[Posted 4:30 PM ET, Friday]
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Editon 1,416
Frankly, on a personal front, today was an awful one. We had utility work done on the building early this morning and I heard my individual electric meter was being worked on and that there could be a brief power failure. So, since I’m working on this column on Fridays, I coordinated with the guy to let me know when he was working on my meter so I could close out the Word Doc. I did. And immediately the power went off for a mere 20 seconds, but I had a television on and it fried my main FIOS set-top box. This was at 9:00 a.m.
Let’s just say I spent hours on the phone with Verizon, they couldn’t solve it (though they tried hard) and finally said I needed a new box. After picking it up locally (which took forever because no one could log on in their own store), I couldn’t get it to work, leading to another round of calls, and I have someone coming over Saturday morning.
No television, no CNBC coverage (I’m not paying for streaming), for an entire day (and night), and coupled with other things going on in the life of StocksandNews, it sort of sucked. [I need your support.]
But, the internet works (and I forgot until late this afternoon I could use SiriusXM…after listening to Bloomberg radio) and as for developments in the Middle East, crude oil futures continued to fall on increased hopes that the U.S. and Iran could be close to an interim peace agreement, though there remain major uncertainties, and President Trump cast doubt on the reported draft agreement, saying the published terms did not reflect the agreement discussed.
Tale of the Tape
Oil / West Texas Intermediate (WTI)
Friday, Feb. 27…$67.30
Friday, June 12…$84.45
Nationwide averages at the Gas Pump [Source: AAA]
Friday, Feb. 27…regular $2.98; diesel $3.75
Friday, June 12…regular $4.10; diesel $5.25
As the war in Iran went down…day by day….
—It was a volatile weekend…starting Friday night when the U.S. military said it shot down Iranian ballistic missiles and drones launched toward the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf Arab allies on Friday, while striking some of the Islamic Republic’s coastal surveillance radar sites in response, an exchange of fire that further frayed a shaky ceasefire with Tehran.
The exchange of strikes comes as the Trump administration ramps up pressure on Iran to make a deal to end the conflict.
President Trump, who has insisted for months that Iran was near its breaking point, conceded Friday that the country retains some missile and drone capacity. In an interview with NBC News, he said about 21% to 22% of Tehran’s missile arsenal remains.
U.S. Central Command said on social media that Iran fired seven ballistic missiles toward Kuwait and Bahrain, with U.S. forces intercepting six of the missiles and seventh failing to reach its target. The military said there were no reports of injuries to U.S. personnel.
Iran has demanded a ceasefire in Lebanon before an accord can be reached with the U.S.
Iran fired at least 30 missiles at Israel on Sunday, the first such bombardment since a fragile ceasefire took effect in early April, hours after the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched its own attack on a Hezbollah command center in Beirut.
The Israeli and Lebanese governments had agreed to a ceasefire in U.S.-hosted talks, though Hezbollah rejected the deal. Israel’s strikes and ground invasion in Lebanon in pursuit of Hezbollah, and the militant group’s resistance to disarming, have complicated an overall deal to end the war in the Middle East.
President Trump said he planned to tell Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu not to retaliate after Iran launched the missile attack on the state Sunday – noting that further escalation will only stall the fragile ceasefire negotiations.
Trump told Fox News that he “wasn’t happy” about Israel’s brazen attack on Beirut after he’d told Netanyahu to stand down. But he recognized that Iran’s latest blow wasn’t “going to help negotiations” either.
“What I would suggest to Iran: You’ve shot your missiles, that’s enough. Get back to the table and make a deal,” Trump told the outlet.
Trump separately told Axios that he was “calling Netanyahu right now and telling him not to attack Iran in response.”
“Each of them had their fun. If Bibi strikes them back it’s just gonna keep going like the last 47 years, or the last 3,000 years,” Trump said.
He told the New York Post Sunday afternoon, “things are going very well.”
Speaking to the Financial Times before Israel struck back at Iran, Trump insisted he dictated terms to Netanyahu on how the war should be prosecuted.
“He won’t have any choice,” Trump told the newspaper, adding that he calls “all the shots,” not Netanyahu.
Iranian officials, meanwhile, appeared eager to ramp up the firefight with Israel and the U.S.
“Our acceptance of the ceasefire on April 8 was conditional on a ceasefire on ALL fronts; but as always, America and Israel did not adhere to their commitment, they continued the aggression and crimes in Lebanon, and attacked Iranian vessels,” Iran’s military said in a statement shared with regime media on Sunday.
Israel then launched strikes on central and western Iran early Monday in response to missile fire from Tehran and Iran retaliated with waves of attacks. Iran sent more missiles into Israel that were largely intercepted.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said it had targeted two military bases in Israel, after Israel targeted radar sites in three areas of Iran. Israel also targeted a major Iranian petrochemical facility. The IRGC called it a dangerous move and threatened to put energy facilities across the region at risk.
Meanwhile, Yemen’s Houthi rebels also fired at Israel and warned they would target Israel-affiliated ships in the Red Sea, further escalating tension.
Early Monday morning, Trump posted on Truth Social:
“Israel and Iran must immediately stop ‘shooting.’”
Shortly thereafter, Iran’s military headquarter said it had “delivered a painful response” to Israel and announced an end to its armed forces operations. “Should aggression and hostile actions continue – including in southern Lebanon – far more severe and forceful measures than before will follow,” it said, according to Iranian state media.
WTI crude oil futures, which had crossed $95 early Monday, fell to $91.50 after Iran stated it had ended its military operations against Israel.
Israel state television then said the IDF had ended military operations against Iran per President Trump’s request.
But in a videotaped statement, Prime Minister Netanyahu said that while the current round of fighting was over, he warned that if Iran “makes the mistake and returns to attacking us, we will respond with force.”
