditional markets (Fig2) are up +2% so far in 2026; ramp-up of the Simandou project in Guinea represents a meaningful near-term risk to iron ore supply – Simandou shipments stepped up in August to a run-rate of ~35Mtpa after a softer July (Fig8); 3) BF utilisation rates are broadly stable YTD based on MySteel data (Fig16), while steel production in China is down ~3% in January-July based on NBS (Fig20) and CISA data (Fig12); 4) Steel exports from China in January-July are down ~4% YTD (Fig21); 5) Net short positioning on the Dalian has rebuilt moderately since collapsing at the end of July (Fig40). 

Investing theme: 

We have Neutral ratings on Vale, BHP, RIO and FMG, and a Sell on KIO; we estimate spot 2027 FCF yields of 4% for BHP, 7% for RIO and 9% for Vale (interactive model).

Separately, the International Energy Agency said this week that it now expects coal demand to rise 1.2% to 8.94 billion tons in 2026. At the end of last year, it had projected a modest drop this year followed by further declines through 2030.

The IEA identified gas-to-coal switching in China, South Korea, Japan and Europe, showing how a Gulf supply shock is reshaping electricity generation far beyond the region, especially in Europe where natural gas prices have topped 80 euros per megawatt-hour.

Who's Got The Coal?

Given that the energy shock has been most acute in diesel, we suspect the current squeeze ahead of winter shows how quickly coal can regain ground when competing industrial fuels become scarce or expensive. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 14:30

Revised CLARITY Act Targets 'Non-Decentralized' DeFi Operators

Authored by Ezra Reguerra via Cointelegraph,

A revised version of the CLARITY Act would direct United States regulators to determine whether people or groups controlling "non-decentralized finance trading protocols" must comply with securities, commodities and anti-money laundering (AML) requirements.

The revised text, posted on Senator Cynthia Lummis' website, defines such a protocol as one whose functionality, operation, or rules can be materially altered by a person or coordinated group. The definition also covers protocols whose controllers can restrict users or whose transactions are not governed solely by transparent, pre-established code.

Under the proposal, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) would develop activity-based rules addressing registration, conduct, disclosure, recordkeeping and supervision. Meanwhile, the Treasury would establish how existing Bank Secrecy Act obligations apply to affected controllers.

The bill specifies that software and distributed ledger systems would not be required to register in their own capacity. It also says participation in an incident-response or security council would not, by itself, establish control over a protocol.

The revised text arrived ahead of a procedural Senate vote scheduled for Sept. 15. The measure requires 60 votes to advance, meaning Republicans will need support from Democrats despite continuing disagreements over ethics, anti-money laundering protections and stablecoin rewards.

Crypto industry backs bill as ethics dispute lingers

In a statement shared with Cointelegraph, Crypto Council for Innovation CEO Ji Hun Kim called Tuesday's vote a "pivotal moment" for digital assets, innovation and American leadership. Kim told Cointelegraph that the US needs a framework combining consumer protections with business conduct standards.

On Thursday, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong told CNBC that the CLARITY Act was "ready to get a yes vote." He said the "must-have issues" previously raised by Coinbase had been resolved, while negotiations over ethics restrictions remained active and appeared close to a solution. Armstrong did not specify which provisions had changed.

Despite this, the ethics section in the newly released text remained largely unchanged from the previous version, despite being one of the main points of contention in negotiations.

On Aug. 20, Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego warned against holding a vote before lawmakers resolved disputes involving ethics and stablecoin yield. "A fast vote gets you a fast result, but I'm not sure it's the result you want," Gallego said at the time.

Armstrong said that if the legislation does not advance, the SEC and CFTC could instead pursue rulemaking and innovation exemptions using their existing authority.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 14:15

Anthropic Says Russian, Chinese Threat Actors Used Its AI Model Claude For Malicious Activity

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

Anthropic said on Sept. 10 that it had disrupted malicious campaigns involving the use of its artificial intelligence model Claude, including operations allegedly linked to threat actors in China and Russia.

The company said the threat actors include suspected state-sponsored groups, financially motivated criminals, commercial spyware vendors, state propaganda institutions, and politically motivated individuals.

According to its report, most of the cyber operations detected between December 2025 and August 2026 were enabled by AI through direct execution or orchestration. Humans remained involved in selecting targets and reviewing exfiltration, it stated.

"The use of AI went beyond simple questions and responses from a chatbot but rather involved the use of multi-agent frameworks executing reconnaissance, exploitation, and data exfiltration," Anthropic said.

Among the threat actors named by the company was a group linked to Russia-based Midnight Blizzard. Anthropic alleged that the group used AI to attack military intelligence targets in Ukraine and Europe, as well as diplomatic and defense organizations and individuals connected to U.S. foreign policy.

Anthropic said it also disrupted distillation attacks against Claude from seven labs based in China, including operators allegedly linked to Alibaba, DeepSeek, Xiaomi, and Moonshot.

The company defined distillation as "an industrial-scale, covert campaign" aimed at illegally extracting the capabilities of an AI model and replicating them in another model.

Operators linked to Alibaba, China's largest e-commerce platform, carried out the largest distillation attack to advance the reasoning capabilities of Alibaba's models, generating more than 151 million exchanges between May and July 2026, the report found. The activity peaked at nearly 3 million exchanges per day launched from over 3,500 accounts that Anthropic deemed fraudulent.

Anthropic also alleged that Chinese AI company Moonshot secretly forwarded customer requests to Claude and then displayed the resulting responses to users as if they were generated by its AI model Kimi.

In one instance, Moonshot allegedly routed nearly 300,000 customer requests to Anthropic's model over a 10-day period using a proxy service network of 5,380 fraudulent accounts, most of which appeared to be located in Singapore and Japan, according to the report.

"Our investigation also revealed that user queries that Moonshot rerouted to Claude included sensitive information about various Moonshot customers," Anthropic said.

"We do not know if Moonshot notified their customers that their requests were being rerouted to Anthropic and exposed to a third party."

The report also identified new categories of threat actors misusing Claude, including those who seek to develop "software for conventional weapons, including firearms, missiles, armed drones, bombs, and other munitions."

Anthropic said it disrupted a "guided weapons engineering cell" operating three weapons development programs in northern Yemen that used Claude "to develop the guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) software that steers and stabilizes a flying vehicle."

According to the report, the threat actors allegedly test-fired a guided rocket but failed, prompting them to seek guidance from Claude to identify the cause of the failure.

Among other newly categorized threat actors was a China-based threat actor that used Claude to advance three parallel projects on "an anti-torpedo weapons system."

Anthropic also identified alleged Russia-based freelance threat actors who sought to build a "full-stack autonomous first-person-view kamikaze drone swarm" and another Russia-based actor who used Claude to research and draft procurement documents for goods likely intended for the Russian government and defense industry customers.

The company said it would continue to strengthen its safeguards and work with partners to prevent misuse of its AI model.

"In each case, we disrupted the activity, used what we learned to strengthen our safeguards, and shared intelligence with authorities and industry partners, where appropriate," it stated.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 13:35

US, Saudi Officials Confirm Kingdom's East-West Pipeline Attacked By Drones Out Of Iraq Summary

• Saudi oil pipeline attacked: US officials confirmed strikes on Saudi pumping stations, with drones likely launch from Iraq.
• Houthis expand in Yemen: Houthi forces are gaining control along the Red Sea coast, threatening key shipping routes.
• Oil and diesel prices rising: Russia's damaged refining capacity & shipping disruptions are also tightening fuel markets.
• Stagflation risk grows: Higher energy and shipping costs could push inflation higher while weakening global economic growth.

//--> //--> //--> Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by November 30?
Yes 13% · No 88%
View full market & trade on Polymarket US Officials Confirm East-West Pipeline Was Attacked, Saudis Blame Iraqi militants

Open source satellite imaging has shown the crucial 'Hormuz bypass' East-West oil pipeline that cuts straight across Saudi Arabia has been on fire. A some 80km to 100km giant smoke plume has been observed. The damaged section is said to be located near the town of Al Mesba'ah.

