"China memory giant CXMT valued at US$85 billion in record Shanghai IPO"

Two from the South China Morning Post. First up, the headliner, July 15:

Chinese DRAM maker is set to raise 57.9 billion yuan (US$8.5 billion), nearly twice the amount earmarked for its investment projects 

China’s leading memory chipmaker, ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), has priced its Shanghai initial public offering at 8.66 yuan (US$1.28) apiece, positioning the company for the largest listing by a Chinese semiconductor company on a mainland bourse.

The firm, based in Hefei, Anhui province, is expected to raise gross proceeds of 57.9 billion yuan (US$8.5 billion) from the sale of nearly 6.7 billion shares, according to an offering announcement released on Tuesday.

The shares represent 10 per cent of the company’s enlarged capital, giving CXMT an implied valuation of 579 billion yuan (US$85.2 billion) upon listing on Shanghai’s Star Market.

If a 15 per cent overallotment option is fully exercised, the offering could expand to 7.7 billion shares and raise up to 66.6 billion yuan (US$9.83 billion).

Online and offline subscriptions will take place on Thursday, but CXMT has not yet announced a trading debut date.

The fundraising haul is nearly double the 29.5 billion yuan that CXMT had earmarked for investment projects in its prospectus, and the offering is set to surpass the 2020 Shanghai listing of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, which raised 53.23 billion yuan. That makes CXMT’s deal the largest A-share IPO by a Chinese chip company.

According to the announcement, CXMT is valued at 308.92 times its 2025 earnings, far above the 33.62 times for Samsung Electronics and 30.64 times for SK Hynix....

....MUCH MORE 

And July 13: 

Meet CXMT’s Zhu Yiming: the engineer building China’s answer to global memory-chip giants 
From a Silicon Valley garage to China’s largest DRAM maker and a US$4.4 billion IPO, Zhu reportedly refused pay until CXMT became profitable

....MUCH MORE

"AI cloud company CoreWeave explores Wall Street playbook to hedge memory-chip price risk" (CRWV)

From Reuters, July 14:

• CoreWeave has not executed any hedges and discussions remain at an early stage, the source said
• Long-term deals with Micron and Sandisk guarantee price floors for DRAM and storage ​chips
• SK Hynix and Micron expect fully ramped new manufacturing capacity in early 2028

AI cloud computing company CoreWeave is exploring the use of financial derivatives as a potential hedge against a future drop in memory and storage chip prices, according to a ​person familiar with the matter.

The unusual move underscores how deeply the AI boom ​has entangled cloud providers with the volatile chip market. To lock in ⁠supply amid soaring demand, thanks to a surge in AI infrastructure construction, cloud operators ​including CoreWeave have signed long-term agreements with memory and storage makers such as Micron and SanDisk.

 

Many ​of these deals guarantee suppliers a price floor for dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and storage chips.

But the arrangement cuts both ways: it protects chipmakers from a downturn, but leaves cloud companies like CoreWeave exposed if ​prices fall and they are stuck paying well above the going rate.

 

As a result, CoreWeave ​executives have held discussions about ways to hedge against a slide in memory chip stocks that would ‌occur ⁠if prices drop in the future, the source said....

....MORE 

"Ukraine’s Drone War Just Showed Up in the Price of Bread — European Wheat Futures Jumped 4% in a Week"

It's more than 4% in the U.S., chart below story.

From National Security Journal, July 15:

Ukraine’s nine-day, 116-vessel campaign has pushed Euronext wheat prices up 4% as the world’s top wheat exporter reroutes grain off the Azov. A Russian source says burning grain ships sit ‘like targets before a firing squad’ — puncturing Putin’s claim that the Azov was Russia’s uncontested ‘internal sea.’ 

Ukraine has claimed that in the past nine days its drone attacks have hit 116 Russian ships in the so-called “ghost fleet,” according to the General Staff in the Sea of Azov.

These massive drone swarms have been the primary weapon during the ongoing wave of attacks against Crimea as Ukraine tries to expose Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, as unable to defend the peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014. 

The Ukrainian attacks have targeted gas and oil refineries, military logistics convoys, power stations, as well as roads and railways leading into Crimea.

The attacks have caused massive gas shortages, resulting in long lines at gas stations, rationing, and power outages on the peninsula.

Ukraine’s increased attacks on Russian energy facilities in recent months are part of Ukrainian President Zelenskyy’s 40-day influence operation to “systematically disrupt the enemy’s logistics chain” and pressure Moscow to end the war.

Russia’s “Shadow Fleet” In The Sea Of Azov Has Been Hit Hard 
Ukraine launched further attacks to damage Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” and to limit Russia’s fuel supplies to Moscow’s illegally occupied Crimea.

Ukraine claims that forces have struck 116 vessels over the past nine days in the Sea of Azov in operations targeting Russian shipping.

The Sea of Azov is small, so most of the tankers and cargo ships that operate there are smaller. However, it doesn’t detract from the damage they are inflicting on Russian supply efforts.

Because of the damage Ukraine’s strikes are causing to Russia’s gas and oil refineries, they have been forced to move more oil and gas than normal across the Azov in an attempt to resupply their needs.

On Saturday, Ukraine said 21 Russian oil tankers were struck in the Sea of Azov in one of the largest Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian shipping since the start of the war.

Latest Drone Attack Targeted 11 Ships 
In the most recent attack, Ukrainian drones hit five tankers, five bulk carriers and one tugboat, according to Major Robert “Magyar” Brovdi, the head of a Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces, a Special Operations Forces unit, known as “Magyar’s Birds.”....

....MUCH MORE 

 Chicago futures are up 33'6 (5.23%) on the day.

 

TradingView

caution: note potential double-top 

 If interested see also:

July 10 -Wheat and Soybean Futures Pop On USDA Production and WASDE Reports

Soybeans have given back much of the initial jump, wheat maintains.

July 10 -Agriculture: "USDA Reports Summary"

July 12 - The World Runs On Diesel and Diesel Is Running out

With Russian shipping and refining capacity getting whacked we're seeing crack spreads greater than the price of crude itself.

Producer Price Index: "PPI for final demand declines 0.3% in June; goods fall 1.4%, services increase 0.2%"

We are still seeing inflation/price gouging in brokerage and investment advisory fees. 

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics, July 15:

The Producer Price Index for final demand fell 0.3 percent in June, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Final demand prices advanced 0.6 percent in May and 1.1 percent in April. (See table A.) On an unadjusted basis, the index for final demand increased 5.5 percent for the 12
months ended in June. 

The June decline in the index for final demand can be attributed to prices for final demand goods, which fell 1.4 percent. In contrast, the index for final demand services moved up 0.2 percent. 

The index for final demand less foods, energy, and trade services increased 0.1 percent in June after jumping 0.8 percent in May. For the 12 months ended in June, prices for final demand less foods, energy, and trade services rose 5.1 percent. 