In a different matter, a U.S. Army Apache helicopter gunship went down near the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, and the two crew members were safely rescued, President Trump telling reporters early Tuesday that the crew members were fine. He did not provide any further details.
As in it was not immediately clear whether the Apache was shot down by Iranian fire, experienced mechanical failure or encountered some other problem.
Then Trump posted on Truth Social, Tuesday, 12:38 PM:
“I have just been informed by our Great Military that last night the Iranians shot down one of our highly sophisticated Apache Helicopters while patrolling over the Strait of Hormuz. There were two pilots involved, both are safe and uninjured. Nevertheless, the United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
The two downed crew members were rescued in part by a surface naval drone. The 24-foot Corsair autonomous surface vessel used in the rescue was operated by the U.S. 5th Fleet’s Task Force 59 unit that includes surface, underwater and one-way attack drones.
The drone picked up the downed Apache operators and transported them to another location on the water where they were hoisted by a rescue helicopter.
The U.S. retaliated by launching strikes against Iran.
“The operation was a proportional response to recent attacks on U.S. forces and international commercial ships transiting regional waters,” Centcom said in a statement.
The U.S. targeted Iranian air defenses and radar sites near the Strait.
In response, the IRGC launched a drone and missile attack on the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, as well as U.S. bases in Kuwait and Jordan, with the U.S. saying all of the objects were intercepted.
President Trump posted on Truth Social Wednesday, 7:03 AM:
“Iran’s Military is a complete and total mess. Much of it, like their Navy and Air Force, doesn’t even exist anymore – They have been completely defeated. Iran is all talk and no action. The Bully of the Middle East is DEAD!!! They’ve taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been great for them, now they will have to pay the price!!!”
And at 7:32 AM:
“The Fake News Media refuses to report how EFFECTIVE the U.S. Naval BLOCKADE is, the most successful Blockade in the history of Naval Warfare. NOTHING GETS THROUGH unless we want it to. IT IS A STEEL WALL! Iran is doing ZERO business, not paying their military, or any of their bills, and quickly becoming a FAILED NATION! Lots of oil is getting out. Praise be to Allah!”
But Bloomberg News did have a story Wednesday on how more and more oil tankers are getting through, turning off their transponders and going through the Strait of Hormuz, lifting oil flows from a trickle to a stream.
“While conventional vessel-tracking data show little change in shipments, senior shipping executives, Asian oil buyers and satellite images paint a different picture: That Hormuz is now a lot less blocked, with transits becoming more steady and greater in volume.”
The U.S. is also helping ships navigate through the waterway.
“About 2 million barrels a day of oil and related products are now flowing out of the Gulf, according to Rapidan Energy Group – a level that’s far below normal, but much higher than earlier in the conflict. Those flows, coupled with a plunge in Chinese buying, surging U.S. exports and workarounds such as pipelines running hundreds of miles across the Middle East, have helped bring oil prices down almost 30% from their peak at the height of the war.”
Then late Wednesday morning, addressing reporters in the Oval Office, President Trump said the U.S. would resume attacks on Iran later in the day (evening).
“We’re gonna be attacking them, attacking them very hard,” Trump said. “We hit them hard yesterday, and we’re going to hit them again hard today,” he said.
“We were really close to a deal, but they keep tapping us along,” the president added.
Wednesday afternoon, the president posted on Truth Social, in part:
“Last month, I directed our Great U.S. Military to execute a secret mission to support Oil Tankers and other Commercial Ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Today, I am pleased to announce that this effort has resulted in more than 100 MILLION Barrels of Oil making its way through the Strait, and into the Open Market. More than 200 Commercial Ships have safely traveled through the Strait.”
Early Thursday, the U.S. and Iran traded a new round of attacks, bringing the countries closer to all-out war after President Trump vowed to keep up military pressure on Tehran to make a peace deal. Iran’s foreign ministry said Thursday that the latest round of U.S. strikes had effectively rendered the cease-fire “meaningless,” and warned of “highly dangerous consequences,” without giving specifics.
Iran responded to renewed U.S. attacks by again targeting U.S. bases in Kuwait and Bahrain. The missiles were reportedly intercepted.
But then President Trump posted on Thursday, 8:22 AM:
“The United States will be hitting Iran (whose Navy, Air Force, Radar, Anti Aircraft, and all other forms of Defense, together with most of its offensive capability, are GONE!), VERY HARD TONIGHT. At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets, much like we have with Venezuela, which is working out brilliantly for both Venezuela and the United States of America. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
But Trump told Fox News, however, that he didn’t know if “Americans had the stomach” for an action like taking Kharg Island.
And then at 1:28 PM:
“Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I have, as President of the United States of America, cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening. Discussion and final points have been, in both concept and great detail, approved by all parties involved, including the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, and others. The Naval Blockade will remain in full force and effect until this Transaction is finalized – Time and place of the signing to be announced shortly.”
Stocks soared…crude oil futures fell.
But then around 3:30, the president, speaking to reporters, said a deal could be signed this weekend in Europe. It would be a deal to start real negotiations, a memorandum of understanding.
Friday, President Trump said Iranian leaks of details of an alleged deal to end the war have “nothing to do with the terms that were agreed to” and “bears no relation to the truth.”
Trump said they were “very dishonorable people to deal with” and should “get their act together, and FAST!”
The reaction came as Iranian media reported purported details that included much of what Tehran has been publicly demanding and the U.S. rejecting. U.S. officials have also mentioned terms that Iran has consistently rejected.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Araghchi said a deal had “never been closer” and urged the media to “refrain from entering speculation about its content”
But Iranian media published what they described as terms of an agreement. The reported details included the lifting of a U.S. naval blockade and “at least $300bn” to address the damage caused by the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran.
