Monday Watch

Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:    

• Meloni Hosts Vance, Von Der Leyen for Trade Talks, Hails New Era.
• Bessent Calls Moody’s ‘Lagging Indicator’ of US Fiscal Health.
• China Gave Pakistan Satellite Support, Indian Defense Group Says.
• Australia Set for Another Rate Cut as US-China Tensions Ease.
• Timing Not Right for China Home-Sales Overhaul: State Media.
• Portugal’s Center Right Wins Vote But Falls Short of Majority.
• Chinese Trader Who Made $1.5 Billion on Gold Builds a Giant Bet on Copper.
• Iran Vows to Uphold Pursuit of Peaceful Nuclear Energy.
• Clock Ticks on Hostage Talks as Israel Readies Major Gaza Sweep.
• Dollar, US Stocks Futures Weaker on US Downgrade.
• Oil Steadies After Early Drop With Ukraine, US Outlook in Focus.
• Cybersecurity Firm Cyera Valued at $6 Billion in Funding Round.
• Democrats Say They’re Reckoning With Biden’s Role in 2024 Loss.
• US States Likely to Defy US Downgrade to Keep Top Credit Ratings.
• NJ Transit, Rail Union to Resume Negotiations as Workweek Looms.
• Crypto High-Rollers Go Big on Bodyguards to Deter Kidnappers.
• Five Key Charts to Watch in Global Commodity Markets This Week.

Zero Hedge: 

• Biden Diagnosed With 'Aggressive' Stage IV Prostate Cancer.
• MAHA Working: Goldman Finds "Better-For-You" Consumption Shift Underway.
• Weekend News Roundup - Newsquawk Asia-Pac Market Open.
• Tattoos May Be Linked To Cancer - Here's Why...
• Patel & Bongino Tease New 'Russiagate' Evidence In 'Wave Of Transparency' - Yet Insist Jeffrey Epstein Killed Himself.
• Trump Denies Rift With Netanyahu, Says PM 'Fought Hard & Bravely'.
• The Great Simmering In The West.
• Two Dead After Mexican Navy Smashes Into Brooklyn Bridge.
• Hartnett: How To Trade The "Next Big Bull Market" .
• Did The Biden Admin Fudge Jobs Numbers Into Election? Labor Dept Report Raises Questions.
• Houthis Again Target Israel's International Airport With Ballistic Missile.
• The Irony Of Moody's Downgrade Of U.S. Credit.
• Vance & Zelensky Repair Relationship In 'Good' Vatican Meeting.
• EU Establishment Fumes As "Far Right" Romanian Candidate Closes In On Presidential Win.
• US Space Chief Says China, Russia May Escalate Space Conflict.
• Vince Foster, James McDougal, Seth Rich: Trump Posts Wild 'Clinton Body Count' Clip.
• The Latest Hungarian-Ukrainian Tensions Are Troubling.
• Is Christian Nationalism The Solution To The Frailty Of Liberalism?
• China Set To Become Top Nuclear Power Source By 2030.
• Biden-Hur Tape Drops, And Boy Is It Rough - Listen To All Five Hours Here.
• Desperate San Francisco Pins Business Hopes On Nintendo Flagship Store.
• "I Don't Know What To Do!": Borrowers Report Credit-Score Carnage As Student Loans Hit Reports.
• Los Angeles County Targets Retail Theft With New Warning Program.
• How War Propaganda Has Fueled American Foreign Policy For A Century.
• "Very Intense Explosion" Rocks Palm Springs Fertility Clinic Leaving One Dead.
• Nuclear Names Oklo And NuScale Move Forward With SMR Permitting, Plans.
• Doug Casey On DOGE, Deficits, & The Coming Financial Earthquake.

Wall Street Journal:

• GM Is Pushing Hard to Tank California’s EV Mandate.
• Hamas Wanted to Torpedo Israel-Saudi Deal With Oct. 7 Attacks, Documents Reveal.
• Meet the ‘Stealthy Wealthy’ Who Make Their Money the Boring Way.
• Israel Expands Gaza Ground Operation, Says Targeted Hamas Leader Is Likely Dead.
• Just How Expensive Are Stocks After All the Ups and Downs? We Check the Math. This Takeover King Leans on Yoga and Team Bonding to Make Billions.
• The Data-Center Wars Arrive in Small-Town West Virginia.
• Europe Is Out. Road Trips Are In. Welcome to the Scaled-Back Vacation.

Barron's:

• Had bullish commentary on (ONON) and (NFLX).