Final Demand

Final demand goods: The index for final demand goods moved down 1.4 percent in June, the largest decrease since falling 1.9 percent in July 2022. Leading the decline in June, prices for final demand energy dropped 6.4 percent. The index for final demand foods moved down 0.6 percent. Conversely, prices for final demand goods less foods and energy increased 0.2 percent.

Product detail: Nearly two-thirds of the June decline in the index for final demand goods can be traced to prices for gasoline, which dropped 12.0 percent. The indexes for diesel fuel, jet fuel, fresh vegetables (except potatoes), crude petroleum, and thermoplastic resins and materials also fell. In contrast, prices for plastic products advanced 1.6 percent. The indexes for residential electric power and for potatoes also increased. (See table 2.)

Final demand services: The index for final demand services rose 0.2 percent in June after falling 0.1 percent in May. Over 60 percent of the advance can be attributed to margins for final demand trade services, which moved up 0.4 percent. (Trade indexes measure changes in margins received by wholesalers and retailers.) Prices for final demand services less trade, transportation, and warehousing increased 0.1 percent. Conversely, the index for final demand transportation and warehousing services declined 0.1 percent.

Product detail: Half of the June increase in the index for final demand services can be traced to margins for fuels and lubricants retailing, which jumped 13.0 percent. The indexes for securities brokerage, dealing, and investment advice; furniture retailing; apparel, jewelry, footwear, and accessories retailing; loan services (partial); and inpatient care also rose. In contrast, margins for machinery and vehicle wholesaling declined 8.4 percent. The indexes for food and alcohol wholesaling and for deposit services (partial) also fell.....

....MUCH MORE

Capital Markets: "US Dollar is Mostly Firmer, August WTI Recovers above $80, and China's GDP Disappoints but New 3-year Low Dollar Fix"

From Marc Chandler at Bannockburn Global Forex: 

The US dollar is mostly firmer today, but largely within the well-worn ranges seen recently against most of the G10 currencies. The news stream is light, but the US has stepped up the strikes against Iran, and August WTI is back around $80 a barrel. The eurozone’s May industrial output unexpectedly fell, while Japan May industrial output was revised lower but activity in the service sector improved. China’s Q2 GDP disappointed, though June retail sales and industrial output were firmer than expected. 

Earlier this month, the US reported disappointing jobs growth in June and yesterday reported a softer than expected June CPI. After Federal Reserve Governor Waller’s seemingly hawkish comments on Monday, there was increased speculation of a rate hike as early as this month’s FOMC meeting. After the CPI, the odds were more than halved. Fed Chair Warsh maintained his hawkish line and commitment to bring inflation down in his testimony before Congress yesterday. He returns to testify before the Banking Committee today. The questions will differ, but the answers will remain the same....

....MUCH MORE 

Fancy Machines: "ASML raises 2026 forecast, expands capacity on AI chip demand"

Probably the world's fanciest.*

From Reuters via Euronext, July 15:

ASML, the world's biggest supplier of computer chip manufacturing equipment, raised its 2026 financial forecasts on Wednesday and will expand capacity after AI demand drove better-than-expected second-quarter earnings.

Europe's largest company by market capitalisation said it now expects full-year 2026 net revenue of €43 billion to €45 billion ($49 billion to $51 billion), an increase of 16% at the midpoint from its earlier forecast range of €36 billion to €40 billion.

Revenue for the three months ended June 30 was €9.33 billion, topping analysts' estimates of €8.80 billion, while net income was €2.92 billion, above expectations of €2.62 billion, according to LSEG data.

"Blowout results across the board, I wonder where they found this much new capacity," said Michael Roeg, senior equity analyst at Degroof Petercam.

Shares rose 5.7% in early trading in Amsterdam.

ASML PLANS 30% CAPACITY EXPANSION IN EACH OF NEXT TWO YEARS

The Dutch company is the world's only maker of extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) tools, which are essential for making cutting-edge chips. Its customers including TSMC, Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron are racing to add capacity for AI-related demand.

Chief Executive Christophe Fouquet flagged "extremely strong" order intake due to demand for AI chips.

"Our customers in turn continue to accelerate their capacity expansion plans ... providing ASML with increased visibility into longer-term demand," he said in a statement.

ASML said it intended to expand capacity by 30% in each of the next two years for its flagship EUV tools, as well as for deep ultraviolet (DUV) tools needed for less advanced chips and by customers in China.

Analysts from JPMorgan said they believed Wednesday's results would help ASML close a valuation gap with U.S. peers.

"The message from bears has been that they are capacity-limited or that they don't grow ... (but) the company is virtually guiding 30% growth in the next two years," they said....

....MUCH MORE 

*This 165 tonne beauty cost $380 million in 2024:

 

—ExtremeTech 

Rabobank's Michael Every Writes About Stuff (China, Europe, Iran et al.)

Via ZeroHedge, July 14: 

By Michael Every of Rabobank

Whose-muz?

Oil leaped 9%, the largest move since 2020. Today, it’s up another 2.5% to $85 at time of writing. It’s a good job we also have the Cleveland Fed’s trimmed-mean inflation measure out as well, right? Obviously, oil was driven by developments in Hormuz - or rather Whose-muz? There, besides reimposing the naval blockade of Iran, President Trump stated those using the waterway will now pay 20% of the value of cargo as compensation to the US, the strait’s new guardian. While the proposed Iranian toll the US rejected was $2m per tanker, or $1 per barrel of oil and $22 per tonne of LNG, Bloomberg estimates Trump fees at $30m per supertanker, the equivalent of $8 on oil and $177 on LNG. Naturally, the UN shipping agency is opposed to any fees for any strait and wants details on that Trump tariff – as if that will stop it.

More bluntly, Iran responded with missile attacks on tankers, with two from the UAE hit, as well as more strikes against the GCC and US military bases, the latter so far avoiding both energy and critical infrastructure. As we noted in ‘Comfortably Bomb’ yesterday, Iran can’t destroy such facilities and build bridges to the GCC if it sees itself defeating the US and gaining regional leadership. By contrast, the US is again in ‘take it down’ mode: Trump is reportedly weighing taking out Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain nuclear site, requiring a phenomenal explosion to neutralise.

Keeping out of the fight so far is Israel: the 2026 headline there from the New York Times is Mossad trying to recruit former Iranian President Ahmadinejad as an agent, and potential front man, in a failed plan for regime change. However, the Yemeni government, OK’d by the Saudis after Trump approval, bombed a runway in Houthi-occupied Sanaa to try to prevent an Iranian plane landing; now the Houthis are firing at the Saudis again for the first time in years, potentially endangering vital east-west oil flows via Yanbu on the Red Sea.

