House Defies Trump By Advancing $8BN New Ukraine Aid Package

Late Wednesday saw President Trump receive a rare and much belated rebuke from the House of Representatives as it voted to pass a war powers resolution related to Iran. The passed resolution directs the withdrawal of US troops from armed hostilities with Iran, in a closely divided 215–208 vote, aided by four Republicans.

But this wasn't the only Trump-defying vote that took place Wednesday, as The Hill reports: "Six Republicans joined Democrats on Wednesday to push through a vote on military aid for Ukraine, a blow to President Trump’s handling of Russia’s war against the country and his withdrawal of U.S. support for Kyiv."

via Politico

"The House voted 218-204 in a procedural motion that clears the way for a vote on the Ukraine Support Act, authored by Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee," the report adds.

So interestingly, and in a bit of a blaring contradiction, the House has shown itself to be dovish on the Iran war but hawkish on Russia-Ukraine.

Or rather, they are 'pro' Ukraine war but 'anti' Iran war, strangely enough.

"This vote is not a process vote, it’s a statement on whether this Congress and all of its members stand with and support Ukraine and the people of Ukraine, and its fight for freedom, its fight for democracy, and its fight for liberty," Meeks said on the floor after the vote.

There was no mention of using this massive funding for diplomacy, and to get Ukrainian and Russian negotiators back to the table:

It provides $8 billion in military financing loans to Ukraine, extends the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) through 2027, which allows for the U.S. to send Ukraine weapons directly from Pentagon stockpiles, additional sanctions against Russia, among other provisions.

Instead, there was the usual simplistic black-and-white moral posturing in a Bush-style "with us or against us" kind of way. "It’s between Ukraine or Putin, I choose Ukraine," Republican Rep. Joe Wilson stated.

Late last month Ukraine and Russia moved on from a brief ceasefire and resumed blasting each other. Russia has continued to make gradual progress in taking control of both the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts which together comprise the Donbas region. Moscow is insisting that Ukraine's ceding of the last parts of the Donbas is a precondition to resumed peace talks.  

Not accounting for more billions in taxpayer dollars thrown into the Ukraine war -- to say nothing of the money pit that is the US-Israeli war on Iran -- the US government was in February projected to post a fiscal-year 2026 deficit of $1.9 trillion. Not that anyone in Washington cares. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/04/2026 - 11:40

Standard Chartered Sees Bitcoin Bottom "Almost In" As Crypto Crashes To 3-Month-Lows

Authored by Naga Avan-Nomayo via TheBlock.co,

After a brutal week for bitcoin (down over 20% in the last 9 days), Standard Chartered said the worst may soon be over for the largest cryptocurrency and the broader digital asset market.

The bank's Global Head of Digital Assets Research, Geoffrey Kendrick, said in a note entitled "The Low Is Almost In", the bitcoin market is close to a bottom, arguing that structurally resilient spot exchange-traded fund holdings and an anticipated large buyback by Strategy make a compelling case that the worst of the current sell-off is over.

"This week has been painful in crypto. There is really no other way of putting it," Kendrick wrote in a client note on Thursday.

"But I think when we look back at the end of 2026 with BTC at $100,000 and ETH at $4,000, we will say this was the buying zone we all wanted."

Bitcoin was trading around $64,000 at the time of writing, down roughly 2% on the day (after bouncing back from deeper losses), 14% on the week, 22% over the past month, and more than 40% over the past year.

Ether was flat on the day (also bouncing back from 6%-plus losses earlier, and 26% over the past month, trading around $1,780.

What changed since February

The note is a direct bookend to a February 12 call in which Kendrick warned of "pain and final capitulation" for digital assets, cutting his near-term bitcoin target to $50,000 and ether to $1,400. The Block reported on that note at the time.

The key variable that has shifted, Kendrick argued, is the holdings of spot bitcoin ETFs.

In February, he flagged ETF capitulation as a real downside risk.

It has not materialized, in his view.

ETF holdings went from 682,000 bitcoin to a peak, then settled back to around 674,000 - broadly flat over the period.

"This tells me that ETF holdings are more structurally strong than I had feared in February," he wrote.

The Strategy factor

The proximate cause of this week's pain, Kendrick said, was Strategy's sale of 32 BTC — a move he described as unfortunate timing that "fit the DAT naysayer thesis perfectly."

The question now, he argued, is what Strategy does next.

Kendrick’s reading on historical precedent here is instructive.

When Strategy last sold bitcoin on December 22, 2022 - 704 BTC sold for tax optimization - it bought back 810 BTC just two days later.

The analyst said he expects this week's response to be materially more aggressive.

In his view, Strategy could execute either a 10x repurchase of roughly 320 BTC or a 100x repurchase of around 3,200 BTC.

A confirmation of that buying, Kendrick argued, would be a tentative signal that the low has printed.

Liquidations and the residual risk

Kendrick also contextualized this week's futures liquidations, which ran to around $1.5 billion - comparable in scale to each of the January 29-31 and February 3-6 events, which he treats as separate liquidation episodes.

He acknowledged residual downside risk below $60,000 but argued the pool of vulnerable longs has been reduced given how poorly bitcoin has tracked equities year-to-date.

"There are a lot of ifs in the above, so accumulation is a better strategy than trying to outright declare the low has been printed," Kendrick wrote.

The view aligns with the bank's broader constructive stance on digital assets.

Kendrick has maintained a $100,000 year-end bitcoin target and a $4,000 ether target throughout the recent drawdown, and, in late May, he drew parallels between current ether price action and Amazon stock during the dot-com bust.

At the time, Standard Chartered’s analysts opined that onchain metrics would eventually drive a price catch-up.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/04/2026 - 11:20

"Disappointing Update": Calvin Klein Owner PVH Crashes Most Since 1987 After Dismal Outlook

The apparel company behind Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger was hammered in early U.S. cash trading, falling as much as 30%, its steepest intraday crash since 1987. Analysts were spooked by sustained pressure across the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region, where the prolonged U.S.-Iran conflict and softer consumer demand are now weighing on its revenue outlook.

PVH reaffirmed its full-year adjusted EPS guidance, which fell short of the Bloomberg Consensus estimate, and cut its revenue outlook amid a deteriorating macroeconomic environment in EMEA.

*CALVIN KLEIN OWNER PVH SINKS 28%, MOST INTRADAY SINCE OCT. 1987

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 4, 2026

"Upon first glance, this is a disappointing update from PVH. On one hand, we were encouraged by the healthy sales delivery, particularly in APAC. That said, investor expectations were elevated into the print. This is a surprising update to PVH's FY outlook, where management significantly lowered operational guidance as a result of Middle East and EMEA consumer macro pressures alongside higher promotions," Goldman analyst Brooke Roach wrote in a first-take note to clients on Wednesday evening.

PVH posted a better-than-expected first quarter, with adjusted EPS of $2.01 versus estimates of $1.79, revenue of $2.03 billion ahead of expectations, and adjusted EBIT slightly above consensus. Tommy Hilfiger revenue rose 2.8%, while Calvin Klein sales gained 1%, though Calvin Klein missed estimates.

"Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger momentum is improving, but we are concerned that sustained weakness in EMEA could continue to weigh on PVH's results if the Iran war and softer consumer demand persist," Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Mary Ross Gilbert noted.

However, the main issue analysts focused on was guidance: PVH still sees adjusted EPS of $11.80 to $12.10 for the year, below the $12.24 consensus estimate, and now expects full-year revenue to be about flat compared to its previous forecast of marginal growth.

Guggenheim analyst Simeon Siegel wrote in a note that while PVH reiterated full-year earnings, it "suggested that pressures from the prolonged conflict in the Middle East and related macroeconomic pressures were negatively impacting the full-year revenue outlook."

The weaker outlook sent shares crashing 25% in the early U.S. cash session, the largest intraday decline since 1987.

Growth strategy stalled. 

Shares have traded mostly sideways since peaking at around $165 in 2018.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/04/2026 - 11:00

The United States Of Austrian Economics

By Molly Schwartz, cross-asset macro strategist at Rabobank

Earlier in the week, on Monday, Axios reported that “Iran threatened to abandon the negotiations with the US over Israel’s actions in Lebanon,” with inside sources suggesting that Trump called Netanyahu “crazy.” While Trump did not comment on the exact language, he did confirm the use of “expletives” in an interview with the New York Post on Wednesday that he and Netanyahu haven’t exactly been seeing eye-to-eye: “I was a little perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon. You know, at some point, I said, ‘Bibi, we gotta stop this. You gotta stop it.’” Since then, the US has announced a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, “contingent on a complete cessation of fire by Hezbollah and evacuation of operatives from Lebanese territory south of the Litani River.” However, if one looks at the state of the current ceasefire between the US and Iran, one may be tempted to manage their expectations with regards to how long the ceasefire will last, and if this will set a foundation for meaningful negotiations between Washington and Tehran. More importantly, Hezbollah, who operates independently from (and often against the interests of) the Lebanese Government, has not yet indicated that they agree to the terms of the ceasefire. After the announcement, brent crude oil 1-month futures dropped a little more than $1 to $96.7/bbl.

According to Bloomberg, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has published a “restricted” document which reveals that the nuclear risk posed by Iran is now higher today than it was before the war began. Specifically, prior to the war, the IAEA was allowed to inspect Iranian enriched uranium, but such inspections have since largely halted. However, it should be noted that the IAEA was always only inspected where the IRGC told them they were allowed to, and many suspected that nuclear proliferation was happening behind the scenes, in facilities that were not accessible to the IAEA.

Tariff headlines are once again entering the news circuit. Trump has lowered the benchmark of US-content necessary for a copper product to be considered “US-made” and therefore exempt from the 50% Section 232 tariffs. However, there was also bad news for some US trading partners, as the USTR has announced proposed tariffs of 10-12.5% under Section 301. There is also the proposal of 25% tariffs on Brazil, which President Lula responded to by saying “he could not accept the treatment” his country had received.

Kevin Warsh appointed Paul Winfree and Daniel Heil to support him as Fed Chair. Winfree was working at the Heritage Foundation when Project 2025 was published in 2022, and contributed the chapter dedicated to the Federal Reserve. While Warsh has criticized the Fed himself, citing an article he wrote, published in the Wall Street Journal in November of 2025 called “The Federal Reserve’s Broken Leadership,” Warsh’s criticism is aimed at the how the Fed was being run. Some of Winfree’s comments echo those of Warsh (or perhaps Warsh echoed Winfree, given the chronology), such as critiques of mission creep, like how “political pressure has led the Federal Reserve to use its power to regulate banks as a way to promote politically favorable initiatives including those aligned with ESG objectives.” However, the bulk of Winfree’s manifesto takes aim at the Fed as an institution, arguing that it “lacks both operational effectiveness and political independence.” Winfree offers several recommendations, including the following:

• Eliminate the dual mandate: Winfree argues that expansive monetary policy (the labor mandate) may “inadvertently contribute to recessions” as it provides “easy money” which “causes the clustering of failures that can lead to a recession.” He advocates instead of a focus on dollar protection and managing low and stable inflation.
• Eliminate the Federal Reserve’s lender-of-last-resort function: Winfree believes that the lender of last resort function acts as a conduit for moral hazard. This is an especially interesting point as it lies in partial opposition to a strategy laid out by Stephen Miran (and friends) in his article, “A User’s Guide to Reducing the Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet.” While their respective arguments do not lie in total opposition, Miran’s argument is that there should be more communication to lessen the stigma often associated with using the Fed as a lender-of-last-resort, as it “makes banks reluctant to access the [discount] window even when genuinely needed, leading them to hold larger precautionary reserve buffers than rely on the discount window as intended” and “has played a meaningful role in driving up demand for reserves.” See more in Winfree, next recommendation below:
• Wind down the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet: Winfree, Miran, and Kevin Warsh are aligned on the goal of shrinking the Fed’s balance sheet. However, the methods for doing so are clearly controversial (see above). Miran’s report highlights many (many) strategies for reducing the balance sheet, so further discussion on one component is likely not a dealbreaker.