CNBC:  

• Mike Johnson stresses Memorial Day deadline as budget bill heads for revote.
• Scott Bessent calls Moody’s a ‘lagging indicator’ after U.S. credit downgrade.
• The wealthy are spending big on jewelry — as long as it’s the right brand.
• S&P 500 rips higher by more than 20% as animal spirits awaken in six-week market comeback.
• Top Wall Street analysts prefer these dividend stocks for stable returns.

MarketWatch.com:  

• Why is the Fed quietly buying billions in bonds — and hoping nobody notices?
• Strong earnings keep stock-market bulls in charge. What could bring the rally to a halt?

NewsMax:  

• Pope Leo Vows to Protect Church Doctrine, Face Modernity in Inaugural Mass.
• House Speaker: 'Big, Beautiful Bill' Still 'on Track'.
• Vance Meets EU Chief to Move Trade Talks Forward. 
• Bessent: Trade Talks Will Yield Regional Deals.

Fox News:

• Biden family insider blows the lid open on the administration’s culture of concealment.
• Alice Marie Johnson goes from jail house to the White House as pardon czar.
• Biden diagnosed with 'aggressive' form of cancer.

TheGatewayPundit.com:

• Biden Slipped Up and Said That He Had Cancer While Telling a Story in 2022 (VIDEO).
• FLASHBACK: Frank Biden Accidentally Blurted Out Joe Biden Was Terminally Ill in July 2024. 
• McCarthy Blasts Republicans for Delaying Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’.
• GAETZ ON WAR ROOM: ‘We Cannot Be Tolerant of This Judicial Coup’ and ‘We Have to Thoroughly Reject Unconstitutional, Nationwide Injunctions’.
• Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson Says He Only Hires Blacks Because They Are More ‘Generous’ Than Whites (VIDEO).
• Telegram CEO Pavel Durov Says France Pressured Him To Censor Right-Wing Voices in the Run-up To Romanian Elections.
• PRESIDENT TRUMP: ‘We Now Have SUBSTANTIALLY Over $10 Trillion of Investment’ Following UAE Visit (VIDEO).
• Tom Homan Details Rescue of Pregnant 14-Year-Old Girl Found Living with Two Men Who Were Trafficking Her (VIDEO).
• Malia Obama Accused of Completely Ripping Off Indie Film for Her Nike Commercial Directorial Debut (VIDEO).
• HE WENT THERE: Trump Posts Video Compilation of Mysterious Deaths and ‘Suicides’ Linked to Hillary Clinton.
• Turncoat Mike Pence Rules Out Another White House Run After Humiliating 2024 Campaign (VIDEO).
• Oklahoma Schools to Teach Issue of Democratic Voter Fraud — Students Will Analyze 2020 Election Anomalies.
• The FDA Just Approved Another COVID Vaccine — But RFK Jr. Has Already Intervened.
• Trump’s Approval Numbers Surging in Blue New Jersey – More Popular Than State’s Democrat Governor.
• CNN’s Scott Jennings Red-Pills Bill Maher’s Liberal Audience While Talking About Trump’s Foreign Policy (VIDEO).
• AOC’s NYC District Sees 70 Percent Surge in Major Crime Since She Took Office in 2019.
• War Room’s Steve Bannon and Patrick Wood Discuss the Exponential Power of AI Advancement within the Next Few Years (VIDEO).
• Mile High Marxist Bernie Sanders Proves There Is No Climate Emergency.

The Epoch Times:

• China’s New COVID‑19 Report Exposes CCP’s Biggest Fear, Analysts Say.

Around X:

• @elonmusk

• BREAKING: GOOGLE CEO SAYS — ELON MUSK ABILITY TO WILL FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES INTO EXISTENCE IS “UNPARALLELED”. (video)
• Grok can now generate charts. Currently works in browser, will come to more platforms in the coming days. (pic)
• China's electricity per capita is up 569%. Ours is down 7%. Yeah we've had some energy efficiency gains and that's great, but we need more electricity. We should be building industrial capacity and electrifying our economy. (graph)

