Thursday Watch

Around X:

• @Business  

• China’s armed forces are in the midst of one of the most sweeping shakeups of the Xi Jinping era, with a steady stream of senior generals vanishing from public view or being formally purged. Here's what you need to know. 
• Las Vegas Sands’ local unit Sands China fell as much as 9.8% in Hong Kong on Thursday, the biggest drop since last April, after weaker-than-expected profit in Macau sent the parent’s US shares down 10% in extended trading. 
• President Donald Trump warned Iran that it could face military strikes unless it reaches a nuclear deal with the US. Here's what we know about Iran's atomic program.
• China no longer requires real estate developers to file reports on its ‘three red lines’ for the sector, according to Beijing News. 
• Nvidia, Microsoft and Amazon are in discussions to invest as much as $60 billion in OpenAI as part of a major fresh funding round, the Information reported, citing people familiar with the talks.
• Elon Musk said Tesla needs to build what he is calling a “TeraFab” to manufacture semiconductors, a massive undertaking that will cost billions of dollars and mark another expansion beyond the company’s core EV business
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• A wave of cyberattacks has hit Bumble, Panera Bread, Match Group, and CrunchBase, as cybersecurity experts warn about a new round of social engineering attacks targeting US companies.
• Get up to speed on what's moving global markets.
• Here's what you need to know to start your day.  

• @ZeroHedge

• The U.S. processed 14 million online voter registration applications between 2022 and 2024. These online voter registration applications did not require proof of citizenship. Passing the SAVE Act would require proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. 
• Free Speech Isn't Free and It Cost Charlie Kirk Everything.
• Deportations vs Protests. Clinton; 12.5m-Protests: 0 Bush: 10m-Protests: 0 Obama: 5.2m-Protests: 0 Biden: 7m-Protests: 0 Trump: 1.2m-Protests: THOUSANDS All whipped up by the legacy media. It’s the biggest psy op ever.
• The Story of Alex Pretti. Read by Elizabeth Warren. (video)
• So the “hero nurse” was actually a crazy psycho spitting on ICE agents and attacking their vehicle. Guy should have been charged for this. Might still be alive if he had been. He was looking for trouble for weeks. (video)
• Century Aluminum To Construct First US Aluminum Plant In More Than 40 Years.
• GM CEO Warns Of 'Very Slippery Slope' As Canada To Import Cheap Chinese EVs.
• "Will Bring Country To Halt": Far-Left NGOs Prepare To Mobilize Children As 'Ice Out' Protesters.
• BREAKING: Mayor Zohran Mamdani Says New York City is Facing a “Fiscal Crisis at the Scale of the Great Recession”. “That means looking inward into savings and efficiencies. That also means raising taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers and the most profitable corporations.” This means raising taxes and spending more, causing people to leave the state, which leads to raising taxes and spending more, causing people to leave the state, which leads to raising taxes and spending more… (video)
• US Launches Revamp Of FAA To Improve Safety, Modernize Airspace Operations.
• NEW: DUTCH UNREALIZED GAINS TAX. The Netherlands just voted to overhaul annual income tax filings with a new tax of up to 36% for unrealized capital gains, starting in 2028. Assets like Bitcoin on bitcoin, stocks, and bonds will trigger tax liabilities each year based on changes in value, even if nothing has been sold. I've been warning you: asset seizures are coming to Europe. This will be the biggest political trend in the coming years. You either vote MAGA or you have to sell your crypto to fund Somalia welfare fraud. There is no "moderate" position, look at what they are doing in Virginia. You get MAGA or you get Luigi'ed.
• Multiple Polls Show Majority Of Americans Want All Illegals Deported. (video) 
• Welcome inside a MASSIVE fraud scheme in Minnesota a building with over 22 healthcare providers. In fact it was just exposed that this same building has billed over $380 million dollars from taxpayers over the years. It’s time to arrest these fraudsters. (video)
• "How Silly It Would Be": Columbia Student Explains Why She Did Not Report Her Own Gang-Rape To Protect Attackers.
• Rubio Says We Must "Preemptively Prevent" Iran From Attacking US Forces Already In Region.  
• Deranged Nurse Fired After Urging Poisoning & Paralyzing Of ICE Agents.
• Market Shrugs At Fed, Dollar Bounces On Bessent, S&P Stalls At 'Gamma Wall' After Record High. 