The realpolitik take is more evidence of a new (old) Mahan world disorder where countries use force to impose or restrict maritime trade flows: first Iran, now the US; the devastating Ukrainian attacks on Russian ships in the Sea of Azov is another concurrent example; and note the Hong Kong press asks, ‘Will Manila and Hanoi’s maritime deal challenge Beijing in the South China Sea?’

It’s also the US underlining that it’s fighting for a region, and world economy, that benefits from an open Hormuz but will no longer do it for free. Indeed, there’s a US message to the GCC and NATO/Europe/US allies – help us win this fight rather than saying ‘Not our war’ again. Don’t be surprised if anyone who aids the US now gets the 20% tariff lifted - which still implies it will have to be imposed on others to create that incentive.

If you think that’s cynical, in some see this as the US keeping Hormuz closed so it benefits as an LNG exporter. Indeed, as Dubai plans a new east-coast port for oil, LNG giant Qatar looks badly placed, Doha now looking at a project with the US (which likely won’t pay a penny?) for an Iraq-Syria pipeline. Even outside energy, the Asian press note the US has emerged as the helium winner amid the Iran war and China’s restrictions on exports of that key gas needed for chipmaking, with Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea turning to America for flows.

Which model?

Obviously not recalling all the reports on how Germany was artificially competitive within the Eurozone because of the low FX rate it was allowed to join at, Chancellor Merz just called for a dialogue with China on its monetary and FX policy, saying that the EU could not win, no matter how innovative or good the bloc may be, against a competitor that artificially manipulates its currency. He argued that CNY is 20-30% undervalued and needs to be allowed to float more freely so that it can appreciate to a fairer level. In this, listening to Europe in 2026 is like listening to the US in 2016.

To be clear, there is no world in which China will allow, or Europe is in any way able to impose, a new Plaza Accord on China: it is not going to happen. End of discussion. China could decide it wants to see CNY appreciate for its own reasons, such as to shift towards consumption as a growth driver, which is different. However, that’s a strategic theme echoed for decades by (mostly Western) economists, who are constantly surprised when it doesn’t happen and China’s trade surplus grows, and ever higher up the value-added ladder.

Yet the surging Chinese trade surplus with the EU, which is now larger than with the US...

....MUCH MORE 

AI: "Thomson Reuters to cut 'small number' of engineering jobs"

That's the headline at Reuters. 

At Silicon Republic:

Thomson Reuters cuts 500 jobs as AI adoption deepens 

And back to Reuters via The Edge, Malaysia: 

Thomson Reuters to sell 51% stake in global print business to KKR for US$500 million 

As far as I know the Thomson family is still doing alright, headed up by David, 3rd Baron Thomson of Fleet and his wealthier cousin, Sherry Brydson, the richest woman in Canada.

"IBM’s stock dives toward worst day in nearly 40 years after the surprise release of an earnings miss"

From MarketWatch, July 14:

Tech bellwether releases preliminary results a week before earnings were expected, showing revenue and profit misses 

Shares of IBM took a deep dive in early Tuesday trading toward their worst day in decades, after the technology giant surprised investors by releasing second-quarter results a week ahead of schedule, showing both profit and revenue missing analysts’ consensus expectations.

The problem was the launch of the z17 mainframe program, which the company expected to be wrapping up during the second quarter.

“What played out was worse than our expectations, driven by a shortfall in our Z performance and the associated software stack, primarily in transaction processing,” CEO Arvind Krishna said in a statement.

The stock tumbled 19.1% in premarket trading. That puts it on track for its biggest one-day selloff since the record 23.7% drop on Oct. 19, 1987, a date known as Wall Street’s “Black Monday.”

He said that in the last few weeks of June clients shifted capital expenditures toward memory purchases, storage and servers ahead of expected price increases, which impacted client buying patterns.

While some supply-chain-related impact to IBM’s prior expectations were foreseen, “we did not anticipate the magnitude of the capex reprioritization,” Krishna said....

....MUCH MORE 

I'm not sure anyone still considers IBM a tech bellwether anymore. Truth be told I had to double-check that they were still a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. (they are)

The company may have enough quantum computing stuff to make it worth sniffing around but the bellwether days are long past. 

Inflation: CPI Headline DOWN 0.4% For June; UP 3.5% Year-Over--Year

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics, July 14: 

CONSUMER PRICE INDEX - JUNE 2026

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) decreased 0.4 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis in June after rising 0.5 percent in May, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This decline in the all items index was the largest 1-month decrease since April 2020 when it fell 0.8 percent. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 3.5 percent before seasonal adjustment.

The index for energy fell 5.7 percent in June after rising 3.9 percent in May, 3.8 percent in April, and 10.9 percent in March. The energy index was the largest contributor to the monthly all items decrease, more than offsetting increases in other indexes including those for shelter and food. The index for food increased 0.2 percent over the month, as did the index for food at home and the index for food away from home. 

The index for all items less food and energy was unchanged in June. Indexes that decreased over the month include motor vehicle insurance, communication, apparel, medical care, and used cars and trucks. Conversely, the indexes for recreation, household furnishings and operations, and personal care were among the major indexes that increased in June.

The all items index rose 3.5 percent for the 12 months ending June after rising 4.2 percent for the 12 months ending May. The all items less food and energy index rose 2.6 percent over the year, following a 2.9-percent increase over the 12 months ending May. The energy index increased 15.7 percent for the 12 months ending June. The food index increased 3.0 percent over the last year....

....MUCH MORE, including narrative discussion and the always interesting Table 2.

Capital Markets: "Oil Extends Recovery, US Dollar Consolidates, JGBs Rally on New Fin Min Suggestion, China's June Trade Surplus Swells"

From Marc to Market: 

The US dollar is consolidating yesterday’s gains today. An off-ramp to the Middle East conflict seems increasingly elusive. After surging more than 9% yesterday, the front month WTI and Brent oil futures contracts are up 3.6%-4.6% today. There are three developments in the US that will be closely monitored today. First, the June CPI is due. It looks to have moderated a little, but given Governor Waller’s comment yesterday, a sticky core rate could boost the perceived chances of a hike later this month. Second, Chair Warsh testifies before the House Financial Services Committee (10:00 AM ET). Third, the US earnings season gets underway with several large bank reporting today. 

Japanese government bonds have rallied today despite continued rally in oil prices and a soft yen. Last week, Finance Minister Katayama suggested that Japanese pension funds boost their domestic allocation. Today, she advocated adding government bonds to the individual tax-free investment vehicles. Meanwhile, the dollar is holding above JPY162.00. Lastly, China reported a larger than expected, $125.6 bln June trade surplus, which will likely increase the tension with the US and Europe....

....MUCH MORE    

"JPMorgan, Bank of America and Wells Fargo earnings are out: Live updates"

 From CNBC, July 14:

This is CNBC’s live coverage of bank earnings reports for JPMorgan, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Citigroup. 

JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs are reporting earnings before the markets open Tuesday.

Investors expected that the five big banks would see strong revenue from trading equities and fixed income during the second quarter.