However, the aforementioned recommendations are overshadowed by his “monetary rule reform options,” the first of which, is free banking. Straight out of the Austrian School, Winfree advocates for the functional abolition of the Federal Reserve altogether, claiming that “potential downsides of free banking stem from its greatest benefit: It has massive political hurdles to clear,” saying that “transitioning to free banking would require political authorities, including Congress and the President, to coordinate on multiple reforms simultaneously.” Recall that this was published in 2022—before the GOP got Trump in the White House, Bessent in the Treasury, and a majority in both Congressional Houses. Naming a self-proclaimed free banker, who supports the dissolution of the Fed, as an advisor to the Chair of the Fed sets the stage for a potential dramatic restructuring of how monetary policy is conducted in the US. Winfree also argues in favor of either restoring the gold standard, or enforcing Milton Friedman’s “K-percent rule,” where the Federal Reserve creates money at a fixed rate.

As discussed by Rabobank’s Jane Foley in yesterday’s FX Strategy report, USD/JPY pulled back sharply as PM Takaichi spoke, hinting at potentially another round of MoF intervention. JPY dipped 0.37% to yesterday’s low, but that move retraced through to the NY close, ending the day 0.09% higher, and breaking the 160 level at 160.08. Meanwhile, Bank of Japan Governor Ueda suggested that an interest rate hike at the June 16 meeting is likely, though not officially set in stone, and the Japanese OIS curve is pricing in close to 90% of a hike.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/04/2026 - 10:45

John Bolton To Plead Guilty In Documents Case, Pay $2M Fine: Report

John Bolton, former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, has reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors and is expected to plead guilty to one count of illegal retention of sensitive national security documents, according to CNN, citing three sources familiar with the matter.

Under the agreement, Bolton will pay a fine of more than $2 million. A single count of illegal retention carries a possible sentence of up to 60 months in prison.

A court hearing is currently scheduled for June 26.

Bolton was originally charged in Maryland with eight counts of transmission of national defense information and ten counts of retention of national defense information. The charges centered on diary-like entries from his time in the Trump White House that were allegedly kept at his residence.

Prosecutors accused him of sharing more than 1,000 pages of information through his personal email with two unauthorized individuals - reportedly his wife and daughter - though these transmission allegations are not part of the plea deal.

Related: Eyebrow-Raising Details Emerge From FBI Raid On John Bolton's Home

According to the indictment, Bolton used personal email and messaging accounts to transmit Top Secret intelligence about foreign adversaries, future attacks, and U.S. foreign-policy relations. He also kept classified files at his home, including sensitive intelligence about foreign leaders and U.S. intelligence sources.

The FBI Baltimore Field Office led the investigation, with oversight from the Justice Department's National Security Division. The indictment outlines two core allegations:

1. Eight counts of transmission of NDI under the Espionage Act (18 U.S.C. §793(d)),

2. and Ten counts of unlawful retention of NDI under §793(e).

The investigation intensified after Bolton’s email was breached by suspected Iranian hackers, during which investigators discovered the classified “diary-like entries.”

Bolton served as Trump’s National Security Adviser for one year before becoming a prominent critic of the president. Trump has repeatedly called for Bolton’s arrest, particularly over his 2020 memoir that was highly critical of the administration and allegedly contained classified information.

While the first Trump Justice Department opened investigations into the book in 2020, those probes were closed within a year. A new investigation was launched the following year after the email breach.

Developing...

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/04/2026 - 10:31

Flesh-Eating Screwworm Detected In Texas, Threatening Already-Strained U.S. Cattle Herd

Concerns over the New World screwworm (NWS) have been building for the last 12 months as the deadly cattle parasite spread through Mexico and the Trump administration attempted to prevent its spread into the U.S. Those concerns have now turned into red alerts after the USDA confirmed a single case in Texas, marking the first U.S. detection in years.

"A case of NWS may have been detected in South Texas. The sample is now at USDA's National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) in Ames, lowa for confirmatory testing. We will provide updates the moment results are available," USDA wrote on X.

A case of NWS may have been detected in South Texas. The sample is now at USDA's National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) in Ames, lowa for confirmatory testing. We will provide updates the moment results are available.

We have already activated personnel on the ground…

— Dept. of Agriculture (@USDA) June 3, 2026

USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins wrote on X that the "confirmed the detection of a New World Screwworm (NWS) fly in a 3-week-old bovine in Zavala County, Texas."

As expected, @USDA_APHIS confirmed the detection of a New World Screwworm (NWS) fly in a 3 week old bovine in Zavala County, Texas. @USDA and Texas Animal Health @TAHC officials are taking immediate action to contain and eradicate NWS from the area.

For more… https://t.co/GJkUJl0XEI

— Secretary Brooke Rollins (@SecRollins) June 4, 2026

USDA states that there is currently no evidence that NWS has become established in the U.S., but the agency is moving quickly with quarantines, movement controls, surveillance within a 12-mile zone of the detection area, and the release of sterile flies to contain any spread.

The detection of NWS in the U.S. would be a direct biological and economic shock to the cattle herd if the spread were rampant, given that the nation’s herd is already at a 75-year low, beef prices are at record highs, and meatpackers are under pressure from fewer and more expensive animals.

If NWS were established in the U.S., this could delay herd rebuilding at the worst possible time. Reuters notes that a spreading outbreak could further hit the herd and expose Texas livestock alone to roughly $1.8 billion in estimated economic losses.

A spread of NWS would be bullish for live cattle futures and beef prices, bearish for meatpackers, such as Tyson Foods, that need cattle heads, and supportive of animal-health names tied to treatments and parasite control.

Perhaps the U.S. importing 60% of its live cattle from third-world Mexico is not the best idea.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/04/2026 - 10:20



 

 

At The Money: Grab Your Summer Rental Soon!! (June 3, 2026)

It’s not too late to get your summer rental! But many of the prime locations have already been snapped up. If you want to get to the lake, beach, or mountains, you’d better hurry!

Full transcript below.

~~~

About this week’s guest:

Jonathan Miller is a partner at Street Matrix, founder and President of Miller Samuel. His weekly Housing Notes are read widely throughout the Real Estate industry.

For more info, see:

Miller Samuel Bio

LinkedIn

Twitter

 

Previously:
At The Money: Buying a Vacation Home (June 19, 2025)

At the Money: The Best Way to Buy a House Right Now (November 15, 2023)

~~~

Find all of the previous At the Money episodes here, and in the MiB feed on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, and Bloomberg.

And find the entire musical playlist of all the songs I have used on At the Money on Spotify

 

 

 

TRANSCRIPT:

At the Money — Summer Rentals
Barry Ritholtz with Jonathan Miller

 

Intro:
I’m gonna soak up the sun
I’m gonna tell everyone to lighten up
I’m gonna tell ’em that I’ve got no one to blame

 

Barry Ritholtz: Memorial Day weekend has come and gone, but if you’re thinking about getting a place for the summer, you better get a move on it. There’s still inventory around, but a lot of the prime spots, they’re already spoken for. I’m Barry Ritholtz, and on today’s At the Money, we’re going to talk about summer beach rentals. Renting, buying, what’s hot, what’s not.

To help us unpack all of this and what it means for your tan lines, let’s bring in Jonathan Miller. He’s the director of markets for Street Matrix and co-founder of Miller Samuel. His market reports cover all sorts of summer and beach-related areas, including the Hamptons, the North Fork, the Jersey Shore, all along the rest of the country that has an active vacation property.

So, Jonathan, before we get into the details, let’s start really broad. What does the summer rental market tell us about the broader real estate market?

Jonathan Miller: Well, I think it’s a matter of consumption spending. When the economy’s doing well, they see beach rentals as another commodity that they can buy. I grew up in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, which was the Hamptons of Washington, DC. It was nicknamed the Summer Capital. And the hotel occupancy—my dad had a hotel there—you could see it fluctuate depending on how well the economy was doing in DC itself. It was quite direct.

Barry Ritholtz: Around here, the Hamptons gets all the attention, and obviously there’s a lot of celebrity and a lot of media out there. But what do you see in other markets like the Berkshires, the Great Lakes, Mountain destinations, Cape Cod? What else is interesting?

Jonathan Miller: So the way I think of it is that, just in the real estate or the housing market itself, there’s this sort of bias towards the higher end. I don’t mean the very, very top of the market. But the more affluent somebody is, the more likely they are to go to one of these vacation spots.

With rising interest rates, that’s making home ownership for primary residences more expensive. That’s reducing traffic to locations that are more dependent on working- and middle-class consumers.

I look at it as there’s been this sort of change in the way consumers are thinking about summer rentals. And a broker, a friend of mine out in the Hamptons, gave me a name for it. It’s called Amazonified—

Barry Ritholtz: Appified?

Jonathan Miller: Amazonfied, which is people are more inclined… Hey, listen, you run out of mouthwash, you just open your phone and you order it, right? You want a summer rental, you just open your iPhone and you start looking at it. And there’s an understanding that you can get it at the last minute.

When my parents used to have a home on Shelter Island in the Hamptons, basically if you weren’t rented for the season by February, then it was kind of a failure, or it was an underwhelming performance. Now it’s last minute. And so one piece of evidence of this was that there was a noticeable uptick in traffic after Memorial Day, which would historically be when the market’s over. And there’s also a lot of thought that that’s going to be the same story after July 4th, which is the last marker for the beginning of the rental season. I think coming out of the pandemic, the orientation towards last minute is a structural change that’s going to be with us indefinitely.

Barry Ritholtz: It’s funny you say that. My experience with Fire Island during grad school was you would put together a share house in October. Like, February is way late. Like October, November for the following Memorial Day.

And I look at a website like Out East—4,500 Hamptons rentals available, including 1,077 in East Hampton, 889 in Southampton, active listings still available for June, July, August through Labor Day, short-term or full season.

This isn’t so much an economic indicator as it is just an app-ified world. We’re just used to everything on demand. Order a movie on demand, order toothpaste on demand, order a summer beach house on demand?

Jonathan Miller: I think that’s the way to think of it. And what’s interesting is, on one hand there’s inventory available, a fair amount of inventory. Part of that is because during the pandemic we had rental property that had annually been traditional rental property. That was all purchased, and so now we have a new universe of renters that are effectively early or recent home buyers. And so we have a whole new market developing.

But I do think there’s going to be absorption of a lot of inventory over the next, call it, month. But the way to think about the market is rents are still on the high side, but not at record levels. Rents are returning to pre-pandemic levels.

I don’t know if we could call it normalizing. You know, the old joke—what does normal mean anymore? But it doesn’t seem to be the frenetic or frenzied environment that it’s been. I don’t know if you could use the word deals, really, but it’s certainly an expensive market still.

Barry Ritholtz: So I know what a data wonk you are. How do you think about summer rentals? Are these luxury goods, housing substitutes, or even a leading economic indicator?

Jonathan Miller: So I see this as just another form of consumption, a luxury good. I don’t see it as an economic indicator, because where the demand is emanating from is probably already the economic indicator to focus on. This is just an extension of it, as opposed to its own independent thing telegraphing where the economy’s going.

A lot of the Hamptons, or East End, demand has been possible from a pretty good bonus season the last couple of years. Compensation is certainly elevated. But even with that, it’s showing that it’s not sold out, or rented out.

I think it’s a combination of people waiting till the last minute and the market not being as intense or frenzied as we’ve been used to over the last two or three years. It’s not a weak market. It’s more normalizing, I think, is a fair description.

Barry Ritholtz: I think of the overall consumer economy as very much K-shaped. There’s the upper—pick a number, 1, 10, 15%—and then there’s everybody else. It’s really bifurcated. Are we seeing something similar? Strong luxury demand, perhaps some softness in the middle or bottom of the rental market?

Jonathan Miller: Absolutely. I think that’s a very fair description of what rental markets are generally looking like. They’re an extension of the primary markets, and the primary markets are generally—call it the upper half is faring better than the lower half—only because of less reliance on interest rates, and also maybe more dependence on the performance of the financial markets.

Barry Ritholtz: So all right, we’re spending a lot of time talking about Wall Street bonuses and the Hamptons. What about the rest of the country? What about mountain destinations, the Sun Belt, California, lake communities? There’s so much more to a holiday or vacation property beyond the East End of Long Island.

Jonathan Miller: Yeah, although if you’re in Long Island and are on the East End, I think that’s all you see.

