Monday Watch

Around X:

• @Business   

• The strikes were aimed at further weakening the Islamic Republic’s ability to hit civilian vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the US Central Command said. 
• The Strait of Hormuz’s southern route remained open to shipping on Sunday despite Iran declaring the waterway closed as tit-for-tat attacks between the US and Tehran escalated, a maritime advisory group said. 
• President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he'll remove Ukraine’s prime minister as part of a broader cabinet reshuffle aimed at aligning the government with a new political strategy as the war with Russia continues well into its fifth year. 
• South Korea’s blistering stock rally has left investors facing an unlikely backdrop: equities trading at record-low valuations. 
• Apple’s new Mac chip road map represents the company’s latest move to rebuild its operations for the artificial intelligence world, writes Mark Gurman. Read the latest edition of the Power On newsletter here:
• The DOJ launched a grand jury investigation into allegations that the head of the United Auto Workers pressured another high-ranking union official to secure benefits for his fiancée and her sister. 
• OpenAI, Meta and SpaceX all released new AI models over the past week. Their biggest selling point may not be what they can do but how little they charge to do it. 
• Emerging market funds see an urgent need to move beyond AI, with just three tech stocks making up a third of the MSCI EM Index. 
• Here’s the latest news and analysis on the oil market. 
• Here's what moving markets.
• Here’s what you need to know to start your day.  

• @Zerohedge 

• US Engaged In Sustained Attack Waves On Iran As Trump Boasts 'We Bombed The Hell Out Of Them'. 
• James Carville Has Major Freakout Over The Socialist Wing Of The Party. 
• United States Retains Spot As World's Top Oil Producer. 
• The Real Point Of The "Patriot Front" Psy-Op. 
• US official says around 20 commercial vessels transited through the Strait of Hormuz in coordination with the US military over the last 24 hours, in addition to several vessels without US coordination: Axios. 
• SK Hynix (000660) has formalized the possibility of investing in a memory production facility in the US. 
• Morgan Stanley On The Latest In Private Credit: Liquidity Stress Not Translating Into Solvency Risk.
• Inflection Point Overload?
• With Dismissed Lawsuits And DOE Support, Holtec Delays Palisades Nuclear Plant Restart Further.
• TRUMP: ORDERING ALL US FLAGS LOWERED TO HALF MAST FOR GRAHAM.
• "The Same Monstrous Theme... Collectivism".
• CLAIM: The Iranian commander for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Navy recently said on state-owned media that no foreign vessels may pass through the Strait of Hormuz without being identified, tracked, and monitored by Iranian forces. FACT: Iran does not control the Strait of Hormuz. It remains an international waterway. U.S. forces are positioned and prepared to keep it that way. -@CENTCOM           
• 'Witness List Expanding...': A Seth Rich Scenario.
• *US SAYS HORMUZ IS OPEN TO ALL VESSELS SEEKING SAFE TRANSIT.
• "Planet's Strongest Heat Dome" To Bake America's Heartland.
• Tehran Declares Hormuz Closed, But Ships Are Still Transiting.
• EU Eyes 2040 Electrification Target To Slash Oil and Gas Dependence.
• IMF Downgrades Global Growth Forecast Second Time In A Row.
• Record High 53% Of Gang Rape Suspects Were Foreigners In 2025 In Germany.
• The Economics Of The Surveillance State.
• *IRAN'S IRGC TARGETS US BASE IN JORDAN WITH MISSILES: IRIB. *QATAR SAYS INTERCEPTED MISSILE ATTACK TARGETING COUNTRY.
• Which States Produce The Most Food In America?
• ACTIVE SHOOTER MULTIPLE VICTIMS turning Toronto massive family festival to 'WAR ZONE'. 'People deceased' — police
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• DARPA's Chilling Pre-COVID Blueprint: Predict, Manufacture, & Deploy Pandemics On Demand.
• The COVID Reckoning That Never Came. 
• 5 Charts To Navigate This Chaotic Market. 