• SAUDI BLAMES OIL PIPELINE ATTACK ON DRONES FROM IRAQ: AP
• IRAQ PM ORDERS PROBE INTO ATTACKS ON SAUDI ARABIA: STATEMENT

Amid speculation that this is probably the result of a major Houthi attack out of Yemen, CNN in a new Friday report cites two US officials who've given confirmation that the pipeline was struck by projectiles on Thursday. Iraq was named as possible attack origin point. According to the report:

An early analysis found that pump stations, which are located next to the pipeline itself, were hit, one of the US officials said. A satellite image taken Friday appears to show extensive fire damage at one pumping station, and an image of a different pumping station, taken Thursday, showed a small fire sending up plumes of thick, black smoke.

It could have been the result of a drone attack by paramilitaries operating out of Iraq. "It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the strikes or if sections of the pipeline itself were damaged but one of the officials said it was struck by drones originating from Iraq," CNN reports. "It was also not immediately clear how long it would take to repair the damage, sources said."

On Sept. 10, via EUMETSAT/CNN

News on Saudi oil has gone from worse to worse, as in Yemen the Houthis have reportedly taken over the entire Red Sea coastline. They have renewed the threats to attack all Saudi (as well as Israeli) shipping, but have also sought to assure transit is 'safe' for other international vessels.

The pumping station struck yesterday is located near the town of Al Mesba'ah.

According to one of the U.S. officials who spoke to CNN, the drones that struck the pumping station along Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline originated from Iraq. It remains unclear whether the pipeline… pic.twitter.com/puOWM5VRlX

— OilPrice.com (@OilandEnergy) September 11, 2026 Threats Rapidly Converge

Three converging threats to watch are intensifying pressure on global energy markets: damage to Russian refining capacity, ongoing disruption at Hormuz, and new, expanding Houthi threats to Red Sea shipping. The resulting physical market squeeze extends well beyond the Gulf area. Record-high diesel prices in the US and other markets, such as China's return to buying crude, raise the risk that oil markets will remain exceptionally tight into the Northern Hemisphere winter. 

What we know so far is that the Russia-Ukraine war has knocked out a whole bunch of refining capacity and halted exports of critical fuels from Russia. The Gulf area has seen an escalation in fighting this week as the Hormuz chokepoint remains open with tanker transits but still limited and far from pre-war levels. 

Couple this all with the chokepoint madness still being disrupted and new developments overnight: Iran-backed Houthi forces advanced toward a strategic port near the southern entrance to the Red Sea, threatening to tighten control on a second critical shipping corridor. 

Houthis Take Yemen's Red Sea Coast

Bloomberg reported that Houthi rebels have gained ground around Mokha, with some geopolitical analysts reporting that the Yemeni port city has fallen. 

🇾🇪 Total collapse: The entire coastline from Dhubab to Mayyun island was abandoned. Mayyun, Duhbab and Murd now controlled by Houthi forces as of September 11

A major global event. The Houthis now have the capacity to block ships now more than ever. Bab Al Mandab at their mercy https://t.co/ycUtzCcPq8 pic.twitter.com/EfVc5GdbZv

— The Cube (@war_cube) September 11, 2026

Its fall would give the Houthis another coastal stronghold alongside Hodeida and the ability to control more of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, suggesting commercial traffic could begin to drop and transits would be rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope, increasing shipping time and freight costs. 

Alternative Route: Cape of Good Hope

On top of this, China has returned to global oil markets, and ex-Goldman Commodities head Jeff Currie warned Thursday that this is the real driver of soaring crude prices. 

Saudi Key East-West Pipeline on Fire

Also overnight, Saudi Arabia's East-West oil pipeline appears to have been struck by Houthi forces, which the pipeline served as an oil escape route, effectively bypassing the Hormuz chokepoint to the Red Sea.

Andrew Farrand, a political-risk analyst at Horizon Engage, described the rapid Houthi advance as a major setback for Saudi efforts in Yemen, warning that it could bring the Houthis closer to territory overlooking the waterway's narrowest section. 

Simultaneous disruption of Bab el-Mandeb Strait and Strait of Hormuz creates a two-sided squeeze: less energy can leave the Gulf, while tankers that can move face longer, more expensive journeys. It also threatens Saudi Arabia's Red Sea terminal.

Beyond Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb, these are the main straits to watch: 

Global Maritime Chokepoints

Where the routes narrow

What could interrupt commercial traffic

Stage Set for Stagflationary Squeeze?

The twin disruptions threaten shipping corridors that carried roughly a quarter of global seaborne oil trade through Hormuz and through Bab el-Mandeb, while jeopardizing a Red Sea shipping route central to trade between Asia and Europe and risking ignition of a stagflationary squeeze as diesel prices soar to new highs that eventually feed into supply chains, freight costs, and ultimately, at a lag, higher prices on store shelves. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 12:53

Now They Think Babies Can Be Racist...

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

A woman sat in front of a camera this week and told the internet she had witnessed a "racist baby"...

Not a joke account. Not a sketch. A straight-faced lecture about an infant who looked at someone for a few seconds - and, in her telling, revealed the original sin of race hatred barely out of the womb.

The woman declares that "watching children mirror racist behavior is WILD." She describes a baby staring at her 'friend of colour', the mother looking stricken, and then announces that the child is "literally mimicking" hostility toward "black and brown people."

This retard says she saw a "racist baby"

This person is a legit retard.. this is somehow not a joke.

Unbelievable pic.twitter.com/R5UUfig5AN

— Retard Finder (@IfindRetards) September 10, 2026

She also flashes a 2012 Science Daily headline as if it were a conviction.

This is the new priesthood. A baby looks at a black person and the verdict is racism.

Anyone who has any experience at all with babies knows they stare. At glasses. At beards. At bald heads, bright coats, dogs, ceiling fans, and their own hands. They are cataloguing the world with amazement, not forming a manifesto.

Obviously, she's never had children. Babies also stare at people with glasses if they've never seen a person with glasses, they stare at all kinds of things they've never seen before. It's called learning and it's up to the parents to teach them from then on.

— Dee Dee (@littleDisme) September 10, 2026

The woman in the video treats curiosity as contamination. She reaches for a University of Massachusetts Amherst study from 2012 - "Infants begin to learn about race in the first year" - and reads it as proof that a pre-verbal child is already a bigot.

The paper does not say that. It found that by nine months, babies get better at recognising familiar-looking faces and worse at telling apart unfamiliar ones.

Psychologist Lisa Scott, an author of the work, said the results "suggest that biases in face recognition and perception begin in preverbal infants, well before concepts about race are formed."

Face recognition is not a worldview. A nine-month-old does not have a theory of systemic oppression.

They diagnosed a baby with racism. That's the priesthood now.

— Storm Files (@TheStormFiles) September 10, 2026

Leftwing women hate babies so much, they can't hide it.

— Ames (@VivaLaAmes11) September 10, 2026

This is not an isolated freak-out. It sits inside a wider epidemic of deranged white leftist women.

They police stares, invent motives for infants, and treat ordinary childhood as a moral emergency. These people staff HR departments, classrooms, nurseries and social-work offices. They write the guidance.

They decide which toddler is a "perpetrator." exporting their own neurosis onto the smallest most innocent people in the room.

Her assumptions she has about a babies thoughts on black people are the thoughts she has about black people.

It's a clever way to say you hate black people.

— Mike Mossey (@Mikemossey) September 10, 2026

In fairness, the baby refused to acknowledge his privilege, denounce systemic oppression, or even apologize for it's unconscious bias.

The baby needs Infant Bias Intervention, Diapers, Diversity & Inclusion or Critical Cradle Theory as soon as he finishes the bottle.?