Israel is not involved in the talks which have been mostly mediated by Pakistan and are meant to lead to an extension of the ceasefire and the start of negotiations on key issues, including Iran’s nuclear program.
Iran’s Mehr news agency which published the alleged contents of the deal said Iran wanted a final agreement to be endorsed by a UN Security Council resolution.
Editorial / Wall Street Journal, Wed. PM:
“After weeks of insisting a deal with Iran is around the corner, President Trump may be admitting the reality. The regime is ‘tapping the U.S. along” in negotiations, he said Wednesday. The President has given diplomacy a chance, but ‘they keep playing us for suckers,’ he added. Is Mr. Trump ready at last for a new approach?
“For nine weeks, the cease-fire has let Iran dictate events in the Gulf. The regime gets to start each ‘skirmish’ – shooting at U.S. forces, U.S. allies, or commercial ships – and then decide when the exchange ends. Iran has also used Hezbollah to fire on Israel, only to cite the resulting fighting in Lebanon as an excuse to stall talks with the U.S.
“Each prior Iranian attack has sent Mr. Trump racing to de-escalate. This meant forcing cease-fires in Lebanon and then blaming Israel when Hezbollah kept shooting. Or playing down Iranian fire on U.S. troops as ‘a trifle,’ meriting ‘love taps’ in reply.
“Iran’s large strike on Kuwait’s airport was ‘not a big deal,’ Mr. Trump said, a mere tit-for-tat. He said the same of Iran’s Sunday strike on Israel, urging it not to reply since the missiles ‘didn’t hurt anybody.’
“That logic leads to trouble. Only by a miracle did two U.S. pilots survive after an Iranian drone struck and burned inside their Apache helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz on Monday. Yet Mr. Trump’s early reaction was to say that this, too, ‘wasn’t a big deal,’ criticize the idea of returning to war, and have U.S. Central Command announce that its response would be ‘proportional.’….
“The way for Mr. Trump to right the ship is to go on offense. But that means more than pounding Iran. The task at hand is to open the Strait to allied ships. If the U.S. blockade endures while Iran breaks, the war is won. Mr. Trump could also join Israel in an operation to seize or destroy Iran’s enriched uranium. That’s high-risk, but it is the surest way of removing the fuel for a nuclear weapon.
“Another idea is to use U.S. air power to create a safe zone inside Iran for regime opponents….
“Mr. Trump still hopes for a diplomatic breakthrough, but even the press’s favorite unnamed Pakistani officials are now downbeat. As long as Iran believes Mr. Trump is stuck with no alternative, it will squeeze him in the talks and in Hormuz.
“The President’s choice now is to alter the facts on the ground or leave the conflict in a worse position than Mr. Bush did in Iraq.”
—
Wall Street and the Economy
On the data front, May consumer prices were in line with expectations, albeit the figures are high, but there were no negative surprises.
On headline, the CPI rose 0.5% over April, and 4.2% year-over-year, but ex-food and energy (core) the figures were 0.2% and 2.9% Y/Y.
The 4.2% number gets the attention, but the Federal Reserve looks at core and the 2.9% is not awful given the war and price pressures in the supply chain.
The producer price report for May on headline was up a whopping 1.1%, hotter than expected, and 6.5% year-over-year, but on core it was 0.4% and 4.9%, the latter less than forecast and equal to the month prior.
May existing home sales in the U.S. rose by 3.2% from the prior month to an annualized rate of 4.17 million, extending the rebound from the seven-month low in March. The median existing home price of $429,300 was up 1.3% from a year ago.
The U.S. government recorded a $293 billion budget deficit in May 2026, compared with a $316 billion gap a year earlier, but wider than forecasts of a $275 billion shortfall.
Net interest payments of $107 billion were a record.
In the first eight months of fiscal year 2026, the federal budget deficit totaled $1.25 trillion.
The New York Fed’s May Survey of Consumer Expectations found that consumers’ views regarding their financial well-being dwindled last month. The share of households reporting that their current financial circumstances had soured compared to a year ago hit its highest level since January 2023, with 43.7% of consumers saying they were somewhat or much worse off.
Consumers’ expectations for inflation in the year ahead, meanwhile, remained largely flat at 3.5%, decreasing by just 0.1 percentage point from a month earlier.
Next week it will be all about the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee, the first gathering under new Chairman Kevin Warsh. Investors entered the year expecting rate cuts. But traders are now increasing their bets that the Fed will have to raise interest rates by the end of the year.
Should energy prices continue to fall some, that could change the equation.
The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow barometer for second-quarter growth is 3.3%.
Freddie Mac’s 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is 6.52%.
Europe and Asia
The European Central Bank raised interest rates for the first time in almost three years, leading the charge among central banks in the developed world in tackling inflation driven by the war in Iran.
The ECB lifted its key rate to 2.25% from 2%, a move widely expected by markets, but which underscores the challenges facing major economies from the jump in energy prices caused by the prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Investors are betting the central bank will lift rates at least once more this year.
China reported on May inflation, up 1.2% ann., in line with expectations, while producer prices in the month rose 3.9%.
May exports surged 19.4% to a record high of USD 376.78 billion, far exceeding forecasts and accelerating sharply from April’s 14.1% rise. It was the fastest increase since February, as companies continued to build inventories to pre-empt energy price pressures stemming from the ongoing war in the Middle East, while persistent demand for semiconductors and AI hardware also supported exports. Shipments to the U.S. rose 35.4%. [General Administration of Customs]
Japan’s final look at first-quarter GDP was 1.8% annualized vs. a downwardly revised 0.7% in the prior quarter.