That’s all that matters, at least when I was out there a couple weeks ago. I think with all the uncertainty in the economy, economic uncertainty, it’s a little surprising to see normalized second-home market activity, but it’s really skewing, again, like the Hamptons. I don’t think the Hamptons is performing any differently than most second-home markets. I remember during the housing bubble build-up, it seemed like everybody I knew had a modest-priced second home in New Hampshire or Vermont. And they would go there on weekends, spend their summers there.

I don’t think you’re seeing as much of that as you have in the past, because a lot of that is mortgage-rate sensitive. I think you’re seeing, whatever region of the country, this sort of—I don’t know if I’d call it bias, but you’re seeing activity skewing a little bit higher than the middle of the market.

Barry Ritholtz: So what does that mean for different regions? Let’s talk about the Berkshires, or I know people who were in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, where it’s so hot in the summer they like to go to San Diego, La Jolla, Southern California, where it’s 75-80 and sunny during the day and 65 and delightful at night. What are you seeing in other regions?

Jonathan Miller: I don’t mean to be a broken record, but I’m seeing something very similar. It’s this idea that consumers are going to the traditional second-home locations that are linked to their markets—like you were describing, people leaving Texas in the summer. We’re seeing all that. It’s confusing in a way, because we’re getting so much bad take about what’s going on in the economy, inflation, and yet we’re still seeing this activity.

What’s a little different about it is that across the US it’s not really frenzied at all. It’s just active. Pricing is not as high as it’s been, but you still see a fair amount of activity. It’s just not some sort of insane frenzy that we’ve been going through for the last three or four years.

Barry Ritholtz: You mentioned mortgage rates earlier. I’m curious—obviously mortgage rates have an impact on price, and vice versa, but what does that mean for renters? Especially in a market where so many of the buyers seem to be straight-up cash buyers.

Jonathan Miller: The higher the interest rates, the higher the rent, is the way I look at it. And the reason for that is you have people that are on the fence about buying a second home. But they’re concerned about whether they’re going to get their price, so they’re renting it out, maybe to the same people every season, and that reduces inventory, which puts at least stabilizing or higher price pressure on rents. So I don’t see this as… When rates rise, I think that’s just going to make it more difficult, whether to purchase a second home or to rent one, because it just pushes everything up.

Barry Ritholtz: So I’m curious. You’re implying that people who might be buyers one day are sort of putting a toe in the water with renting. Is this a fairly common process? People rent, they like an area, and then they buy over there. Is that fair?

Jonathan Miller: Yes, I think that’s fair. The idea is that you test out the market for a summer, or for a month, or for a couple of weeks and see if you really like it, versus just driving there or flying there for the weekend.

And that is the nature of second-home markets. They move a lot slower. The second-home market for California is Idaho, Wyoming. You don’t just go there for the weekend—You’re going to test it out, maybe take a year or two. We see that all the time—friends of mine that have rented for a few years.

My parents went through this with their rental property in Shelter Island. After a couple seasons, the tenants that they loved ended up buying the house down the street, just because they loved the area.

Barry Ritholtz: So one of the things I’m astonished about—and again, my frame of reference is the Hamptons, where our vacation property is—but I am seeing an astounding amount of construction. Any house that’s sold is either, if it’s turnkey, it sells quickly, and if it’s not, it’s knocked down and a 7,000-foot behemoth gets put up in its place. West Hampton, Sag Harbor, East Hampton, Sagaponack—wherever I go out there, it’s shocking, the degree of construction. Every builder, every contractor seems to be fully booked.

What is driving this? Is this specific to the New York bonus season, Wall Street bonuses? Or are you seeing this around the country in other ritzy vacation areas?

Jonathan Miller: We are seeing this around the country. I think the easiest cause and effect is the Wall Street compensation picture of the last couple of years that’s really driving it.

Having been out to the Hamptons a couple times in the recent month or two—they call it the trade parade, right? All the trades coming in early in the morning and then leaving before rush hour.

Barry Ritholtz: By trades you mean, you mean plumbers, electricians, tilers…

Jonathan Miller: And it’s just the traffic— yeah, electricians, roofers, builders. It’s unbelievable.

So residents there plan their day around when they can leave and come back, because—as they call it, the Trade Parade—is so incredible. And the challenge is that those workers really are stuck in two- or three-hour traffic jams, which is a real challenge. But there’s so much demand for their services, and they can’t afford to live there, so they’re coming from a good distance away.

Barry Ritholtz: Well, that’s why they start at 7:00 and leave at 3:00. That makes a lot of sense.

We’ve seen the real estate market sort of normalizing after COVID. Certainly the reactions are less frenzied than they were during the pandemic. Has COVID permanently reset prices and house-buyer behavior and even expectations?

What’s the lasting impact of the pandemic on the summer vacation market?

Jonathan Miller: So I think structurally, COVID has changed—and probably extended—the use of second homes, because of things like Zoom. But it’s also become a little less predictable because of, as I mentioned earlier, the Amazonification of demand. Everything is sort of last minute, as opposed to relying on tried-and-true forecasting patterns.

But it’s a market that is going to be tested. The weaker the economy, the weaker the demand for second-home markets. But they don’t flip on and off. There’s still a base level of demand. The problem is that the demand is coming from a skewed portion of the population—upper half versus lower half is the way I prefer to think of it—and that creates a sort of void in the demand needed for more modest-priced second-home housing.

Barry Ritholtz: You know, we talk about the Hamptons as a second-home vacation market. There’s a $2.5 million rental there for the season, which I find astounding. But if you can’t afford that, maybe you pay a million and a quarter for the month of July, or a million for August. Now, to be fair, that $2.5 million rental does come with both a chef and maid service. So you get a lot of services for your money.

Jonathan Miller: Yes.

Barry Ritholtz: And I am not joking, because I have—like you, I am a Zillow lurker, and I look at all this crazy stuff.

Jonathan Miller: Yeah.