• @MarioNawful

• BRITISH KIDS ARE SWALLOWING MAGNETS FOR FUN?! Yep, tiny metal balls from toys are landing hundreds of kids in hospitals across the UK—and some are barely making it out alive. Doctors are yanking magnets out of toddlers’ intestines after emergency surgeries that sound more like horror movies than playtime cleanups. One girl swallowed fourteen. Another kid ate fifty-four just to see if he’d become a human fridge. Spoiler: He didn’t. But his guts nearly exploded. This “magnet trend” is blowing up thanks to viral stunts and dodgy online sellers—and no one’s stopping it. 
• NVIDIA'S CEO RETURNS TO COMPUTEX WITH AI ARSENAL. Jensen Huang isn’t just unveiling new tech—he’s redefining what the future of AI computing looks like. From robotics to cloud systems, Huang is expected to drop major updates that could reshape how AI is deployed and scaled across industries. Last year, fans called it “Jensanity.” This year, he’s armed with Blackwell Ultra chips, a desktop AI system, and CPUs built to run Windows. 
• THE WORLD IS RUNNING OUT OF PEOPLE—AND IT'S WORSE THAN YOU THINK. Forget robots taking your job—soon there won’t be enough humans left to do them anyway. Birth rates are crashing in rich countries like the US, Japan, and South Korea. In 40 years, the global population will start shrinking, not growing. (graph)
• STARMER MAY UNDO BREXIT... TO PLEASE BRUSSELS. Imagine breaking up with someone, then begging to follow their house rules just to hang out again. That’s basically what the UK might do with the EU. PM Keir Starmer’s about to sign a deal where Britain follows EU laws again, obeys their judges, and lets millions of young Europeans live and work here—while still saying he’s tough on immigration. Cool trick.
• AMERICA’S LAWSUITS COST $529 BILLION—AND GUESS WHO’S PAYING? That’s over $4,200 per household just to keep the tort system running. Yes, you’re basically funding courtroom drama without popcorn. These costs are growing faster than inflation—7.1% a year. If that keeps up, we’ll be flirting with $1 TRILLION by 2030. California, Georgia, and Texas are the worst offenders. West Virginia, somehow, is the legal MVP—cutting costs by 20% with reforms and posting the cheapest bill: $2,100 per household. 
• The Global AI Government Market Is Surging: The AI in government and public services market was valued around $19.2 billion in 2023 and projected to reach $59.6 billion by 2031. (charts

• @LauraLoomer

• President Trump has bad actors working for him subverting his agenda. At the highest levels. I accepted a position at DHS HQ not because I needed a job, but because I wanted to fight for my children’s future and the future of this country from the inside. I was just fired from DHS HQ for fighting the career bureaucrats that are subverting Trump’s agenda, and moreover, hellbent on continuing the destruction of America. In the coming days I will be dropping bombs that will include specifics on how household names - people you think are “conservative” - are not who you think they are. Oh boy.
• SCOOP: I’m told White House Counsel and the DOJ are currently prepping Stanley Woodward for his Senate Confirmation hearing, even though close allies to the President were told Stanley would not be confirmed after my oppo on Woodward was published. The day of his hearing has been scheduled for May 21st (my birthday lol) and his name is not being listed on the Senate website for his confirmation because they likely don’t want a flood of MAGA protest over Stanley’s nomination, even though they now know he’s a Marxist who sued the Trump admin and made 15 donations to Obama.
• President Trump reposted a post on Truth Social that says “Why haven't they raided his house in the middle of the night and arrested him?” in reference to Former FBI Director James @comey. Comey recently called for President Trump to be ASSASSINATED! (pic)
• Why is @BillClinton traveling to South Korea, likely with a full US Secret Service detail, for over a week 2 weeks before South Korea’s elections? Is he trying to help create a communist takeover in South Korea on US taxpayer dime? Sure looks like it. Reporters should ask Bill Clinton why he’s going to South Korea as their elections kick off.

• @BiancoResearch

• Why the Moody’s downgrade of the US SHOULD BE a nothingburger —- In August 2011, S&P went first and downgraded the US from AAA to AA+. All hell broke loose. The reason hell broke loose was a lot of derivative contract, loan agreements, investment directives and the like prohibited the use of any non-AAA security. The fear was treasuries were not eligible collateral, and could put some people in violation of their directives or in technical default. In years after 2011 those contracts were rewritten to say government securities, excluding the qualification of the credit rating.  That’s why in August 2023, when Fitch downgraded to the US to AA+, the US became a split rated AA+ country. This downgrade had almost no effect on the bond market.

• @quay_dr

• Prostate cancer is the easiest cancer to diagnose when it first starts and to watch it progress to bone metastases. The PSA blood test shows the rate of cancer cell growth. For even with the most aggressive form, it is a 5-7 year journey without treatment before it becomes metastatic. Meaning, it would be malpractice for this patient to show up and be first diagnosed with metastatic disease in May 2025. It is highly likely he was carrying a diagnosis of prostate cancer throughout his White House tenure and the American people were uninformed.