The SpaceX IPO drove surging fees for Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, while commercial lending is showing signs of a turnaround and consumer credit is expected to remain resilient.

What you need to know:

• JPMorgan Chase earnings are out. Here are the numbers
• Wells Fargo earnings are out. Here are the numbers
• Bank of America earnings are out. Here are the numbers.
• Here’s what to expect from Goldman Sachs
• Here’s what to expect from Citigroup
• It’s unusual for five megabanks to all report on the same morning

Earlier from CNBC:

U.S. Earnings: "Big banks poised to report booming revenue propelled by SpaceX IPO, Iran war volatility" (JPM; BAC; C; WFC; GS; MS)

U.S. Earnings: "Big banks poised to report booming revenue propelled by SpaceX IPO, Iran war volatility" (JPM; BAC; C; WFC; GS; MS)

From CNBC, July 13:

• JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs are set to report earnings early Tuesday, followed by Morgan Stanley on Wednesday
• Investment banking revenue could jump 26% and trading revenue could rise 14% from a year ago, according to KBW’s Chris McGratty.
• The SpaceX IPO drove surging fees for Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, including debt-raising work and “soft dollars” from hedge funds on the oversubscribed deal.
• Commercial lending is showing signs of a turnaround as banks compete with private credit lenders for AI-fueled corporate spending. 

Expectations are high that when banks start posting second-quarter results Tuesday, led by JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, revenue from trading equities and fixed income will approach, or even exceed, the records set earlier this year.

That’s a key part of what veteran analyst Mike Mayo of Wells Fargo calls the “sweet spot” in the financial sector right now. Both of banking’s profit engines — Wall Street and Main Street — are in growth mode at the same time.

The largest U.S. banks are raking in rising fees from helping corporations tap the markets, punctuated by last month’s giant SpaceX IPO, while risk-taking traders are also thriving as geopolitical unrest including the Iran war stokes volatility across asset classes.

“You saw the largest IPO in history, a pace of mergers that’s on track to be a record year, and a broadening out of trading to include equity and fixed income across myriad geographies,” Mayo told CNBC.

The quarter’s big bank earnings come at an unusually favorable moment for the industry. After years of navigating higher interest rates and inflation-fueled recession fears, lenders are benefiting from a rare combination of booming Wall Street activity, resilient consumer credit and a long-awaited pickup in business lending.

“There’s not much more you can ask for,” Mayo said....

....MUCH MORE 

And to Our Friends in France

A couple previous Bastille Day posts:

June 14 2020 [commenting on July 14, 2019's disaster]

We'll return to our usual graphic and contemplate whether to memory-hole last year's embarrassment.*

See you next month!
*July 15, 2019
An Apology To Our French Speaking Friends on the Day After Bastille Day
This is embarrassing.
I mislabeled a painting.
To note yesterday's holiday the blog went with one of Monet's Festival of 30 June 1878 paintings.
The date isn't the problem, I wanted a pic of the tri-color and despite it not representing a Bastille Day scene, thought that with the label folks would understand that we understood.
Ahem.

Claude Monet, Rue Montorgueil, Paris, Festival of 30 June 1878.

This morning I looked at the painting and wondered why it seemed so dark so I went to the website of the Musée d'Orsay and "ah crap". 

That's the Rue St. Denis, not the Rue Montorgueil and it hangs at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen. 

It's the fraternal twin of the pic I was going for:

Which is at the Musée d'Orsay.

Someone should let the The Paris Review know as well.

However, the fact they got it wrong doesn't matter, we are responsible for our little corner of the internet.

The Musée d'Orsay adds insult to injury by starting their description with:

The Rue Montorgueil, like its twin painting The Rue Saint-Denis (Rouen, musée des Beaux-arts), is often thought to depict a 14 July celebration. In fact it was painted on 30 June 1878 for a festival declared that year by the government celebrating "peace and work". This was one of the events organised for the third Universal Exhibition in Paris a few weeks after it opened, and intended to be a symbol of France’s recovery after the defeat of 1870. As well as demonstrating nationalist enthusiasm, the celebrations of 30 June 1878 were also an opportunity to strengthen the position of the Republican regime, still fragile only a few months after the major confrontations of 1876-1877 between its supporters and the conservatives. It was only two years later, in 1880, that 14 July was designated the French National Day.....

Non! We knew it wasn't 14 July, it's that we messed up the darn paintings.
Easier to go with the little girl and her tri-color.
back in a month. 

And July 14, 2025: 

"France to quicken defense-spending boost in bid to be ‘feared’"

Umlauts. Fräncë needs umlauts if they truly intend to inspire dread wherever they turn their Gallic gaze.*

From DefenseNews, Bastille Day, 2025:

 

French military vehicles stand in formation for the annual Bastille Day military parade on the 

Champs-Elysees Avenue with the Arc de Triomphe in the background in Paris on July 14, 2025. 

France will accelerate a hike in defense spending to reach €64 billion (US$75 billion) in 2027, three years earlier than planned, President Emmanuel Macron told troops and military brass ahead of Bastille Day celebrations on July 14.

In the face of the greatest threat to freedom since 1945, France needs to step up, the president said in his traditional speech at the Armed Forces Ministry in Paris the evening before the national holiday. Macron said Europe must be ready to face a permanent Russian threat on its borders, from the Caucasus to the Arctic....

...MUCH MORE
*From January 2014's "After Car Attacked By Paris Taxi Drivers, Uber to Toughen Image With Umlauts ": 

In a move designed to make Uber seem more "bad-assed and scary in a quasi-heavy-metal manner," the Goldman Sachs, Menlo Ventures and Bezos Expeditions-backed company officially changed it's name to Über on  Monday.

"Much like Mötley Crüe and Motörhead, Über is not to be messed with," said founder Gärrëtt Cämp, né Camp...

"Ödërïnt, düm mëtüänt" (Let them hate so long as they fear)  

"China's June exports surge 27% from a year earlier as AI boom drives strong demand"

From EuroNews, July 14:

China’s exports accelerated in June, jumping 27% from a year earlier thanks partly to the boom in artificial intelligence, the customs agency said on Tuesday.

The increase in exports in June was much better than economists had expected. Exports rose 19.4% year-on-year in May. 

Imports in June surged 36%, better than May’s 27.4% year-on-year growth, with analysts attributing the expansion in part due to the Iran war driving up import costs.

China recorded a trade surplus of $125.6 billion in June, widening from $105.4 billion in the previous month.

“Trade values took another big leg up in June,” Julian Evans-Pritchard, head of China Economics at Capital Economics, wrote in a note Tuesday. “This predominantly reflects the recent surge in semiconductor prices on the back of the AI boom. But even putting that aside, foreign demand for Chinese goods remains robust.”

China's exports of vehicles, especially EVs, and other tech-related products have boomed as rapid adoption of AI increases the need for semiconductors and other electronic equipment.