May producer prices rose 6.3% year-over-year owing largely to higher energy costs.
April industrial production rose 0.5%.
The Bank of Japan is expected to raise interest rates next week, a la the ECB.
Street Bytes
—It was a volatile week in the markets, as stocks were buffeted by conflicting reports and renewed attacks in the Persian Gulf…but in the end, owing to reports of an interim peace deal / memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran, and the story that follows, stocks finished higher, all three major indexes (Dow, S&P and Nasdaq) rose 0.7%.
And, of course, the week was about the SpaceX IPO, the shares today opening at $150, priced at $135, which officially made Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire. His SpaceX stake was valued at around $690 billion at the IPO price, while his Tesla stake makes up around $279 billion of his net worth.
[The stock closed the day at $161.]
SpaceX executives rang the opening bell at the Nasdaq, as Elon Musk looked on via a video link. ‘SpaceX wants to be able to take you to the moon, take you to Mars, and ultimately beyond,” Musk said.
The rocket maker derives most of its revenue from its satellite internet unit and has a nascent artificial-intelligence business.
The IPO has shattered records, with SpaceX raising $75 billion, selling 555.6 million shares.
But skeptics think SpaceX’s total valuation of around $1.77 trillion is much too high.
—U.S. Treasury Yields
6-mo. 3.79% 2-yr. 4.08% 10-yr. 4.48% 30-yr. 4.97%
Bond yields fell as oil did, kind of simple, plus the inflation data, as high as it was, didn’t surprise anyone.
–I talked last week about how executives at Exxon Mobil and Chevron are among those expressing real concerns about the declining oil inventory picture in the country, as well as worldwide.
The Trump administration was determined to use the reserve, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), to soften the impact of the disruption brought on by the war in Iran, but refilling the reserve is a process that could take years.
“The SPR was America’s shock absorber,” Matthew Tuttle of Tuttle Capital wrote this week about the dwindling levels. “It’s gone now.”
The effects could be most pronounced during the “next supply disruption,” he added, when the U.S. government won’t be able to cushion oil prices in the face of production shortfalls.
The reserve was first established in response to the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo. The latest reading of 357.1 million barrels means the energy backstop now sits at almost exactly half of the total authorized storage capacity of 714 million barrels.
To find a lower level than today’s, you have to go back to Aug. 1983, when the reserve stood at 345.7 million barrels as it was first being built up by the Reagan administration.
—Nvidia Corp. CEO Jensen Huang has been on a tour through South Korea, inking agreements with the likes of SK Hynix Inc. a multi-year agreement to design future generations of memory chips for AI, a win for a South Korean leader vying with Samsung Electronics Co. in the red-hot arena.
But over the weekend, Huang called a global tech stock selloff that began last week a buying opportunity, saying the buildout of artificial intelligence has just begun.
“We’re at the beginning of it, and whatever happened to the stock market, you should be very happy because now you can buy at a discount,” he said. “Everybody should be very excited,” he told reporters.
“It is a foregone conclusion that AI will be infrastructure for the world, just like the internet was infrastructure for the world,” he said.
—Google has agreed to rent data-center capacity from SpaceX, expanding the rocket company’s AI business.
Google will pay SpaceX $920 million a month from October 2026 to June 2029 in a deal that includes the computing capacity of at least 110,000 Nvidia chips, according to a SpaceX securities filing last Friday.
Google has the right to cancel the agreement in October if SpaceX doesn’t provide the promised chips, SpaceX said.
This is the second major deal SpaceX has made in recent months to rent out computing capacity to a competitor. The rocket company is expected to go public on June 12 in a public offering that values the company at $1.77 trillion.
It has pitched investors on the deal by promoting its plans to build data centers in space, a nascent technology that has gained traction as tech companies face expensive energy bills from running data centers on Earth. Meanwhile, SpaceX has had excess capacity in its Colossus data centers, initially built to train its own AI model Grok.
In May, Anthropic announced plans to rent 220,000 Nvidia chips from SpaceX, before expanding the deal soon after. In the announcement, Anthropic said it was also interested in discussing using orbital data centers from SpaceX if the company successfully launches that product.
In its IPO prospectus, SpaceX said that Anthropic agreed to pay $1.25 billion a month for compute capacity in the Colossus data center built by xAI, in a deal that runs through 2029.
—OpenAI, which kick-started the artificial-intelligence boom with the 2022 release of ChatGPT, is officially preparing to stage an initial public offering that will test investor appetite for AI companies.
The company led by Sam Altman confidentially filed IPO paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the startup said in a written statement. The filing sets up the company to potentially go public as soon as this fall, though OpenAI said it hasn’t yet decided on timing.
OpenAI said in a written statement on Monday that “it may be a while” until it goes public because there are “things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company.” There are a “complicated set of tradeoffs” tied to going public, it said, without elaborating further.
Because OpenAI filed confidentially, as is customary these days, most investors will have to wait until closer to the IPO to see details of the company’s business including its finances. The confidential process allows regulators and companies to engage in a back-and-forth dialogue about disclosures as they complete the so-called prospectus for the stock offering.
If OpenAI proceeds with a public listing, it will have to demonstrate that its revenue will grow fast enough for it to make good on hundreds of billions of dollars in computing commitments it has signed up through 2030.
According to forecasts it has shared with investors, it is set to burn cash at a level that would dwarf any other public company in history.
—President Trump said last Friday he is considering taking a government stake in leading artificial intelligence companies.
The suggestion follows previous deals in which the administration has taken stakes in major companies including chipmaker Intel, breaching traditions that previously protected American firms from government intervention.
Leaders of “all the big” AI companies are coming to the White House to discuss the idea of the government taking stakes in the firms, Trump told reporters in remarks on Air Force One.