— SUPA DUPA FUPA™ (@TheFupaverse) September 10, 2026

You are a gift and a savior to black people everywhere I don't know what they would do without you

— Trip Pache (@DrSlayyyy) September 10, 2026

pic.twitter.com/Rpfrq2e6xv

— The Vat of Butter (@theVatOfButter) September 10, 2026

The viral clip would be easier to laugh off if governments were not writing the same fantasy into official guidance.

In Wales, childcare workers have been trained under a taxpayer-funded programme - more than £1.3 million via the Welsh Government - to spot "racist incidents" among toddlers and, if staff decide the behaviour could amount to a hate crime, contact police.

The toolkit from Diversity and Anti-Racist Professional Learning (DARPL) at Cardiff Metropolitan University has been circulated to more than 300 nurseries, playgroups and childminders.

Staff are told to audit toys and books for "diversity," discuss skin colour with very young children, and rate their own grasp of "white privilege" on a one-to-five scale. If the incident falls short of a hate crime, workers are advised to offer "age-appropriate learning support opportunities for the perpetrator." If that is "met with resistance," a disciplinary route appears on a flowchart. The "perpetrator" may still be in nappies.

Lucy Marsh, communications officer at the Family Education Trust, asked "Do they want toddlers to have a criminal record?"

Kent Police went one better. A one-year-old girl was logged as a crime suspect after allegedly causing a minor injury to another toddler.

Freedom of Information figures showed 683 children under 10 reported for offences over three years - including six two-year-olds, 11 three-year-olds and 20 four-year-olds.

None can be prosecuted. The age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales is 10. Kent County Council cabinet member for children's services, Councillor Paul Webb, called the numbers "not great." Chief Superintendent Rob Marsh said the focus was "safeguarding rather than punishment." The record still exists. A baby is on a crime log.

The contempt is not limited to infants who look at people the wrong way. Wanting people to have children at all has been recast as an extremist project. Politico framed a natalism conference as proof that "the far right is so obsessed with making babies, they just held a whole conference about it."

Reporter Gaby Del Valle treated collapsing fertility as a punchline and smeared those who notice it as plotters of "a total social overhaul."

Meanwhile the CDC recorded a U.S. fertility rate of 1.6 in 2023 against a replacement level of 2.1. A Lancet study put the global rate at 2.23 and warned the world's population will start to fall within decades. Co-author Dr Natalia Bhattacharjee said declining fertility "will completely reconfigure the global economy and the international balance of power." That is biology, not a rally chant.

So the sequence is complete. Have children and you are suspect. The children themselves are suspect. A glance is evidence. A nursery becomes a reporting desk. The state writes "racist" next to a toddler and calls it safeguarding.

A baby is not a political actor. It does not owe a land acknowledgement between feeds. It does not need Critical Cradle Theory. It needs parents who are attached to reality and institutions that stop treating childhood as a crime scene.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 12:45

DeepSeek's New Hyper-Efficient Model Stokes Fears Over Korea's Memory Makers

Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix each fell more than 3% in Seoul on Friday after DeepSeek said its newest AI model needs a fraction of the memory required by its predecessor. Both stocks had been trying to recover from July's selloff and remain more than 25% below their highs. Local retail traders, who helped drive the rally earlier this year, have sold around $10 billion of the pair this month alone.

The trigger came Thursday out of Hangzhou. DeepSeek's V4.1-Flash is fast, cheap and, by the company's own numbers, stronger than its flagship model. But the title of DeepSeek's paper had nothing to do with intelligence benchmarks. It called the release "Pushing the Limits of KV Cache Compression," and its abstract identifies memory consumption during long AI sessions as the main obstacle to making these models cheaper to run.

What DeepSeek Shipped

V4.1-Flash is a 552-billion-parameter model (parameters are the numerical values a model learns during training). DeepSeek does not activate all 552 billion for every word. It uses 8 billion parameters while processing input and 16 billion while generating output, a design that lowers the amount of computing needed for each step.

The model can handle a context window of one million tokens, meaning roughly a million small pieces of text or other input can remain available to it during a session. It also reads images natively, and its model weights are available under an MIT license, allowing anyone with sufficient hardware to run it. Nine providers were serving it through OpenRouter within a day of release.

The memory problem needs a little more explanation. As an AI model works through a long document, conversation or agent task, it keeps a running record of what it has already processed so it does not have to recalculate everything from scratch each time it generates another token. That record is called the key-value cache, or KV cache.

The cache is normally stored in high-bandwidth memory, or HBM. HBM consists of stacks of DRAM placed next to the processor to move data extremely quickly. It is among the fastest and most expensive memory in production, and booming AI demand for it helped turn SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron into some of the biggest semiconductor trades of 2026. As an AI session gets longer, however, the cache keeps growing. In long-running agent workloads, the memory needed for the cache can eventually exceed the memory occupied by the model itself.

DeepSeek has attacked that problem directly. Its new architecture reuses cached information across layers of the network, stores the cache at 4-bit precision and reconstructs part of it when needed rather than storing the entire record. The result, according to DeepSeek, is 890 bytes of cache per token, one-quarter of what the previous Flash model kept in HBM and one-eighth of what it wrote to SSD storage.

DeepSeek's post on X gave the commercial reason plainly. Cached input can account for a large share of the cost of running an AI agent. Shrink the cache, and the bill falls with it.

Memory Per Token, Down 437-Fold

The figure in DeepSeek's paper that matters most for Seoul is the second one. It tracks the amount of cache memory required for every token across successive generations of DeepSeek models. From the company's first release in January 2024 to V4.1-Flash, that figure has fallen 437-fold.

KV cache per token, indexed to the V4 predecessor at full context. Chained from DeepSeek's stated ratios; V4.1-Flash's persistent SSD cache falls further, to one-eighth of V4-Flash. Source: DeepSeek model card; Wccftech.

The decline did not begin this week. April's V4 had already cut KV-cache requirements to one-tenth of its predecessor at the full context window. September's model reduced them by another three-quarters. DeepSeek describes V4.1-Flash as the smallest member of a new architecture family designed to scale to larger models.

On the other side of that chart are the growth assumptions embedded in the memory trade. Micron says its entire calendar 2026 HBM supply is already contracted on both price and volume. In December, the company told investors the HBM market could grow from about $35 billion in 2025 to roughly $100 billion in 2028. By June it had moved the $100 billion estimate forward to 2027.

Micron reports earnings on September 30 and has guided the quarter to roughly $50 billion in revenue, about 350% above the year-earlier period, with an 86% gross margin.

How much premium memory each unit of AI work requires is the whole point. 

Out With The 'Old' 

This seems a little risky, but beginning September 14, DeepSeek will route every request for V4-Pro, its 1.6-trillion-parameter flagship, to V4.1-Flash and charge the lower Flash rate until a V4.1-Pro arrives. No date has been given for the larger model.

DeepSeek says the smaller model now beats V4-Pro on performance, cost, speed and the time required to complete a task. Model size alone is becoming a worse guide to how much computing and memory a useful AI system will consume.

Against the leading American models, V4.1-Flash fits the pattern that has held for much of this year. On DeepSeek's own benchmark tables, it narrowly beats the best reported score from Claude Opus 5 or GPT-5.6 Sol on Terminal-Bench 2.1, DeepSWE, CyberGym and Humanity's Last Exam when tools are allowed.

On newer and harder tests, however, the American frontier remains well ahead. V4.1-Flash scores 30.0 against Opus's 43.3 on Terminal-Bench 3.0, 31.2 against 51.8 on version 4.0, 20.3 against 37.0 on ProgramBench, and 15.3 against GPT-5.6 Sol's 33.7 on ExploitGym. The results have not been independently verified.

DeepSeek's open model is clearing benchmarks that defined the frontier last year at a fraction of the price, while the American frontier keeps moving to harder tests. It is the same pattern seen with V4-Flash earlier this year.