Related

• Chinese carmakers double EU market share as EVs drive sales growth

The strength in export manufacturing has helped to offset prolonged weakness in domestic spending and investment due to a prolonged downturn in the property industry....

....MUCH MORE 

UAE Condemns Iran For Attacks On Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, and Oman

From House of Saud, July 12:

...ABU DHABI — The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned Iran on July 12 for “renewed hostile missile and drone attacks” targeting five named regional states — Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, and Oman — while the UAE’s own air defense systems simultaneously engaged Iranian missiles and drones approaching Emirati airspace, according to the UAE Ministry of Defence. The statement, which arrived hours after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps struck Duqm Port in Oman and one day after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held bilateral talks with his Omani counterpart in Muscat, represents Abu Dhabi’s most comprehensive multi-country condemnation of Iranian military action since the Gulf war’s escalation.

The condemnation effectively collapses the bilateral channel that Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s national security adviser and Abu Dhabi’s deputy ruler, had maintained with IRGC officials through at least June 2026, when Abu Dhabi reportedly facilitated the release of more than $3 billion in frozen Iranian funds in exchange for a halt to attacks. Iran struck the UAE in May 2026 with missiles and drones, Abu Dhabi called it a “dangerous escalation” and a “terrorist attack,” and the bilateral channel survived that episode — Tahnoon’s team continued engagement with IRGC interlocutors. What the May strikes failed to accomplish, the July 12 combination of five-country condemnation and the Duqm attack appears to have finished....

....MUCH MORE 

Currently at House of Saud, July 13:

Most Read Today

• 1 IMF Cuts Saudi 2026 Growth to 1.7 Percent on Hormuz Disruption  
• 2 The UAE and Saudi Arabia Are No Longer the Same War 
• 3 Iran Strikes US Bases in Four Countries Within Twenty-Four Hours
• 4 Prince Sultan Air Base Lost Its Deterrent Before Iran Fired
• 5 MBS Told Trump What Riyadh Would Allow in the Gulf — In One Sentence 
• 6 Pakistan Holds the Guarantee Saudi Arabia Cannot Buy
• 7 Mojtaba Khamenei Called for Revenge After 127 Days Without Appearing 8 Emergency Numbers and Services in Saudi Arabia
• 9 Washington Weighs Punitive Drawdown From Prince Sultan Air Base
• 10 Muscat Holds the Only Hormuz Channel Still Open

Capital Markets: "Middle East Conflict and Pressure on Chips Challenge Investors"

From Marc Chandler at Bannockburn Global Forex:

The re-intensification of the Middle East war initially roiled the markets but as the session progressed, oil has pulled back and equities have stabilized. August WTI briefly traded above $75 and is now around $73.50, which is still nearly 3% higher. Most of the large Asia Pacific equity markets were under pressure but Europe is little changed and US index futures are mixed. 

The US dollar is mixed. The Japanese government reportedly will not formally overhaul the allocation of the government’s pension funds, despite what it may have appeared like before the weekend, and the yen and JGBs are softer today. Since last week’s hawkish hold by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the Kiwi has been the strongest in the G10 and remains so today. Undaunted by the heightened volatility and the risk of further disruption of commerce through the Strait of Hormuz, the PBOC set the dollar’s reference rate at a new three-year low....

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Chipconomy: "Ken Griffin Warns Losing TSMC Chips Could Trigger a 'Great Depression:' They're in 'Every High-End Product'"

From Benzinga, July 10:

Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Apex Symposium, Citadel founder and CEO Ken Griffin warned that losing access to Taiwanese semiconductor chips would cause the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) to decline by 8% within six months, triggering a modern “Great Depression” because Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (NYSE:TSM) microchips are embedded in “every high-end product” manufactured today. 

Griffin emphasized that a military escalation or blockade around Taiwan creates a dangerous “bad equilibrium” with absolutely no winners. Because Taiwan Semiconductor completely dominates the global supply chain for advanced silicon, a sudden disruption would paralyze core American industrial and technology sectors almost overnight.

“Boeing stops making planes in six months,” Griffin stated, illustrating the scale of the systemic vulnerability. “Most new cars stop being manufactured in six months. Consumer electronics stop being made in six months. Everything freezes.”....

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Going back to some posts from 2019/2020:

"China deploys Sun Tzu to win the chip war" 

Taiwan's TSMC To Build A $12 Billion Chip Fab in Arizona

 ***

Although the article focuses on the Huawei angle there is a lot more going on here.
January 16 
As Concern Grows Over China’s Invasion Threat To Taiwan the U.S. Military Wants TSMC To Move Some Chip Capacity
And some thought I'd gone mad talking of chips and China and the island formerly known as Formosa (at least to the Portuguese).
p.s. can I start attending the Thursday soirées again? Please....
A couple posts from last summer. Frirst up, the intro to July 3's "China to Narrow Chip Gap With Taiwan Invasion"

Did I say invade? I meant trade.
I must have been thinking of China's Defense Minister last month saying "China must be and will be reunited".
With the Taiwanese elections coming up it's probably as good a time as any for Beijing to make some sort of move. Probably not invasion though. China will want to test its military somewhere, our guess is Vietnam, before tackling Taiwan. So probably some sort of fifth column action, cyber, electrical grid etc. And the people to do it are already on the island, I mean if the Chinese could get one of their spies into Dianne Feinstein's office while she was Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee (2009 - 2015), the guy was her San Francisco office manager, not, as reported, the chauffeur, if they could do that there is no doubt they have assets in Teipei.
So where was I?

Chips. For all their technological wizardry the Chinese are still having trouble making chips. Some of our links on that after the jump....

Chips: How China Is Still Paying the Price For Squandering Its Chance To Build a Home-grown Semiconductor Industry 
Should China ever invade Taiwan the TSMC fabs would be quite a prize.
We've looked at this oddity a few times, some links below....
Intel is known in some circles as Chipzilla but, truth be told, the appellation might more accurately belong to TSMC.

The Chip Wars of the 21st Century

While some people are bleating and tweeting into the ether about their political feelings, others are creating the technical container that will define, delineate, create, and constrict the future.
Them's the ones to watch out for.
Baaaa

 

And: 

"US mulls scorched earth strategy for Taiwan"
Ummm, have the Taiwanese weighed in on this plan?

From Asia Times, December 6:

US strategy to blow up Taiwan’s semiconductor fabs to deter China might do more harm than good.... 

April 2023 - Taiwan Quietly Urges U.S. To Chill On The "Invasion Risk To World Chip Supply" Chatter (TSM)

And last week:

As Clausewitz might have said, had he been born 200 years later than he actually was:

Chips are just war by other means. 

Memory: "Kospi Slumps 8.95% Back Into 6,000 Range; SK Hynix Posts Record 15.37% Drop"

Good timing on getting the ADRs floated on Friday.

