Thursday Watch

Around X:

• @Business

• President Trump sees his meeting Friday with Russia's Vladimir Putin leading to a second round of talks involving Ukraine. 
• US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the Bank of Japan is falling behind the curve in addressing inflation, in a rare comment admonishing policy decisions by a foreign central bank.
• President Trump signed an executive order easing regulations for the commercial space industry, including steps to speed up the licensing process for rocket launches in a win for onetime ally Elon Musk’s SpaceX. 
• Donald Trump revoked an executive order signed by former President Biden that targeted consolidation in the agriculture, technology, and drug sectors, which the former administration argued had fed inflation by reducing competition. 
• Here's what you need to know to start your day. 
• Get up to speed on what's moving global markets. 

• @ZeroHedge 

• Russia's Fuel Exports Plummeted in July.
• Every time a new Russiagate document emerges, it tells the same story: it was a hoax. Every declassified email, text message, FBI report, Inspector General report, and intelligence memo—without exception—points not to Trump’s wrongdoing but to a coordinated plot against him. Not once has anything surfaced that even hints otherwise. That single fact alone probably reveals more about Russiagate than everything else combined. 
• Energy Angst - Goldman Outlines Alaska Meeting Scenarios. (graph) 
• US Reactivates Military Intelligence Unit On Korean Peninsula In Latest Build-Up.
• "Price-Spikes & Blackouts": America's Power Crisis Is Just Getting Started. (graph)
• India Defied US Pressure To Dump Russia For These Five Reasons.
• 'Animal Spirits Very Evident': Small Caps & Crypto Rip As Bond Yields & Black Gold Dip.

• @CNBC

• Thursday's big stock stories: What’s likely to move the market in the next trading session.
• Stocks making the biggest moves after hours: Cisco, Ibotta, Coherent and more.

• @TheTranscript 

• Cisco double beat but soft guide. CEO: "We delivered a strong close to fiscal 2025...The AI infrastructure orders we received from webscale customers in fiscal 2025 were more than double our original target..." $CSCO: -2.3% AH. (pic)

• @bennyjohnson

• Charlie Kirk delivered an absolute masterclass on CNBC this morning, atomizing the Ruling Class and explaining why no young person will ever trust them again due to their rampant dishonesty and corruption: “We did not receive any apologies from the ruling class that lied to us repeatedly during COVID The lockdowns, the efficacy of the vaccine, the mask mandates, school closures.” “We just act as if it didn't happen. And I don't think the American ruling class understands the undermining of their credibility that happened was when the entire country had their lives thwarted, especially young people.” “A lot of the COVID injustices we are still seeing today with younger people and their ability to own homes, with the inflation that President Trump is trying to fix that was inherited by Joe Biden.” (video) 

• @amuse 

• ASTROTURF: Things are about to get spicy in DC as Democrat-aligned NGOs start pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into the District to hire protesters to oppose Trump's efforts to reduce crime. Crowds on Demand is reporting a 400% surge in demand for paid protesters.

• @liz_churchill10

• Janet Yellen is OUT. Never forget she used Federal Funding AKA your Tax Dollars…to BUILD the CHINESE ECONOMY while Americans were suffering. This was Treason. (video)

• @Kylenabecker

• Here are the names of journalists assessed as laundering classified information in the Russia Hoax. The New York Times. Washington Post. The Wall Street Journal. All had reporters who appear to have participated in recycling the Democratic Party's talking points based on faulty and misleading intel dumps. This is not "journalism." This is being an accomplice to state propaganda. These "journalists" are partly responsible for dividing the nation for years and seeking to overturn the will of the people as determined by a free and fair election. This is Russia Hoax ground zero. And it was all part of an operation to carry out a "coup" against a duly elected president. (pic)

• @LeadingReport

• BREAKING: President Trump’s approval rating at this point in his second term is considerably higher than those of Barack Obama and George W. Bush, based on RealClearPolitics averages.

• @EYakoby

• The niece of the China-based billionaire reportedly funding left-wing protest groups in the U.S. led the “Jews for Zohran” Mamdani campaign. This is a foreign psyop happening in plain sight—and we’re all just supposed to pretend it’s normal.