• @mrddmia

• From first arrest to its ruling, it took the Supreme Court over 30,000 hours to provide relief to January 6th defendants persecuted by Biden. From habeas petition to its ruling, it took the Supreme Court only about 24 hours to provide relief to Tren de Aragua foreign terrorists.

• @BehizyTweets

• BREAKING: Pam Bondi is working on allowing federal prosecutors to be able to indict members of Congress without the approval of the DOJ's Public Integrity Section. All these Democrats committing crimes in broad daylight could soon be heading to jail if this succeeds.

• @Kylenabecker

• Remember: The Fake News Media that *LIED* to you about Biden's decline is now trying to pretend they didn't. Too bad for @CNN & @MSNBC there are *RECEIPTS.* Lots and lots of receipts... (video)

• @amuse

• CHINA: Why did President Biden fail to enforce the Phase One trade agreement with China? The CCP was allowed to ignore its obligations under the agreement and it cost the US $2 trillion in lost GDP. The Chinese delegation admitted Biden allowed them to ignore the deal. (video)
• GENOCIDE: Trump has granted asylum to almost 9,000 refugees since taking office, fewer than 2% of whom are white. But the Democrats and their willing accomplices in the drive-by media are claiming the admission of 59 white farmers facing South African genocide is racist. (video) 
• DOGE: Rep. Harris noting that what was once dismissed as conspiracy theory, before Elon Musk, & DOGE, is reality: over 2M illegal aliens were given SSNs in 2024, more than 1M received Medicaid, & the taxpayer burden now exceeds $150B/yr. (video)

• @CallahanAutoCo

• Callahan Auto is officially severing all ties with Walmart! It’s come to my attention they raised prices on Callan Brake Pads (in the name of tariffs) even though we manufacture and source 100% in the USA!!!

• @C_3C_3
  

• Want your blood to boil? Congress is fighting harder to protect their insider trading than codifying our DOGE cuts. Sickening.

• @IntelPointAlert

• BREAKING: Boat collides with NYC’s Brooklyn Bridge.

• @KariLake

• 100% FACT! The 2020 election was stolen and many others since then. We must clean up our rotten, corrupt elections or we will no longer have a republic. (pic)

• @VigilantFox

• Dear 𝕏 Community, I write this post out of desperation. A coordinated group is making my life a living hell. I’ve been forced to DELETE over 196 of my own posts in just the past 5 weeks! This includes simple thread summaries of @joerogan’s podcast. I fear my safety and my account could be in danger. Please listen to my cry for help. (thread)

• @mrddmia

• Let’s get this straight: Obama can drone strikes Americans. But Trump can’t repel foreign terrorists. Biden can import over 10 million illegal aliens. But Trump can’t send them home without years of court process. The American people never agreed to this. Not at our founding. Not after the Civil War. Not anytime since then. Certainly not in the last election. The Supreme Court is heading down a perilous path.

• @RodDMartin

• BREAKING: Putin says he's now ready for "negotiations without preconditions". Could this be the REAL DEAL? My sources say YES.
• The President telling the obvious truth.
  

• @MikeBenzCyber

• Yale, which receives $1 billion in gov't funds and works closely with the worst parts of our intelligence state, pre-tested using guilt, embarrassment, anger, and "trust the science" messages to get people to take the Covid vaccine, months before a vaccine was even developed. (video)

• @DividendTalks

• MASSIVE $UNH INSIDER BUYING. 1. CEO BUYS $25M 2. CFO BUYS $5M 3. DIRECTOR BUYS $1M 4. DIRECTOR BUYS $500K TOTAL INSIDER BUYING = $31.5M.

Night Trading

• Asian indices are -.5% to +.25% on average.
• Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 80.25 +.5 basis point.
  
• China Sovereign CDS 51.75 unch.
• China Iron Ore Spot 99.9 USD/Metric Tonne -.16%.
• Swiss Franc/Offshore Chinese Renminbi Cross 8.63 +.29% 
  
• Bloomberg Emerging Markets Currency Index 37.0 +.05%.
• Bloomberg Global Risk-On/Risk Off Index 70.0 +1.4%.
• US 10-Year Yield 4.48% unch.
  
• Volatility Index(VIX) futures 20.3 +4.3%. 
• Euro Stoxx 50 futures +.06%.
• S&P 500 futures -.9%.
• NASDAQ 100 futures -1.1%.

Morning Preview Links

BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are mostly lower, weighed down by financial and industrial shares in the region. I expect US stocks to open modestly lower and to rally into the afternoon, finishing mixed. The Portfolio is 75% net long heading into the week.