From The Korea Economic Daily via Bloomingbit, July 13: 

South Korea’s Kospi slumped nearly 9% on July 13, dropping back into the 6,000 range. Concerns that the semiconductor cycle has peaked combined with escalating US-Iran tensions to trigger a Black Monday-style selloff. SK Hynix, which recently listed American depositary receipts on the Nasdaq, plunged more than 15%.

The Kospi closed down 8.95% at 6,806.93. It was the first finish below 7,000 since May 4, when the index ended at 6,936.99. The benchmark hovered around 7,500 early in the session, but losses deepened from about 9:30 a.m. It fell below 7,000 at 12:04 p.m. and by 1:28 p.m. the decline had widened into the 8% range, triggering a circuit breaker that halted all trading for 20 minutes. The marketwide trading curb, introduced after the financial crisis, has been activated 13 times in total, seven of them this year.

A rout in Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, the two stocks that had led gains on the main board, spread across the broader market. Samsung Electronics sank 10.70% to 254,500 won, while SK Hynix tumbled 15.37% to 1.845 million won. That was SK Hynix’s biggest one-day drop on record, surpassing its 14.93% decline during the 2008 financial crisis. SK Hynix listed its ADRs on Nasdaq on July 10, and the securities jumped 12.76% on their debut. Its Seoul-listed shares, however, slumped sharply...

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Chips: "TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, reports 68% surge in June revenue"

From CNBC, July 13:

• TSMC reported a 6.2% month-on-month and 68% year-on-year jump in June revenue.
• The company reported a first-half revenue of NT$ 2404.48 billion for 2026, marking a 35.6% increase compared to the same period last year. 
• The Taiwanese chip giant’s stock rose 1%.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. reported a 67.9% year-on-year rise in its June sales on Monday, ahead of its second-quarter earnings release later this week.

For the first half of 2026, TSMC’s total revenue reached 2.4 trillion new Taiwan dollars ($74.99 billion), representing a 35.6% increase compared to the same period in 2025. TSMC reported June revenue of NT$ 442.68 billion — a 6.2% increase from the previous month.

The Taiwanese chip giant’s shares rose 1% Monday.

TSMC’s numbers are “quite robust,” said Sravan Kundojjala, an analyst at SemiAnalysis, noting that the chipmaker’s second-quarter revenue exceeded its high-end guidance of $40.2 billion. The result came whereas historically June revenue has declined month-over-month over the past four years, he added. 

“The demand supply situation in AI is still quite tight and TSMC is sold out on N3, which is targeted by all leading AI GPU and CPUs this year,” he added.

The world’s largest contract chipmaker manufactures semiconductors for a wide range of applications, spanning from smartphones to high-performance AI computing systems, with key clients including U.S. technology leaders such as AI darling Nvidia, Apple and Advanced Micro Devices....

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And from the company:

TSMC June 2026 Revenue Report 

 

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The World Runs On Diesel and Diesel Is Running out

With Russian shipping and refining capacity getting whacked we're seeing crack spreads greater than the price of crude itself.

Important - Diesel in the US.
The attention always focuses on gasoline pump prices.
Pricier diesel has a more silent but debilitating, wider impact on inflation and the economy. https://t.co/LBfd4qyNb3

— Vandana Hari (@VandanaHari_SG) July 13, 2026

"Is The Economist always wrong?"

From The Economist, July 2:

We used artificial intelligence to test the accuracy of our forecasts 

The tone of pronouncements made in the leader pages of The Economist has been likened to the “voice of God”. The comparison is not meant flatteringly. But it raises a fair question. A deity would be omniscient. How accurate, by comparison, are our predictions? Rigorous fact-checking usually saves us from embarrassing errors about the present. The future is trickier. 

In 1999 we said oil could fall to $5 a barrel, from around $10 at the time. That $10 turned out to be a generational low. Prices rose more than tenfold in the next decade. Then, in 2013, we called a peak in global oil demand. Today it is still stubbornly trundling upwards. This April we said that oil markets were in “La La land” about the war in Iran and predicted a spike in prices. They have since fallen by about a third.

 

Perhaps the black stuff is our bête noire. Yet these howlers, and others, have given rise to the charge that, far from being all-knowing, The Economist is so reliably wrong that the smart move is to bet against it. There is no better time to double down on a stock-market rally than when we start fretting about a bubble. Last year the then chairman of Reform UK, a populist-right party, called The Economist the “ultimate contrarian indicator”, while complaining about our criticism of his party’s fantasyland fiscal numbers. (A few months later, the party reversed course and ditched those policies.)

 

Is the accusation fair? Or can The Economist lay claim to a creditable forecasting record? Predictive perfection is not our goal and we aim mainly to inform and stretch minds. But ideally we would be right more often than wrong. To assess our record with something approaching neutrality, we took the 7,000 or so leaders The Economist has published this millennium and fed them into GPT-5.5, an artificial-intelligence model.

 

We asked it to assess whether each leader had made a falsifiable claim about the future as part of its main thesis. About 1,400 did. We then extracted those predictions, and asked the AI to mark out of ten both how contrarian the leader’s outlook was at the time and how accurate the prediction turned out to be. We ran those queries several times and took an average.

Overall, the AI assessor’s conclusions are reassuring, at least for those of us who make a living writing (and occasionally predicting) for The Economist....

*****

...To evaluate our record in detail, start by casting your mind back to the turn of the millennium, when our leader sample begins. We were preoccupied by transformative technology. Market optimism seemed to be teetering on the delusional. As the dotcom crash took hold, we fretted (accurately) about America’s economic pain spreading to Europe and Asia, and (un­necessarily) about a second dip in growth. But soon we began to fulminate about the next crisis—which started in America’s housing market and culminated in the worldwide financial mayhem of 2007-09....

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Insuring Against AI Cyberattacks

From Artemis, July 10:

Existing cyber cat bonds structured to withstand Claude Mythos turbulence: Man Group 

As Anthropic’s advanced cybersecurity AI model, Claude Mythos, continues to generate significant noise across the cyber sector, investment manager Man Group notes that the per-occurrence structures and high attachment points of existing cyber catastrophe bonds should provide meaningful insulation from future turbulence, for when more advanced AI models eventually become widely available.

In early April, Anthropic announced the successor to its Claude Opus model: Mythos Preview. While a general-purpose language model, Mythos has demonstrated capabilities in computer security, including autonomously discovering and exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities, as well as reverse-engineering exploits on closed-source software.

“Of concern is not that Mythos is discovering vulnerabilities that could not be discovered by skilled researchers, rather, it allows the search for and application of vulnerabilities to be done at scale, and to potentially put such skills in the hands of less skilled, but malicious actors,” Man Group said.

In response, Anthropic launched Project Glasswing, an initiative bringing together users and authors of some of the most critical software, such as Apple, Google, Linux Foundation, and Cisco, in order to employ Mythos Preview for defensive security.