Barry Ritholtz: So to sum up: all right, you missed Memorial Day, but there’s still a lot of summer left. And if you’re thinking about a house on the lake, a house up in the mountains, maybe by the beach, there’s still some inventory left—but you better get a move on it, and you better start working on that tan. Please use SPF. I’m Barry Ritholtz. You’ve been listening to Bloomberg’s At the Money.

~~~

Find our entire music playlist for At the Money on Spotify.

 

The post At The Money: Grab Your Summer Rental Soon Now! appeared first on The Big Picture.

Blackstone's Private Credit Fund Joins Peers In Gating Investors After Surge In Redemptions

The private credit gates are shutting all over again.

After virtually every marquee private credit fund limited withdrawals after being flooded with redemptions requests in Q1, we are seeing more of the same as the second quarter rolls out.

And two days after Cliffwater LLC capped redemptions at 5% after investors requested 17% to be returned, a jump from the 14.0% in Q1 (which was also gated at the 5%) limit, this morning Bloomberg reports that Blackstone has also limited redemptions from its flagship private credit fund for the first time after investors sought to pull 10% of the shares, the latest such fund to cap withdrawals amid a continued investor exodus.

The $79 billion Blackstone Private Credit Fund told shareholders that it would return 5% of its shareholders’ money, according to a filing

Thursday. During the previous quarter, the fund allowed investors to redeem a record 7.9% after tapping senior executives to help finance the withdrawals with hundreds of millions of their own cash.

This time - realizing that the avalanche of redemptions requests will not ease for a long time - the company did not bother with coming up with a creative solution to avoid gating... and gated investors, joining all of its other peers in doing so. 

Of course, Blackstone told shareholders that repurchases began to decelerate during the back end of its tender offer period, although as the chart below shows, we will have to wait until Q3 to see if that is true. 

Across the $1.8 trillion private credit market, redemption requests are expected to increase this quarter as investors redouble efforts to claw back money after being restricted. What is concerning, is that despite the recent surge in software stocks - driven entirely by positioning and not fundamentals - private credit continues to feel the pain of investor revulsion to BDC's overreliance on sottware cash flows, suggesting that the recently meltup in software stocks is due to a major pullback as soon as the marketwide gamma squeeze fizzles. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/04/2026 - 09:45

Jamie Dimon To Hold "Live Interactive Discussion" With Super-Rich Clients As SpaceX IPO Roadshow Commences

SpaceX is reportedly targeting a valuation of about $1.8 trillion as it prepares to go public next Friday, trading on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker symbol SPCX.

Last month, Goldman Sachs was selected as the lead bank for the SpaceX listing, alongside Morgan Stanley. JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Citigroup are also among the 23 banks working on what will be the largest-ever listing, expected to raise a staggering $75 billion by selling about 555.6 million shares. The planned IPO price is about $135 per share.

Retail investors will be able to participate at the same prices as the big institutions. Expected SPCX price of $135 per share → https://t.co/eKBA0tzXbH

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 4, 2026

On Wednesday, we told readers that SpaceX's roadshow for institutional investors was set to begin on Thursday.

A new Bloomberg report states that JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon is set to hold a "live interactive discussion" later today. He will be joined by Mary Callahan Erdoes, CEO of the bank's asset and wealth management division, and two SpaceX executives: President Gwynne Shotwell and Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen.

The event will be streamed to 90 JPM locations across 26 states, according to Bloomberg sources, with more than 2,500 of the bank's clients expected to watch.

JPMorgan's nationwide roadshow for SpaceX shows that demand is extending deep into the private-wealth client base for this once-in-a-generation listing.

With the SpaceX roadshow underway, Morningstar equity analyst Nicolas Owens attempted earlier this week to temper the hype around the listing by publishing a note saying, "We think the company has been significantly overvalued and investors will have opportunities to buy the stock at more attractive levels after the IPO."

Meanwhile, Polymarket odds for "SpaceX IPO closing market cap above ___?" currently stand at 89% for a market cap above $1.8 trillion.

//--> //--> SpaceX IPO closing market cap above $1.8T?
Yes 89% · No 12%
View full market & trade on Polymarket.

SpaceX's listing next week will pave the way for other mega IPOs, such as those of chatbot makers OpenAI and Anthropic.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/04/2026 - 09:30

The post The Trumpers Are Taking Over the Media: We Can Do Something Other than Whine appeared first on CEPR.

UK Police Officers Admit DEI Training Pressured Them To Ignore Dying White Teen Henry Nowak

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity,

Officers from the force that failed Henry Nowak have now admitted they felt "controlled and pressured to feel certain ways" after mandatory DEI sessions that hammered home 'white privileged' and unconscious bias.

The trainer outsourced to deliver the course was described as "deeply hateful of white people and British culture." Serving and former Hampshire officers told former Home Secretary Suella Braverman they were furious but stayed silent out of fear for their careers.

Multiple officers from Hampshire Constabulary have now gone on record about the ideological pressure inside the force.

Several serving and former Hampshire Police Officers have told me that 'we had it drummed into us about our white privilege and unconscious bias'.

Training was outsourced to a third party company and the trainer 'was deeply hateful of white people and our culture.'

Officers... https://t.co/2h0Ns1NnRA

- Suella Braverman (@SuellaBraverman) June 3, 2026

They described how DEI modules on white privilege, unconscious bias, and the importance of being an "ally" were drilled into them.

'Do we think the training that those officers were forced to do might have ultimately contributed to Henry's terrible final moments? because I do.'
@PatrickChristys unveils a plethora of diversity and inclusion guides applied within Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary. pic.twitter.com/jRe1K31224

- GB News (@GBNEWS) June 3, 2026

It's not limited to this one police force either.

Back in April 2025, we detailed how UK police forces were already forcing officers into training explicitly designed to make them accept their "white privilege."

Thames Valley Police rolled out mandatory equity training covering white privilege, micro-aggressions, and the push from "non-racist" to "anti-racist." An independent review led by former assistant chief constable Kerrin Wilson found the sessions created deep divisions.

White officers expressed strong frustration and felt disadvantaged, while some minority officers said the training was harmful to real diversity efforts and would deter them from seeking promotion.

Former government advisor and ex-police officer Rory Geoghegan warned that crude categorisation by skin colour and critical race theory ideology had no place in an impartial police service.

The Hampshire police chief has publicly denied any anti-white bias or two-tier system. Yet the bodycam evidence and these officer admissions tell a different story.

Hampshire Police Chief denies police are "anti-white" after officers handcuffed and arrested Henry Nowak after he was stabbed and falsely accused of 'racism.'

"Do we have a two-tier type policing system? I would refute that. I would say absolutely not!" pic.twitter.com/GIx1La0ZJ7

- Oli London (@OliLondonTV) June 3, 2026

An ex-cop who reviewed the footage called the response "unfathomable," rejecting excuses about fast-moving situations or complexity. Basic procedure requires treating a victim who says he has been stabbed and cannot breathe as a medical emergency first - not as a potential racist offender based on the word of the man who stabbed him.

Yet, the police watchdog investigated the officers' conduct and concluded there was no wrongdoing.

"We have investigated ourselves and decided we did nothing wrong" pic.twitter.com/Aq1sFo4cL7

- Basil the Great (@BasilTheGreat) June 3, 2026

This is the same pattern seen in other high-profile failures: institutions investigate themselves, apply their own captured standards, and declare everything acceptable.

The public saw the footage. Henry Nowak's family saw their son die after being treated as the problem rather than the victim. The watchdog saw no issue.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has defended religious exemptions that allow Sikhs to carry large ceremonial knives in public. At the same time, British women face prosecution for carrying ordinary pepper spray for self-defense on the streets at night.

BREAKING:

Keir Starmer says he won't remove the exemption which allows Sikhs to carry large ceremonial knives on them.

Meanwhile, English women are being prosecuted for carrying regular pepper spray on them when out on the streets at night pic.twitter.com/d8PF2NkdSL

- Visegrad 24 (@visegrad24) June 2, 2026

To make matters even worse, a tiny replica sword from a video game will land a white British man in prison.

You will go to jail for owning a miniscule video game sword replica in the UK.

But if you're a foreigner, you will be exempt from the law entirely. pic.twitter.com/LCkhv50Y2O

- Templarpilled (@Templarpilled) June 3, 2026

The contrast could not be clearer.

Religious or cultural exemptions shield other groups from the same strict weapons laws. Henry Nowak's case shows what happens when the system already views native Britons through a lens of presumed guilt or lesser priority.

Henry Nowak was not a threat. He was a student who had been stabbed and was dying in front of officers trained to see race first and humanity second. The attacker walked away with different treatment. The victim's pleas were secondary to a racism narrative pushed by the perpetrator's side.

This is the predictable result of years of ideological capture inside policing - training that reframes basic law enforcement as potential oppression when the victim is white and British.

Officers who spoke out did so at personal risk. The watchdog protected the system. Starmer protects exemptions for some while ordinary citizens, especially women, are left defenseless under the same rules.

Britain's police were once expected to protect the public without fear or favor. When training teaches officers to weigh skin color and ideology before acting on a dying man's words, the institution has already failed its core purpose. Henry Nowak paid the price. The admissions now emerging confirm what the footage always showed.

The pushback against this capture is growing. Exposing the training, the excuses, and the double standards is the first step toward restoring policing that serves the entire country rather than imported ideologies. Native Britons deserve equal protection under the law - not to be treated as somehow 'privileged' while they bleed to death.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/04/2026 - 09:15

Ford May Sales Plunge -13.6%, But UBS Says 2026 Remains On Track

Ford reported U.S. sales of 190,828 units in May, down 13.6% year over year, bringing year-to-date sales to 826,810 units, down 11%. The declines were broad-based, reflecting ongoing weakness in EV demand and continued portfolio shifts away from certain lower-margin vehicles. EV sales fell nearly 44% during the month, while hybrid sales declined 16%.

Among key nameplates, Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning both posted declines of roughly 45%, while Escape sales fell more than 80% as Ford continues to de-emphasize the model. Offsetting some of the weakness, Bronco, Explorer, Maverick, Transit and Heavy Trucks all delivered year-over-year growth.

The sales results generally appeared consistent with management commentary at the UBS Autos and Auto Tech Conference, where Ford indicated that industry demand trends in May unfolded largely as expected. Executives specifically noted that some of the volume declines associated with products such as Escape were anticipated as the company continues shifting its mix toward higher-margin vehicles.

More importantly, management reiterated that 2026 is tracking in line with expectations outlined during first-quarter earnings. A key focus remains the recovery from the Novelis aluminum supply disruption, which is expected to result in $1.5 billion to $2.0 billion of incremental costs this year. Ford incurred approximately $300 million of those costs during the first quarter and expects the impact to increase during the second and third quarters before easing as Novelis returns to full capacity in the fourth quarter. According to management, the recovery remains largely on track despite some expected unevenness along the way.

The company also remains comfortable absorbing an estimated $2 billion year-over-year commodity headwind, which is fully incorporated into Ford's $8.5 billion to $10 billion adjusted EBIT guidance. Management additionally pointed to stable pricing conditions, suggesting that recent industry concerns about demand deterioration have yet to materially impact Ford's business.

Looking beyond 2026, Ford outlined several potential earnings drivers for 2027. The most obvious benefit will be the absence of the Novelis-related costs, but management also highlighted ongoing improvements in warranty performance, material costs and launch expenses as the company moves beyond several major investment cycles. Ford expects these gains to help offset spending associated with future growth initiatives.

Those initiatives continue to center around Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) and Ford's next-generation EV architecture, which management increasingly describes as a broader platform opportunity rather than a single vehicle program. The company plans to invest approximately $1 billion across BESS and the Universal Electric Vehicle (UEV) platform this year, with spending accelerating in the second half.

Ford remains particularly enthusiastic about the UEV platform, which is scheduled to launch in 2027. Management believes the architecture can support feature-rich, technology-focused vehicles at price points around $30,000, potentially allowing EVs to compete directly with internal combustion vehicles rather than just other EVs. Prototype vehicles are already being tested in Michigan, and executives continue to emphasize the platform's scalability and potential for attractive economics as volumes grow.

The BESS opportunity also appears to be gaining importance in Ford's long-term strategy. Management highlighted progress toward bringing its 20 GWh facility online by the end of 2027 and expressed confidence regarding eligibility for production tax credits and other incentives. Executives suggested that Ford's licensing arrangement with CATL provides a unique advantage that may be difficult for competitors to replicate, while also noting that the company sees no current issues regarding supply-chain compliance.

Another potential source of upside is Ford's Super Duty business. Management indicated that the capacity ramp continues to progress well, providing additional optionality should demand remain strong.