86x Cheaper!?

According to X user NIK (@ns123abc), V4.1-Flash is 86 times cheaper than the American flagships. This is because AI providers charge separately for input tokens, the material sent into the model; output tokens, the material the model generates; and cached input, previously processed material that can be reused without running the full computation again.

At peak hours, V4.1-Flash costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens, with prices cut in half during off-peak hours. Anthropic charges $5 and $25 for Claude Opus 5. On output, that makes DeepSeek roughly 20 times cheaper at peak and about 40 times cheaper off-peak.

Deepseek just dropped v4.1 flash, fully open weights

it beats gpt 5.6 sol, opus 5 and every chinese model on coding and cybersecurity at ~86x cheaper cost per million tokens running at 420-507 tok/s = faster than gemini 3.8 flash

"smallest model in our new architecture family"… pic.twitter.com/02Fft2OKTB

— NIK (@ns123abc) September 10, 2026

The 86-fold figure comes from cached input. Anthropic charges 50 cents per million cached tokens, while DeepSeek charges six-tenths of a cent. Cached input is precisely the cost DeepSeek's new memory architecture was built to reduce.

Peak-hour list prices per million tokens, log scale. The 83x on cached input is what the listed rates give; the 86x circulating on X is that post's own math. Source: VentureBeat; Dataconomy.

Meanwhile, DeepSeek raised its prices only a month ago. On August 16 it moved V4-Flash from flat rates of $0.14 for input and $0.28 for output to peak rates of $0.44 and $1.32. Thursday's release brought those prices back down, although not to July's levels, while giving V4-Pro customers a reduction of roughly 70%.

V4-Flash list prices at launch, after the August 16 hike, and at Thursday's V4.1-Flash release. Off-peak rates are half of peak. Source: TechJack Solutions; VentureBeat.

The timing also comes as DeepSeek moves toward the public markets. On Wednesday, Reuters reported that the company had hired CITIC Securities to prepare for a Shanghai listing. That followed a June financing round of about $7.4 billion involving investors including Tencent and CATL, along with reports of another potential round at a valuation near 500 billion yuan.

July Was Supply, September Is Demand

The July selloff in Korean memory stocks centered on supply. SK Hynix signaled a major increase in spending, while Chinese memory manufacturers continued ramping cheaper output.

Friday's scare came from the other side of the market: each unit of AI activity needing fewer memory chips.

Micron and SanDisk, which held up overnight, were rising in Friday's premarket after Oracle's cloud results. The Korean names, where leverage and local retail participation are greater, took the immediate hit.

Moves of 5% or more in a single day remain common for both Samsung and SK Hynix. Bloomberg notes that volatility remains near levels last seen during the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid shock. The shares also look inexpensive on conventional measures. Samsung trades at about 2.7 times book value and Hynix at 5 times, compared with roughly 11 times for the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index. Both Korean companies trade near 4 times forward earnings, versus 19 times for the index.

Within hours, Fibonacci Asset Management's Jung In Yun said cheaper AI could drive more usage and offset the efficiency gains. Eugene Asset Management's Ha SeokKeun called the issue a near-term concern.

When Seoul reopened after the Lunar New Year on January 31 last year, eleven days after DeepSeek's R1 release, SK Hynix fell as much as 12% in a day and Samsung dropped 4%. Investors initially feared that more efficient models would weaken demand for AI hardware. Instead, AI spending kept climbing, and the argument that lower costs stimulate greater usage won the year that followed.

R1 challenged the amount of computing required to produce useful AI. V4.1-Flash is attacking the amount of memory required for every token, and DeepSeek has published a chart, running back to January 2024, showing that requirement falling by more than 400-fold. The company also says the same architecture is intended for larger models.

Export Controls And Huawei's Own HBM

Since December 2024, U.S. export controls have barred sales of advanced HBM to China, making access to fast memory one of the hardware constraints on Chinese AI developers.

Huawei has been working on a domestic alternative. Its Ascend 950DT uses Huawei-made HiZQ 2.0 memory, with 144 gigabytes of capacity and bandwidth of 4 terabytes per second. That remains well behind the HBM SK Hynix supplies for Nvidia's leading accelerators.

DeepSeek's V4 in April was the first frontier model validated on Huawei Ascend hardware alongside Nvidia chips. The company also has a reported order for 160,000 Ascend 950DT processors for a gigawatt-scale data center in Ulanqab.

So - a model that needs one-quarter as much memory per token can be deployed more broadly on hardware that has less memory to offer. The V4.1-Flash model card does not identify the hardware used to train the model.

DeepSeek has not announced a date for the larger member of the V4.1 family. Micron reports on September 30.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 12:25

Trump Says He Wouldn't Have Bombed Nuke-Armed Iran

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com

President Trump said at the Republican National Midterm Convention in Dallas, Texas, on Wednesday night that if Iran had a nuclear weapon, he would have politely called up the Supreme Leader instead of "bombing the crap" out of the country.

"If they had a nuclear weapon, I’d be calling the Supreme Leader, and I’d be saying, ‘Mr. Supreme Leader, how are you, sir? Is there anything we can do for you?’ as opposed to bombing the crap out of him." Trump said, evoking cheers from the crowd.

TRUMP ON IRAN: “If they had a nuclear weapon, I'd be calling the Supreme Leader and I'd be saying, ‘Mr. Supreme Leader, how are you, sir? Is there anything we can do for you?' as opposed to bombing the crap out of him."

“It's very simple. We cannot let them have a nuclear… pic.twitter.com/hGqijfXZFT

— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 10, 2026

"It’s very simple. We cannot let them have a nuclear weapon," the president added.

While Trump has continued to frame his war with Iran as necessary to prevent the country from obtaining nuclear weapons, there was no evidence either before the June 2025 war or the current conflict that Tehran had decided to pursue a bomb, and that was the consensus of US intelligence agencies at the beginning of Trump’s second term.

"We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003, though pressure has probably built on him to do so," read the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s annual threat assessment that was published in March 2025 and represented the assessment of the entire US intelligence community.

Trump also spent the months following the June 2025 war, known as the 12-Day War, boasting that the US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities had "obliterated" its nuclear program.

During negotiations with the US before both wars, Iran made clear it was willing to reduce uranium enrichment back down to 3.67%, the level it agreed to under the 2015 nuclear deal, far below the 90% needed for weapons-grade.

But as Joe Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center who resigned due to opposition to the Iran war, has pointed out, the administration adopted the Israeli position, conflating any nuclear enrichment for civilian energy purposes with a desire for a nuclear bomb.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 12:10

Mideast Chaos Sends Supertanker Rates Soaring To Near Record $1 Million A Day

Summary:

• Gulf Tanker Rates Hyperinflate 
• A day later: Mideast Chaos Sends Supertanker Rates Soaring To Nearly $1 Million A Day 
• Mideast Chaos Sends Supertanker Rates Soaring To $800,000 A Day

Supertanker rates on the Baltic Exchange's benchmark Middle East-to-China shipping route have jumped to nearly $1 million a day.

The jump in tanker rates comes as the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the southern Red Sea falls further under the control of Iran-backed Houthi rebels, while the Strait of Hormuz remains highly contested, an indication that two critical maritime chokepoints are under severe threat.

The squeeze on shipping costs extends beyond the Persian Gulf area, with VLCCs traveling from Oman to China costing $571,000 a day, even though Oman’s ports sit outside Hormuz. That is roughly 10 times last year’s average.

For buyers seeking alternative supplies in the Gulf of America, shipping crude from the US Gulf to China now adds about $18 a barrel.

The windfall for shipowners is becoming a cost shock for the wider energy market.

The Breakwave Tanker Shipping ETF (BWET), which gives investors exposure to the cost of transporting crude oil by sea through tanker freight futures, has had an impressive run so far this year:

With inventories falling and buyers competing for supplies, freight is threatening to become another bottleneck, keeping available barrels from reaching the markets that need them.

