X Money ‘External Beta’ Will Go Live In 1-2 Months, Musk Says Authored by Martin Young via CoinTelegraph.com, X Money, an upcoming payments system that forms part of Elon Musk’s “everything app” plans, is scheduled to come out as a “limited beta” in the next two months before launching to X users worldwide.  Musk gave the new timeline at his AI company’s “All Hands” presentation on Wednesday, during which he […]

Trump Revokes Obama-Era Greenhouse Gas Finding In “Largest Deregulatory Action” In U.S. History Update (Thursday Afternoon): President Trump told reporters that his administration has rescinded the 2009 Obama-era “Endangerment Finding,” a determination that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare, which he said has been used by the radical left to justify $1.3 trillion in regulatory costs that have hurt American […]

Russia To Send Oil To Cuba Amid US-Imposed Blockade Russia is preparing to rush urgently needed oil to Cuba under what officials describe as a “humanitarian” arrangement, according to a report Thursday by the pro-government newspaper Izvestia. The Russian Embassy in Havana told Izvestia that “as far as we know, Russia is expected to supply oil and petroleum products to Cuba as humanitarian aid in the near future” – amid the […]

Microsoft AI CEO Warns Most White Collar Jobs Fully Automated “Within Next 12-18 Months”; Anthropic Fears Potential For ‘Heinous Crimes’ The man leading Microsoft’s AI sprawling efforts is sounding the alarm over imminent mass labor disruptions, warning that the overwhelming majority of white-collar professional work could vanish to automation far sooner than most business and policy leaders are willing to admit – something we’ve […]

Stellar 30Y Auction Stops Through As Bid To Cover Soars, Dealers Plunge To Record Low It was the polar opposite to yesterday’s slop.  After a mediocre 3Y, and a dismal 10Y auction yesterday, moments ago the Treasury concluded the sale of the week’s final refunding auction, when it unloaded $25BN in 30Y paper to seemingly endless demand.  The auction stopped at a high yield of 4.750%, down from 4.825% in January, and the lowest […]

Supreme Court To Hear Roundup Maker’s Bid To Block Thousands Of Lawsuits In April Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times, The U.S. Supreme Court scheduled oral argument in Monsanto’s appeal seeking to block thousands of lawsuits alleging the company failed to warn consumers that Roundup, its popular weedkiller, could cause cancer. The court announced on Feb. 11 that it will hear Monsanto Co. v. Durnell on April 27. The […]

After 88 Years, Gallup Discontinues Historic Presidential Approval Polling The Gallup public opinion polling agency has announced that, beginning this year, it will stop publishing approval and favorability ratings for individual political figures in public office. American Greatness reports that agency announced that it will no longer chart presidential approval ratings, saying in a statement that the move “reflects an […]

Trump Warns Republicans Will ‘Suffer The Consequences’ If They Vote Against Tariffs Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times, President Donald Trump on Feb. 12 warned Republican lawmakers they will face consequences if they vote against his tariff agenda, after a handful of GOP lawmakers sided with Democrats to pass a measure this week. “Any Republican, in the House or the Senate, that votes against TARIFFS will seriously […]

Another Pair Of Lululemon Leggings Fails The Squat Test KeyBanc Capital Markets analysts, led by Ashley Owens, say Lululemon Athletica is back in the crosshairs on Reddit after another leggings line sparked see-through outrage on social media. The note follows last month’s “Get Low” backlash, when the brand was forced into damage-control mode after Redditors raged about similar issues. Owens said a version of Lululemon’s leggings, […]

IEA Slashes Oil Demand Growth Forecast For 2026 By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice, Global oil demand is expected to rise by 850,000 barrels per day this year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Thursday as it cut its growth estimate from 930,000 bpd expected last month.   All the 850,000 bpd growth this year is poised to come from developing economies, with China leading the additional demand, the agency said in its […]

Homan Says Minnesota Immigration “Surge Operation” Is Over White House border czar Tom Homan said on Thursday that the Trump administration has made significant progress in Minnesota and will therefore end the immigration enforcement surge in the state. ICE agents stand at the scene where ICE agents fatally shoot a woman earlier in the day in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, on January 7, 2026. “I have proposed, and […]

Logistics Stocks Crater As “AI Scare Trade” Crushes Sector, Slams Broader Market First it was SaaS (in particular, and Software in general), then Private Credit, then Insurance Brokers, then it was Financials/Broker/Wealth Managers that were hammered on Tuesday, then Real Estate Service stocks tumbled yesterday, and today it is the turn of Logistics stocks to plunge as investors followed the bouncing AI disruption ball and […]

