House Dems Release ‘Selective’ Never-Before-Seen Epstein Island Pictures, Video Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have released a cache of never-before-seen photos and videos from Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous island (dropbox link here), saying in a statement “These new images are a disturbing look into the world of Jeffrey Epstein and his island. We are releasing these photos and videos to ensure public transparency in our […]

Spending Slowdown Hits Apple App Store In Major Markets Apple App Store spending cooled in November, dragged down by weakening demand across several of Apple’s largest global markets, which together account for more than half of all App Store revenue. Goldman analysts led by Michael Ng published a note Tuesday citing Sensor Tower data showing Apple App Store spending last month rose just 6% YoY, down from 9% in October and half […]

“Deckchairs” On The Titanic? By Michael Every of Rabobank The conclusion to yesterday’s Global Daily was that we are still in a systemic metacrisis. True, many market metrics don’t show it – but how many deckchairs told the Titanic’s passengers they were heading for the iceberg? Markets have a vital role, as do chairs, but expecting them to reflect the potential enormity of what’s going on could end up with you being in […]

Fed Regime-Change: Groupthink May Be Ending Authored by Michael Lebowitz via RealInvestmentAdvice.com, Starting in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, a profound change to the Fed’s liquidity-providing role in the capital markets was underway.  We can sum up the Fed regime change with a popular quip: The Fed has shifted from lender of last resort to the lender of only resort! In our articles QE Is Coming and its […]

Europe Accuses Putin Of Faking Peace Talks With Trump Envoys After the American delegation sent by President Trump met some 5 hours with President Putin and his team in Moscow Tuesday night, but with no significant progress made (and with some observers declaring it a ‘failure’), some European officials are trying to have an ‘I told you so’ moment. Ukrainian and European officials on Wednesday have alleged Putin is faking a desire […]

DOJ Charges Afghan National Over Online Threats To Build Bomb, Kill Americans Authored by Arjun Singh via The Epoch Times, The Department of Justice has indicted an Afghan national residing in Fort Worth, Texas, for allegedly making online threats to construct an explosive and kill U.S. citizens using it. Mohammad Dawood Alokozay, 30, was arrested by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Texas Department of Public […]

James Boasberg Snubs Senate Hearing On ‘Rogue Judges’ Authored by Luis Cornelio via Headline USA, Two of the federal judges facing impeachment threats refused to attend a Wednesday Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on “rogue judges.”  James Boasberg and Deborah Boardman, district judges in Washington and Maryland, respectively, told the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts that they would not appear over […]

WTI Holds Gains As Cushing ‘Tank Bottoms’ Loom; US Crude Production At Record High Oil prices are higher this morning after API’s report showed crude inventories fell last week, while negotiations to end Russia’s war on Ukraine failed to reach an agreement. Prices have stuck in a narrow range in recent weeks as geopolitical concerns have countered rising supply as OPEC+ returned 2.6-million barrels of production cuts to market […]

Polar Vortex Threat Sends US NatGas Futs To Highest Level Since 2022 Update (1110ET): U.S. natural gas futures jumped above $5 per MMBtu, the highest level since December 2022, as traders expect colder-than-normal temperatures across the Lower 48 in the first half of December. Meteorologists, such as Mark Margavage, are focused on a polar vortex threat that could “dump the motherload of cold into Eastern North America in the […]

1 In 4 Unemployed Americans Has A Degree – The Future Of White Collar Jobs Authored by Mary Prenon via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), With a changing economy, artificial intelligence (AI) replacing many jobs, and widespread unpreparedness for the job market, the time-honored tradition of tossing their caps in the air to celebrate earning their degrees and starting exciting new careers has turned into disappointment for many […]

MSFT Stock Rebounds After Microsoft Refutes Information Report: “Did Not Lower AI Software Sales Quotas” Update 10:35am ET: CNBC quotes a Microsoft spokesman who denies the Information report, saying the company “did not lower sales quota.” Meanwhile, The Information has also changed the title of its report from “MSFT Lowers AI Software Sales Quotas as Customers resist newer products” to “Microsoft Lowers AI Software Growth Targets […]

ICE “Strike Teams” Deployed To Minneapolis After Bombshell Somali Welfare-Fraud Report Linked To Overseas Terror Investigative journalist Christopher Rufo, whose City Journal expose revealed how Minnesota’s Somali community stole billions in taxpayer funds, with money ultimately flowing to a foreign terrorist network, notes that just weeks after his bombshell report, ICE has now mobilized in Minneapolis. “How it started   …  […]