• @CNBC

• CNBC Daily Open: Mideast tensions on the boil again as U.S., Iran trade strikes. 
• Stock futures slip after U.S., Iran exchange airstrikes again: Live updates. 
• ‘Almost unlimited’: Execs says AI demand remains strong even as enterprises move to ‘valuemaxxing’. 
• Earnings playbook: Reporting season gets underway with JPMorgan Chase, Netflix on deck.
• Oil prices rise as U.S. and Iran fight for control of Strait of Hormuz.

• @MarioNawful

• New footage from Venezuela showing the true horror of the powerful June 24 earthquake. Over 190 buildings completely collapsed. Entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble. Recovery is going to take years. This is the devastating reality of a major quake in a country already struggling. Heartbreaking. (video)

• @EricLDaugh

• JUST IN: Senator Mike Lee says the Senate is about to be BACK in session and that Republicans now have until August 8th for the SAVE America Act to be passed... ...or we CAN'T USE IT for the 2026 MIDTERMS. LEE: "Which would you rather have the Senate consider when it comes back into session next week? The SAVE America Act, or anything else?" SAVE AMERICA ACT!!! It needs to be passed through any means necessary. If it's in reconciliation, fire the parliamentarian. If it's not, nuke the zombie filibuster! (video)
• NOW: President Trump is putting huge pressure on the Senate GOP to IMMEDIATELY start moving on the SAVE America Act when they get back to session this week. He just posted Sen. MIKE LEE's poll finding an overwhelming supermajority want the SAVE America Act as PRIORITY NUMBER ONE. (video) 

• @Barchart

• 40% of Canadian Businesses are looking to relocate to the United States. 
• BREAKING : Argentina. Argentina's Peso has fallen to an all-time low against the U.S. Dollar and has now collapsed 99.8% since 2009. (graph)  

• @GeBiankaB12

• One of my longest-standing arguments is that we are not living in Orwell’s 1984, where truth is centrally suppressed and censored by force (that’s former communist societies, modern-day China, Russia, North Korea). We are living in something much closer to Huxley’s Brave New World. The truth is not hidden - it is almost always readily available. But it is buried beneath an industrial quantity of noise: propaganda, outrage, half-truths, conspiracy theories, influencer theatre, algorithmic rage bait and an endless stream of content designed not to inform us, but to keep us emotionally stimulated. The modern information system does not need to censor the truth when it can simply drown it in noise. A fact no longer has to be disproven - it only has to be surrounded by a hundred competing claims, stripped of context and nuance, turned into partisan ammunition and pushed into the same feed as celebrity gossip, memes and 15 second videos engineered to deliver the fastest possible dopamine hit. By the time the truth reaches us, it appears as just another piece of content competing for our attention. That is the more sophisticated form of control: not preventing people from knowing, but exhausting their capacity to care. (pic)

• @WallStreetApes 

• Security researcher Ben Jordan reveals that Flock cameras are secretly creating a GPS tracker for every car in America, and it’s already live. This is extremely concerning. “Flock license plate readers take a timestamped photo of every vehicle that passes every camera. Police can search your historical travel information for 30 days. This creates a searchable database of everyone, not just the suspects of crime — It's like if you were to build a graph of that sheet and plot it to a map, now it's as if you've had a GPS on your car for an entire month”. “In order for that historical data to be of investigative value, you have to track every car”. Flocks own training videos say they aren’t just tracking license plates, they’re tracking people. (video)

• @DC_Draino

• Whoa. Lindsey Graham told Trump last night that Voter ID was now going to be passed. Dead that same day.

