Thursday Watch

Around X:

• @Business  

• South Korean stocks rallied after Samsung reached a tentative deal with its labor union, defusing the threat of an imminent strike at the world’s largest memory chipmaker.
• Trump is poised to issue an executive order as soon as Thursday aimed at bolstering AI cybersecurity along with a memo setting terms for AI deployment by national security agencies, sources say.
• AvalonBay and Equity Residential are nearing a deal that will see two of the biggest real estate investment trusts by value combine, said said.
• The top US securities regulator is delaying the launch of a wave of novel exchange-traded funds that would let investors wager on events as the agency weighs how far the $15 trillion ETF wrapper can stretch. 
• Get up to speed on what's moving global markets.
• Here’s what you need to know to start your day.    

• @ZeroHedge

• The US Is Still A Decade Away From Breaking China’s Rare Earth Hold. 
• New Fed Chair Pledges 'Regime Change' To Fight Inflation - Here's What That Could Mean In Practice. 
• Obamacare Enrollment Expected To Drop By Nearly Five Million As Costs Surge.
• Several States Contest Federal Orders Keeping Coal-Fired Power Plants Open.
• AI Is Making Business Email Compromise Nearly Impossible To Spot.
• US, Israel Planned To Install Hardliner Ahmadinejad As Iran's Leader: Cartoonish NYT Report Says.
• Complete SpaceX financial spread.
• Largest US Electric Grid Gets Approval To Curtail Data Centers During Hot Weather.
• Lowe's CEO Warns Housing Market "Most Difficult" Since Financial Crisis As DIY Project Demand Crumbles. 
• If half the people don’t pay any tax, then we have 50% of the population with votes and no stake in how government is run. And they can simply vote themselves ever greater handouts at the expense of more productive people. This would not end well for America.
• Soros Fueling Opposition To Texas Data Center Expansion: Report. 
• Renewed Peace-Deal Optimism Sparks Oil, Dollar, & Bond Yield Plunge; Gold & Stocks Soar.
      

• @CNBC

• Japan exports jump 14.8% in April, handily beating expectations.
• Asia markets set to rise as Trump says negotiations between Iran and the U.S. in 'final stage'.
• Analysts home in on Nvidia's inference market share following an earnings win. Here's why.
• Anthropic set to hit $10.9 billion in revenue during second quarter, source says.   
• S&P 500 futures tick lower as traders analyze Nvidia earnings: Live updates. 
• Stocks making the biggest moves after hours: Nvidia, Intuit, e.l.f. Beauty and more.
• Intuit plans to cut workforce by about 17% as tax software maker reckons with slowing growth. 

• @TheTranscript 

• SpaceX Q1 2026 Results: — Revenue: +15.4% to $4.69B. — Total costs & expenses: +64.3% to $6.64B. — Operating loss: $1.94B, from $27M profit. — Net loss: $4.28B, from $528M loss. — Basic loss per share: $1.27, from $0.18. (pic)
• $NVDA CFO: "Hyperscale revenue of $38 billion was approximately 50% of data center revenue and increased 12% quarter over quarter."
• $NVDA CEO: "....my sense is that we'll be supply-constrained throughout the entire life of Vera Rubin..."
• SpaceX: "...we entered into Cloud Services Agreements with Anthropic ...with respect to access to compute capacity across COLOSSUS & COLOSSUS II...[Anthropic] has agreed to pay us $1.25B per month through May 2029, with capacity ramping in May & June 2026 at a reduced fee".
• $NVDA CEO: "Vera Rubin is going to be even more successful than Grace Blackwell at this point. Every single frontier model company will jump on Vera Rubin from the get-go. And that wasn't true before on Blackwell. And so Vera Rubin is off to a tremendous start. And it'll surely be more successful than even Grace Blackwell." 
• $NVDA CFO: "The value of NVIDIA AI infrastructure is rising. The price of renting an H100 has risen 20% year to date, while A100 cloud pricing is up nearly 15% benefiting from the versatility of our platform and continuous performance enhancements enhanced by our software stack, customers are generating profitable revenue beyond the depreciable life of their GPUs.
• $NVDA CFO: "Revenue for the first quarter was a record $81.6 billion, up 85% from a year ago and up 20% sequentially." (graph) 
• $NVDA NVIDIA Q1 FY27 Results: — Revenue: +85% YoY to $81.6B. — GAAP gross margin: 74.9% [Q1 FY26: 60.5%]. — GAAP net income: +211% YoY to $58.3B. — GAAP EPS: +214% YoY to $2.39. Reportable Segments: — Compute & Networking revenue: +88% YoY to $74.6B. — Graphics revenue: +58% YoY to $7.1B. Market platforms: — Data Center revenue: +92% YoY to $75.2B. > Hyperscale revenue: +115% YoY to $37.9B. >AI Clouds, Industrial & Enterprise: +74% YoY to $37.4B. — Edge Computing revenue: +29% YoY to $6.4B.

• @MarioNawful

• Last night, Trump reportedly gave Netanyahu the worst news he could imagine. According to Axios, Trump told him mediators are close to an interim deal that would end the war and start a formal 30-day negotiating period. Netanyahu was fuming, with one source saying his “hair was on fire.” This is amazing news, if true; it means Trump wants the war to end and he’s no longer doing what Netanyahu wants.
• The AI boom has a fuel source most people aren't talking about: natural gas. 27 billion cubic feet per day of new demand is coming between 2025 and 2031. To put that in perspective: that's more new gas demand than any comparable period in American history. 2 forces are driving it: -LNG export terminals flooding global markets with U.S. gas -AI data centers consuming power at a scale the grid has never seen before. Previous gas demand spikes were cyclical: cold winters, hot summers, industrial slowdowns. This one is structural. The infrastructure is being built. The contracts are being signed. The data centers don't turn off. The U.S. is about to become the world's gas station AND the world's compute engine at the same time. The energy market hasn't priced in what that actually means yet. 

