US Industrial Production Sees Biggest Annual Gain In 3 Years Despite Slowing Capacity Utilization First things first, this is data for September. But we would given this morning’s Industrial Production and Manufacturing Output data a ‘meh’ ranking. Industrial Production rose just 0.1% MoM (as expected) up from the downwardly revised 0.3% MoM decline in August. On a YoY basis, production rose 1.62% – its best since Nov 2022… US […]

Futures Tumble on Report Microsoft Lowers AI Software Sales Quotas Futures suddenly tumbled just after 9am ET, when Bloomberg blasted a report from the Information, which cites two salespeople in Microsoft’s Azure cloud unit, and who claim that Microsoft has lowered expectations for how quickly it can get customers to spend money on newer AI products, known as agents, after many salespeople missed sales-growth goals. Corporate […]

The Bull Case (Is That Nothing Matters Anymore) Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance As far as my macro outlook goes, I think I’ve been pretty clear: over time, I expect nominal prices of everything to drift—no, march—higher as governments and central banks eventually capitulate to the obvious: their only escape route from the irresponsible, slow-motion debt disaster they engineered is to quietly (or, recently, not so quietly) […]

Zelensky’s Meeting With US Envoy Cancelled After No Real Progress In 5-Hour Moscow Talks The Russian-US negotiations on the Ukraine conflict concluded in the Kremlin after some five hours of intense negotiations, which had reportedly gone late into the night. Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov indicated the US side of Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner presented four more documents concerning the peace settlement during the […]

Futures Rise As Bitcoin Extends Rally For 2nd Day, Copper Hits Record US equity futures are higher again, led by small cap stocks. As of 8:20am ET, S&P futures are up 0.2% (they dropped following a very ugly ADP print at 8:15am), the same as Nasdaq 100 futs, with Mag 7 stocks mostly higher premarket led by NVDA (+0.4%) and AMZN (+0.3%); MRVL is up +10% post-earnings given the robust long-term guidance. Europe’s Stoxx 600 is also […]

Trump Administration Officially Halts Immigration Processing From 19 Countries Authored by Kimberley Hayek via The Epoch Times, The Trump administration announced Tuesday it has suspended the processing of all immigration applications from 19 countries, including Afghanistan and Somalia, citing national security and public safety concerns. The action comes a week after an Afghan national was arrested for shooting two National […]

Small Business Job Losses Soar In November; ADP Following the last three weeks showing job losses (for ADP’s new weekly model)… The official ADP report confirmed this weakness, printing 32k job losses in November (far worse than the +10k expected) and well down from the +47k revised for October… Source: Bloomberg That is the biggest job loss since March 2023. Job creation has been flat during the second half of 2025 and […]

As K-Shaped Consumer Breakdown Widens, Bessent Points To Brighter 2026 At the start of the week, commenting on Black Friday sales figures, Goldman analyst Natasha de la Grense said there has been increased focus on the “K-shaped” economy. As outlined in our previous notes (here and here), this widening behavioral gap is becoming more pronounced among working-poor and high-income households. New data from Goldman analyst Ronnie […]

Explosion Rocks Part Of Russia’s Strategic Druzhba Pipeline – All Caught On Camera While Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, are in Moscow working to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, a series of attacks on Russia-linked oil tankers unfolded both before and during their visit. Now, reports are also emerging of an explosion along the Druzhba oil pipeline. On Wednesday morning, Kyiv […]

Europe’s Energy Transition Destroyed its Economy You can have cheap, dependable electricity to encourage economic growth and prosperity, or you can have a grid supported by wind and solar energy. Europe chose the latter. So far, the promise of “abundant solar and wind energy” has only succeeded at one thing: slashing carbon emissions by 30% from 2005 levels. Thankfully, food for European families is paid for by reducing […]

A Third Of Glasgow Schoolchildren Don’t Speak English Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, Nearly one in three children in Glasgow’s primary schools do not speak English as their first language, according to new council data, highlighting a dramatic shift driven by record migration levels that are overwhelming local resources and raising urgent questions about integration and public services. The figures, revealed in […]

Serbia Faces ‘Lights Out’ As US Denies Sanctions Waiver To Russian-Owned Oil Refinery In the wake of the recent US sanctions on Russia’s two biggest energy giants, Serbia is in desperate need of a sanctions-waiver if the country hopes to keep the lights on. Serbia’s government is this week warning it could slide into a severe energy and economic crisis unless Washington grants a 90-day exemption from US sanctions. Officials are […]

UK Agrees To Pay More For US Medicines After Trade Negotiations Authored by Lawrence Wilson via The Epoch Times, The UK’s National Health Service will pay 25 percent more for new, patented U.S. medicines under the terms of a new trade agreement between the two nations. The deal is the latest in a series of agreements in which the United States has leveraged tariffs to secure concessions on prescription drug prices. This is the […]