• @ShadowofEzra

• The Los Angeles Police Department is ending its contract with Flock cameras over civil liberties and civil rights concerns. Officials have confirmed that these cameras collect data on Americans. The contract is set to expire and will not be renewed. (video)

• @ImBreakWorsham

• There is NO VIDEO of Tyler Robinson shooting Charlie Kirk, as VERIFIED by the prosecution in open court. Anyone telling you otherwise is paid to push that narrative or someone being influenced by those paid to do so. (video)

• @HormuzLetter

• BREAKING: Iran has just launched a large-scale surprise attack on Kuwait, with three ballistic missiles directly impacting US ATACMS ground-to-ground missile systems. Massive plumes of smoke rising. (video)

• @ClashReport

• Netanyahu on Lindsey Graham: In the last conversation I had with Lindsey Graham, I told him, "We can finance our own defense." He went ballistic. He said, "No way—you can't do that!" He was so committed to Israel's security that he actually argued with me to keep American aid flowing to Israel. (video)

• @MJTruthUltra

• “MJ I’m losing a lot of respect for you… let him rest.” Me: No. Here’s another clip of Lindsey Graham saying — “If it were up to me, I’d have shot those J6 Domestic Terrorists in the head.” (video)
• January 7, 2021. Senator Lindsey Graham declared Joe Biden the legitimate President of the United States, stating any claims that the election was stolen was dangerous misinformation He then threatened the 25th Amendment, stating he did not believe it was appropriate “at this point” but would consider it if President Trump would not commit to a peaceful transfer of power.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ (video)

• @JasonJournoDC

• Tim Burchett on Mitch McConnell: "Nothing in Washington ever happens by accident. It's a cover-up up on top of a cover-up ... This whole thing is a farce." "Washington, DC is just a large man-made sewer. And we rarely stir it. We just let it sit there and stink." (video)

• @RogerJStoneJr

• Senator LINDSEY GRAHAM, who said that January 6 protesters should be shot in the head and who told the White House counsel that President Trump should be removed under the 25th amendment after January 6 has died at age 71.

• @Beth_Kindig

• AI startup Perplexity is planning to use Nvidia’s new standalone Vera CPUs, with the company saying it found that Vera carried out agenting coding tasks 1.5X faster than traditional CPUs.

• @mattvanswol

• Absolutely HORRIFYING video footage is emerging from Southeast Missouri after a ‘1-in-1,000-year flood' prompted over 350 rescues. The damage gives me so many flashbacks to Hurricane Helene here in Western North Carolina. Please pray for these people!!!!! (video)

• @ScottPresler

• If Republicans do not demand full transparency from the Senate & our gov’t on the state of Senator McConnell’s health, then we are no better than when the democrats covered up Biden’s cognitive decline for years. I mean this with the utmost respect & wish Senator McConnell well.
• 5 Republican Senators cannot remove Senate Majority Leader Thune. It takes 5 Senators to force a party conference meeting, but it would require 27 Senators to remove him. Instead, we will primary a laundry list of incumbent Republican Senators in 2028 if they don’t give us the SAVE America Act. Thank you, Texas & Louisiana. 

• @sarrah_bellus

• If it turns out Mitch McConnell has died and Republicans covered it up to avoid the special election required under Kentucky law, those responsible should face prison. Full stop.

• @FirstSquawk

• TRUMP FAMILY FORTUNE HIT AS DONALD TRUMP’S SON’S BITCOIN BET WIPES OUT $600 MILLION Donald Trump’s son reportedly lost around $600 million from the family’s fortune following a major bet on Bitcoin. The reported loss underscores the volatility of large, concentrated cryptocurrency investments, though it has no direct impact on the broader crypto market or listed companies.

• @TonySeruga

• Graham’s final call with Trump was about the SAVE America Act — voter integrity legislation. That’s significant. Graham wasn’t just pushing Russia sanctions. He was working on the kind of domestic legislation that makes very powerful enemies on multiple fronts.