“It almost becomes a partnership with the American public,” he said. Trump added that “the American people can benefit from the success of AI, and by that, they’re going to like it better.”
Most Americans are gloomy about the future impact of AI, according to recent surveys. More than 70 percent of American adults believe AI is moving too fast and 51 percent are more pessimistic than optimistic about the technology’s long-term effect on society, according to a May poll from YouGuv and the Economist.
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman has been discussing the idea with Trump and other White House officials since early in his second term, according to a report.
—Oracle shares fell hard after the company reported mixed earnings results for its fiscal fourth quarter. Weakness in the company’s software results may be feeding into the negative narrative on the sector.
Oracle also said that its capital expenditures for the current fiscal year would be around $70 billion, plus another $20 billion to $25 billion paid directly by customers. In its just ended fiscal 2026 year, Oracle’s capex was $56 billion, up from $21 billion in fiscal 2025.
The company said Wednesday that it would raise another $40 billion in fiscal 2027, all of it next calendar year.
For the fourth quarter, Oracle reported adjusted earnings per share were $2.11, above Wall Steet’s consensus estimate of $1.96 and up from $1.70 last year. Revenue for the quarter reached $19.2 billion, ahead of expectations of $19.1 billion, and up 21% on the year.
But Oracle’s revenue guidance for the fiscal first quarter was a little short of the Wall Street consensus, and the company kept its annual sales outlook unchanged at $90 billion.
With sales of its business software stalling, in 2019 Oracle began running the Microsoft cloud-pivot playbook. It started transitioning software customers to cloud-based versions based on subscription sales, while at the same time renting out servers in the cloud.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or OCI, is the server rental unit, and it was again the star of the show in the fourth quarter. Sales of $5.8 billion edged out expectations and were up 93% since last year.
—Just one-in-three Americans approve of the fast pace of data-center construction that supports artificial intelligence and most would oppose building one in their own community, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The six-day poll, which surveyed 4,531 people across the country and closed on Monday, showed just 33% of Americans agreed with a statement that it was mainly a good thing to build data centers at a rapid pace. Some 64% disagreed.
Just 14% of survey takers said they were okay with a center being built near them, while 77% worry AI-driven data centers will raise electricity costs, concerns that span both political parties.
—TSA checkpoint numbers vs. 2025
6/11…112 percent of 2025 levels
6/10…107
6/9…83
6/8…94
6/7…120
6/6…85
6/5…97
6/4…117
—A Trump administration initiative to impose $100,000 fees on employers seeking visas for skilled foreign workers amounts to an unlawful tax on those companies and must be voided “in its entirety,” a federal judge ruled on Monday.
The decision by Judge Leo T. Sorokin of the Federal District Court for the District of Massachusetts nullified one of a series of tactics the Trump administration has used to restrict legal immigration, even in fields in which foreign skilled labor helped address severe shortages.
The Trump administration has argued in filings that the H-1B program “has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor.” The president said the $100,000 fee would incentivize companies to hire more U.S. citizens into high-paying roles.
About 85,000 new visas have been provided annually to hire so-called high-skilled foreign workers at companies through the program’s lottery process. Technology, finance, hospitals and universities have all made ample use of those visas. A variety of companies have said the fee would be prohibitively expensive, in particular for smaller companies and nonprofit groups that rely on hiring workers from abroad.
—Social Security is expected to deplete the fund that helps pay out retirement benefits by late 2032, the program’s trustees said Tuesday.
That is earlier than their projection last year of 2033, partly because the fund expects to collect less revenue after President Trump’s new tax law. Passed last summer, the law gave senior citizens an extra deduction that reduced taxes on benefits for many Social Security recipients.
Revenues are also shrinking because declining fertility rates and immigration are reducing tax revenue by cutting the number of workers paying into the system, according to the trustees.
Unless Congress shores up the retirement program, the depletion of reserves would trigger a 22% reduction in benefits in late 2032. Because incoming payroll tax revenue doesn’t fully cover promised benefits, the program is forced to make up the difference by pulling money from its two Social Security trust funds – one for disability benefits and the other for the larger program for retirees.
There are similar problems with Medicare, with reserves projected to be depleted in 2033.
—Campbell’s said weak demand for snacks continued to pressure sales in the latest quarter, but the company is seeing some signs of progress in efforts to connect with consumers.
Campbell’s fiscal third-quarter profit came in at $124 million, or 41 cents a share, up from $66 million, or 22 cents a share, a year earlier.
Adjusted earnings per share were 50 cents, compared with estimates of 48 cents a share.
Sales fell 4% to $2.37 billion. Snacks net sales fell 4%, driven by declines in the salty snacks, crackers and fresh bakery business. Meals and beverages net sales fell 4%, including a decline in soup sales in the U.S.
For the fiscal year, Campbell’s continues to forecast an organic net sales decline of 2% to 1%.
—Vail Resorts stock fell hard after posting adjusted earnings of $8.81 a share for the fiscal 2026 third quarter ended April 30, compared with $10.46 a share a year ago and below the Street’s $8.95 a share expectation. Revenue fell about 7% to $1.21 billion, essentially in line with the consensus.
“Weather conditions remained extremely unfavorable in the third quarter, adding to what had already been one of the most challenging winters in history across the western U.S., driving continued pressure on visitation and revenue in the quarter, particularly at our destination resorts in the Rockies,” CEO Rob Katz said in the earnings release.
Vail Resorts noted that ‘pass’ product sales through May 26 for the upcoming 2026/2027 North American ski season decreased about 10%. Vail Resorts owns Epic Pass, the multi-resort season pass currently priced at $1,119 for adults.
The company said that the decline in pass sales reflected softer demand following one of the “worst snowfall years in history in the western U.S.”