China-Japan Spat Looks To Be Boon For Russian Tourism & Industry In yet another sign of deepening Russia-China ties on all levels, which has also included cooperation on the military front in the context of the Ukraine war, President Vladimir Putin signed an executive order on Monday temporarily lifting visa requirements for visitors from China. Chinese travelers can now enter Russia without a visa for up to 30 days, either for […]

Letter Bombs And Hammer Attacks – US Adds European Antifa Groups To Terror List Authored by Janice Hisle and Savannah Hulsey Pointer via The Epoch Times, An official U.S. terrorist list dominated by jihadist groups and a clutch of cartels has its first European additions in more than two decades: four Antifa groups. Designating groups as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) empowers U.S. federal authorities to investigate […]

Trump Tells Netanyahu Don’t Hinder Syria’s Stability In Rare Rebuke President Trump has issued a rare criticism and brush back of Israel’s expansionist policy in Syria, where in the south of the country Israel’s military has launched recent deadly ground and aerial raids which go way beyond just the Golan Heights. Trump has warned that the future of Syria’s stability is at stake. He wrote in a Monday post on Truth Social, “The […]

Undercover Agent? Left-Wing Satirist? Questions Swirl After Fiery ‘Hitler-Like’ Speech At AfD Youth Congress Via Remix News, After a flamboyant speaker went viral at the Alternative for Germany (AfD) Youth Congress, there are questions about Alexander Eichwald. Speculation is growing about whether he is an undercover agent, a left-wing satirist, or actually just a genuine AfD supporter. Regardless of the truth, the AfD is already […]

This Chemist May Have Cracked America’s Rare Earth Problem Authored by Eva Fu & Jan Jekielek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), One flash is all it takes. That’s how James Tour said the United States can tackle China’s rare earth dominance. James Tour, chemist and nanotechnologist at Houston’s Rice University, in Scottsdale, Ariz All he needs is discarded electronics—of which the United States has mountains. And from […]

Herzog Admits A Netanyahu Pardon Would Spark Outrage, Destabilize Israeli Society Israeli President Isaac Herzog acknowledged this week that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s request for a pardon in his corruption trial is generating significant debate and division within Israeli society. Herzog said that Netanyahu’s formal petition for the charges and case to be dismissed “will be addressed with full care and precision,” and […]

Republican Matt Van Epps Wins Tennessee Special Election Republicans will hold onto Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District despite a push by Democrats to flip the deep-red seat, the Associated Press projected Tuesday, as Republican candidate Matt Van Epps was set to defeat Democrat Aftyn Behn. The former state commissioner and Army helicopter pilot defeated the Democratic nominee, Aftyn Behn, with 53.9 percent of the vote in the […]

Energy Secretary: Backup Generators At Commercial Sites Could Unlock 35 Nuclear Plants Energy Secretary Chris Wright has floated an unusual but very creative plan to quickly expand U.S. grid capacity: tapping the industrial diesel generators already sitting at data centers, big-box retailers, and other commercial sites. The proposal comes as multiple regional grids strain under the explosive power demand driven by the data-center […]

Pentagon Seeks To Explain A Little-Known, Forgotten ‘Forever War’ Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com, The US Department of War insisted on Tuesday that it’s not waging a “forever war” in Somalia despite the fact that the Trump administration has shattered the record for annual airstrikes in the country. Liam Cosgrove, a reporter for ZeroHedge, noted during a Pentagon press briefing on Tuesday that the US has launched 101 […]

“Power Up America” Needs 500,000 Highly Skilled Workers We’ve already pointed out that money isn’t the problem in America’s unprecedented data center construction buildout. Big Tech’s AI capex splurge is effectively endless thanks to “circle-jerk” vendor-financing schemes, and land is plentiful. The real bottleneck? First, it was power – or rather, the lack of it – as the grid struggles to hook up hyperscalers sprinting toward […]

Why Healthcare Is In A Death Spiral: Follow The Money Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog, If each of these is not a part of any ‘reform,’ than all that is being done is pouring money into a monopolizing cartel, just in a slightly different way. Unbeknownst to those of us with little inside knowledge of the complex financial plumbing of the US healthcare system, healthcare is in a death spiral that will surprise […]

U.S. Navy’s “Doomsday” Aircraft Vanishes Over Atlantic On Mysterious Mission A Boeing E-6B Mercury operated by the U.S. Navy, one of the service’s airborne nuclear command posts commonly known as the “Doomsday plane,” disappeared from civilian flight-tracking platforms Friday morning while operating over the Atlantic Ocean, according to tracking data, the Daily Mail reports. One of just 16 specialized ‘Doomsday planes,’ […]