Taken together, the UBS discussion reinforced the view that Ford's investment story is becoming less about monthly sales fluctuations and more about the earnings framework management is building for the latter part of the decade. While May sales remained under pressure, management's message was largely unchanged: 2026 is unfolding as expected, the Novelis recovery remains on track, and the company continues to position itself around battery storage, next-generation EVs and a structurally more profitable core business heading into 2027.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/04/2026 - 09:00

Trump Downplays Iran's Attacks Targeting US Bases In Kuwait & Bahrain: 'They Were Slightly Provoked'

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

President Trump on Wednesday downplayed Iranian attacks that targeted US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain, saying they may have been "slightly provoked" since the US launched strikes against Iran beforehand.

"There's a reason for everything, and we hit them pretty hard last night," the president told reporters in the Oval Office. "Some people would say they were slightly provoked because we took a strong action for a different reason, so they were reciprocating."

Source: The White House

Iran launched the missile and drone attacks after the US bombed a commercial ship attempting to reach Iran and launched strikes on Iran’s Qeshm island.

During the Iranian attack on Kuwait, a passenger terminal at Kuwait’s international airport was hit, and at least one person was killed, and more than 60 were injured. Local officials said the terminal was hit by Iranian drones, which Iran denied, claiming that it was struck by an errant US Patriot missile interceptor.

Kuwait’s aviation authority later released a video of the strike that appeared to show a drone striking the terminal.

US Central Command denied Iran’s allegation in a statement that came after it claimed that Iranian missiles fired at Kuwait "fell short or broke apart en route" and a second wave of Iranian drones failed to hit their intended targets.

"An additional wave of Iranian drones attempting to attack US forces in Kuwait failed to impact intended targets tonight. US Central Command air defenses successfully downed multiple drones and ensured no American personnel or assets were harmed," CENTCOM said.

Trump on Iran attacking Kuwait:

There is a reason for everything, and we hit them pretty hard... They were slightly provoked; they were reciprocating. pic.twitter.com/VvIgyJHb3m

— Clash Report (@clashreport) June 3, 2026

Despite the casualties at the Kuwait airport, Trump said the Iranian attacks were "not a big deal" and that the US "nipped it in the bud very quickly." When asked if the ceasefire was still in place, he said, "In that part of the world, ‘ceasefire’ is when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner."

Iran’s attacks were its most significant response yet to US violations of the ceasefire, representing a new Iranian strategy to avoid more “tit-for-tat” strikes. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi vowed on Wednesday that Tehran would continue to have a strong response to any US attacks.

"Our Armed Forces are conducting self-defense strikes on sites the US is permitted to use to attack civilian shipping and violate the ceasefire," Araghchi wrote on X in a post that included a video of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio praising the UAE and Kuwait for being cooperative with US military operations.

Kuwait's civil aviation authority released surveillance footage it says is an Iranian drone crashing into its international airport on Wednesday.

Follow live updates on the Iran war: https://t.co/s1XGe7eeW2 pic.twitter.com/5LTFWaj0sX

— ABC News (@ABC) June 4, 2026

"Any hostile act will be met with an immediate, decisive response. What sanctions and war failed to achieve won’t be won with more war," the top Iranian diplomat added.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/04/2026 - 08:45

Jobless Claims Jump As US Tech Firms Announce Most Job Cuts In 2 Years

The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the first time jumped to its highest in three months last week at 225k (215k exp), but this remains well within the range of the last five years...

Source: Bloomberg

The biggest increase in initial claims came from California while Texas saw the biggest decline...

Continuing Jobless Claims dipped to 1.777 million Americans (remaining below the 1.8mm Maginot Line), just above two year lows...

Source: Bloomberg

However, despite the seemingly solid claims data, outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reports that US tech companies in May announced the most job cuts in nearly two years as they ramp up spending on artificial intelligence.

The tech sector said last month it planned to eliminate 38,242 positions, the most since August 2024.

Total private-sector job cut announcements, meanwhile, were down 7% over the past five months versus the same period a year earlier, reinforcing the picture of an ongoing “low-hire, low-fire” environment in most industries.

In May, Artificial Intelligence (AI) led all reasons for job cuts for the third month in a row, with 38,579 announced cuts.

It is the highest monthly total ever recorded for the reason since Challenger began tracking it in 2023, and it accounted for 40% of all cuts announced in May - up from just 7% in January, 25% in March, and 26% in April.

For the year, AI has been cited in 87,714 cuts, or 22% of all 2026 layoffs, already far surpassing the 54,836 attributed to the reason in all of 2025.

“The labor market is being reshaped by technology in real time,” said Andy Challenger, the company’s chief revenue officer.

“AI is now the leading reason companies give for cutting jobs.”

The figures jibe with recent high-profile, AI-related workforce reduction plans announced by companies including Meta Platforms Inc., Intuit Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. Filings for unemployment insurance, however, haven’t meaningfully increased despite the slew of layoff announcements, which have mostly been targeted at white-collar positions.

On the bright side, through May 2026, U.S. employers have announced 80,472 planned hires, narrowly topping the 79,741 announced at this point in 2025. However, hiring announcements remain historically low by pre-pandemic standards.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/04/2026 - 08:34

Hezbollah Chief Rejects US-Mediated Israel Truce; Trump To Maintain Ceasefire With Iran Unless American Troops Killed Summary

• Hezbollah chief rejects outcome of Lebanon-Israel talks, insisting that a truce must encompass whole country.
• WSJ reports that the White House intends to maintain a ceasefire with Iran unless American troops are killed; oil drops also after Trump states on TS 
• Trump lashes out after House War Powers votes passes Wednesday evening, attacking especially four Republicans who voted in favor.
• Trump downplayed Iran's attacks on US bases in Kuwait & Bahrain, saying "they were slightly provoked...so they were reciprocating."

//--> //--> US x Iran permanent peace deal by June 30, 2026?
Yes 25% · No 76%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

*  *  *

IAEA: Iran Nuclear Risk Higher than When War Began

Stating the obvious:

According to Bloomberg, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has published a “restricted” document which reveals that the nuclear risk posed by Iran is now higher today than it was before the war began. Specifically, prior to the war, the IAEA was allowed to inspect Iranian enriched uranium, but such inspections have since largely halted. However, it should be noted that the IAEA was always only inspected where the IRGC told them they were allowed to, and many suspected that nuclear proliferation was happening behind the scenes, in facilities that were not accessible to the IAEA.

Hezbollah Rejects Outcome of Lebanon-Israel Talks: Secretary General

Hezbollah Secretary General Naim Qassem in new speech rejects the Washington-mediated conclusion to direct Lebanon-Israel talks:

Naim Qassem has warned that Israeli areas across the border will remain under threat as long as the Lebanese people and villages come under attack from the Israeli army.

He also rejected attempts to tie the group’s deployment to wider political arrangements, saying the group refuses any link between Hezbollah’s presence and a ceasefire, or Israel’s withdrawal.

Some highlights from Qassem's address:

• 'The revolution in Iran was launched from an Islamic background on the principles of resisting injustice and occupation, and it announced that it is neither Eastern nor Western"
• 'The West and America will not accept Iran as a model of righteousness and justice; rather, they want it to be subordinate to their interests and their tyranny."
• 'Thanks to Iran for helping us to regain our land and our right to confront the Israeli-American aggression despite its major confrontations"; describes direct negotiations as "absurd and humiliating" for Lebanon.
• As long as Israel is in Lebanon, resistance will continue.
• Northern Israel will remain at risk as long as Lebanese villages are being bombed.
• "We are only concerned with ending the comprehensive aggression—with a ceasefire and the withdrawal of “Israel""
• As long as the occupation exists, the resistance will continue.
• "We have not given any commitment to anyone not to resist the aggression and respond to it. And as long as the aggression continues, we will confront it with all the power we have."
• "The main objective must be the withdrawal from Lebanese territories so that the army spreads in the south of the Litani River and the liberation of the detainees"
• "We do not accept any link between the existence of the resistance, the cessation of aggression and the withdrawal of "Israel"

Iran's foreign ministry is also still insisting that the broader US-Iran ceasefire must incorporate Lebanon.

Oil Prices Fall As Trump to Maintain Iran Ceasefire Unless American Troops Are Killed

President Trump in an early Thursday morning Truth Social post has said the United States is "in the middle of my final negotiations to end the War" - while blasting the Republicans who voted the night prior to limit war powers "GRANDSTANDERS" and "unpatriotic".

Even though Iran is denying that any direct negotiations are taking place, following a big flare-up this week in new tit-for-tat fighting which involved Iran sending more missiles and drones on Gulf states, especially Kuwait, the reference to 'final negotiations' was possibly enough to get oil prices to react, with a drop in crude. There was also a report that the White House intends to maintain a ceasefire with Iran unless American troops are killed.

Trump's new apparent strategy to just wait things out with no new planned military attacks has been featured in The Wall Street Journal as follows:

President Trump has told aides privately that he would consider ending the ceasefire with Iran if Tehran kills American troops, U.S. officials said, insisting that the weekslong pause in airstrikes remains intact despite a steady stream of violent skirmishes.

The president’s reluctance to reignite the war suggests he might be willing to withstand smaller flare-ups for weeks—or even months—to avoid a broader conflict in the Middle East.

And Rubio appeared to second this in fielding questions about this week's violence:

Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the tit-for-tat attacks as purely defensive in nature and not a renewed outbreak of full-scale war. 

“They are happening in response to an Iranian action,” Rubio said in a House hearing Wednesday. “If they don’t shoot at those ships, we don’t shoot, but we have to respond.”

More evidence of Trump's apparently high tolerance for what he deems a violation of ceasefire:

Trump on Iran:

In that part of the world, a ceasefire is when you are shooting in a more moderate manner. pic.twitter.com/0mLQXf9mW8

— Clash Report (@clashreport) June 3, 2026

House War Powers Vote Wed. Evening

As for the House vote, it was seen as a rare direct rebuke of Trump and the fact that this war - which the American public was promised would be a 'short' military action of possibly a few 'days' or 'weeks' - is now approaching 100 days, and the war powers passed 215-208, with the four Republicans joining all Democrats in voting yes being Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Tom Barrett of Michigan and Warren Davidson of Ohio.

Pushing Lebanon Truce Toward Goal Line

In Lebanon, there is some remotely positive news, with Lebanon ‌and Israel ​saying had ⁠agreed ​to implement ⁠a ceasefire during talks in Washington and overseen by the US; however, once again the deal is contingent on Hezbollah agreeing to the ceasefire.

"That cease-fire is conditional on Hezbollah also stopping fighting, but in theory, the news helps to take out a key sticking point in the U.S.-Iran talks that was holding up a deal. So that’s seen oil prices reverse a run of three [days of] consecutive gains," Deutsche Bank analyst Henry Allen stated in a research note.

Trump rages at House's successful War Powers vote, which could portend a political shake-up going into this Fall's midterm elections:

Some More Latest Developments

via Al Jazeera:

• Hezbollah boss warns north Israel won’t be safe if Lebanon bombed
• Several people have been wounded in an Israeli drone attack on a vehicle after Israel and Lebanon officials agreed to halt the war during a series of meetings in Washington, DC.
• Before the truce announcement, Hezbollah said it launched a “salvo of rockets” at Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon’s Qantara, and fired drones at troops near the strategic Beaufort Castle.
• The US House of Representatives passed a resolution to rein in President Donald Trump’s powers to attack Iran without congressional authorisation in a vote of 215 to 208.
• Overnight Israeli air strikes on an apartment block in Gaza City killed at least nine Palestinians with four children among the dead.
• Iran’s foreign policy a ‘consensus’ process but supreme leader gets final say

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/04/2026 - 08:30

Futures Slide After Broadcom Forecast Miss Chills Tech Euphoria

US equity futures are weaker, dragged lower by Tech after a disappointing outlook from Broadcom triggered doubts that the blistering rally in technology shares had gone too far, a move exacerbated by euphoric positioning. As of 8:00am ET, S&P futures dropped 0.4%, while Nasdaq futures slumped 1.2%. Broadcom, which added around $150 billion in market value just this week, slumped 13% in US premarket trading after its forecast for artificial-intelligence semiconductor revenue in the current quarter fell short of expectations. CrowdStrike shares also drop 10% after their revenue projection failed to impress investors. Semis are under pressure following AVGO’s earnings, while Mag7 are bid led by AAPL (+1%). Parts of Cyclicals and Defensives are bid as portions of the AI Theme are weaker pointing to a potential de-risking or the very early stages a rotation. Given the sell off in APAC and EU bid, it appears to be the former rather than the latter. Bond yields are lower as the curve bull steepens, and USD weakens.  Commodities are lower as Energy sells-off on news that Israel / Lebanon will resume their conditional ceasefire within 24 hours (although Hezbollah was notably not mentioned); but, precious metals are a notable outperformer. Today’s macro data focus is on Challenge Job Cuts, Initial Claims, and Continuing Claims, with NFP coming tomorrow. 

In premarket trading, Mag 7 stocks are mixed (Microsoft +0.8%, Amazon +1.1%, Apple +1%, Alphabet +0.4%, Nvidia -1%, Meta Platforms -0.7%, Tesla -0.8%. 