Trump Confirms Biden’s Autopen Documents, Orders, & Pardons Are Void Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he has nullified all documents, proclamations, executive orders, memorandums, and contracts signed by autopen during President Joe Biden’s term. “Any and all Documents, Proclamations, Executive Orders, Memorandums, or Contracts, signed by Order of the now infamous […]

‘Sustained Resilience’: US Services Surveys Mixed In November Following the disappointment on the Manufacturing PMI side (both S&P Global and ISM seeing their surveys decline in November), US Services surveys were more mixed in the face of ‘strong’ hard data (that has been largely absent due to the shutdown). S&P Global US Services PMI dropped from 54.8 to 54.1 in November (lowest since June and notably worse than the […]

Maduro Could Be Exiled To Qatar As Trump Warns Land Strikes On Venezuela Coming “Very Soon” President Trump reportedly issued Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro a deadline of last Friday to of his own volition step down as president and accomplish a peaceful transition of power, or else face possible direct military action. The New York Post is freshly reporting that the White House has offered that Maduro could be exiled to […]

US Industrial Production Sees Biggest Annual Gain In 3 Years Despite Slowing Capacity Utilization First things first, this is data for September. But we would given this morning’s Industrial Production and Manufacturing Output data a ‘meh’ ranking. Industrial Production rose just 0.1% MoM (as expected) up from the downwardly revised 0.3% MoM decline in August. On a YoY basis, production rose 1.62% – its best since Nov 2022… US […]

The Bull Case (Is That Nothing Matters Anymore) Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance As far as my macro outlook goes, I think I’ve been pretty clear: over time, I expect nominal prices of everything to drift—no, march—higher as governments and central banks eventually capitulate to the obvious: their only escape route from the irresponsible, slow-motion debt disaster they engineered is to quietly (or, recently, not so quietly) […]

Zelensky’s Meeting With US Envoy Cancelled After No Real Progress In 5-Hour Moscow Talks The Russian-US negotiations on the Ukraine conflict concluded in the Kremlin after some five hours of intense negotiations, which had reportedly gone late into the night. Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov indicated the US side of Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner presented four more documents concerning the peace settlement during the […]

Futures Rise As Bitcoin Extends Rally For 2nd Day, Copper Hits Record US equity futures are higher again, led by small cap stocks. As of 8:20am ET, S&P futures are up 0.2% (they dropped following a very ugly ADP print at 8:15am), the same as Nasdaq 100 futs, with Mag 7 stocks mostly higher premarket led by NVDA (+0.4%) and AMZN (+0.3%); MRVL is up +10% post-earnings given the robust long-term guidance. Europe’s Stoxx 600 is also […]

Trump Administration Officially Halts Immigration Processing From 19 Countries Authored by Kimberley Hayek via The Epoch Times, The Trump administration announced Tuesday it has suspended the processing of all immigration applications from 19 countries, including Afghanistan and Somalia, citing national security and public safety concerns. The action comes a week after an Afghan national was arrested for shooting two National […]

Small Business Job Losses Soar In November; ADP Following the last three weeks showing job losses (for ADP’s new weekly model)… The official ADP report confirmed this weakness, printing 32k job losses in November (far worse than the +10k expected) and well down from the +47k revised for October… Source: Bloomberg That is the biggest job loss since March 2023. Job creation has been flat during the second half of 2025 and […]

As K-Shaped Consumer Breakdown Widens, Bessent Points To Brighter 2026 At the start of the week, commenting on Black Friday sales figures, Goldman analyst Natasha de la Grense said there has been increased focus on the “K-shaped” economy. As outlined in our previous notes (here and here), this widening behavioral gap is becoming more pronounced among working-poor and high-income households. New data from Goldman analyst Ronnie […]

Explosion Rocks Part Of Russia’s Strategic Druzhba Pipeline – All Caught On Camera While Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, are in Moscow working to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, a series of attacks on Russia-linked oil tankers unfolded both before and during their visit. Now, reports are also emerging of an explosion along the Druzhba oil pipeline. On Wednesday morning, Kyiv […]

Europe’s Energy Transition Destroyed its Economy You can have cheap, dependable electricity to encourage economic growth and prosperity, or you can have a grid supported by wind and solar energy. Europe chose the latter. So far, the promise of “abundant solar and wind energy” has only succeeded at one thing: slashing carbon emissions by 30% from 2005 levels. Thankfully, food for European families is paid for by reducing […]

A Third Of Glasgow Schoolchildren Don’t Speak English Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, Nearly one in three children in Glasgow’s primary schools do not speak English as their first language, according to new council data, highlighting a dramatic shift driven by record migration levels that are overwhelming local resources and raising urgent questions about integration and public services. The figures, revealed in […]