“A Good Way To Destroy Your Country”: Rogan Blasts Democrats’ Open Border Insanity Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, Joe Rogan has zeroed in on the Democrats’ border fiasco, calling it a direct path to America’s downfall by inviting criminals and chaos across the line. The podcast powerhouse argues that while the U.S. was built by immigrants, unchecked entry under Democratic policies is flooding the nation with […]

The Men And Women In The High Castle By Michael Every of Rabobank US payrolls stronger, US yields up, stocks flat as anything hit by AI was too, oil sideways, and USD/JPY at 153 vs 159 a few days ago. Fed-speak was all over the place. Schmid said restrictive rates are needed to cool inflation. Miran said there’s still a variety of reasons to cut rates. Hammack said the labor market is finding a healthy balance and rates should […]

House-Passed Voter ID SAVE Act Set To Die In Senate; DHS Shutdown Looms On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed the SAVE America Act by a margin of 218-213. The bill would require proof of citizenship to register to vote as well as photo ID to vote in federal elections. One Democrat, Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, joined Republicans in voting for it, while one R and one D did not vote.  Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, is leading the […]

US Existing Home Sales Collapsed In January After managing a 1.4% YoY rise in 2025 (dramatically down from the 9.7% YoY rise in 2024, and 33% YoY collapse in 2023), US existing home sales were expected to drop 4.6% MoM in January (following December’s outsized 5.1% MoM surge), despite a tumble in mortgage rates. The analysts were correct on the direction but wrong on the scale as existing home sales plunged 8.4% MoM in January from […]

Ahead Of EU Competitiveness Summit: Macron Pushes Eurobonds Submitted By Thomas Kolbe  As the 27 EU heads of government convene with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday, the stakes are high from a fiscal perspective. A decisive item on the agenda at Belgium’s Alden Biesen Castle is the so-called Draghi Plan. The question hovering above it all is as simple as it is explosive: How can the obvious productivity […]

“Modern Money Only Works By Cheating”: If You’re Long Bitcoin (Or Not Long Bitcoin), Read This… Tl;dr: Bitcoin exists not to replace fiat money but as a provocative “hard object” in an elastic monetary world. Modern fiat succeeds by cheating – deferring pain, socializing losses, and bending rules to absorb crises (Weimar rigidity led to hyperinflation; 1929 rigidity was abandoned for elasticity in the 1930s; 2008 and COVID […]

CME Explores First-Ever Rare Earth Futures Contracts CME Group is drawing up plans for what could become the first-ever futures contract tied to rare earths, according to three people familiar with the matter, offering governments, companies and lenders a potential tool to manage exposure to a market long dominated by China, according to Reuters. The proposed contract would track neodymium and praseodymium (NdPr), typically traded […]

NYC Mayor Urges State Lawmakers To Pass Tax Hikes On The Wealthy, Corporations Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani called on state lawmakers Wednesday to approve a 2 percent personal income tax increase on the city’s wealthiest residents as well as a hike in the corporate tax rate in a bid to close a multibillion-dollar budget gap. The mayor testified in a New York State Senate […]

Initial Jobless Claims Refuse To Signal Labor Market Stress Following the impressive payrolls data (revisions aside), the number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the first time fell to 227k last week (down from 232k – which was a notable jump)… Pennsylvania and Missouri saw the biggest declines in initial claims while Texas and Virginia saw the largest rise… Which is odd because the week before, Pennsylvania […]

US Futures Rise As European, Asian All Time Highs Spill Over Futures are higher but there continues to be tangible angst below the surface as traders are aggressively shorting potential AI losers, while US stocks continue to fall behind the rest of the world. “It’s a paradox in that markets are holding, breaking records, yet investors remain cautious,” says Vontobel’s head of equities Jean-Louis Nakamura. As of 8:00am ET, […]

UBS Identifies When Humanoid Robots Will Invade Factory Floors Humanoid robots are getting their “brains” this year, enabling them to walk factory floors and warehouses and complete repeatable tasks previously handled by humans. We’ve assessed that the greater risk is dual use: these bots are likely to move beyond industrial settings to modern battlefields. We lean on UBS analysts led by Phyllis Wang for added color on the global […]

The Value Rotation Illusion Authored by Michael Lebowitz via RealInvestmentAdvice.com, “Value is back in vogue”, the media claim. Investors are rushing out of the high-flying mega-cap tech stocks and into the boring staples, utilities, and healthcare stocks. Given the huge outperformance of value stocks versus growth stocks, it appears investors are going all in on the value rotation.  What some of these investors don’t know […]

FTC Chair Warns Apple News’ Left-Wing Curation May Violate Consumer Protection Laws Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson sent a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook warning that Apple News may be violating consumer protection laws by suppressing right-leaning media outlets on its online news platform. Ferguson’s letter to Cook came one day after a New York Post report cited the Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog […]