Monday Watch

Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:  

• Mexico's Next Leader to Grapple with Surging Gang Violence.
• AI Fever Lures $2.7 Billion Foreign Funds Back to Taiwanese Stocks. 
• Seven Percent of European Firms Face Restructuring Pressure.
• Asian Stocks Eye Early Gains as Rate Cut Bets Firm.
• Oil Falls After OPEC+ Signals Plan to Return Barrels to Market.
• Key Engines of US Consumer Spending Are Losing Steam All at Once.
• Mnuchin Chases Wall Street Glory With His War Chest of Foreign Money.
• Five Key Charts to Watch in Global Commodity Markets This Week.

Zero Hedge: 

• Trump Campaign Raises Staggering $200 Million Since Thursday Conviction.
• Hartnett: This Is Where We Are Seeing Signs Of An Impending Debt Crunch.
• Hedge Fund CIO On The Next Leg: "It'll Be Parabolic. The Talking Heads Will Go Nuts. VIX Will Hit 10".
• Morgan Stanley Counters Hartnett's Gloom, Sees "A Revitalized Japan".
• Weekend News Round Up - Newsquawk Asia-Pac Market Open.
• A "Restaurant Apocalypse" Is Starting To Sweep Across America, And That Is Really Bad News For The U.S. Economy.
• Making Over $141K, Minneapolis Mayor Thanks Biden For Student Loan Forgiveness.
• The Ideological Battle Behind The US Debt Crisis.
• "Nothing To Do With World Events": Two Unarmed Minuteman III ICBMs Slated For Launch Next Week.
• Netanyahu Accepts Johnson's Invitation - First Foreign Leader To Address Congress A 4th Time.
• Boeing Enters 'New Territory' With Federal Probe, Possible Criminal Charges.
• OPEC+ Agrees To Extend Collective Output Cuts Until End Of 2025.
• The Deepfake Privilege? The Justice Department Makes Startling Claim To Withhold the Biden-Hur Audiotape.
• Alex Jones Repels Ambush Seizure Of Infowars, Sleeps In Studio As Monday Court Date Looms.
• State Supreme Courts Take Up COVID-19 Vaccine Cases.
• OpenAI And Political Bias In Silicon Valley.
• Watch Dave Smith Burn Chris Cuomo To The Ground In Epic Covid Debate.
• How Much Money Is Lost To Cybercrime?
• GDP Vs GDI Why The Huge Discrepancy And Which Is The Better Measure Of The Economy?
• Where Are The Largest Oil Reserves?
• Is Ukraine Going Rogue Or Did It Attack Russia's Early Warning Systems With American Approval?
• TME Weekend: How Underweight Magnificent 7 Are You? 
• 1 In 9 Children In The US Diagnosed With ADHD, COVID-19 A Potential Factor.
• These Are The World's Largest Armies In 2024.
• Alex Soros Gives Dems Propaganda Blueprint For "Convicted Felon" Trump Amid Party Infighting.
• Elevated Risk Of Epilepsy, Appendicitis In Children After COVID-19 Vaccination: Study.
• "Democracy Is On The Ballot": California Democrats Seek To Prevent Voters From Approving New Taxes.
• Trump's 'Coal Country' Could Supply Nation With 40% Of Lithium Demand.
• Global Cocoa Shortage Much Worse Than Previously Forecasted As Prices Surge.
• Strong Indian Purchases Push Asia's Crude Imports To One-Year High.
• What A China-Taiwan Conflict Could Mean For Semiconductors, Gold.
• US Drivers Overwhelmingly Prefer Gasoline Cars To EVs. 
• Why Consumers Are Angry About The Economy In Five Pictures.
• Three Quarters Of US Voters Say Country Is "Out Of Control" Under Biden; New Poll Finds. 
• Electricity Demand May Cure Debt Concerns. 
• Desperate, Lying Biden May Abuse AI To Pull The Ultimate Race Hoax.

Wall Street Journal:

• Elon Musk and Jamie Dimon Are Making Peace.
• Why Republicans Hate the Trump Verdict. Even those who dislike the former President see a case of legal and political malpractice.
• Democrats’ ‘Stop the Steal’ Campaign. They prefer to scapegoat businesses for inflation rather than concede that their policies caused it. 
• ‘She Hooked Me’: How an Online Scam Cost a Senior Citizen His Life’s Savings.
• U.S. Presses Two-Lane Diplomacy on Gaza.
• Republicans Call Judicial System ‘Weaponized’ After Conviction.
• First to Charge a Former President, He Now Weighs Seeking to Imprison One.
• Skydance Offer Gives Paramount Shareholders Option to Cash Out at Roughly $15 a Share.
• Waste Management Near Deal to Buy Stericycle.
• How America Inadvertently Created an ‘Axis of Evasion’ Led by China.
• AI Fake Nudes Are Now a Frightening Reality for Teens.

CNBC:  

• Nvidia announces new AI chips months after latest launch as market competition heats up.
• Ukraine’s Zelenskyy accuses China of helping Russia to disrupt upcoming peace summit.
• OPEC+ wants concrete rate cuts before factoring impact on oil demand, Saudi energy minister says.
• Why there’s a massive copper shortage.

MarketWatch.com:  

• Stocks are up but investor behavior is ‘fragile.’ Is the bull market still in its early stages? 
• Nvidia speeds up its AI-chip roadmap, next-generation Rubin platform coming in 2026.
• Want to measure the ‘vibecession’? Start by looking at how much money Americans can save right now.

NewsMax:

• Biden Admin Gives 'Mass Amnesty,' NY Post Reports.
• Pete King: Trump Case a 'Terrible Abuse'.
• Rep. Zinke: Trump Verdict Erodes the Constitution.

Fox News:

• US Navy Special Forces page sparks outrage with latest 'woke' move.
• Mayor proudly thanks Biden for his taxpayer-funded student loan handout.
• OPEC's decision on oil production could hit Americans' wallets and impact the election.

TheGatewayPundit.com:

• 34 REASONS the Bragg-Biden Show Trial Should Have Been TOSSED OUT — Each One Alone Providing Grounds for a Mistrial.
• President Trump Reveals that He is Prepared to Go to Jail (VIDEO).
• Stanford, Silicon Valley, and the Rise of the Censorship Industrial Complex.
• GOP Rep. Calls on RNC To Move Convention and Nominate Trump on July 4th – A Week Before Deranged Judge Merchan’s Sentencing (VIDEO).
• Inexcusable: Biden’s Pentagon “Mistakenly” Celebrates LGBTQ Pride Month in a PTSD Awareness Social Media Post.
• ‘They Want Trump Dead’ — Democrat Rep. Bennie Thompson Pushes ‘DISGRACED Act’ to Strip Trump of Secret Service Protection if He Goes to Prison.
• UFC 302 Erupts with Patriotic Fury: Crowd Cheers ‘F—k Joe Biden’ and ‘We Want Trump’ in Defiant Stand Against Current Administration (VIDEO).
• SORRY LEFTISTS: Former Obama Adviser David Axelrod Says Idea of Replacing Joe Biden on 2024 Ticket is a ‘Fantasy’ (VIDEO).
• Melinda Gates is Now Largest “Catholic” Donor to Pro-Abortion Causes.
• As Chicago Burns, Alderman Will No Longer Share Crime Alerts With Constituents Because They Create a Bad ‘Perception’.
• New Dallas Mavericks Majority Owner and Casino Billionaire Miriam Adelson to Donate into Trump Super PAC.
• Bill Melugin-Over 3,500 Chinese Illegal Aliens Caught Crossing Southern Border in May, 98 Percent in San Diego Sector.
• ‘THIS IS LONDON, NOT LONDONISTAN’: Tommy Robinson Leads Huge Patriotic Rally in Central London to Oppose Mass Immigration.

The Epoch Times:

• CCP’s Spying Operations in Western Countries Exposed.
• Convictions of Hong Kong Activists Show Beijing’s Contempt for Democracy, Say Human Rights Groups.

Around X:

• @EmeraldRobinson
  

• Too many Christians in the modern world have been told to tolerate evil rather than fight it. In fact, nothing has done more harm to Christianity than the false gospel of “tolerance.” The cowardice and silence of the Christian majority in America must end.