Man Group noted that Anthropic eventually intends to deploy Mythos-class models with built-in safeguards that detect and block nefarious use. The firm also noted that as part of Anthropic’s evaluation of Mythos, thousands of highly critical vulnerabilities were also identified.

“The concern though is that sooner or later, malicious actors will get their hands on Mythos Preview or a competitor of similar abilities and exploit these vulnerabilities at scale. So, what are the implications for cyber security, cyber insurance, and cyber catastrophe (cat) bonds,” Man Group said.

Adding: “So far, we have observed a benign insurance response, partly, we think, because there haven’t been any severe events yet, but it would be naïve to assume that these capabilities do not elevate the cyber threat level.”

Of the six outstanding 144A cyber catastrophe bond deals, Man Group highlighted that five are per occurrence deals.

“The decision of what constitutes a single occurrence is sometimes delegated to the sponsor rather than effected through a precise legal definition. The latter would be difficult to codify,” the firm said.

Adding: “The cyber linkage of events is potentially more difficult to define, given potentially multiple steps in an attack. In any case, per occurrence deals and high attachment points mean that we need to see a single event causing insured loss which is an order of magnitude greater than what we have seen to date. As an aside, we note that cat bond risk modellers may not necessarily aggregate losses in the same way that the insured does.”

Man Group went on to note that the re/insurance and ILS industry will still need to grapple with two fundamental questions.

“First, if an AI agent simultaneously attacks multiple institutions, insurers must determine if that constitutes a single event. Whether the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center constituted one or two events was heavily litigated, and defining the cyber linkage of events is potentially more difficult. Second, as corporates integrate AI into their processes, the market must consider whether AI outages warrant sub-limits as is already the case for cloud service outages,” the firm explained....

....MUCH MORE 

Previously from Artemis:

July 2015 - The Next Great Reinsurance Opportunity: Cyber Attacks!

And a whole bunch more between those two bookends. If interested use the 'search blog' box, upper left. 

"Dry Wine is for Snobs"

From the Tiled With Pentagons blog, July 2:

(Epistemic status: A hill I'll happily die on, but also will own as the kind of subjective hot take where my own taste is load-bearing for its validity. For everyone with a sweet tooth I've split a bottle of something nice with, and everyone embarrassed of liking fruity drinks.)

How can you tell an eternal aesthetic truth from the vagaries of fashion and signaling? One of them holds up under comparative historical analysis, and the other has a start date. Alcoholic drinks - especially wine - have been getting drier for the last century, and prestige taste has shamed us into calling this progress. It's not: it's fashion masquerading as quality, and the slightest bit of modern archaeology wears that facade away like cheap gold plating from copper. And just as with such faked gold, to be beholden to modern fashions is to spend more money than you should spend on less enjoyment than you might secure.

 

In 1916, a Swedish schooner named the Jönköping was transporting a cargo of fine spirits to Tsar Nicholas II's court and to the Allied war effort: wine, Cognac, and 3,000 bottles of Champagne. To Nicky's sorrow, she ran afoul of a German U-Boat, which detained her, took her crew prisoner, and scuttled her with a torpedo to prevent the steel she carried from reaching Russia. 80 years later, salvage operations began on the wreck, and 2,000 bottles of fine Champagne had survived to be lifted from the bed of the Baltic Sea. The conditions had been ideal for their preservation: the chill and the dark had prevented spoilage, and 6 atmospheres of water pressure outside had countered an equal 6 atmospheres of carbonation within, preventing leakage. Tasting notes agreed: Goût Américain 1907 was well-balanced and complex, with a "sweet, fruity, fresh" aroma with notes of honey, exotic fruits, apricots, and raisins; "comporting itself as though from the 1970s", it retained much of its carbonation after all those decades, and had a "youthful golden color with slight copper hue". It was, expert tasters agreed, one of the best Champagnes they'd ever had. And one more thing - it was very, very sweet: "sweet, and one of the richest Champagnes [they'd] ever tasted"; almost scandalously so. And it wasn't that the wine had improved all that much or sweetened at all over its near-century at the bottom of the sea. All Champagne has added sugar - called a dose - to balance its acidity and help carbonate the wine, and Goût Américain 1907's was relatively high - at least, for modern times. For its own time, it was pretty unexceptional. That was what excellence tasted like for those who could afford the very best: rich and sweet. Some of the richest people who ever drowned went down with the Titanic, and before their fateful foundering, they would have been toasting with much the same: something rich, complex, scintillating, and, according to a modern oenophile's palate, dessert. (It's a pity that no recoverable bottles of Champagne survived to prove me right.) Bone-dry Brut as a badge of sophistication is a recent invention....

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"Revenge becomes Iran's language of unity after Khamenei’s death"

 A few stories from Iran International, July 11/12:

The headliner:

Revenge becomes Iran's language of unity after Khamenei’s death | Iran International 

Iranian officials are calling for national unity after Ali Khamenei’s death, but the message is increasingly being shaped by demands for revenge, attacks on officials accused of compromise and warnings that internal division serves the enemy.... 

Iran turns Friday prayers into nationwide campaign for revenge | Iran International 

Khamenei doubles down on revenge after Trump vows to decimate Iran if targeted | Iran International 

Iran’s economic pain deepens as factions trade blame | Iran International 

Iran faces region’s harshest mix of wartime contraction and inflation | Iran International 

For many Iranians, paychecks now barely cover food | Iran International 

And from  the Iran International liveblog 

Iran army says US must comply with Hormuz agreement

An Iranian army spokesperson said the United States must comply with the terms of the memorandum of understanding, adding that US actions to create what he called an "illegal route" in the southern Strait of Hormuz had undermined security.

"We are duty-bound to ensure the region's security and the safe passage of ships," Brigadier General Abolfazl Akraminia said, according to state media.

He added that Iran's armed forces would "firmly defend the rights of the Iranian people in the Strait of Hormuz" and said their target list was "constantly being updated."

"Bloomberg CTO Shawn Edwards Is Rebuilding the Terminal Into an A.I. That Can’t Bluff"

From Observer, July 10:

Shawn Edwards has spent decades building the infrastructure of Wall Street. Now he's trying to teach it to think—without letting it lie. 

Bloomberg’s chief technology officer has, by his own admission, a job that is half about building the future and half about stopping the future’s more embarrassing impulses from getting anywhere near production. “Half my job is keeping out nonsense from the company,”  Shawn Edwards tells Observer, and he is not entirely joking. The nonsense he’s referring to is the tidal wave of generative-A.I. hype that has swept through every boardroom with a Bloomberg Terminal. His job is finding the narrow cross-section between what his engineers can dream up and what the people who actually trade bonds, screen credit and prep for earnings calls are desperately trying to get done—not what they’re doing today, but what they’re actually trying to achieve. In Edwards’ worldview, that distinction is the organizing principle behind ASKB, the conversational, agentic A.I. system Bloomberg has built directly into the Terminal.