• Broadcom (AVGO) is down 14% after the chipmaker gave an outlook that was seen as underwhelming, given the industry’s AI-related demand. Analysts note that AI sales and margins for the current quarter are weaker than expected. AI-linked companies fall after Broadcom’s outlook for AI chip revenue failed to impress investors. Decliners include Intel (INTC), which is down about 4%, and Lumentum (LITE), which is falling 3%.
• Cryptocurrency-linked stocks fall as Bitcoin extended losses for a fifth consecutive session after renewed clashes in the Middle East weighed on market sentiment.
• Ciena (CIEN) falls 5% after the maker of equipment used by telecom companies posted quarterly results.
• CrowdStrike (CRWD) falls 10% as the security software company’s first-quarter beat wasn’t strong enough to lift the stock that has more than doubled from a March low.
• Five Below (FIVE) falls 10% after the retailer reported results, and while the quarter was a “standout,” the growth rate might be peaking, according to Jefferies.
• Netskope (NTSK) tumbles 19% after the cloud security firm reported an adjusted loss of 6 cents per share in the first quarter.
• Petco (WOOF) falls 12% after the pet health and wellness company’s adjusted Ebitda forecast for the second quarter came in below the average analyst estimate.
• PVH (PVH) slides 22% after reaffirmed adjusted earnings-per-share guidance from the owner of the Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger brands missed consensus estimates. Analysts note sustained pressures from the Middle East conflict.
• UnitedHealth (UNH) rises 2% after BofA Global Research upgraded the health insurer to buy, citing improving medical cost trends.

In other corporate news, Eli Lilly and BioNTech joined a growing chorus of drugmakers warning that proposed healthcare reforms in Germany risk undermining investment in Europe’s biggest economy. Some members of the billionaire Glazer family have been debating whether to sell their stake in Manchester United FC, after more than 20 years of ownership.  Netflix is using AI to help customers cut through the noise of content overload. In other news, Alphabet upsized its equity raise to $84.75 billion from the $80 billion it announced just two days earlier. Mike O’Rourke at Jonestrading said a recent Alphabet investor presentation “sounds like bragging about plans to spend beyond free cash flow generation.” He questioned what he called “a bold spending stance at such an early juncture” in the competitive industry. Elsewhere, SpaceX is seeking to raise $75 billion in a record IPO to fund expansion of its AI, rocket launch and satellite infrastructure. Based on the SEC filing, it would have a market value of almost $1.77 trillion. 

Broadcom reminded upside-chasing investors that risk still exists in markets, with its shares tanking 12% in premarket trading after it issued a disappointing forecast for full-year sales of its AI chips. Still, if the stock opens at similar levels in the cash market, it’ll only be back to where it was trading last Thursday. Those earnings followed weeks of “great-to-amazing results from its competitors and partners, which meant the bar was extremely high (some would say impossibly high),” notes Vital Knowledge founder Adam Crisafulli. The stock had soared 65% from its 2026 trough on March 30, making it the third-biggest point contributor to the S&P 500’s 20% surge.

The downturn extended to other corners of the tech trade, with cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike Holdings Inc. dropping 10% even after raising its revenue forecast. The sector also fueled losses in Asia, where South Korea’s Kospi index fell 1.8% while the Korean Won tumbled to the lowest since 2009. Europe’s benchmark was down 0.2%. 

Tech and AI will remain in focus for traders: earnings are due from Ciena premarket and AI pioneers are due to speak at Bloomberg Tech — while TSMC reminds us that chip supply won’t meet AI-fueled demand for years. Chipmaker Cerebras Systems said it plans to cooperate with a wide variety of suppliers of AI data center components, except Nvidia. 

Concern over the AI trade threatens to dent a record-breaking rally that has seen global gauges shake off worries about the biggest disruption to oil markets in history. The risk-off tone comes even as Brent heads for its first daily retreat of the week, trading 1.4% lower at about $96.40 a barrel.

“Valuations are looking slightly frothy in pockets of the market which have seen the strongest gains over recent weeks,” said Wolf von Rotberg, equity strategist at Bank J Safra Sarasin. “A leadership change in equities is not unlikely at this point, with less powerful drivers than tech taking over.”

In hedge fund news, D.E. Shaw is extending the time it will take investors to fully exit two of its biggest hedge funds, as it joins peers such as Millennium and Citadel in seeking to keep client cash for longer.

In politics, the Republican-led House voted to halt the US war with Iran, breaking with President Donald Trump on an unpopular conflict. Trump announced that he planned to soon make Todd Blanche “permanent attorney general” months after he assumed that post in an acting capacity. 

European stocks have fared better as oil prices retreat, with the Stoxx 600 little changed. The Stoxx 600 was up 0.2%, led by consumer stocks which were boosted by positive earnings from Remy Cointreau. The artificial intelligence trade took a breather following a disappointing outlook from Broadcom. Here are the biggest movers Thursday:

• Remy Cointreau shares rose as much as 15%, the most since January 2024, after the French alcoholic drink maker reported earnings that slightly beat consensus profit expectations
• CMC Markets shares rose as much as 18% to highest since August 2021, after the online trading platform guided to stronger-than-expected FY27 revenue and highlighted accelerating growth across its partnerships and institutional businesses
• Abivax shares climbed as much as 14% in Paris, extending a rally after the stock plunged due to cancer cases in a crucial clinical trial
• Puuilo shares rose as much as 6.3%, the most since March, after DNB Carnegie predicted that upcoming first-quarter earnings would show the Finnish retail group started the year on a “solid footing,” helped by improving consumption
• Partners Group shares rose as much as 1.8%, attempting to recover from the previous day’s record 16% drop that was triggered by the Swiss investment firm’s decision to cap withdrawals from one of its private equity funds
• Universal Music shares fell as much as 7.6% on Thursday morning to €17.74 after Bill Ackman sold his €1.42 billion ($1.65 billion) stake in the record label just days after the Amsterdam-listed company rejected a takeover bid by the hedge fund billionaire
• Tech hardware stocks in Europe fall on Thursday and pare their year-to-date gains after US-listed Broadcom gave an outlook for artificial intelligence revenue that missed more bullish expectations
• Pirelli shares declined as much as 13% as Grizzly Research said it’s short the Italian tire maker, citing concerns regarding the company’s exposure to Russia
• Burckhardt Compression shares fell as much as 13%, the largest daily drop in over six years, after the Swiss industrial manufacturer’s full-year results showed a significant drop in order intake
• Intrum fell as much as 19%, the most in a month, after the Swedish credit management firm announced the terms of its SEK7.5 billion capital raise

Asian stocks are poised to snap a four-day winning streak as the artificial intelligence rally that drove a regional benchmark to record highs lost steam, following Broadcom’s underwhelming forecast. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell as much as 1.8%, on pace for its worst day since May 15. Chip-related companies including Samsung, SK Hynix and TSMC were among the biggest drags. Most markets in the region slipped, led by South Korea, Indonesia and Taiwan.  The blistering rally in Asian chip stocks has left them exposed to any doubts about the durability of the AI boom. Broadcom’s weaker-than-expected guidance rattled investor confidence, sparking declines in shares that had benefited from high expectations for sustained tech hardware spending.

In FX, the Swedish krona is the best performing G-10 currency, rising 0.6% against the greenback after CPI surprised to the upside. The South Korean won fell to the lowest since 2009 even as the government pledged to curb excessive volatility.

In rates, treasuries trade near session highs in early US session, with modest gains led by front-end tenors amid oil price declines. Yields in 2-year sector yields are nearly 4bp lower on the day.  Treasuries outperform bunds and gilts, with Bank of England Governor slated to speak at 11:40am New York time.US yields are 1bp to 3bp richer across a steeper curve, leaving 5s30s spread 2bp wider on the day near session highs; 10-year near 4.47% is 2bp lower, outperforming bunds and gilts in the sector by more than 1bp

In commodities, WTI crude oil futures are down more than 2% following three straight increases; Washington and Tehran have a framework to extend a truce agreement by two months, reopening the Strait of Hormuz, but an agreement hasn’t been reached and sporadic attacks have resumed.Oil prices and yields extended declines in early US trading after US President Donald Trump said negotiations to end the war in Iran were in final stages, repeating a comment he’s made at least twice since mid-May. Precious metals advance while Bitcoin falls to the lowest since before the Iran war began. 

US economic data calendar includes 1Q final productivity and unit labor costs and weekly jobless claims (8:30am). Fed speaker slate includes Barkin (8:30am), Bowman (10am), Daly (11:40am, 1:10pm) and Schmid (1pm)

Market Snapshot

Top Overnight News

• An informed source to Al Arabiya said the agreement on the release of frozen Iranian funds in its final stages, but the search continues for a mechanism on frozen funds. However, US President Trump informed the mediators of his refusal to release funds to Iran before signing the agreement.
• Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire in US-brokered talks, with the ceasefire contingent on Hezbollah's evacuation from the Litani. Despite this, there have been reports of continuing attacks in Southern Lebanon.
• House backed a resolution curbing Trump's Iran war powers with the House voting 215 to 208 to pass the War Powers resolution.
• Nasdaq Futures Tumble as Broadcom Tests AI Trade: BBG
• SpaceX Seeks $75 Billion in Record IPO to Fund AI, Launch: BBG
• Challenger Job Cuts (May) 97.006K (Prev. 83.387K); May Job Cuts Rise 16% from April, the highest May total since 2020.
• Trump is to announce nearly USD 700mln in coal support and to use the Defence Production Act for the coal sector: Axios.
• Trump Says He Plans to Make Blanche ‘Permanent Attorney General’: WSJ
• Agricultural Secretary Rollins announced additional USDA personnel deployment to South Texas, and urged livestock producers to remain vigilant, while she stated that potential New World screwworm detection is being fully contained and is not a harm to US food supply or safety.

Iran War News

• US President Trump said they have been hitting Iran pretty hard and Iran negotiations are going well, while he suggested a deal could happen over the weekend and said anything can happen when you are dealing with Iran, but also stated it could go another two or three weeks. Trump also stated he would rather not use the military in Iran, and would rather not wipe Iran out, as well as noted that they are close to signing papers in theory. Furthermore, Trump said they are trying to separate Iran and Lebanon issues, while he responded that in that part of the world, a ceasefire is when you're shooting in a more moderate manner, when questioned about the ceasefire.
• US President Trump told aides privately that he would consider ending the ceasefire with Iran if US troops are killed, according to WSJ.
• An informed source to Al Arabiya said the agreement on the release of frozen Iranian funds in its final stages but the search continues for a mechanism on frozen funds. US President Trump informed the mediators of his refusal to release funds to Iran before signing the agreement. The source notes that the main obstacle relates to the mechanism for disposing of part of the frozen Iranian funds and there is a proposal to create a special fund for depositing frozen Iranian funds that is under discussion.
• Sources noted that the first phase of the interim agreement between the US and Iran involves cessation of direct military operations, phase 2 is a full reopening of maritime traffic, phase 3 includes limited easing of some sanctions and phase 4 includes major issues such as the Iranian nuclear program, according to Al Hadath.
• Pakistani Foreign Minister, on reports of halted US-Iran talks, said "Our dialogue process continues”, Pakistani journalist Mallick posted.
• Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire in US-brokered talks, with the ceasefire contingent on Hezbollah's evacuation from the Litani, while Lebanese armed forces will take control of pilot zones, and Israel and Lebanon agreed to reconvene negotiations in the week of 22nd June.
• US State Department confirmed Israel and Lebanon agreed to the implementation of a ceasefire and that the sides agreed with guidance of the US to swiftly advance creation of pilot zones in which Lebanese armed forces will take exclusive control of the territory. Israel and Lebanon also reaffirmed they have no hostile intent towards one another and are committed to continuing negotiations.
• Lebanese President said the implementation of the ceasefire could begin within 24 hours of final approval, Arab News reported.
• The Israeli army has begun withdrawing its forces from Dibbin in southern Lebanon, Al Hadath reported.
• Israeli Defence Minister said the IDF will continue its operations on the ground in Lebanon at this stage, Al Hadath reported. "The Lebanese will not return to the south and we will continue to destroy infrastructure."
• Israeli military said fighting in Southern Lebanon continues.
• Israeli airstrikes were reported in several areas in southern Lebanon, according to SNN.
• Hezbollah attacked Israeli positions in southern Lebanon.

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

APAC stocks were lower following the negative handover from the US, where risk sentiment was weighed on by the recent retaliatory attacks between the US and Iran, as well as weakness in tech stocks. ASX 200 was pressured by underperformance in the mining and materials industries, while most sectors were subdued aside from the resilience in defensives. Nikkei 225 retreated from record levels and briefly tested the 67,000 level to the downside amid intervention risks following FX comments from Japanese PM Takaichi, while comments from BoJ Governor Ueda signalled the central bank could resume rate normalisation this month. On that front, hawkish BoJ sources noted the central bank is to mull a hike this month, with another possible in 2026. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp conformed to the downbeat mood amid tech-related headwinds and with the PBoC refraining from open market operations for a second consecutive day.

Top Asian News

• Australian Balance of Trade (Apr) 1.791B vs. Exp. -1.61B (Prev. -1.841B).
• Australian Imports MoM (Apr) M/M 0.8% (Prev. 14.1%).
• Australian Exports MoM (Apr) M/M 7.2% (Prev. -2.7%).

European bourses (STOXX 600 +0.1%) started the European morning on a positive footing, as markets digested positive geopolitical updates from President Trump and a Lebanon-Israel ceasefire. However, markets have since soured amidst reports that Israel were conducting operations in Lebanon, and following the negative action seen across the pond. European sectors are mixed. Retail (+1.7%) continues to gain following the earnings by Inditex on Wednesday. Consumer Products & Services (+1.7%) and Travel & Leisure (+1.2%) round out the top 3. The laggards include Telecoms (-1.6%), Media (-1.6%) and Basic Resources (-1.1%).