• @greg_price11

• Never forget that Alvin Bragg lowered 60% of all felonies to misdemeanors in his jurisdiction last year. Let that sink in: 60% of all people arrested for felonies got their charges lowered by Alvin. But for Donald Trump, he elevated a misdemeanor to felony by claiming he committed a second crime that doesn't exist. If you stabbed somebody on the street in Manhattan, you were more likely to get off with a misdemeanor from Alvin Bragg than Donald Trump.

• @TheChiefNerd
  

• “Myocarditis and pericarditis only occur after vaccination and not after COVID-19 infection, according to a recent preprint led by researchers at Oxford University, which compared health outcomes among COVID-vaccinated and unvaccinated children.

• @JamesMelville 

• The World Health Assembly delegates have agreed to adopt the World Health Organisation (WHO) International Health Regulations Amendments and finalise the WHO Pandemic Treaty “within a year, or earlier if possible in 2024”. Nothing has been fully ratified yet. So, put pressure on your governments and politicians to fully scrutinise this, debate this and ultimately reject this undemocratic power grab by unelected technocrats.
• “Bill Gates has done more damage to the world's health than probably any other individual." ~ Professor Angus Dalgleish (professor of oncology at St George's, University of London) (video)

• @KanekoaTheGreat

• Donald Trump gets a standing ovation at UFC 302 after being convicted of a made-up crime in a kangaroo court led by a corrupt judge. Trump raised over $50 million yesterday. @JoeRogan: "The round of applause he's getting right now is pretty staggering."

• @newstart_2024

• When you realize the so-called anti-vaxxers were right all along... Annette Bosworth, M.D. (Dr. Boz): "Spike proteins are not supposed to be inside us at all. The people who had Covid didn't have spike proteins found in their cardiac tissues. The people who had the vaccinations, the ones who had this messenger RNA made a protein and then they made the protein and didn't have the off button. They're now found at autopsy in the cells of cardiac tissues...What part in this did I play? First of all, how do you say: I'm sorry to all of you that've been putting comments in my videos for like a year. (video)@WallStreetApes

• @VigilantNews

• George Orwell once said, “Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.” As the media runs cover for the likes of Big Pharma, 𝕏 users are doing real journalism. Here are 20 truth-tellers they don’t want you to follow.

• @AmyMek
  

• Conquered... Hamas floods the streets of France to show their power and let Gazans know they have seized control of another city... The city of Lyon is already one-third Islamic. What does this mean for non-Muslims!? Well, there are constant stabbings, rapes, shootings, churches destroyed, priests attacked, mortar fire, cars burned, and fires set throughout Lyon to remind the French they have been conquered. The metro stations are like war zones; non-muslim children are assaulted at schools, women are no longer safe in the streets, and Jews have had to flee the area. (video)

• @CollinRugg

• NEW: Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary declares the U.S. has sunk to the level of a banana republic, warns of a financial "exodus." The comments by O'Leary were made in a piece with the Daily Mail. Here is what he said: (video)

• @toobaffled
  

• A Japanese preprint study warned of risks in transfusing blood from COVID vaccine recipients to other patients, indicating it may cause significant health risks, including death. The researchers also call for safety measures to screen and secure the world’s blood supply.

OpenVAERS: 

• VAERS US COVID Vaccine Adverse Event Reports. 1,010,545 Reports(+992 from prior report) Through April 26th, 2024.

SKirsch.com:

• Using the MGH numbers with our own VAERS queries, we have 247 cases per million doses from the MGH study divided by 5.97 cases per million doses from VAERS. 247/5.97 = 41. This suggests that the VAERS under-reporting factor (URF) is 41X.

Night Trading

• Asian indices are +.25% to +1.25% on average.
• Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 96.75 +1.25 basis points.
  
• China Sovereign CDS 62.5 +.75 basis point.
• China Iron Ore Spot 114.1 USD/Metric Tonne -1.2%.
  
• Bloomberg Emerging Markets Currency Index 39.6 +.06%.
• Bloomberg Global Risk-On/Risk Off Index 67.3 +1.3%.
• Volatility Index(VIX) futures 14.4 -1.6%. 
• Euro Stoxx 50 futures +.96%.
• S&P 500 futures +.23%.
• NASDAQ 100 futures +.24%.

Morning Preview Links

BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are mostly higher, boosted by technology and industrial shares in the region. I expect US stocks to open mixed and to rally into the afternoon, finishing modestly higher.  The Portfolio is 100% net long heading into the week.