Mideast Chaos Sends Supertanker Rates Soaring To $800,000 A Day 

Supertanker rates on the Baltic Exchange's benchmark Middle East-to-China shipping route have surged to a staggering $800,000 a day. With US forces having destroyed five Iranian-linked tankers and Tehran threatening further escalation in recent days, prospects for near-term stabilization remain limited.

The freight surge signals that crude oil and refined products continue to flow but are becoming increasingly costly to transport out of the Gulf region to global markets.

According to Bloomberg, US Gulf-to-Asia shipments on very large crude carriers average about $29.5 million per voyage, equivalent to $15 a barrel before any additional war-risk charges or unexpected delays.

Kpler expects VLCC earnings to remain above $100,000 a day into early next year, compared with historical levels that exceeded $45,000. Morgan Stanley analysts point out that two-year leasing rates could surge another 20% to 30%.

Manu Sehgal, vice president of strategy and feedstock supply at Indian refiner HPCL-Mittal Energy, told Bloomberg that "crude volume is there. What's hampering it is the transit; what's hampering it is the shipping."

A fleet of tankers conducting ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman is helping keep barrels flowing through the Hormuz chokepoint. Vitol's CEO estimated earlier this week that roughly 10 million barrels a day were crossing the waterway, while Goldman analysts put that figure at around 15 million.

The Baltic Exchange's new Gulf of Oman-to-East Asia benchmark has surged 85% since inception, reaching almost $386,000 a day this week.

This means surging tanker rates add another layer of inflation pressure for global central banks. Those costs can filter through to gasoline, diesel, freight, and ultimately consumer goods on store shelves. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 11:52

Piper Sandler Sounds Alarm: Shrinking Oil Buffers To Collide With Winter Demand

Piper Sandler global energy strategist Jan Stuart wrote in a note on Friday that the physical oil market is flashing major warning signs, including disrupted exports, depleted inventories, and an ongoing diesel shortage crisis, all converging ahead of stronger fourth-quarter demand.

Saudi Arabia's export squeeze is becoming a major problem. The kingdom's crude shipments remain halved as Iran-backed Houthis begin to dent Red Sea loadings while Persian Gulf shipments remain depressed. Houthis overnight seized Mokha in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, suggesting commercial traffic could begin to drop.  

Some crude crosses Hormuz through "dark" tanker passages along the Omani channel. But the partial recovery has not restored regional exports: Middle Eastern crude loadings averaged 13.3 million barrels a day in the week through Sept. 9, with Stuart warning that the shortfall is roughly 5 million to 6 million barrels a day.

Stuart added more color on the current state of the Gulf energy market: 

The Flowing Oil Data Digest

Dire Straits, Choking Oil Exports Through Two of Three Mideast Waterways

Sure this is "not a war" but the oil market is rallying like it is: Futures gained ~$10/b on the week (so far); structure is exploding; physical markets in Asia are leading - and are most dependent on Mideast exports. And, adding insult to economic injury, surging crude oil values are barely compressing diesel margins.

Seems to us that oil markets began to price several deep problems: 

A) there are no easy, quick resolutions to the war in the Mideast or the one in Ukraine. 

B) tellingly, Washington hasn't claimed an "imminent deal" in weeks - ask us for color from conversations with DC insiders at our 12th Annual Piper Sandler Macro Conference. 

C) physical market behavior underscores that there are real supply deficits of crude oil, 3-4 mb/d, and traded diesel supply remains short too.

In vogue suddenly are Saudi troubles the Houthis have curtailed Red Sea crude oil loadings, while its Persian Gulf loadings remain moribund. Aggregate KSA crude oil exports have averaged barely 3 mb/d (less than half of 'normal') since late July. This week, Houthi attacks and military advances threaten a longer lasting choke-hold. Absolutely fascinating is that reportedly Pres Trump twice declined to assist MbS who, again reportedly, asked for him to bomb the Houthis.

Lastly, sentiment is turning on Q2 demand' destruction' that in fact that was more 'suppression' (i.e. it comes back again) and inventory depletion (i.e. unsustainable). Inside: market signals and loadings data.

2026 Brent: Spot Brent v Dubai pulling away

Shape of the Brent Futures Curve (month 1-6)

MARKET SIGNALS AND DATA TO WATCH – MIDEAST LOADINGS AND DIESEL SCARCITY

Things are tightening up in a hurry, as we approach peak seasonal demand in Q4 with far less inventory

Asia's refiners scramble to fill Q4 schedules …

• Much is made of "China buying again" we don't know if it is, but it strikes us that given historic diesel margins, every refiner that can run crude oil is buying to run At the margin, that means that even simple, hugely cost disadvantaged refiners will want more crude oil.
• And the easy to get at oil released during the MoU phase of the war on Iran - some 200-300 mbs worth - has been digested, nor is there nearly as much inventory left to draw on.
• Despite sustained relatively high crude oil exports through the SoH - or about 9 mb/d, total Mideast exports remain some 5 mb/d below normal judging from the latest daily loadings data, see p. 2.
• China's crude oil buying may have picked up, it was way too low (down >4mb/d to 7 mb/d). We model imports of 10 mb/d in Q4
• We think and model that China did not suppress its final oil product demand by that much and instead drew some 250+ mbs from its vast inventories. In an open-ended supply disruption no one (China included) can keep drawing down inventories.

Indicative Margins: ~2x normal on global supply shock diesel, rbob and the gross 3:2:1 margin v dated brent

Strength (=backwardation) in Key Crude Oil Markets (Futures contracts 2-7, $/b)

China's Crude Oil Inventory: Volume & import cover

WHAT FLOWS: MIDEAST OIL LOADINGS & TRANSITS, IMPLIED DEFICITS OF ~5 MB/D

For the record, since July 15th overt SoH crossings have been sharply reduced; but there is a more or less steady flow of dark passages through the Omani channel

• Mideast crude oil loadings averaged 13.3 mb/d (7 days ending September 9th). That's a post-MoU record.
• But traffic in the SoH is still far from normal
• And Saudi Red Sea flows remain below wartime par…

We compile tanker loadings (Petro-Logistics) and monitor refiner utilization (OilX et al).

• Mideast crude oil loadings are running about 6 mb/d below normal with SoH gains offset by Red Sea declines
• The market seems to have finally woken up about Red Sea issues - these involve the UAE, Oman and Saudi's Red Sea terminals. Latest: outside Hormuz is down ~3 mb/d from peak
• Add to that a deficit of some ~2-3 mb/d of NGLs and add to that deficit our guesstimate of some 3 mb/d of the roughly 5 mb/d of clean products that were exported from the Mideast and that will not run normally for a while yet …

Redirecting of flow through new-/expanded-pipes will take anywhere from 1-2 yrs (UAE & Saudi) to from 3+ yrs to never

Mideast loadings rise to 13.3 mb/d Based on daily tracking

Mideast Port Loading Deltas of Crude Oil + Cond.

To sum up, the partial recovery in Hormuz flows has not resolved the physical supply deficit, while new pressure on Red Sea exports is derailing the critical alternative route. With inventories depleted and fourth-quarter demand approaching, the market has less capacity to absorb further disruption, leaving crude and diesel prices vulnerable to even higher prices. 

Professional subscribers can track energy market trends here at our new Marketdesk.ai portal. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 11:40

Rate-Hike Odds Soar Despite Lowest Core Consumer Price Inflation Since 2021

Following fuel-driven jump in Producer Prices, consensus was for a concomitant jump MoM in Consumer prices this morning, after last month's decline as energy prices have rebounded (though we warned that amid all the interventionist-y chatter, nothing would surprise us less than 'cool' print to offset the PPI scare).

And analysts were right with headline CPI rising 0.4% MoM (exactly as expected) - biggest MoM since May - but prices rose 3.5% YoY (in line with expectations and flat to the prir month)...