Top European News

• UK PM Starmer is considering watering down plans to boost defence spending by GBP 18bln over concerns that they are unaffordable, according to The Times.

FX

• The Buck is lower this morning vs initially starting the European morning flat. Not really any geopolitical market-moving headlines overnight; however, the Buck was pushed lower after hawkish BoJ sources (see below). In terms of Fed speak since the close, Williams said he sees no obvious direction for rates and no reason to change them. Logan said higher rates could be needed later this year. Ahead, Daly, Bowman & Barkin are slated to speak.
• JPY is slightly firmer and trading in line with most G10s. Sources told Bloomberg and Reuters that the BoJ would raise rates at the June meeting, with the Bloomberg piece suggesting more tightening was possible in 2026. Markets assign 20bps of tightening in June (80% probability), with an additional 20bps implied by year-end. The BBG report saw a 35-pip move lower in USD/JPY over ten minutes, which ultimately proved fleeting, with Yen fundamentals remaining bearish and two hikes close to being fully priced this year. A strategist at SMBC Nikko Securities said: “Even if the BoJ raises rates in June, any rebound in the yen will be limited”. USD/JPY trades higher by 0.1%, a touch below the 160.00 mark.
• CHF is performing well against the Euro and Buck after CPI metrics from Switzerland. Although a cooler-than-expected report is unlikely to shift the dial for policymakers at the SNB. This is because the headline remains towards the lower half of the 0-2% target band, and the SNB continues to make clear that inflation meets its medium-term stability objective. As such, policy is expected to remain at the ZLB for the foreseeable future. EUR/CHF -0.1% at 0.9181, USDCHF -0.3% at 0.7896.

Central Banks

• Fed's Logan (2026 voter) said she is increasingly concerned higher interest rates could be necessary later this year and monetary policy is not restraining the economy, while she added that inflation is taking too long to return to 2%, economic activity remains strong and corporate earnings are 'going gangbusters'. Logan said financial conditions are accommodative, and the labour market is stable, but separately noted that the higher price of gas is feeding through to prices of other goods and services. Furthermore, she stated that mildly restrictive policy is needed and that the current monetary policy looks neutral or loose.
• RBA Governor Bullock said the RBA expects inflation to increase further in the near term and notes flow of data and development since May has not been materially different to our expectations. She notes that inflation is too high, and the board will do what it considers necessary to achieve its mandate of delivering price stability and full employment. Some signs of tightening impact already seen, but full effects to take 1 to 2 years.
• BoJ is said to mull a June rate hike with another possible in 2026 and sees less need to cut bond buys at the same pace in FY27, according to Bloomberg source reported. Reuters then corroborated this report.

Fixed Income

• Global fixed benchmarks are mixed as energy prices cool a touch after President Trump said Iran negotiations are going well, while he suggested a deal could happen over the weekend. Though noted that it could go another two or three weeks. Separately, reports suggest that Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire, though recent reports have suggested that the Israeli army is continuing its operations in the region. This uncertainty has led to the tentative action across fixed paper this morning.
• USTs (+4 ticks) are slightly firmer and trade within a narrow 109-12+ to 109-19+ range. Really not much driving the action this morning aside from geopolitics, but domestic data will likely garner some attention later. To recap, ISM Manufacturing & Services indicate a solid activity picture, with labour market reports (ADP/JOLTS) also pushing back on near-term rate cut expectations. Ahead, focus will be on: Jobless Claims (May/30), Revelio PLS (May), and Chicago Fed Labor Market Indicators Final (May).
• JGBs (-20 ticks) are on the back foot this morning for two key reasons: a) hawkish BoJ reports, b) an enhanced-liquidity auction. Delving into the report, Bloomberg first reported that the BoJ is mulling a hike in June, and potentially one more this year. Moreover, a source said that the Bank sees less need to pare back its bond purchasing plans. This was later corroborated by a Reuters piece, where a source said, “Unless there's a severe escalation in the conflict, the BOJ will probably hike rates in June”. Before the sources piece, markets already expected the Bank to hike in June; therefore, the pressure in JGBs this morning stems from comments related to the plans later in the year.
• Bunds and Gilts follow the tentative action seen in USTs, but are lower by a handful of ticks. Domestic updates for EZ have been lacking this morning, but traders will eye Retail Sales. Irrespective of the report, the ECB is set to hike at the June meeting – money markets assign a 96% chance of such a decision; another hike is then priced in for October.
• France sells EUR 13.998bln vs exp. EUR 12-14bln 3.70% 2036, 4.00% 2038, 3.60% 2042, 4.40% 2057 OAT.
• Spain sells EUR 4.973bln vs exp. EUR 4.5-5.5bln 2.35% 2029, 3.10% 2031 and 3.50% 2041 Bono and EUR 0.593bln vs exp. EUR 0.25-0.75bln 2.05% 2039 I/L Bono.

Commodities

• Crude markets are on a softer footing amid ongoing mediation efforts to broker some sort of US-Iran deal following two flare-ups earlier this week. In terms of the major updates, US President Trump said negotiations with Iran were progressing and suggested a deal could come within days, although talks could also continue for several more weeks. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Rubio said the US is awaiting Iran’s final sign-off on negotiations surrounding Tehran’s nuclear programme. On the other side, Iranian officials outlined a four-stage framework for a potential agreement with the US. The four-stage proposal for a deal with the US includes: 1) Ending the war, 2) tangible measures re. the Strait, 3) sanctions and nuclear issues, 4) the establishment of a supervisory committee. More recently, Al Arabiya reported that the agreement on the release of frozen Iranian funds is in its final stages, albeit the search continues for a mechanism for frozen funds. The sources added that Trump informed the mediators of his refusal to release funds to Iran before signing the agreement. Elsewhere, Israel and Lebanon agreed to implement a US-brokered ceasefire framework and continue negotiations, although since the ceasefire, Hezbollah and IDF continued to exchange fire in the south of Lebanon.
• WTI Jul and Brent Aug futures are subdued in USD 94.06-95.91/bbl and USD 95.61-97.44/bbl ranges, respectively, at the time of writing, with fleeting downside seen on the aforementioned Al Arabiya sources. Dutch TTF ekes mild gains (+0.2%) but trades choppy on either side of EUR 49/MWh. “Positioning data for TTF continues to show that investment funds have been somewhat unfazed by ongoing LNG supply disruptions in the Middle East amid optimism over a resumption of LNG flows through the Strait of Hormuz”, analysts at ING write.
• Spot gold and silver are firmer after yesterday's losses, with the yellow metal finding support this morning at its 200 DMA (USD 4,423/oz) before rebounding to trade in a current USD 4,423-4,484/oz range. Spot silver trades in a USD 72.45-73.91/oz range, still some way off yesterday’s peak at USD 75.33/oz.
• Base metals are mostly lower amid the broader cautious risk tone. 3M LME copper ekes mild gains but remains under USD 14,000/t in a USD 13,701.13- 13,849.00/t at the time of writing.
• Russian Deputy PM Novak said Russia expects to reach its OPEC+ oil production quota this year. The oil market has not yet fully seen the consequences of the Middle East conflict, and stockpiles are being used. There has been no oil production lower than the start of the year due to “unscheduled maintenance” at refineries.
• Russian Deputy PM Novak said OPEC+ countries do not plan to share the UAE's oil output quota.
• Russia's Investment Fund Head Dmitriev said the EU is already going to make a number of concessions to Russia on energy as they need this for survival, TASS reported.
• China to lower retail gasoline prices by CNY 525 per metric ton from June 5th.

US Event Calendar

• 8:30 am: May 30 Initial Jobless Claims, est. 215k, prior 215k
  8:30 am: May 23 Continuing Claims, est. 1780k, prior 1786k
• 8:30 am: Fed’s Barkin in Fireside Chat
• 10:00 am: Fed’s Bowman Testifies Before House Financial Services Committ
• 11:40 am: Fed’s Daly Appears on Bloomberg TV
• 1:00 pm: Fed’s Schmid Speaks in Fireside Chat
• 1:10 pm: Fed’s Daly at Bloomberg Technology Summit

DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

The geopolitical headlines have become slightly more positive this morning, with oil prices falling back after the US said that Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire. That ceasefire is conditional on Hezbollah also stopping fighting, but in theory, the news helps to take out a key sticking point in the US-Iran talks that was holding up a deal. So that’s seen oil prices reverse a run of three consecutive gains, with Brent crude down -0.96% to $96.87/bbl. And given the news, the 10yr Treasury yield (-1.4bps) has also fallen back to 4.48%.

Nevertheless, even as the geopolitical news looks more positive, equities have taken a hit this morning after Broadcom’s forecast for AI chip revenue was beneath estimates, which pushed their share price down over -13% in overnight trading. Those concerns around AI have extended more broadly too, with S&P 500 futures down -0.37% this morning. And in Asia overnight, all the major indices have lost ground, including the Nikkei (-1.73%), the KOSPI (-1.17%), the Hang Seng (-1.39%), the CSI 300 (-0.58%) and the Shanghai Comp (-0.43%). Moreover, there’s been a broader slide in risk assets, with Bitcoin at a 3-month low this morning of $64,593.

Before that, markets had already struggled yesterday, as growing doubt about a US-Iran peace deal pushed Brent crude (+1.89%) up for a third consecutive session, closing at $97.81/bbl. And with the Strait of Hormuz still blocked and no clear sign of a resolution, there were even mounting expectations about a potential Fed rate hike this year, with market pricing for that up to 81% by the close. So that pushed bond yields higher, with a fresh dose of momentum from another round of strong US data, which added to the rate hike speculation. So it was a tough day all round, with the S&P 500 (-0.74%) finally ending a run of 9 consecutive gains, whilst the 10yr Treasury yield (+5.1bps) was back up to 4.49%.

In terms of the Middle East, events there were still dominating the market agenda, with few obvious signs that a peace deal was imminent. For instance, as we went to press yesterday, Bahrain said they’d intercepted three missiles and several drones, whilst Kuwait had to suspend air traffic briefly after an Iranian attack. Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi posted that “Any hostile act will be met with an immediate, decisive response” and also said that “no tangible progress” had been made in talks with the US.

There was little clarity from Trump himself, who said the negotiations could complete over the weekend but could go on another two, three weeks. So tensions seemed to be ratcheting up again, and hopes for a durable peace deal continued to decline. Meanwhile, CNN reported yesterday that one of the key sticking points was monetary compensation for Iran. Otherwise, the US House of Representatives did vote against the Iran war in a 215-208 vote yesterday, after four Republicans joined with the Democrats. But in practice that won’t end the military conflict, as the Senate would also need to pass it, and Trump could issue a veto as well.

That backdrop meant that oil prices posted a fresh increase yesterday, with Brent crude up +1.89% to $97.81/bbl. Indeed, we can see from the Polymarket odds that there’s growing scepticism about a return to normality in the Strait of Hormuz. For instance, the probability of a return to normal traffic by the end of July was down to 34% yesterday, having been 39% the previous day. And it was clear investors were pricing the longer conflict scenarios as well, with the 6-month Brent crude future (+1.07%) up to $86.91/bbl.

With oil prices rising again, that led to a renewed bout of concerns around inflation on both sides of the Atlantic. For instance, the US 1yr inflation swap (+6.8bps) was back up to 3.18%, whilst the Euro 1yr inflation swap (+6.5bps) was up to 3.05%. So that led to a fresh round of pressure on sovereign bonds, with the 10yr Treasury yield (+5.2bps) up to 4.50%, whilst yields on 10yr bunds (+6.0bps), OATs (+7.7ps) and BTPs (+8.5bps) saw even bigger increases.

The rise in bond yields got even more momentum from another strong batch of US data, which added to expectations of a Fed rate hike this year. For example, the ISM services index rose by more than expected in May, up to 54.5 (vs. 53.8 expected). Moreover, we also had the ADP’s report of private payrolls, before the US jobs report tomorrow. That ADP release pointed to a robust labour market in May, with private payrolls up by a 16-month high of +122k (vs. +120k expected).

With that data in hand, the probability of a Fed rate hike by December was up to 81% at the close, up from 71% the previous day. And similarly in Europe, the number of ECB hikes priced by December was up to 68bps, up from 65bps the previous day. Meanwhile in Japan, markets have also priced in a growing chance of a rate hike, as BoJ Governor Ueda signalled in a speech yesterday that it may need to be considered. For instance, he said that if “upside risks to prices outweigh downside risks to economic activity, it will be necessary to thoroughly discuss the pros and cons of raising the policy interest rate”.

That combination of negative geopolitical headlines and more hawkish rates pricing meant US equities finally stumbled after a long run of gains. So the S&P 500 (-0.74%) and the NASDAQ (-0.89%) both fell back after 9 consecutive moves higher. The declines were fairly broad, with the equal-weighted S&P 500 (-0.42%) also seeing a decent pull back. But it was the Magnificent 7 (-1.25%) that saw a particular underperformance, dragging US equities more broadly, even as the Philly Semiconductor index (+1.39%) reached another record high.

Over in Europe, there were more broad-based equity declines, with the STOXX 600 (-0.66%) falling back, alongside losses for the DAX (-1.31%), the CAC 40 (-0.71%) and the FTSE MIB (-1.07%). But as in the US, the latest data also pointed in a slightly better direction than expected. So the final composite PMI for the Euro Area was revised up a point from the flash reading to 48.5. Admittedly, that was still beneath the 50-mark separating expansion from contraction, but it suggested the economy wasn’t deteriorating as rapidly as previously thought given the energy shock. Peter Sidorov published his latest global PMI monitor yesterday, where the data shows the global economy adapting to the energy shock, albeit with some signs of rising employment risks.

Looking at the day ahead now, data releases include the May construction PMIs for Germany and the UK, along with Euro Area retail sales for April, and the US weekly initial jobless claims. Otherwise, central bank speakers include ECB President Lagarde, BoE Governor Bailey, and the Fed’s Barkin, Bowman and Daly.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/04/2026 - 08:23