• @CNBC

• Advantest shares jumps over 7% after record quarter, lifts profit forecast on AI demand.
• CNBC Daily Open: Fed expectedly keeps rates steady — the intrigue was elsewhere.
• Meta's Mark Zuckerberg gets green light from Wall Street to keep pouring money into AI.
• Thursday's big stock stories: What’s likely to move the market in the next trading session
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• Samsung’s fourth-quarter profit triples, beating estimates as AI chip demand fuels memory shortage 
• Gold prices jump more than 3% as Asia markets set to trade mixed after U.S. Fed holds rates.
• Stocks making the biggest moves after hours: Microsoft, Meta, Tesla, Southwest Airlines and more
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• Here are the five key takeaways from Wednesday's Fed rate decision.

• @TheTranscript 

• $META CEO: "We are now seeing a major AI acceleration. I expect 2026 to be a year where this wave accelerates even further on several fronts. We're starting to see agents really work. This will unlock the ability to build completely new products and transform how we work."
• $TSLA CFO on the significant Capex increase: "While this may seem a lot, we believe this is the right strategy to position the company for the next era, and we will make such investments, as Elon mentioned, in a very capital-efficient manner. This does not include potential investments in solar cell manufacturing or our fab, which are still in the early phase, with updates to come in future quarters. We are starting not the next chapter, but a new book in the company’s progression. 2026 will be when this begins, and while it may feel daunting at times, it marks what we see as the most exciting change in Tesla’s history.""
• $LRCX Lam Research CEO: "WFE came in close to $110B. Our initial 2026 view is for WFE to be in the $135B range, with the growth in spending remaining constrained by a shortage of available clean space. Chipmakers have been public about their efforts to alleviate constraints, but they have also commented on sold out conditions persisting, indicating the magnitude of the challenge."
• $TSLA CEO @elonmusk: Model S and X production to end next quarter. "It’s time to basically bring the Model S and X programs to an end with an honorable discharge. We’re really moving into a future that is based on autonomy. If you’re interested in buying a Model S or X, now would be the time to order, because we expect to wind down S and X production next quarter. We’ll obviously continue to support the Model S and X programs for as long as people have the vehicles. We’re going to take the Model S and X production space in our Fremont factory and convert that into an Optimus factory, with the long-term goal of having a million units a year of Optimus robots in the current S space in Fremont. That is slightly sad, but it is".
• $META CFO on the impact of AI coding tools at Meta: "Since the beginning of 2025, we've seen a 30% increase in output per engineer, with the majority of that growth coming from the adoption of AI-generated coding, which saw a big jump in Q4. We're seeing even stronger gains with power users of AI coding tools whose output has increased 80% year over year. We expect this growth to accelerate through the next half."  
• Microsoft double beat. CEO @satyanadella: "We are only at the beginning phases of AI diffusion, and already Microsoft has built an AI business that is larger than some of our biggest franchises." $MSFT: -5% AH.  

• @ElonMusk

• They must be hiding something very big in Minnesota to send their foot soldiers there from all over the country. (graph)

• @GenFlynn

• Are you tired of seeing our country destroyed and NOT ONE person held accountable? An overwhelming 99.2% said YES. It’s a clear signal from the people that something is fundamentally broken. Without accountability, justice doesn’t exist. The rule of law becomes selective. Institutions lose credibility, and when those in power know they will never face consequences, what we’re living in is no longer a republic; it’s a managed decline. To suffer this course to continue would be a travesty to the nation and a betrayal of those who entrusted it to our care. Accountability is not cruelty, nor is it revenge. Accountability is the very cornerstone of self-government, the bond between liberty and order, and the surest inheritance we may leave to generations yet unborn.

• @17QStorm

• BREAKING: Maricopa County election insider just TESTIFIED under oath — Dominion "techs" walked RIGHT INTO voting sites during a LIVE ELECTION, plugged in EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES to the machines, downloaded ballot images + sensitive data, then walked it OFF-SITE with ZERO chain of custody, NO logs, NO oversight. What were they uploading/downloading in real time while votes were being cast? Where did that data REALLY go? Who was manipulating ballots behind the curtain? This isn't oversight—it's COVER-UP. The storm is exposing the machines. (video)

