Tues., Aug. 11, 2026
[4:10 PM ET…closing prices for stocks, 3:50ish for commodities and bonds]
Tale of the Tape at the gas pump, nationwide averages, courtesy of AAA.
Fri., Feb. 27…regular $2.98…diesel $3.75
Tues., Aug. 11…regular $4.01…diesel $5.32
Regular and diesel rose over yesterday’s prices as gasoline futures are solidly back over $3.00.
Early this morning, like at 4:00 AM ET, West Texas Intermediate was over $84, Brent $90, as hopes for a deal over the Strait of Hormuz faded further.
But prior to 7:00 AM, WTI fell to the $81.50 level, and gas futures, that had been as high as $3.18 hours earlier, slid back to $3.11, all on the news that a spokesperson for Qatar’s foreign ministry said negotiations between Oman and Iran were at an advanced stage, seemingly offering some hope of progress toward an agreement. I don’t know why there would be such hope, but this is why crude fell.
And it stayed down after Pakistan signaled that the U.S. and Iran could be close to an arrangement aimed at easing tensions and potentially reopening the Strait. Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said recent developments suggested the sides were “close to some sort of arrangement” and that conditions were moving in favor of peace. Again, I don’t see it, but whatever floats your boat.
Just yesterday, I wrote about the leadership shuffle inside the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) at the behest of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, and the Wall Street Journal this morning confirmed the changes I discussed, that Mohsen Rezaee, the new leader of the Supreme National Security Council, is an extreme hard-liner, hand-picked by the Supreme Leader. They don’t want a deal with the United States. And the man Rezaee replaced, fellow hard-liner Mohammad Zolghadr, is the new political adviser to Khamenei.
Anyway, as the afternoon wore on, WTI settled into the $83 area.
In a sign of ongoing tensions, U.S. forces fired on a Panama-flagged ship that attempted to run the American blockade of Iranian ports early Tuesday, a U.S. official said, stepping up enforcement as the Trump administration attempts to squeeze the regime economically.
There were no immediate reports of any casualties in the incident, which took place before dawn on Tuesday.
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To go back to the $500 billion fund announced by Nvidia and six Wall Street heavyweights, yesterday, to help customers finance their purchases of chips and access to Nvidia’s AI platform, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said they are helping to create a new class of productive, investible infrastructure: AI factories.
Wall Street has been flocking to AI infrastructure projects. Just last month, the Wall Street Journal reported Nvidia was in talks with OpenAI about a $250 billion backstop for a data-center project. Meta Platforms is working with BlackRock (one of the six involved yesterday) to finance a new $14 billion data center in Texas.
But BlackRock’s Larry Fink said during the gathering (Fink via video) that the industry needs to be aware of the current data-center backlash, and learn how to deal with it until the public is convinced there is far more good than bad in the projects.
Texas recently announced a moratorium on the buildout until key issues are explored further, and I’ve been writing in my Week in Review columns, that it’s not just where does the power come from and how does it impact the average family and their utility bills, but it’s also about something rather critical. Water!!! Arizona, for one, is a preferred site for data centers because lots of land is available and you have a compliant business community and political leadership. But in case you haven’t noticed over your lifetime, Arizona doesn’t have a lot of water.
And the Colorado River, from which the state receives a significant portion of their annual supply, is at record lows, and reservoirs like Lake Mead are dangerously low.
The water situation was not good years ago. Toss in a hundred data centers and water-sopping chip-making facilities and what the hell are some people thinking?
I want ‘progress’ and for the U.S. to be the AI leader over China as much as anyone, but we also have to face reality sometimes. Reality is a potential future where some major metropolitan areas run dry. Look at Europe. Hungary and Romania can barely run their nuclear facilities because rivers like the Danube are at record low levels…like 4 inches in some spots!
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Stocks fell amid mounting concern over tomorrow’s consumer price report (CPI). The Street is expecting 0.1%, 3.4% Y/Y on headline; 0.2% and 2.5% on core (ex-food and energy). If the core number is ‘hot,’ look out.
Lastly, about a year-and-a-half ago, I experimented with doing a little video as a market update at the end of the trading day and accompanied it with a musical selection. Like literally zero people watched it and it was a royal pain in the ass to come up with new material and very time consuming.
Then I had technical issues that forced me into the current Market Update format, which is much easier for me, but still time consuming when I’m literally working on Week in Review seven days a week (plus I do that sports thing with Bar Chat). My traffic trend for the format is positive.
But yesterday I just thought, what the hell…toss a music bit on and from the response, it looks like some of you might have liked it. I’m only doing it again today and tomorrow.
Today, following up on yesterday’s 5th Dimension theme, is another song that was not a top ten for them, but it peaked at #19 on the Billboard charts in 1971… “Love’s Lines, Angles and Rhymes”. Yesterday’s “Workin’ On A Groovy Thing” peaked at #20. Enjoy.
Tomorrow, I have a Beatles tune lined up that I’ll surprise you with in that it didn’t chart and you’ll be like, what the heck?
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Dow Jones -184…-0.3% [53791]
S&P 500 -24…-0.3% [7728]
Nasdaq -159…-0.6% [26445]
Oil (WTI) $83.45…Brent $89.20
Gold $4370
Silver $64.75
Bitcoin $63,490 [4:00 PM ET]
U.S. 2-yr. 4.22%
U.S. 10-yr. 4.69%
Japanese 10-yr. 2.79%
Back Wed.
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Brian Trumbore
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