El Nino could supply a break for Colorado, with above-average snowfall, while it’s not good for the northern Rockies, historically.
–Last Friday, Lesley Stahl and two other “60 Minutes” correspondents, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim, said they would remain in their posts and would “stay and fight” in order to “repair and preserve” the reputation of the country’s top-rated news program.
“Here’s why we are staying: We don’t want to see ’60 Minutes’ die,” the three wrote in a joint statement.
But the correspondents also expressed deep frustration with the decision by Bari Weiss, the CBS News editor in chief, to fire Tanya Smith, the show’s executive producer, and several longstanding producers and correspondents, calling those exits “heartbreaking.” And they warned that if the program lost its editorial independence, “we leave.”
This week, Paramount CEO David Ellison told Stahl he promised to retain their editorial independence.
Foreign Affairs, cont’d….
Russia/Ukraine: Kyiv launched a mass drone attack on St. Petersburg a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a speech there rejecting a call for peace from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The attacks hit Russian naval arsenals and a naval base in the town of Kronstadt just west of St. Petersburg, Zelensky said in a statement on social media.
Russian officials said the attacks damaged infrastructure, without giving more details, and caused injuries but no deaths.
“It is time to end this war. But Russia’s ruler wants to keep fighting,” Zelensky said in his statement. “Russia must end its war and stop its attacks on life. Any manifestation of injustice against Ukraine will receive a just response. I thank our warriors for their precision.”
The raids were the second time Ukraine had targeted St. Petersburg in recent days.
—A car bomb in the Moscow region Wednesday killed a general in charge of heavy ammunition supplies for the Russian army, reports said.
A second car bomb was discovered and blown up by authorities in southwest Moscow, reports said.
Throughout the war several audacious assassinations have taken place of senior figures involved in Moscow’s war effort, with Ukrainian security services either claiming responsibility or being blamed by Russian authorities.
Fareed Zakaria / Washington Post
“(President Trump’s) diplomacy toward Ukraine has so far been a study in squandered leverage. He berated Ukrainian President Zelensky, treated Ukrainian concessions as the starting point of negotiations and gave Putin reason to believe he could wait the West out.
“But Trump still has tools no European leader possesses. He could threaten to restart major American military aid to Kyiv, tighten sanctions on Russian oil and the shadow fleet, and speed up the sale of U.S. weapons to NATO countries for transfer to Ukraine. Then he could offer Putin an exit ramp in the form of a peace deal. Remember, Russia has lost somewhere between 350,000 and 500,000 soldiers in a war that according to a new independent survey is now deeply unpopular at home.
“Trump’s pro-Russian bias ironically positions him well to make such a deal. Putin knows Trump has long been skeptical of Kyiv and indulgent toward Moscow. Of course, for the Ukrainians and Europeans to accept the deal it would have to be serious. Ukraine should be willing to concede territory, but its new borders must be defensible. It needs real security guarantees that anchor Ukraine in the West. The war is not about Donbas. It is about whether Ukraine will remain a sovereign country free to choose its future.
“Putin’s twin theories of victory were that Ukraine was weak and that the West would tire. Both have collapsed. This is Trump’s opportunity. He could help end the worst war in Europe since World War II, secure Ukraine’s place in the West and deter a revanchist great power with an imperial project to defeat the West. This would be a real achievement, not a phony, photo-op ceasefire like the ones in the Middle East that Trump has brandished. It would be a deal that actually deserves to be called historic.”
China: According to a report released Monday as part of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s (SIPRI) latest yearbook, China expanded its nuclear warhead stockpile over the past year and might have increased the number deployed with operational forces. As in China added 20 warheads to its stockpile as of January 2026, bringing the total to 620.
China was significantly modernizing and expanding its nuclear arsenal, with its warhead stockpile expected to “keep growing over the coming decades,” the report said.
The U.S. Defense Department thinks the stockpile will reach 1,000 warheads by 2030.
—Seth G. Jones / Wall Street Journal
“By dragging its feet on a $14 billion arms package to Taiwan, the U.S. risks emboldening China and undermining American deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. Taiwan desperately needs these air-defense systems, missiles, drones and other weapons to defend itself against China. Even more concerning, there is an additional $30 billion backlog of U.S. approved arms to Taiwan that need to be delivered – fast.
“China presents the most serious threat to the U.S., as the Trump administration’s National Defense Strategy concludes. President Xi Jinping is bent on expanding Chinese power throughout the Indo-Pacific and beyond, not only swallowing up Taiwan. To do this, China is rapidly arming, expanding its global network of bases, and building weapons at a massive scale in all the major domains of warfare – air, land, naval, space, cyber and nuclear capabilities. China also presents a serious ideological threat. The Communist Party’s core principles and values are antithetical to those of the U.S. and its democratic allies. Beijing stifles democracy, brutally represses dissent and eviscerates freedom of speech.
“U.S. policymakers have long insisted that China and Taiwan need to agree mutually and peacefully on a resolution of the status of Taiwan….
“But Mr. Xi has been bellicose about the island. The People’s Liberation Army has conducted exercises that rehearse a blockade and invasion of Taiwan involving missiles, drones, ships, bombers and fighter aircraft. Last month Mr. Xi warned President Trump that any U.S. missteps on Taiwan could lead to war. Chinese leaders have also indicated that one of their top requests of the Trump administration is to prevent additional U.S. arms sales to Taiwan – particularly if Washington wants a closer trade and diplomatic relationship with Beijing.
“Beijing’s approach is blatant extortion: a promise of greater trade in exchange for U.S. appeasement on Taiwan. This threat may be working. The U.S. has held off announcing a critical $14 billion arms deal for Taiwan that includes PAC-3 air defense missiles, National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missiles Systems, counterdrone systems and other materiel crucial for Taiwan’s defense….