Core Services accelerated...

...BUT Fuel prices dominated the rise in headline CPI...

Headline CPI rose 0.4% MoM in August, after rising 0.1% in July. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 3.4%.

• The index for energy increased 2.1 percent over the month: The index for gasoline rose 3.9% in August, accounting for over one third of the monthly all items increase.
• The shelter index rose 0.3 percent in August after rising 0.1 percent in July.
• The index for food increased 0.1 percent over the month, as the index for food away from home increased 0.3 percent.

Just like we saw yesterday with PPI, the rebound in crude (and refined product) prices snapped CPI's Energy component notably higher...

 Energy helping on a 6m annualized basis but hurting on a 3m annualized basis...

Core CPI rose 0.3% (0.29% rounded up) MoM (hotter than the 0.2% exp) but on a YoY basis it decline from 2.5% to 2.4% - the lowest since March 2021...

Core CPI rose 0.3% after increasing 0.2% in July. Core CPI rose 2.4% over the year, following a 2.5% increase over the 12 months ending July.

• Indexes that increased over the month include communication, lodging away from home, airline fares, education, and used cars and trucks.
• Conversely, the index for medical care and the index for motor vehicle insurance were among the major indexes that decreased in August.

MoM Core CPI (0.3%) Details

• The shelter index increased 0.3% over the month after rising 0.1% in July.
• The index for owners’ equivalent rent rose 0.2% in August as did the index for rent.
• The lodging away from home index rose 2.4% in August after falling 2.8 percent the previous month.
• The index for communication increased 2.3% over the month after rising 0.6% in July.
• The airline fares index rose 2.7% in August, and the education index increased 0.8%.
• The index for used cars and trucks increased 0.4% in August, and the index for new vehicles rose 0.3%
• The personal care index and the household furnishings and operations index also increased over the month.
• The medical care index decreased 0.2 percent in August after rising 0.4 percent in July.
• The index for dental services fell 0.6 percent over the month.
• The hospital services index, physicians’ services index, and prescription drugs index were all unchanged in August.
• The motor vehicle insurance index declined 0.8 percent in August after falling 0.3 percent in July.
• The index for apparel was unchanged in August as was the index for recreation.

YoY Core CPI (2.4%) Details

• The shelter index increased 3.0 percent over the last year.
• Other indexes with notable increases over the last year include airline fares (+23.4 percent), recreation (+2.7 percent), medical care (+1.6 percent), and personal care (+3.8 percent).

Shelter dropped...

• Shelter Inflation rose 0.26% MoM, and up 2.75% YoY, down from 2.86% YoY in July and the lowest since March

• Rent inflation rose 0.23% MoM, same as July, and up 3.04% YoY, down from 3.18% in July and the lowest since March

The much-watched SuperCore CPI (Services ex-shelter) rose notably on a YoY basis...

...with a big spike in Education & Comms costs...

Driven by a record jump in Telephone Services...

Which was all Wireless Telephone price hikes...

Here's JPMorgan with an explainer:

Education and communication goods: This category posted a near-record 1.3% rise in July, led by computer prices, as Apple repriced its Mac and iPad products.

Memory prices should continue to put upward pressure on computers and phones, which sometimes takes the form of new features being combined with price increases. 

One more thing...

Bloomberg's Simon White notes that the fastest-changing input in the CPI report betrays signs that AI spending is leaking into consumer prices via the information and information processing sector.

The chart below shows the change in each CPI component’s contribution (based on its weight in the basket) to the year-on-year headline number between July and August.

The information processing sector is contributing only 0.03 percentage points to the headline rate of 3.4% at the moment, but this has risen faster than any other sector.

It includes IT hardware, where prices are starting to rise for semiconductor and memory chips, as data centers are massively fueling demand.

Apple recently announced a rise in the price of its iPhone.

If the impact from data-center spend continues, then it’s clearly an upside risk for CPI, but it should be borne in mind along with leading indicators for inflation, which are rolling over and anticipate a more subdued backdrop for price pressures over the next few months.

As an aside, real average hourly earnings growth was negative for the 5th month in a row (is it any wonder consumer confidence is low)...

On the bright-side, we are decoupling from the 19070s CPI analog...

Understandably, a lower CPI print is better for markets, and JPM's market scenario analysis affirms that:

• Core MoM prints above 0.30%. SPX declines 1.5% – 2.5%; Odds 10.0%

• Core MoM prints between 0.25% – 0.30%. SPX declines 25bp – 1%, Odds 25.0%

• Core MoM prints between 0.20% – 0.25%. SPX gains 50bp – 1.25%, Odds 30.0%

• Core MoM prints between 0.15% – 0.20%. SPX gains 1% – 1.5%, Odds 25.0%

• Core MoM prints below 0.15%. SPX gains 1.5% – 2%, Odds 10.0%

For now, rate-hike odds soared to over 90%, almost certain pricing for a 25bps move higher by Warsh and his pals next week...

Rate-change expectations for 2026 has swung wildly this year from over 60bps of cuts in Feb to now 47bps of hikes (the highest of the cycle)...

Wall Street is now convinced Warsh is cornered...

Top Goldman short-term macro trader, Brian Bingham, noted that:

“The Fed is now in the most paradoxical of all positions, beholden to a single data print and potentially reactive to the rounding on the ECO screen…

Warsh told the market in his first press conference that he didn’t want to focus on the number to the right of the decimal point, but now it’s the number to the right of that one that will be the determinant. Waller’s speech on Thursday was surprisingly and overtly dovish, confirming our view that the Board skews heavily if not unanimously dovish relative to the regional presidents, but offered little new information beyond implicitly confirming a 30bp core CPI will merit a hike.

The market appears to be penciling the over/under at 25, but we struggle to see a meaningful rally on an in-line 20bp core print following this week’s jobs report; in a world where the meeting goes in pricing greater than 50% chance of a hike, the risk of the bond market interpreting a hold as a policy error seem far greater than the harm of hiking into above-target inflation.”

UBS FX team noted a somewhat muted reaction in currencies (dollar spiked then slipped lower)...

Warsh painted himself in a corner here. Well, we've gotten the hard language tough guy speech at Jackson Hole.

His remarks were prepared and his messaging was intentional.

Now, we've gotten the data - labor market print more robust, inflation still supported.

September FOMC pricing goes to just under 23bp immediately, so the market is pretty much fully expecting a hike to come.

At this point, it would be a massive blow to credibility if they fumble the football on following through with the adjustment, but the market seems to have been correct to lean into this data with a long USD gamma bias.

Interestingly, the yield curve is flattening rapidly (Fed credibility at the long-end? locked in hike will slow growth?)...

So while the world and his pet rabbit was watching for 0.2% or 0.3% - knowing energy would be a driver - it turns out it was cellphone carriers hiking prices that had forced Warsh into a corner.

Bottom line: surging cell phone prices (thanks to memory) were the deciding factor between the Core CPI printing 0.2% and 0.3%. https://t.co/KehMJOCgUj

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 11, 2026

The jawboning is over... it's shit or get off the pot time for Kevin (every new Fed head is tested early on by the markets).

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 11:30

Dies-aster: California Diesel Nears $10 A Gallon As Global Fuel Crisis Deepens

New AAA data show US diesel prices reached a record $6.05 a gallon, signaling severe tightening in global refined-fuel markets.

The squeeze reflects converging pressures: damage to Russian refinery capacity and diesel export halts linked to the Russia-Ukraine war, ongoing disruption at Hormuz, expanding threats to Red Sea shipping, and renewed Chinese buying. Together, these developments threaten both fuel availability and the shipping routes needed to deliver supplies, with conditions appearing to worsen ahead of the Northern Hemisphere winter.

Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, wrote on X that five gas stations in California have maxed out their diesel prices at $9.999 a gallon.