• @spaceandtech_

• The Moley Cooking Robot is a robotic kitchen that can prepare gourmet meals automatically. Its robotic arms can measure ingredients, chop, stir, and cook thousands of recipes with precision. You can choose recipes, customize meals, and schedule cooking using its touchscreen or mobile app. (video)

• @Chicago1Ray

• The darkest most malicious cover-up in U.S Senate history is happening right now ~ Benny Johnson. McConnell couldn't complete a sentence while speaking on the Senate floor in (Jan). But we're supposed to believe he had (20) min calls with several people while in (ICU). His neighbors said he looked dead, when they were wheeling him into that ambulance. This is serious folks... someone was seen coming out of his house with Congressional tags on his car, but covered his face... what was he doing there. I'm calling on @FBIDirectorKash Patel to look into this... National Security could be at risk. (video)

• @infolibnews

• Fox's Rachel Campos-Duffy calls out Netanyahu on his plan to "merge" the US and Israel's militaries. "Will that drawing down of foreign aid [over the next ten years] be compensated by the proposal to have a merging of some sort between our Pentagon and your military?" "Yeah," Netanyahu responds. "I'm calling it, 'From aid to partnership…'" "I think the meshing of our two great countries of talent would strengthen America's competitive position." "[That] certainly brings up some issues of sovereignty," Campos-Duffy responds. (video)

• @MikeZaccardi

• The forward 12-month P/E ratio for the S&P 500 is 20.5. This P/E ratio is above the 5-year average (19.9) and above the 10-year average (19.0). (graph)

• @MrsButters

• According to his neighbor, Mitch McGonell passed on June 14th of a heart attack. An ambulance was called and he was unable to be resuscitated. That is why his wife immediately flew to China to meet with the CCP and she should be immediately investigated. He needs to be replaced before the August 3rd critical cutoff in Kentucky election law that determines how his Senate seat would be filled if a vacancy occurs and they are dragging it out hoping they can pull the wool over our eyes until that date passes. This is more shady shit republicans are doing to lie to the people. (video)

• @DanielGilr44222

• Electrician explains how they hide 5G in plain sight. 5G-Flock cams-15 minute cites-Brain chip……Agenda 2030 is right around the corner, the beast system is already put in place. (video)

• @MatrixMsteries

• The number of Muslims winning American political offices is exploding. 153 candidates ran in the midterms. 89 secured victories in 25 states. This is how Sharia Law infiltrates the system. (video)

• @goddek

• This is the #1 doctor-recommended baby formula. The first five ingredients are: Corn Syrup Solids — WTF? Soy Protein Isolate — no wonder boys think they’re girls. High Oleic Safflower Oil — WTF? Sucrose — WTF? Soy Oil — WTF? Why would anyone give this to their newborn? (pic)

• @aakashgupta

• There's a parasite spreading through the US right now that you cannot wash off your food, cannot catch from another person, and will not feel for a full week after you've already eaten it. Michigan alone has close to 1,000 confirmed cases. It's called Cyclospora, and almost everything about how it works is backwards from what you'd expect. Start with the washing. The chlorine rinses that kill E. coli and salmonella on your lettuce do nothing to this. The parasite travels as an oocyst, a shell built to survive in soil and water, and it shrugs off standard produce sanitizer. Rinsing your salad is not enough. Cooking is the only reliable kill.

• @DrCharlieWardQ

• BREAKING : Seeing this in America, you should be aware of what’s happening in Texas.⠀ ⠀ This is why Democrats are leading in Texas for early voting. (video)

Night Trading

• Asian indices are -2.0% to -.5% on average.
• Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 69.0 +.25 basis point.
• China Sovereign CDS 36.75 unch.
• China Iron Ore Spot 98.70 USD/Metric Tonne -.6%.
• Crude Oil 74.52/bbl. +4.4%
• Gold 4,081.50 USD/t oz. -.8%. 
• Swiss Franc/Offshore Chinese Renminbi Cross 8.37 +.26%. 
  
• Bloomberg Emerging Markets Currency Index 34.67 -.06%.
• Bloomberg Global Risk-On/Risk Off Index 127.0 +.8%.
• US 10-Year Yield 4.59% +2.0 basis points. 
• Japan 30-Year Yield 3.91% +1.0 basis point. 
• Volatility Index(VIX) futures 18.6 +1.4%. 
• Euro Stoxx 50 futures -.64%.
• S&P 500 futures -.41%.
• NASDAQ 100 futures -.92%.

Morning Preview Links

BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are mostly lower, weighed down by technology and transport 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.