“Mr. Xi and the Communist Party have ordered the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to conduct a successful invasion of Taiwan by next year. The U.S. is delivering roughly $4 billion of arms to Taiwan a year, which means that it could take a decade at the current pace to deliver all promised aid. That is too late to help Taiwan.
“The solution is straightforward. The Trump administration needs to approve the $14 billion arms package and accelerate delivery of the promised $30 billion in arms sales to Taiwan. Otherwise, the U.S. will undermine deterrence in the region and increase the prospect for war.”
North Korea: The powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un, Kim Yo Jong, over the weekend called a U.S. push for the denuclearization of North Korea an “anachronistic dream,” saying the North will steadily expand its nuclear arsenal in the face of U.S.-led threats.
The statement came a day before Chinese President Xi visited Pyongyang for talks with Kim Jong Un, in his first visit to the country in seven years.
“The U.S. assertion to backbite the status of the DPRK as a nuclear weapons state has no legally binding force and no one will be bound by the U.S. unilateral rhetoric,” said Kim’s sister, a senior official in the regime.
She dismissed as “false information” a U.S. announcement that President Donald Trump and Xi confirmed their shared goal to denuclearize North Korea in their summit in Beijing last month.
“Some officials in the United States have failed to wake from their escapist and anachronistic dream,” Kim Yo Jong said.
Experts say Kim Jong Un wants an international recognition as a nuclear state so that he could demand lifting of international economic sanctions on North Korea.
Random Musings
–Presidential approval ratings….
Rasmussen: 41% approve of President Trump’s job performance, 57% disapprove (June 12…unchanged from last week).
—After a week of counting ballots in California, former state Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) and former Fox News host Steve Hilton, a Republican, were projected to advance to the general election for governor.
Hilton had coalesced GOP support with the help of President Trump’s endorsement, while the Democratic field remained divided over a crowded field of candidates just before Election Day.
Becerra, though, surged to frontrunner status among Democrats after Rep. Eric Swalwell exited the race amid sexual misconduct allegations that the now-resigned congressman denies.
With 91% of the vote in, Becerra had 27.9% to Hilton’s 25.0%.
Hedge fund billionaire Ton Steyer, running as an activist Democrat, spent more than $215 million on his unsuccessful bid, picking up 22.5%.
In the Los Angeles mayoral race, it will be incumbent Karen Bass vs. progressive city council member Nithya Raman. With 99% of the vote counted, Bass had 34.3%, Raman 29.0%, and Republican Spencer Pratt 25.5%.
Raman was elected to the city council with the support of the Democratic Socialists of America, and the election will test whether voters in the heavily Democratic city wants to move further to the political left to address its long-running problems.
Republicans cried foul on the glacial ballot-counting process, with President Trump leading the charge with unfounded claims of fraud.
Trump stormed out of an interview with Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” (taped Friday, aired Sunday) during a tense back-and-forth over his claims that the California primary was “rigged.”
“Do you know why they’re doing that? Because they’re cheating on the election,” Trump said of the notoriously slow voting process.
Sunday night, Trump posted on Truth Social:
“Has anybody been watching the CROOKED Election going on in California. Two great Republican Candidates are being cheated, and so is America, which if the Dumocrats are able to fulfill their mission, great trouble and consternation will follow. Watch this ‘Election’ closely!!! President DJT”
California does indeed need to change its voting rules.
Editorial / Wall Street Journal
‘President Trump’s charge that Democrats ‘rigged’ California’s jungle primary has naturally elicited eye-rolls given his habit of crying fraud whenever he loses an election. But he has a point that the state’s Democrats have designed a leaky election system to juice their votes….
“California sends mail-in ballots to all registered voters who have until Election Day to send them back. Many ballots don’t arrive at county election offices until days later. California also lets people register and vote on Election Day. Voters may cast ballots in-person at any polling place in their county. The result is a large number of provisional ballots are cast that require more scrutiny. All of this prolongs vote-counting.
“The state also lets third parties including unions, campaigns and political parties collect and return an unlimited number of ballots of voters’ behalf – a practice known as ballot harvesting. This can result in large dumps of mail-in ballots that support a particular candidate.
“Ballots that have arrived after Election Day in California have skewed Democratic. The share of ballots returned by Democratic voters on Saturday was about 56% – about 11 percentage points more than its share of the electorate – compared to 47% on Election Day. The share of ballots cast by younger voters also surged.
“None of this is a surprise. Democrats legislated election rules to make it exceptionally easy to register and vote with the intent of boosting turnout among young and low-propensity voters who lean left. But these rules also create openings for fraud and improper voting….
“State regulations also allow late-arriving ballots to be counted even if they lack a post-mark as long as they include a handwritten date on the envelope. The state even instructs county officials to accept sample ballots. Because election officials often don’t remove inactive voters until after several election cycles, ballots may be sent to people who have died or moved.
“The L.A. County Registrar office is led by Dean Logan, who previously oversaw Washington state’s King County elections at the time of a contentious recount in the 2004 governor’s race. While the Republican candidate led in the initial machine recount, the Democrat was declared the winner after batches of ballots from King County turned up.
“There’s no evidence so far that fraud has affected the results of the L.A. mayoral race, but the delayed results are a disservice to democracy. The state’s loose voting rules and dilatory counting fuel distrust in elections, and play into the hands of Mr. Trump. You’d think Gov. Gavin Newsom would care about this, but as long as progressives are winning, maybe not.”
–In Maine, Graham Platner easily coasted to win the nomination for a key Senate seat, taking 72% of the primary vote, Gov. Janet Mills, who had dropped out of the race but remained on the ballot, with 20%.
