Monday Watch

Around X:

• @Business   

• President Donald Trump said it’s “highly unlikely” he will order more strikes on Iran if progress is made in negotiations over its nuclear program and reopening the Strait of Hormuz, CNN reported. 
• Former Israeli general Gadi Eisenkot faces a daunting political test as he tries to cobble together a coalition from a divided opposition while luring allies away from Netanyahu. 
• As many as 100 million people in China are struggling to pay their personal loans. The workers chasing them for repayment are suffering too. 
• CFOs are preparing for greater scrutiny of data center projects at a time when financing is becoming more expensive following the Democratic sweep of Congress. 
• A new Bloomberg investigation uncovered data tracking tech hidden inside popular weather, religion, and gaming apps. Investigative journalist @rj_gallagher explains how this technology works. 
• House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries backed impeaching Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, saying he’s a “hard yes” on a measure that may be introduced as soon as this week. 
• Republicans’ midterm defeat is crushing any remaining hopes that Congress would approve Donald Trump’s unprecedented $1.5 trillion defense budget request amid an unpopular war in the Middle East. 
• Get up to speed on what's moving global markets.  
• Here’s what you need to know to start your day: Morning Briefing Asia. 

• @Zerohedge  

• Iran’s demands are not just unacceptable, but in some cases outrageous and ridiculous, Marco Rubio tells reporters before going on a foreign trip. Iran talks have not been very productive at the moment, he adds. 
• Worst Since COVID: Morgan Stanley Sifts Through A Record 70% Tech Momentum Crash, Rock-Bottom Hedge Fund Nets And "Deep Fear". 
• Party Buses & A Cybertruck Piñata: Anti-Musk Protesters Celebrate Outside His Texas Home As Dems Talk Subpoenas.
• Blanche Won't Rule Out Prosecuting Democrats Who Plan To Investigate Trump Officials. 
• A $10 Billion Passive Bid Is Coming: Goldman Tracks SpaceX's Lockup Cliff Into The Index Funds. 
• TRUMP TELLS CBS DEPORTATION POLICY WAS, MIGHT BE 'TOO TOUGH'. 
• Democrat Loses 'Flipped' Georgia Seat After 'Missing' Memory Card Found. 
• "I Was Unfaithful To My Wife": Jensen Huang Admits Affair As Nvidia Board Launches Chinese Spy Probe. 
• Out Of 45 Data Center Votes Across America, Exactly One Went The Industry's Way. 
• "I Personally Paid Laura Loomer": Second Insider Says Cash Bought Access To Trump - And She Still Talks To Him Daily. 
• AI spending alone added 0.9% to annualized 3Q GDP, vs. 0.5% in 2025 and 0.2% in 2024; Morgan Stanley.
• Biggest "Surprise" In 19 Years: Goldman's Garrett Sees Echoes Of COVID, GFC, & Liberation Day As Panic Index Explodes.   
• Ex-MAHA Insider Tells Rogan What Trump Didn't Know About His Own White House.  
• Could Nvidia's Spy Scandal Force Jensen Huang To Resign? 
• You halt credit, the entire AI supercycle collapses, end of story. Read this for the definitive snapshot of the AI credit market.
• Who Wins When The Robots Sell And The CFOs Buy?
• The Incoming Democrat Governor Of Texas Is Already Going After Elon Musk.
• Dave Chappelle Sparks Firestorm With Charlie Kirk Line At Madison Square Garden.
• The Inflation Hot Potato.
• IRGC Says Three More Tankers Ablaze In The Strait Of Hormuz.
• PPI Vs CPI: Are Record Profit Margins About To Get Squeezed?
• DEM Fatale: Hartnett Says Blue Wave Marked "Peak AI" As Every Wall Street Bull Conviction Dies But One.
• Chaos In Riyadh: Aramco Skyscraper Hit By Missile Strike.
• Could One Big Cold Snap Torch Hedge Funds' Record US NatGas Shorts.
• The Economic Crunch Fueling Youth Protests From France To Much Of Europe.
• The British State Now Behaves Like An Imperial Regime Ruling Over Competing Peoples.
• Leak Reportedly Exposed Netanyahu & Mossad Chief's Plan To Attack Iran Before Israeli Election.
• Musk's Starlink Is Building An Orbital Bypass As Undersea Cable Sabotage Threats Mount.
• It's The War, Stupid.
• "Long-Term Constructive, Just Not Today": Goldman Cuts Gold Target Again As Warsh Kills The "Debasement" Trade (For Now).
• Houston Mayor Curbs ICE Cooperation Days After Abbott Loses - And Says Texas' New Leaders Are On Board.
• "Long And Wrong": Hedge Funds Puke $6.6 Billion In Brent As The Midterms Gut Oil's War Premium.
• After Bibi's Unity Plea, Israel's President Gives His Rival First Shot At Power.
• "Next Chapter Of Chaos Is Coming": Look To France As America's Left Already Telegraphs Their Plan.
• Podcasters Laugh About 'Digging Up Charlie Kirk And Doing It Again'.                        