Ask Edwards for a use case, and he describes the old way of doing things. “Before ASKB, a user would have to go to different places in the Bloomberg Terminal to look at company fundamentals, to look at what the street estimates are, to look at various performance measures, company KPIs, and a different place to look at print, peer analysis and alternative data for that quarter’s performance—reading lots of news about the company and invariably reading lots and lots of company documents and sell-side research.” Edwards pauses. “And then they would have to synthesize all this information.” 

As of February, Bloomberg users can ask the system (ASKB) to synthesize information. “It knows where to fetch and knows where to find all this information and gives you a quite detailed analysis for you to be prepared.” 

The machine does not replace the analyst, and Edwards is careful, almost insistent, on this point. “ASKB doesn’t do the entire job for the analyst, but it does 80 percent of the work of gathering and synthesizing this information. And it frees them up to do the value-added thinking—really deciding where they really dig in.” The workflows differ by desk. For equity analysts, it’s event preparation and thesis monitoring. For credit analysts, it’s liquidity analysis and bond screening. The common thread is a research problem.

Trust Isn’t a Feature...

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"How Charles Schwab Turbocharged Trump’s Stock-Trading Frenzy"

 Via FN London, July 9:

Boosted by legal win for the Trumps, Schwab account went on automated trading spree 

In August, a New York appeals court delivered some good news to President Trump—and sent his Charles Schwab account into overdrive.

A panel of judges threw out a roughly $500 million penalty against the Trumps stemming from New York Attorney General Letitia James’s fraud case against the family’s businesses.

The president’s trust had set aside money in a Schwab account to pay the fine, but the ruling freed up that cash for investments, people familiar with the situation said. Within days, the Schwab account was snapping up and selling dozens of stocks as an automated trading strategy put the cash to work.

Trump’s massive increase in stock trading, detailed in recent financial disclosures, has drawn scrutiny from government ethics watchdogs. After reporting dozens or hundreds of trades in filings through the first 15 months of his term, he began disclosing thousands more in recent weeks. His latest report revealed an avalanche of more than 21,000 trades over the course of last year.

Schwab, which has emerged as one of the Trumps’ go-to financial firms, is one of the major money managers at the center of that trading activity. Of the eight investment accounts detailed in Trump’s annual financial report, one managed by Schwab—identified only as “account no. 7”—held the most money, as measured by the minimum values assigned to each holding, and had among the highest volume of trades on or after the August court ruling, according to people familiar with the matter.

_ and JPMorgan Chase are two of the other financial firms handling investment accounts for the first family, some of the people said.

Trump has said his sons are managing all of his investments while he is in office. “My kids run it,” he said on CNBC earlier this month. “I’ve made a tremendous amount of money, more than I would have ever thought I would have made, and I let people invest it I don’t even speak to.”

Much of the president’s wealth is held in a revocable trust. Trump is the sole beneficiary, though Donald Trump Jr. serves as the trustee, with sole voting power.

“All of the president’s assets are held in fully discretionary accounts managed by independent third-party financial institutions,” a White House spokeswoman said in a statement. “There are no conflicts of interest.”

Since the president’s return to the White House in early 2025, the Trumps have turned to automated trading strategies. A Trump Organization spokesman said the family is taking that approach to alleviate concerns about potential conflicts of interest.

One such strategy, direct indexing, involves buying individual securities that track the performance of an index—such as the S&P 500 or the Schwab 1000—while also generating losses that can be used to reduce capital-gains taxes. These automated strategies routinely buy and sell large quantities of stocks over the course of the year to hew to an index, and any influx of cash into the account will very quickly be redeployed....

....MUCH MORE 

Agriculture: "USDA Reports Summary"

From DTN Progressive Farmer, July 10:

USDA Lowers New-Crop Corn Ending Stocks, Forecasts Record-Large US Soybean Crop 

By DTN Staff

This article was originally published at 11:02 a.m. CDT on Friday, July 10. It was last updated with additional information at 12:29 a.m. CDT on Friday, July 10.

**

OMAHA (DTN) -- USDA trimmed 170 million bushels (mb) from 2026-27 corn ending stocks, estimating that there will be 1.79 billion bushels (bb) of corn on hand at the end of the marketing year. Corn acreage and yield were left unchanged at 95.3 million acres (ma) and 183 bushels per acre (bpa).

USDA increased soybean production to 4.475 billion bushels, which would be a U.S. production record if it holds. USDA estimates that farmers planted 85.4 ma that will yield an average of 53 bpa.

USDA trimmed 20 mb from wheat ending stocks, lowering its projection for 2026-27 to 722 mb.

USDA released its July Crop Production and World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) reports on Friday....

....MUCH MORE 

Wheat and Soybean Futures Pop On USDA Production and WASDE Reports

Soybeans have given back much of the initial jump, wheat maintains. 

From the U.S. Department of Agriculture, July 10: 

World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates 

WHEAT: The outlook for 2026/27 U.S. wheat this month is for lower supplies, unchanged domestic use and exports, and smaller ending stocks. Supplies are reduced 22 million bushels on lower beginning stocks and production. Production is forecast at 1,536 million bushels, down 7 million from last month. This is the lowest U.S. wheat production since 1970/71. The all wheat yield is 47.9 bushels per acre, up 0.9 bushels from last month. Winter wheat production is lowered 39 million bushels to 990 million, almost entirely due to reductions in Hard Red Winter and Soft Red Winter. 

The initial 2026/27 survey-based production forecasts from NASS indicate other spring wheat is less than last year at 475 million bushels on lower harvested area while Durum is also lower at 71 million on reduced harvested area and yields. Projected 2026/27 ending stocks are reduced 22 million bushels to 722 million and are down 22 percent from last year. The projected 2026/27 season- average farm price (SAFP) is unchanged at $6.00 per bushel, compared to last year’s final SAFP of $5.06.

This month’s 2026/27 global wheat outlook is for reduced supplies, higher consumption and trade, and reduced ending stocks. Supplies are projected down 1.0 million tons to 1,099.1 million primarily on reduced beginning stocks for several countries with global output only slightly lower. Production is raised for Russia and Ukraine on continued favorable conditions for their winter wheat crops. Canada’s production is lowered based on Statistics Canada’s Principal Field Crops Area report. Global consumption is raised 1.6 million tons to 826.2 million, mainly on higher food, seed, and industrial use for India, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Somalia. World trade is 1.1 million tons higher at 213.1 million on increased exports for Argentina, Russia, and Ukraine more than offsetting reduced exports for Canada. Projected 2026/27 global ending stocks are lowered 2.6 million tons to 272.8 million, primarily on reductions for the United States, India, Argentina, and Canada....

....MUCH MORE 

And more to come.

From TradingView, Wheat 24 hours.