MAXXED OUT at $9.999!! GasBuddy data showing 5 stations in California that have hit the limit and are selling diesel at the dispensers highest possible price: $9.999/gal

— Patrick De Haan (@GasBuddyGuy) September 10, 2026

Gas in bay park San Diego today
BAHAHHAHAHAH
8.99 regular
9.99 diesel (probably higher that’s just as high as the sign can go hahahaha) pic.twitter.com/2B5yMVe8mP

— 𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙕 𝙼𝙽𝚃𝙻𝙼𝚁𝙺𝚃𝚂 (@MntlmrktsChaz) September 10, 2026

The inflation risk extends well beyond gas stations. Diesel powers the industrial economy, and soaring prices risk creating a stagflationary squeeze. Diesel powers trucking, freight rail, farm machinery and construction equipment, so its cost spreads across the economy in many forms, from higher grocery bills to squeezed business margins to even weaker consumer spending.

The latest retail diesel price spike follows a renewed surge in crude, with Brent reaching nearly $110 a barrel overnight before falling to $104 after an IEA report warned about potential demand destruction for industrial fuels.

S&P Global Energy warned Thursday that it does not forecast Middle East crude production to return to prewar levels by the end of 2027.

Citi analysts warned Friday that soaring commodity costs and diesel prices will weigh on many of the companies in their coverage universe through the first half of next year:

In 2025, commodity costs were mildly inflationary except for select inputs such as coffee, gas, and tallow which up meaningful +DD%. However, in 2026, commodity inflation has reaccelerated with acute pressure on direct and indirect energy-based products driven by the geopolitical conflict in the Middle East including oil, resins, and diesel/freight costs. Additionally, prices for commodities impacted by tariffs and the global trade dynamics have also increased in 2026 including in aluminum and steel. Many of our companies have highlighted these input cost headwinds, which are pressuring margins this year and which we suspect will remain headwinds into at least 1H'27.

The question becomes whether the fuel price shock can push inflation higher while slowing economic growth, creating a stagflationary squeeze.

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

Democracy, As Scheduled

By Molly Schwartz, cross-asset macro strategist at Rabobank

After breaking above $100/bbl on Wednesday, the rally in Brent crude oil continued yesterday, climbing almost 7% on the day and closing at $108/bbl, the highest price since May. US Treasury yields followed with a sharp bull-flattening, with the 2-year marking its highest level since July 2024 at 4.58%, and the 10-year making its way up to 4.96%—the highest level since October 2023. Meanwhile, US 30-year Treasury yields jumped 7.3bp to 5.36%, the highest level since 2002 and 2-year inflation expectations soared to 2.6%, their highest level since June and more than 0.71ppt above the July lows.

As the US midterm elections approach, many are anxiously trying to gauge whether GOP will be able to retain control of both houses of Congress. As mentioned in yesterday’s installment, one strategy the Trump administration is trying to use to ensure a victory is the promise of a $5,000 “Trump dividend” issued to every American adult if, and only if, Republicans win both houses. Logistics remain unclear as to how the dividends would be funded or issued, especially given Trump’s “condition” that they could only be spent in America, with Trump saying that “we don’t want you going to Canada to spend the money. We don’t want you going to China, to Germany.” Of course, money is fungible, and a $5,000 “America coupon” allows Americans to spend $5,000 elsewhere, especially on their favorite shiny imports. However, regardless if the midterms mark a turning point in the Trump Administration or not, it is possible that they will at least mark an inflection point in the war overseas.

Brent crude oil prices are stretched in part due to the continued hostilities in the Middle East, but American voters generally care more about gasoline prices than military intervention on the other side of the world, and with gasoline prices headed higher and equity prices headed lower, it doesn’t look good for the GOP. This past Tuesday, Trump “truthed” that “Oil prices will drop precipitously, like everything else is dropped, when we WIN the war with Iran. Three Dollars a gallon, but ultimately, below Two Dollars a gallon. It will all happen quickly, and Iran will never have a Nuclear Weapon. MAGA!” and later told reporters that “the war is going to end immediately after the election because [Iran] can’t hold out any longer.”

HISTORY: diesel has crossed $6/gal nationally for the first time ever, according to live GasBuddy data. every truck, every delivery, every package, every grocery run just got more expensive. the cost of moving everything in america just hit a record. Statement⬇️ (9/10/26, 3p CT) pic.twitter.com/zijqu6vD9i

— Patrick De Haan (@GasBuddyGuy) September 10, 2026

But American voters want lower prices now, and Iran is well aware of the US electoral calendar. Even as Trump shares his timeline for when he wants to wrap up the war in Iran, the IRGC has an incentive to escalate going into the midterms and drag out the conflict for as long as possible. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that VP Vance and Secretary of State Rubio estimate that the war could last through January 2029—creating additional problems for both of them, who may put their names on the presidential ballot in 2028.

In the meantime, energy prices screaming higher and inflation expectations are soaring. If Trump wants Fed cuts going into the midterms, the market expects him to be disappointed. The US OIS curve implies investors are pricing in more than a 70% chance of a hike (17.7bp) at the September 16 FOMC rate decision. This still stems from Warsh’s generously forward-guidance-laden speech at Jackson Hole two weeks ago, but renewed fears about the war in Iran have further stoked the markets’ hawkish bias. That said, economists surveyed by Bloomberg see things differently, with 66 out of 78 analysts forecasting a hold, including ourselves. Read more from Rabobank’s resident Fed whisperer, Philip Marey, here.

Hawkish expectations are shared across the pond after the ECB announced its decision to raise the deposit facility rate by 25bp to 2.50%, with ECB President Lagarde referring to the decision as a “no-brainer.” Rabobank’s ECB watcher Bas van Geffen argues in an ECB Post-Decision Report that “the ECB is now at the top end of the neutral range, and any next policy decision will be a trade-off between the risks that face the Eurozone economy,” and therefore urges caution with regard to future policy hikes. Nonetheless, OIS curve pricing implies investors are positioned for more than four ECB hikes by July 2027. Rabobank sees 2.50% as the terminal rate and does not forecast any additional hikes or cuts through the end of 2027, though the upside risks to our view have increased.

Canadian PM Mark Carney has apparently been speaking to Trump in recent days, but not necessarily about trade…rather, about Ukraine. Bloomberg reports that Carney and Zelenskyy spoke at a joint press conference yesterday, during which both parties signed a “declaration of a 100-year partnership…and Canada pledged to boost its drone production capacity and send one-third to Ukraine.” Other promises include Canada’s launch of a national drone marketplace and increased industrial cooperation between Canadian and Ukrainian drone and defense manufacturers.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 10:40

Gulf States & Iran To Hold Unprecedented Meeting Monday, Seeking Hormuz Strait Deal Breakthrough

Iran and some Gulf states are formally meeting in order to push and finalize an Iran+Oman-backed deal and framework for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, coming at the end of a week where multiple tankers have been attacked, including unprecedented US strikes on an Iranian civilian vessel.

"Gulf foreign ministers plan to meet their Iranian counterpart in a push by Oman and Iran to secure buy-in for a deal temporarily managing shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, as regional states seek a pathway to ease hostilities over the waterway," Financial Times reports.

"The gathering, an Omani initiative, would be the first meeting between the top diplomats from the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council and a senior Iranian official since the US and Israel launched the war against the Islamic republic in February," the publication details.

Officials have told FT the meeting is set for Monday in the Omani coastal city of Salalah, though details and arrangements are still being finalized.

Global oil prices have been steadily moving up in the last week, amid further 'limited' US-Iran tit-for-tat exchanges of blows in Hormuz, southern Iran, and beyond - including Jordan, which saw waves of ballistic missile attacks on a US base.

Meanwhile Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has congratulated President Trump for keeping up the pressure on Iran, which has included unprecedented sanctions.

Netanyahu stated on X the US and Israel have achieved "historic progress" over the last year, which has in turn made Iran and its allies an "evil axis… weaker than ever."