Five Below Plunges After Earnings Beat, Warns Consumer Boost From Tax Refunds Is Ending

Five Below's core customer base is tweens, teens, and value-conscious households. That makes management's warning on Wednesday's earnings call particularly notable: the retailer is directly exposed to trends in low-end discretionary spending.

"We're looking at the world that our customers are living in: with rising fuel costs, with very sticky inflation, with a somewhat—soft labor market. And we think a piece of that pain that they are feeling wasn't felt in the first quarter purely because of tax proceeds," CFO Daniel Sullivan told analysts during an earnings call.

"We remain cautious with respect to the macro environment, consumer sentiment and buying behaviors," Sullivan added.

Shares of Five Below plunged 10% in premarket trading after the discount retailer issued a dismal outlook for the consumer this summer, despite beating first-quarter earnings expectations and raising full-year profit guidance.

Same-store sales surged nearly 23%, exceeding the Bloomberg Consensus estimate of 17.8%, which was mostly helped by viral demand for a "squishy dumpling" toy.

Snapshot of the first quarter results (courtesy of Bloomberg):

• Net sales $1.29 billion, +32% y/y, estimate $1.22 billion

• Adjusted EPS $2.22, estimate $1.75

• EPS $2.21 vs. 75c y/y

• Comparable sales +22.7%, estimate +17.8%

• Total stores 1,970, estimate 1,967

• Net new stores opened 49, estimate 45.94

Five Below also raised its full-year adjusted EPS forecast to $8.65 to $9.05 from $7.74 to $8.25. The Bloomberg Consensus estimate was $8.30. It kept its second-half outlook unchanged, citing deteriorating consumer sentiment amid a very challenging macroeconomic environment as the tax-refund sugar high fades.

Snapshot of full-year forecast (courtesy of Bloomberg):

• Sees net sales $5.40 billion to $5.48 billion, saw $5.20 billion to $5.30 billion, estimate $5.37 billion (Bloomberg Consensus)

• Sees adjusted EPS $8.65 to $9.05, saw $7.74 to $8.25, estimate $8.30

• Sees EPS $8.62 to $9.02, saw $7.69 to $8.20

• Sees comparable sales +6% to +8%, estimate +5.95%

• Sees net income $480 million to $502 million, saw $429 million to $457 million, estimates $455.3 million

Five Below's concerns about consumers this summer come as working-class families face a cash crunch in the coming months, with Trump-era tax refund tailwinds fading and Iran-related fuel shocks squeezing budgets.

Tax refunds averaging nearly $3,500 have largely helped keep spending resilient, with Walmart, Target, and Lowe's citing refund-driven support in recent earnings calls.

But some retailers warn that the tax refund boost is only temporary. Target said the tax refund benefit will fade in the back half of the year, while Advance Auto Parts expects sales to slow as the refund tailwind disappears.

Low-cost retailers such as Dollar General and Dollar Tree have reported stronger quarterly earnings as they see trading down from wealthier households seeking discounted items.

"They're literally running out of money at the end of the month," Kraft Heinz CEO Steve Cahillane said in a recent interview with the WSJ. "We're seeing negative cash flows in the lower-income brackets where they're dipping into savings."

Earlier this month, we showed that personal spending growth far outpaced personal income.

... the personal savings rate has collapsed to a 3-year low.

Read UBS analyst Mark Paski's note from last week, which warned about a potential "fiscal cliff" for consumers in the second half of 2026, as excess cash buffers from refunds begin to fade.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/04/2026 - 07:45

Constellation's Three Mile Island Nuclear Restart Gets Boost With FERC Waiver

By Ethan Howland of UtilityDive

Constellation Energy’s plans to restart the Crane nuclear power plant - formerly, and better known as Three Mile Island Unit 1 - were boosted Monday when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved a waiver for the company from PJM Interconnection rules. FERC approved Constellation’s waiver request over the objections of PJM’s independent market monitor.

Under the decision, Constellation will be able to transfer 760 MW of Capacity Interconnection Rights, or CIRs, from its Eddystone power plant near Philadelphia to the Crane unit. The transfer will increase the amount of electricity the nuclear unit can deliver to the grid.

Constellation Energy’s Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Middletown, Pa. The company’s plans to restart the plant’s Unit 1 were boosted when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved a waiver for the company from PJM Interconnection rules on June 1, 2026.

Constellation planned to retire two Eddystone units on May 31, 2025, but the Department of Energy has ordered the company to them to keep running under what the DOE has described as an emergency energy shortage.

Under the DOE’s orders, the Eddystone units are not considered capacity resources, making their CIRs free to be transferred, according to Baltimore-based Constellation.

Constellation’s $1.6 billion plan to restart the 835-MW Crane nuclear unit hit a snag when PJM determined that transmission upgrades were needed to safely deliver all the unit’s power to the grid.

Those upgrades — including 765-kV and 500-kV projects — aren’t expected to be finished until December 2030 and could be delayed even longer, preventing full deliveries from the nuclear unit, which could restart in the second half of 2027, Constellation said in its March 31 waiver request at FERC.

Constellation’s request met FERC’s criteria for granting waivers, including that it solves a concrete problem, according to the agency.

“The requested waiver will allow for the transfer of CIRs between the Eddystone units and Crane, which may reduce or eliminate the number of Contingent Facilities for Crane and thereby potentially increase Crane’s interim deliverability and enable Crane to be fully operational before December 31, 2030,” FERC said.

Also, granting the waiver will not have undesirable consequences, such as harming third parties, FERC said.

“Rather, the requested waiver will provide a more efficient use of CIRs due to the Eddystone units’ current inability to use their CIRs as a result of DOE orders requiring them to operate as energy-only resources,” FERC said.

Constellation has a 20-year deal to sell all the energy, capacity and clean energy attributes from the nuclear unit to Microsoft for data centers across PJM’s Mid-Atlantic and Midwest footprint.

In its waiver request, Constellation said that reaching full deliverability status was especially important for the Crane unit. If run for extended periods below their rated power output, the equipment in nuclear units face risk of elevated vibration and wear, which can pose reliability problems, according to the independent power producer.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/04/2026 - 07:20

My morning Montreal reads:

• Shorting SpaceX? Jefferies Becomes Go-To Bank After IPO Miss:  It’s the kind of look that ambitious investment bankers usually strive to avoid: When SpaceX named the roughly two dozen firms handling its IPO, Jefferies Financial Group Inc. was conspicuously absent. But behind the scenes, bearish investors and some of Jefferies’ own bosses see that as a unique opportunity. (Bloomberg)

• Who Let the Professors Out? Inside CFM: The $27bn quant on Paris’ Left Bank: Stock markets are surging, and momentum is rampant. It made me think of CFM wizard Jean-Philippe Bouchaud who believes that it is fund flows that drives markets and not fundamentals. (Rupak’s Substack) see also Transcript: Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, Founder/Chief Scientist, Capital Fund Management co‑founder, chair & head of research/chief scientist atCapital Fund Management (CFM). The $20 billion firm started in 1991 specializing in managed futures and now runs futures and multi-strategy programs. He began his career in theoretical physics, was awarded the IBM Young Scientist Prize (1990) and the C.N.R.S. Silver Medal (1996), and has published over 300 scientific papers and several books in physics and finance. (The Big Picture)

• The triumph of capital: It’s been a great generation to have started out rich. If you compare the United States to the famously high-tax Nordic countries, the major difference is not in the top statutory income tax rates. The top American combined state and local tax rate is generally a little higher than it is in Norway and a little lower than in Denmark and Sweden. New York and California, where a large share of our billionaires live, have unusually high top income tax rates, so the richest people are paying Nordic-level marginal rates. (Slow Boring)

• Sorry Marc, it — investment grade private credit — is just not that big: The FT, gently, on Marc Rowan, Apollo’s CEO,  latest “this is the biggest thing in history” essay — and the multiple times he has said exactly that before. The kindest version of the takedown. (Financial Times)

• Gmail Thinks I’m Stupid, So I Left: A nicely irritated post on Gmail’s creeping infantilization — AI summarizing nothing, hiding addresses, “smart compose” doing the opposite. The user case for going Fastmail/Proton in one sitting. (Modded Bear)

• High Density Living, 2000 Years Ago: Inside the Roman Apartment Building: Ancient Rome had six-story walk-ups, noise complaints, and absentee landlords. The more things change. A tombstone outside Rome bears “The Tenant’s Lament”—proof that housing has always been a problem. (Common Edge)

• This $50,000 Safety Fix Is Dividing the Aviation Industry and Washington: Federal safety officials and lawmakers have been at odds over mandating systems enabling pilots to see nearby aircraft (Wall Street Journal)

• Iran Atomic Risk Seen Higher Than Before Trump Attacks Began. The risk that Iran is covertly pursuing nuclear weapons is higher today than before the US and Israel launched their first military attacks on the Islamic Republic a year ago, according to western officials. The International Atomic Energy Agency has warned member countries about new nuclear proliferation dangers posed by Iran’s large inventory of near-bomb-grade uranium, which is no longer subject to weekly IAEA inspection. (Bloomberg free)

• Cancel Culture at CBS News: The Bulwark on the Pelley/Weiss/Bilton triangle and what it tells you about who the new CBS News editorial line is for. The “cancel culture” framing applied where the people doing the cancelling actually are. (The Bulwark) see also Scott Pelley Fires Back After “60 Minutes” Ouster: “The Collapse of Values at the Top Has Become Untenable”: Variety carrying Pelley’s on-the-record statement after the firing — the kind of clean, scorched-earth quote that doesn’t happen at CBS News by accident. (Variety)  see also When “60 Minutes” is in Trouble, We are All in Trouble: Jim Acosta on what the Pelley firing means for the rest of the press corps. Read alongside Margaret Sullivan’s “priced in” piece — same diagnosis, fresh data point. (Jim Acosta)

• He Was the Knicks Owner Who Could Do Nothing Right. Now James Dolan Can’t Miss.: WSJ on the strangest sports-business arc of the decade — Dolan, of all people, with a Finals team and a cleaner front office than half the league. Even Knicks fans aren’t sure what to do with this. (Wall Street Journal)

Video of the day: What It’s Like to Be a Billionaire’s Family Member

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Chris Davis, Chairman and Portfolio Manager of Davis Funds. The firm oversees $20 billion in client assets, with Davis (and colleagues) co-investing $2 billion in their own mineus alongside shareholders. Davis was named Morningstar’s Portfolio Manager of the Year; he also sits on the boards of Berkshire Hathaway and Coca-Cola.

 

The Lowest Consumer Sentiment EVER

Source: A Wealth of Common Sense

 

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The post 10 Thursday AM Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

EU Could Lose 1.3 Million Jobs Due To Energy Price Surge From Iran War

Up to 1.3 million jobs across the EU are at risk because of the ongoing war in the Middle East, European Commissioner for jobs Roxana Mînzatu said on Wednesday.

"Due to the war in the Middle East, up to 1.3 million jobs are at risk, particularly in energy-intensive industries," Mînzatu said at a press conference.

"Let me also underline that increased energy costs will have a particular negative impact on lower-income households in Europe, which is why we recommend that all member states take targeted measures so that they can support vulnerable groups," the Commissioner added.

According to the report, the EU automotive sector could face ​the biggest layoffs of up to 600,000. Construction, metals, chemicals, transport could lose 56,000 jobs. Some 85,000 jobs in battery projects could be at risk ​and 58,852 ​jobs ⁠in solar manufacturing. Another 4,500 jobs could go in the ​steel sector because of low-carbon ​measures.

In a stagflationary double whammy, Low-income ⁠households could spend an additional 1.4% of income on transport fuel.

As Euronews reports, the warning came during the presentation of the 2026 Spring Semester Package, a bi-annual publication by the EU executive that provides guidance to the 27 member states on the bloc's economic priorities.

The conflict has already had tangible effects on the European economy, with energy prices surging as a result. According to the latest European economic forecasts published in May, the war has slowed European growth while pushing inflation higher. Yesterday we learned that Euro Area inflation topped 3% for the first time since 2023, cementing an ECB rate hike next week.

Economic data on growth and inflation vary sharply across the EU, a disparity the Commission considers a threat to competitiveness.
Key priorities

The package dedicates significant space to employment, focusing on the promotion of quality jobs and how EU countries can tackle persistent shortages of skilled workers in strategically important sectors.

"Improving educational outcomes and better aligning people's skills with labor market needs remain key priorities, also to address labour and skills shortages which are particularly acute in strategic sectors such as cybersecurity, quantum, artificial intelligence and semiconductors," the Semester Package states.

At the press conference, Mînzatu said that 77% of European companies report that skill shortages remain a significant barrier to investment. She identified poor working conditions as the main driver of those shortages.

"We cannot attract talent, we cannot reduce shortages, we cannot improve people's earnings without making sure we have good working conditions," the Commissioner said.

Since the beginning of this mandate, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has made competitiveness one of the Commission's highest priorities as geopolitical uncertainties mount.

The latest Semester Package reflects this, focusing on how Europe can strengthen its position on the global stage.

In particular, the bloc wants to reduce economic barriers in the single market, create a more business-friendly environment for companies and capital, and minimise strategic dependencies – especially on China and the US.

To that end, the Commission is pushing member states towards a more robust industrial policy, greater investment in capital markets, and a simplification agenda that would, among other things, reduce administrative burdens both in the private and public sector.

In parallel, the Commission is working to accelerate economic reforms at the EU level, though progress relies heavily on the willingness of member states to act – a longstanding coordination challenge.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/04/2026 - 02:45