• @MJTruthUltra

• Heads must roll… Sen. Ron Johnson says there is a total Media BLACKOUT on the new COVID Vax Child Death count study— 24% of 39,000 Victims Died the SAME DAY or Within 48 Hours! “They KNEW and Did NOTHING!” Sen. Johnson is discussing a new FDA analysis/report he released on pediatric deaths linked to the COVID-19 vaccines. The data shows overwhelming safety signals that were ignored by health authorities in every major category. Even worse! Dr. Peter Marks was made aware of these safety signals on March 26, 2021 that the inventors of the algorithm that analyzes the VAERS data was trying to (HIDE) the adverse events. (video)
• Virginia Democrat CIA Governor Abigail Spanberger says she is signing a surprise Executive Order tomorrow which will refuse state cooperation with federal law enforcement officers, and to block them from Polling Places. The only reason you want to block federal officers from polling places is if you plan on doing something illegal. (video) 

• @Rasmussen_Poll

• Georgia: Why does everything about Georgia elections have to be adjudicated? A: Because Georgia is run by criminals ... (pic)

• @Breaking911

• A San Francisco driver captured video of a crowd of humanoid robots clogging a crosswalk as stunned onlookers stopped to film the bizarre scene. (video)

• @disclosetv

• JUST IN - U.S. DOJ announces a 15-city nationwide antisemitism "Awareness & Action Tour," to increase reporting of antisemitism, strengthen collaboration between local, and federal, law enforcement and Jewish communities, and foster broad interfaith opposition to antisemitism among Jews, Baptist Christians, Catholics, and Muslims.

• @One_Way_Home

• Well this is concerning… (video)

• @AIPAC  

• Ed Gallrein’s victory in KY and Clay Fuller’s win in GA ensures two outspoken pro-Israel voices are positioned to fill seats previously held by outspoken detractors, Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Our community was proud to help pro-Israel candidates win these races.

• @KobeissiLetter

• BREAKING: Donald Trump Jr's investment firm, 1789 Capital, has seen its assets under management surge by +1,650% over the last year, to $3.5 billion, per FT. Details include: 1. The firm is building an investment empire around "patriotic capitalism" and targets $10 billion in AUM 2. In recent pitches, the firm is being described as the "new Carlyle Group" 3. Over the past year, 1789 Capital has bought stakes in some of the most sought-after private companies including Ramp, Deel, Crusoe, Groq, and Reflection AI 4. Recent successful investments include investments in Cerebras, SpaceX, Anduril, and xAI under
  @DonaldJTrumpJr's guidance 1789 Capital is now one of America's fastest growing investment funds.

• @gurgavin

• ANTHROPIC IS GONNA START PAYING SPACEX $1.25 BILLION A MONTH TO USE ITS DATA CENTRES THROUGH 2029. THAT’S $15 BILLION A YEAR JUST FROM ANTHROPIC. FOR CONTEXT SPACEX’S REVENUE FOR ALL OF 2025 WAS $18.7 BILLION.

• @VigilantFox

• REPORT: Farmers are sounding the alarm after President Trump said China will continue buying American farmland, even as Americans are told China is the reason we need a nationwide AI buildout. That contradiction is setting off alarm bells across the country. The same nation framed as America’s greatest threat is still being allowed to buy up pieces of the U.S. food supply, while communities across the country are told to give up farmland, water, energy, and local industry for giant AI data centers built in the name of “competing with China.” Farmers warned that food security is national security, but Washington keeps acting like none of this carries consequences. So what happens when America’s farmland is sold off, its future is automated, and the people raising the alarm are ignored? To a growing number of people, this is beginning to look less like leadership, and more like managed decline. (video)

• @RepKeithSelf

• Want to buy a truck? DENIED. Want to buy a gun? DENIED. Want to protest the government? ACCOUNT FROZEN. This is the future under a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)—total government control over your money, your spending, and your life. Ban CBDC. FOREVER! (video)

Night Trading 

• Asian equity indices are +1.5% to +3.0% on average. 
• Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 74.25 -2.25 basis points. 
• China Sovereign CDS 42.0 -1.0 basis point.
• China Iron Ore Spot 106.7 USD/Metric Tonne -.6%. 
• Crude Oil 98.74/bbl. +.5% 
• Gold 4,458.2 USD/t oz. +.5%. 
• Swiss Franc/Offshore Chinese Renminbi Cross 8.65 +.05%.
• Bloomberg Emerging Markets Currency Index 35.33 -.05%.
• Bloomberg Global Risk-On/Risk Off Index 124.5 +1.3%.
• US 10-Year Yield 4.58% -1.0 basis point.
• Japan 30-Year Yield 4.05% -4.0 basis points. 
• Volatility Index(VIX) futures 20.0 +.04%.
• Euro Stoxx 50 futures +.23%. 
• S&P 500 futures -.18%.
• NASDAQ 100 futures -.21%.

Morning Preview Links

BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are higher, boosted by technology and Metals & Financial shares in the region. I expect US stocks to open mixed and to rally into the afternoon, finishing modestly higher.  The Portfolio is 75% net long heading into the day.