The Bibi message which was timed for the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks specifically echoed George W. Bush's "axis of evil" phrase which was a feature of the early so-called Global War on Terror (GWOT).

"The people of Israel stand with the people of the United States and with President Trump in confronting the forces of terror," said Netanyahu.

And yet Iran is showing no signs of backing down at this point, but has repeatedly vowed it can endure the storm of sanctions and US attacks, even for 'years' down the line. Trump while speaking to supporters in Dallas has expressed no regrets over launching Operation Epic Fury.

On the other side, IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohebbi has stated in the middle of a week which has witnessed plenty of escalation in the Gulf that, "The imposed war, which involved the world's most powerful nations, has ended in certain periods, but the nature of the conflict continues. For the first time, this conflict has directly inflicted strategic damage on the United States, impacting the country's security and economic equations."

He issued the following list for the US to reach an end to the conflict. "If the enemy desires an end to this situation, they must"...

• completely cease the war
• refrain from further threats
• withdraw the Israeli army from Lebanon
• end the siege of Yemen
• release the $24 billion of Iranian assets that have been frozen
• cease any interference in the country's nuclear and missile programs

This definitely marks a raised bar, to be sure, after this summer the MoU complete ceased, and negotiations vanished. There's no way Washington complies with even half of the conditions, at this rate. According to the latest from the Iranian Foreign Ministry:

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson says Strait of Hormuz security cannot be guaranteed while US aggression and the naval blockade continue, Tehran Times reports.

The claim that Hormuz will become irrelevant has partially come true, but not as Trump anticipated.

Keeping the Strait half-open won't make much of a difference if the Houthis close Baab el-Mandeb.

The idea that time was on Trump's side seems to have dramatically flipped.

— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) September 11, 2026

With Trump struggling to rally his base to go to the polls and vote in the November midterm elections, Tehran has no reason to back down at this point, seeking to impose a steep economic and political cost on Washington and specifically the Trump administration.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 10:20

UMich Sentiment 'Expectations' Plunge Near Record Lows As Republicans Lose Faith, Inflation Fears Rebound

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

'Slide' is not exactly how we would describe preliminary September confidence data's collapse (headline from 51.7 to 47.8 vs 51.0 exp). The current conditions gauge fell to 50.9 from 51.9 in the previous month, while the expectations index plunged to 45.8 from 51.5 - just off record lows.

Democrats and Republicans alike posted sizable declines, while independents were little changed from August.

“Opinions of the government’s economic policy worsened about 10% this month and remain substantially below February 2026, just prior to the Iran conflict,’’ Joanne Hsu, director of the survey, said in a statement.

“Notably, even Republicans, who generally supported economic policy under the current administration, have exhibited a marked decline in favorability.’’

Year-ahead inflation expectations jumped from 4.0% last month to 4.6% this month, the highest reading since June.

BUT... umm... How is this possible: Democrat inflation expectations dropped, Republican and Independent inflation expectations unchanged... yet overall inflation expectations jumped the most since May 2026!?

Even more ridiculously, while the 5Y expectation was flat, Independents and Democrats signaled plunging inflation expectations...

In contrast, labor market expectations were little changed this month. Nominal income expectations held steady from the August reading. The expected probability of losing one’s own job ticked down, though it still remains well above the historical average. Aggregate unemployment expectations softened a bit, with 61% of consumers expecting unemployment to rise in the year ahead, up from 57% last month but down from 65% a year ago.

For the first time since 2023, a majority of consumers expect interest rates to tighten in the year ahead. The share of consumers anticipating rate increases surged to 62% in September, up from 49% last month and just 23% a year ago. As such, consumers broadly expect the Fed to act to restrain inflation

With a resurgence in fuel prices and trade tensions, consumers anticipate greater pressures on their pocketbooks to come.

Five-year expected business conditions remained stable at readings well below their historical average, suggesting that consumers believe that emerging risks this month may not have further worsened the long-run outlook. 

Overall, sentiment is now 16% below February, prior to the start of the Iran conflict, and 13% lower than a year ago.

Finally, as we noted earlier, real wage growth has now been negative for five straight months...

Not exactly confidence inspiring.

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

Jeff Currie Warns Odds Of $5 Gas By Midterms Are "Extremely High" Jeff Currie Featured on BBG TV

Veteran commodities strategist Jeff Currie has spent the summer warning that scarcity in physical commodity markets is becoming a persistent source of inflationary pressure and giving way to a commodities supercycle.

After appearing on CNBC on Thursday, he joined Bloomberg Television on Friday morning to amp up that message, warning that tightening crude products supplies make $5-a-gallon US gasoline highly likely by November.

"Crude is the signal, and now we think about products ... they are the noise," Currie said.

Currie, the founder and chief executive of Real Macro and former Goldman commodities head, also warned that scarcity and currency debasement were driving the next phase of the energy shock, with shortages spreading from refined products into crude oil.

Currie described the probability of average US gasoline prices reaching $5 a gallon by the midterm elections as "extremely high."

Currie warned that refiners shifting production between diesel and gasoline would eventually exhaust their operational flexibility, limiting their ability to relieve shortages. US diesel prices could reach $7 to $9 a gallon, he added.

The latest AAA data show the national average price of diesel in the US has topped $6 a gallon.

US Diesel Crack Spread

Morning coverage:

• Brent Nears $110 Then Tumbles On IEA Demand Destruction Warning As Houthis Threaten Saudi Oil Escape Route, Diesel Shock Goes Global
• Huge Fire Along Saudi 'Hormuz Bypass' East-West Oil Pipeline After Alleged Houthi Strikes

Commodities coverage:

• HSBC Sees "Upside Risks" From "Super Squeeze" In Commodities

Got physical?

Jeff Currie Featured on CNBC TV

Former Goldman Sachs commodities chief and current Real Macro head Jeff Currie joined CNBC earlier Thursday to discuss all things commodities, warning that the latest Brent crude rally above $107 a barrel is becoming harder to dismiss as a temporary shock, with renewed Chinese buying and soaring refining margins (US diesel crack spread now $110 a barrel) signaling deeper pressure across physical commodity markets.

Currie warned that traders are underestimating an inflation cycle driven by years of underinvestment in the capacity to produce and deliver essential raw materials, echoing his summer warnings about scarcity in physical markets.

"The old economy is taking its revenge," Currie said. "You see it in the rates markets. You see it in the commodity markets."

Asked whether the latest flare-up in the Gulf conflict explained the jump in Brent crude this week, Currie pointed first to demand returning from Asia (read here). 

"Actually, I put a bigger weight on China coming back to the market," he said, citing strong buying interest after returning from Singapore and Hong Kong.

China had contributed to the refined-product squeeze by reducing refinery operations and exports as access to crude tightened earlier this summer, Currie explained. But exceptionally high diesel margins created a massive incentive to restart those refineries, bringing renewed crude demand into an already strained market.

He cited diesel crack spreads of $110 a barrel, exceeding the price of crude itself. That figure refers to the refining spread, rather than the outright diesel price.

"That's a pretty big profit," Currie said. "They start chasing it, brought those refineries back online, and it was just like an earthquake going through here."

The rally in Brent is showing signs of greater staying power, he pointed out, with equities and longer-dated oil prices beginning to reflect a more persistent disruption.

"People are starting to go, 'This is not transient,'" Currie said. "It has a different flavor to it."

Thank you to @KellyCNBC and the @CNBCTheExchange team for having me on today.

The old economy is taking its revenge.

We are dealing with higher structural inflation after years of underinvestment in the ability to supply and deliver hard assets.

There are two trades happening…

— Jeffrey Currie 🆔++ (@CommodMkt) September 10, 2026

Complementing Currie's bull thesis on commodities, HSBC chief economist for global commodities Paul Bloxh warned in a note this week that a "super-squeeze" has begun (read report). 

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 09:40