• @TheSCIF

• Analysis from the 2020 Georgia election found over 40 data points where negative voting, or outright vote switching occurred, totaling over 200,000 votes, along with machine learning algorithms, which flagged over 500 precincts, with over 1,000,000 corresponding votes that had suspicious activity in the 2020 Georgia election alone. The total amount of fraud that occurred during the 2020 election is absolutely mind-boggling and one of the most sophisticated election fraud operations in U.S. history. (video)
• President Trump's legal team exposing the 2020 Election Fraud at the Georgia State Farm Arena pulling suitcases full of alleged fraudulent ballots from under tables after the election center was shut down, running the same stacks of ballots over, and over, and over, all throughout the night until Biden was ahead, stealing the election from President Trump. This is exactly why the FBI raided the election center today in Fulton County, Atlanta, Georgia. This is only the beginning. Prosecutions are coming. (video)
• For anyone who hasn't seen this old document from Eric Coomer from Dominion when he used to be with Sequoia, he blantly talks about transmitting data from their machines through a wireless modem, including vote tallies, updates, changing voter rotation representation. These machines were specifically designed for fraud. How much more proof do you want? (pic)

• @WallStreetMav

• BREAKING: BBC uncovered footage of Alex Pretti 11 days before he was shot. Facial recognition tech confirmed his identity with 97% certainty. The “peaceful” nurse was obstructing ICE, kicking out their taillight, AND resisting arrest while armed. You can see the gun in his waistband when ICE lets him go. It’s unclear why they didn’t follow through with the arrest, but it could be part of the reason why Pretti chose to resist again when CBP tried to arrest him 11 days later. What is clear is that Pretti was no peaceful protestor and ICE wasn’t out to kiII people for sport like the Left is claiming.

• @LaraLogan 

• So two Democrat Minnesota state officials and a campaign adviser to Tim Walz, Amanda Koehler, are “admins” in the Signal group chat being used to stalk ICE agents. Who would have guessed? You are looking at a conspiracy that can actually be prosecuted. It’s called “treason & sedition”. Does anyone in power have any intention of upholding these laws? (pic)
• If you only look at one thing about what is happening in Minneapolis, let it be the website linked below: Crimethinc. This is where you can hear first-hand from the anarchist forces currently engaged in blackmailing the American people to get what they could never get in an election because the vast majority want to preserve & protect their freedom - not sacrifice it on the altar of globalist/marxist nihilism. As a journalist I encourage all to study their words & make up your own mind.

• @bennyjohnson

• Republican Senator Reveals Over A DOZEN US Senators Illegally STOLE Their Seats Through Fraud, 'Billions and Billions': SEN. TUBERVILLE: "We probably have a dozen or so people up here in the House and the Senate that were elected illegally. They shouldn't be here because things were crooked in the elections." “I'll go back to the money that is being stolen. The Democrats had the majority, House, Senate, and White House, and they did this first. CARES Act, you know, 'We need money for COVID,' $2 trillion. What'd they do with that money? They sent it to all the blue states to pay off their debts because they had stolen so much money they could not function, and we're talking about 30, 40 billion for California, 30, 40 billion for New York. Same thing for Chicago." (video)

• @WarClandestine

• The FBI raid in Fulton County is the result of a court-authorized search warrant, meaning that there must already be some form of convincing evidence. And all of this ties in with the open border, the illegals, the ICE protests, etc. Everything revolves around election fraud. (video)

• @HustleBitch_

• MAN EXPOSES THE ONLY U.S. CITY ERASED FROM GOOGLE MAPS - AND IT’S ULTRA WEALTHY. There is exactly one city in America you could not explore on Street View: North Oaks - a private, gated enclave in Minnesota known for extreme affluence and exclusivity. This wasn’t a glitch. It wasn’t outdated data. It was intentional. Every entrance to the city is marked "No Trespassing". Cameras and license plate readers track who comes and goes. There are no public roads - property lines extend all the way into the street, eliminating public right-of-way entirely. (video)

• @OcrazioCornPop

• BREAKING: Ex-Dominion Voting Systems executive Eric Coomer admitted under oath (Jan 27, 2026 deposition in Coomer v. Byrne) to discussing voting equipment, adjudication software & source code with foreign nationals, including Serbians who could remotely troubleshoot in Denver office. This contradicts YEARS of Dominion denials of foreign involvement in U.S. elections. Charlie Cain, attorney for Eric Coomer assaulted Byrne's attorney Peter Ticktin several times after losing the motion to suppress questions related to Serbia, China, and Venezuela, per @Joeoltmann. WILL JUSTICE FINALLY BE DONE FOR THE STOLEN 2020 ELECTION?