• @RealPatrickWebb

• BREAKING: A provision exists that extends the statute of limitations for classified information offenses from 5 years to 10 years if the violation is found to be both willful and knowing, per John Solomon.

• @HustleBitch_

• WHAT THE HELL JUST HIT TENNESSEE? Another “once-in-1,000-year” storm just flooded Chattanooga. Entire neighborhoods are underwater. How many more of these “rare” disasters this year before we admit this is NOT normal weather? (video)

• @RealPatrickWebb

• BREAKING: Newly declassified documents reveal that former FBI Director James Comey routinely directed the bureau to leak classified material to The New York Times during Donald Trump’s first term, per Fox News.

• @EndWokeness

• BREAKING: City-run grocery in Kansas City shuts down due to rampant theft, barren shelves. The city spent $18M to keep it open.

• @Rasmussen_Poll

• Once Upon A Time ... A crazy man claimed that voter data for every American was in China and The CCP had used secret illegal U.S. election computer access to switch votes in 2020. And the crazy man was mocked & sued. But times changed, and new information came to light ...

• @FrankCappelleri

• The $SPX just logged back-to-back 80% breadth days for the first time since 4/11-4/14.

• @TonySeruga

• Democrats have turned on @AdamSchiff with a record number of whistleblowers stepping forward, including media insiders and big Dem donors. They’ve either witnessed or seen the evidence.

• @GuntherEagleman

• Our Senate @LeaderJohnThune decided to take a 6 week vacation instead of getting Trumps nominees confirmed. Now he is stopping Trump from recess appointments. John also refuses to censure or remove proven liar Adam Schiff from committee assignments. The SAVE act is still sitting on his desk. But he is enjoying you funding him and his vacation. TIME FOR NEW LEADERSHIP IN THE SENATE!

• @RodDMartin

• Trump's welfare reform DWARFS Clinton/Gingrich’s 1996 welfare reform. Biggest welfare reform in U.S. history — and you probably haven’t heard the details. Medicaid work requirements. Food stamp crackdowns. Fraud penalties. Here’s what it does.

• @WallStreetApes

• Elon Musk and DOGE were right. Rep Tim Burchett confirms Congress is laundering millions of our tax dollars to Democrat’s billionaire donors NGOs. He also says United Nations staff have created thousands of NGOs and WE’RE PAYING FOR THEM ALL. (video)

• @JimFergusonUK

• BREAKING: Former U.S. Navy Intelligence Officer Drops Bombshell Warning. Oklahoma State Senator Shane Jett — who served 11 years as a Navy Intelligence Officer — says America has been under an active, coordinated attack. “Without a doubt, we have been subjected to asymmetrical warfare — not with bullets and grenades, but toxins and viruses… This was orchestrated from within, through the pharmaceutical industrial complex and their shields in government… all to break the system, build back better, go more Marxist, and reduce the population.” This isn’t speculation — it’s coming from a man who’s served in the intelligence community, seen the inside, and understands how these operations work.

• @Trump_Army_

• BREAKING: SecDef Pete Hegseth is now CRACKING DOWN on CCP/adversary purchases of farmland nationwide. "I want to know who owns the land around our BASES!... And getting an understanding of why foreign entities, companies, individuals buy up land around those bases." (video)

Night Trading 

• Asian equity indices are -.25% to +.75% on average. 
• Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 67.25 -.5 basis point.
• China Sovereign CDS 43.25 -.25 basis point.
• China Iron Ore Spot 103.9 USD/Metric Tonne +.33%. 
• Swiss Franc/Offshore Chinese Renminbi Cross 8.92 +.05%.
• Bloomberg Emerging Markets Currency Index 36.7 +.01%.
• Bloomberg Global Risk-On/Risk Off Index 78.0 -.7%.
• US 10-Year Yield 4.23% unch.
• Volatility Index(VIX) futures 18.6 +.3%.
• Euro Stoxx 50 futures +.02%. 
• S&P 500 futures -.06%. 
• NASDAQ 100 futures -.05%.

Morning Preview Links

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