• @CNBC 

• Stock futures rise slightly as investors eye AI trade, brace for more data and earnings: Live updates.

• @BGatesIsaPsycho

• Tennessee. Any honest meteorologists out there who care to explain when exactly Plane Trails started spreading out like this & forming clouds? (video)

• @TheSCIF

• 2,848 counties flip to Democrats out of a total of 3,109 counties? This is the most obvious ELECTION FRAUD in history, even challenging the stolen 2020 election. We can't go on like this. I'm tired of people destroying this country and getting away with everything. (map)
• The 2022-2024 43 state updated number of "New Registered Voters" registered WITHOUT proof of U.S. citizenship raises from 20,283,937... To a STAGGERING 24,662,998 new registered voters registered without proof of U.S. citizenship. Democrats coincidentally gained over 20 MILLION new voters within the same time period, while Republicans gained over a million new voters. This tells you everything you need to know. 
• Exposing where 20 MILLION more Democrat voters illegally came from and the algorithms put in place to rig the 2026 midterm elections. (video) 

• @WallStreetApes 

• Here are the final results of the Midterms elections poll. 92% of voters believe it was rigged. If 92% of people don’t have faith in the system, then at the very least an audit should be done to restore faith in our voting system.

• @HormuzReport

• BREAKING: The U.S. has now directly started requesting China’s help to end the war with Iran, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent formally asking Beijing to use its influence with Tehran to bring the conflict to an end, per The Washington Post. The request was reportedly made with Donald Trump’s backing. The outreach opens another diplomatic channel to Tehran alongside the indirect talks led by Vice President JD Vance, who for the past two weeks has been speaking almost daily with Pakistan’s Field Marshal Asim Munir and Qatar’s prime minister about a new ceasefire and a return to nuclear negotiations.

• @SteveCortes

• If President Trump softens on immigration enforcement, it will be a disaster: 60 Minutes: "So you think your deportation policy went too far? President Trump: "I think it was too tough." 60 Minutes: "It was too tough?" President Trump "I think it might be too tough, yeah." (video)

• @realjoshuareid

• If we don’t see any action on voter fraud — we are heading towards civil war. The precipice is near. One way or another. (video)

• @C_3C_3

• Evil. Demonic. As a college kid during the Chappelle’s Show era this is hard to take. Done with him. So gross. “Ever since that guy Charlie Kirk got murdered, and I shouldn’t say this publicly but I feel better.” (video)

• @MrSausageGet

• Exit polls show deportations as extremely popular among Republican voters, with the Iran War being extremely unpopular. 5 days after the election, Trump gives an interview to 60 minutes stating his deportation policy is too tough. Folks - this is intentional losing.

• @MJTruthUltra

• Calley Means claims President Trump Exploded “How the Hell Did This Happen?”, After Learning Heidi Overton and Sarah Harris Quietly Pushed a DOJ Brief Helping Bayer Escape Glyphosate Cancer Lawsuits—Without Telling RFK Jr. (video)

• @macropaper

• THE SCALE OF CYBERATTACKS AROUND THE WORLD IS GETTING OUT OF CONTROL. BANKS, FINANCE AND CRYPTO. • France: Nearly €100 Million stolen from Crédit Mutuel Arkéa through fraudulent transfers involving an outside provider. • India: ₹78 Million stolen from Spandana Sphoorty through unauthorized transfers to 82 accounts. • UK: Revolut suffered a breach exposing customer identity documents and transaction records. • Binance: A $6.3 Billion hack, the largest one ever...