• @mitchelivii

• RAFFENSPERGER CAUGHT ON TAPE: TRUMP WON GEORGIA - THEN THEY STOLE IT! Georgia SOS Brad Raffensperger straight-up says with 2% left, "it will not change the outcome." Trump had it in the bag. He doubles down hard: "We don’t guess. What we do is report." Meaning even if all remaining votes went Biden, Trump still wins the state. No guessing, just facts from the man himself. MAGA knows the truth - 2020 got jacked right after this. Raffensperger flipped the script later, but this tape doesn't lie. Time to hammer election integrity harder than ever! (video)

• @BennyJohnson

• BREAKING: James O'Keefe Reveals The Federal Government Is Funding Left-Wing Terrorism Across The Country, Announces Full Report Dropping TODAY: "I have a video out in two hours of them admitting where they're getting the money. Some of the money comes from the government. The government is funding it. They admit what organizations they are with. These people are willing to die for their cause." (video)

• @LibsOfTikTok

• “Assault me motherf***er!” - Alex Pretti confronting ICE. (video)

• @TalkMullins 

• FULTON COUNTY, GA: Sources tell me they believe the Deputy Director of the FBI is on scene with DNI Tulsi Gabbard expected to arrive soon. An FBI mobile command center has been setup outside the election warehouse and several transport trucks brought in to retrieve documents. (pic)

• @RealLindellTV

• Viral Video from 2020 Georgia Recount Goes Viral Again Amid Renewed Scrutiny. Heather Mullins was the only reporter on the ground in Floyd County, GA during the 2020 recount - armed with just an iPhone when she captured video of Dominion techs scrambling to explain a 2,700 vote discrepancy. The footage exploded after @POTUS Trump retweeted it. Now, as Georgia makes headlines again, it’s back in the spotlight. @TalkMullins revealed that one of the officials handling ballots that night was Eric Thomas - @KamalaHarris’s former campaign photographer, working for Dominion in a deep-red county. "Why hasn’t he been subpoenaed? Why hasn’t he testified under oath?" (video)

• @iAnonPatriot

• HOLY SH*T. Citizens in Alberta are DEMANDING independence from Canada — this place was PACKED. (video)

• @AutismCapital

• If there’s one learning lesson you need to take away in 2026 it’s that the truth doesn’t matter anymore and reality isn’t real. People will invent narratives and facts to suit desired objectives and if enough people agree, that’s the new reality. People who point out that the emperor has no clothes will be crushed. Katherine Maher of Wikimedia said it best herself. “Our reverence for the truth is a hindrance to getting things done.” (Paraphrasing) We’re living in a world where lies don’t matter anymore. There are only words and how effective they are to reaching desired outcomes. People don’t care about the truth. They care about achieving their goals. We’re living in Demon times. (video)

• @mazemoore

• 2010. President Obama shoots down the whole "stop deportations and just let the illegal immigrants be" argument that the Democrat party is currently pushing. (video)

• @pjcolbeck

• BREAKING: Venezuela had/has access to U.S. Election Systems. Recent emails between Smartmatic employees in Venezuela and Sequoia employees in the U.S shared by Patrick Byrne indicate a very concerning connection. NOTE: Sequoia was bought by Dominion in 2010. Dominion was bought by KnowInk in 2025 and is now known as Liberty Vote.

Night Trading 

• Asian equity indices are -.5% to +.25% on average. 
• Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 65.75 +.75 basis point.
• China Sovereign CDS 43.0 +1.0 basis point.
• China Iron Ore Spot 103.1 USD/Metric Tonne -.%. 
• Gold 5,579.8 USD/t oz. +4.5%. 
• Swiss Franc/Offshore Chinese Renminbi Cross 9.07 -.4%.
• Bloomberg Emerging Markets Currency Index 36.4 +.02%.
• Bloomberg Global Risk-On/Risk Off Index 99.1 -.4%.
• US 10-Year Yield 4.26% +2.0 basis points.
• Japan 30-Year Yield 3.64% -1.0 basis point. 
• Volatility Index(VIX) futures 18.5 -.8%.
• Euro Stoxx 50 futures +.03%. 
• S&P 500 futures +.02%.
• NASDAQ 100 futures +.16%.

Morning Preview Links

BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are mostly lower, weighed down by consumer and healthcare 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 day.