So, it’s Platner, with all his baggage, against Republican incumbent Susan Collins in what promises to be quite an ugly battle.
In South Carolina, Sen. Lindsey Grahm (R) fended off multiple primary challengers to avoid a runoff and clinch the GOP nomination.
In the Republican gubernatorial primary, President Trump’s preferred candidate, Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, advanced to a runoff against State Attorney General Alan Wilson, with Reps. Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman failing to advance.
—The GOP’s nearly $70 billion budget reconciliation bill to fund immigration enforcement agencies is on the verge of becoming law after the House narrowly passed the legislation entirely along party lines Tuesday.
The bill, which cleared the Senate last week and funds U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Border Patrol through fiscal 2029, passed 214-212. Rep. Kevin Kiley (Calif.), an independent who caucuses with Republicans, joined all Democrats in voting against the bill, while all Republicans voted in favor.
President Trump then signed it.
—President Trump formally submitted his nomination for acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to become the permanent leader of the Department of Justice on Monday, setting up a contentious confirmation fight in the Senate.
Blanche has led the DOJ in an acting capacity for the past two months since Trump fired former Attorney General Pam Bondi.
–On Saturday, June 6, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth criticized European nations over migration for allowing what he described as an “invasion” on their shores, during a D-Day anniversary speech in France.
Hegseth was speaking in Normandy 82 years after allied forces stormed French beaches to liberate Nazi-occupied Europe in 1944.
“Sadly, today, different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies,” Hegseth said. “Beaches in Spain, in Italy, in Greece and Bulgaria. Boats and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion?”
Migration has become a major political issue across Europe, with parties supporting hardline immigration policies surging in polls.
Hegseth’s comments mark a further criticism of European migration policy by senior members of the Trump administration.
Vice President JD Vance last Friday blamed the death of 18-year-old British student Henry Nowak, who was fatally stabbed last year in Southampton by Vickrum Digwa, on the “mass invasion of migrants” and said the “only response” was “righteous anger.”
Downing Street responded by criticizing “people trying to interfere in our democracy,” adding that the Nowak family had “said they do not want his death to be used to create further division.”
Sea arrivals into mainland Europe peaked in 2015, when the UN said more than a million people crossed the Mediterranean – a number fueled in part by a wave of refugees fleeing Syria’s civil war and conflict in Afghanistan.
—Bill Gates told a congressional committee on Wednesday that Jeffrey Epstein exploited information about his extramarital affairs “to pressure me to re-engage with him” after Gates had begun to sever ties with Epstein.
Gates made his comment in an opening statement to the House Oversight Committee, which asked him questions about his dealing with Epstein at a closed-door hearing. The committee has been investigating the Justice Department’s handling of its investigations into Epstein and those associated with him.
In his statement, Gates repeated his prior comments that he regretted having anything to do with Epstein but had never seen him engage in any “criminal conduct.” Gates also said he had “never victimized anyone.”
—Pope Leo XIV challenged Europe to acknowledge Christianity’s contributions to its cultural identity Sunday, as he presided over a Mass in Madrid attended by an estimated 1.2 million people and honored Spain’s centuries-old traditions of religious devotion and culture.
In his remarks, Leo challenged Europe to consider what the continent’s identity would be without the influence of Christianity. He cited its art, culture and the role played by Christians – “motivated by their faith” – to build its schools, hospitals and other institutions.
“Is it seriously possible to believe that Europe – which we deeply love – would be the same without the influence of faith?” Leo asked, in demanding that religious expression be allowed to keep its place in the public sphere.
—NOAA reported Monday that the March through May period was the second warmest spring on record in the Lower 48 states since 1895. This three-month temperature, calculated using all available data over the Lower 48, was almost 5 degrees warmer than the 20th century average.
Only March-May 2012 was warmer, and by only 0.4 degrees.
Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas each had their record warmest spring in 2026.
NOAA also released a statement Thursday that El Nino has arrived and it could be a Super El Nino. I’m not going to get into extremes but there are some traits of a Super El Nino that could be beneficial, like California could receive needed heavy snowfall in the Sierras next winter, and there should be fewer hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin (think wind shear).
But there could also be major heatwaves in the Northwest, northern Plains, and the Upper Midwest, prolonging drought conditions in some areas, and an increasing wildfire risk.
And…wet conditions along the Gulf Coast and Southeast, that would take care of their droughts. [And maybe a major hurricane or two there, as well…which would be my major prediction.]
Outside the U.S., though, the Pacific hurricane (typhoon) season will be busy, and Australia faces more extreme drought (heat) and wildfires.
–Lastly, here in the New York area, we are still buzzing over the spectacular New York Knicks’ comeback in the NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs, down 29 points at one point, and 20 with 9:30 left in the game…the greatest single comeback in NBA Finals history.
Forward OG Anunoby, who tipped in a missed 3-pointer from Jalen Brunson, is forever etched in New York sports lore.
—
Pray for the men and women of our armed forces…and all the fallen.
Slava Ukraini.
God bless America.
—
Gold $4205…Silver $67.65
Oil $84.45
Bitcoin: $63,590 [4:00 PM ET, Friday]
Regular Gas: $4.10; Diesel: $5.25 [$3.12 – $3.51 yr. ago]
Returns for the week 6/8-6/12
Dow Jones +0.7% [51202]
S&P 500 +0.7% [7431]
S&P MidCap +2.8%
Russell 2000 +3.9%
Nasdaq +0.7% [25888]
Returns for the period 1/1/26-6/12/26
Dow Jones +6.5%
S&P 500 +8.6%
S&P MidCap +14.9%
Russell 2000 +18.6%
Nasdaq +11.4%
Hang in there.
Brian Trumbore
briannovak24@gmail.com