• @annvandersteel

• So Epstein's friend and former neighbor/buisness associate talked Trump into hiring the swamp moster that was Susie Wiles? The Epstein Boomerang is still in flight. This time we are not panicans, black pillers and doomers for noticing. (video)

• @WarHorizon  

• Riyadh: Aramco Skyscraper hit by Missile. Shows damage to the floors. (video)

• @catturd2

• There's a better chance of you playing golf and having a hole-in-one on every hole, than this to be true. (graph) 

• @ConseptualJames

• Their plan, which they say I'm 100% right about, is to 1) Make sure there's no viable candidates at all in 2028; 2) To ensure that the Republican Party itself is completely shattered into small, weak pieces over the 8 years starting 4 years ago; 3) To position themselves, though small, to be the biggest and strongest of those pieces in 4-6 years so that electoral necessity causes conservatives to rally around them; 4) Ensure Republican losses and DSA wins so that we have insane Democrat/Marxist abuses that radicalize us and are unbearable in the meantime; 5) Then to forward a strongman in 2032 or 2036 who ends the Constitution if it hasn't already been ended by the DSA. They might have some fantasies about ruling the country, but the real objective is to split it into pieces that hate each other...

• @kylenabecker

• WHOA: Bizarre Result with 'Less Than a Trillion' Odds Surfaces In Election Data. (map)

• @Liz_Churchill10

• Wow, wow and wow again… Frightening news for Texas… Tony Seruga reports that the entire state of Texas has been captured by the cartels, and that they were given the option of “Lead or Gold” which explains why Texas will now be a Sanctuary State commencing January. This includes their newly elected Senator, James Talerico, who is also on the payroll of the Narco Cartels. “Pretty much every Texas Democrat who won in the midterms is on the payroll of the cartels, from the governor to the lieutenant governor to the attorney general, Comptroller, Land Commissioner, Agriculture Commissioner, Railroad Commissioner, multiple seats on the Texas Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals; they flipped the Texas House and even elected a U.S. Senator, etc.”
• What a disgusting lie. “The Climate Crisis is fueling heart disease and cancer” -Dr. Tedros, WHO Director. Outrageous. We all know what has happened here. Never forget that these Murderous Liars killed your loved ones with an experimental vaccine. 

• @a_newsman

• Brian Kilmeade says big dollar donors and Israel loyalists are lining up behind Marco Rubio in hopes of a return to the George W Bush years. (video)

• @nogps1

• In what world.... Certainly seems like we are all living in a parallel universe, where our skies are constantly filled with toxic chemicals, heavy metals and nanoparticles! The worst part is that many people are so brainwashed that they actually believe that nothing is wrong. many thanks to At Mountain Goat for this video. (video)

•  @unusual_whales

• Hedge funds are getting hit hard by the AI selloff, per BLoomberg: VARA ($20B): down 33% in October, after a 44% drop in July. Arini ($22B): down 26%. Atreides ($3.4B): down 9.5%. Lone Pine ($20B): down 8.8%. Tiger Global ($78B): down 8.5%. Whale Rock ($13B): down 8%. Engineers Gate ($5B): down 5.5%, cutting its stock-picking team. Marshall Wace ($70B): down 5.4%. D1 Capital ($40B): down 5%. Samlyn ($7B): down 5%, dumping all but financial stocks and cutting analysts. Walleye ($17B): down 5%, cutting most of its equities team. Balyasny ($37B): down 3.4%. Sona ($25B): down 3%. Brevan Howard ($35B): cutting 5 portfolio managers and its head of credit. Diameter ($29B): wiped out its gains for the year.

Night Trading

• Asian indices are +.75% to +3.75% on average.
• Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 72.75 -.5 basis point.
• China Sovereign CDS 35.75 -.75 basis point.
• China Iron Ore Spot 92.8 USD/Metric Tonne -.3%.
• Crude Oil 91.0/bbl. +.2%
• Gold 4,132.8 USD/t oz. +1.4% 
• Swiss Franc/Offshore Chinese Renminbi Cross 8.12 -.2%. 
  
• Bloomberg Emerging Markets Currency Index 33.2 +.02%.
• Bloomberg Global Risk-On/Risk Off Index 114.6 +1.6%.
• US 10-Year Yield 4.88% +2.0 basis points. 
• Japan 30-Year Yield 3.88% +4.0 basis points. 
• Volatility Index(VIX) futures 21.1 -5.1%. 
• Euro Stoxx 50 futures +.26%.
• S&P 500 futures +.59%.
• NASDAQ 100 futures +.65%.

Morning Preview Links

BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are higher, boosted by technology and metals & mining shares in the region. I expect US stocks to open modestly higher and to maintain gains into the afternoon. The Portfolio is 50% Net Long heading into the week.