[Posted 4:30 PM ET, Friday]
Note: StocksandNews has significant ongoing costs and your support is greatly appreciated. Please click on the GoFundMe link or send a check to PO Box 990, New Providence, NJ 07974.
For Zelle: use recipient briannovak24@gmail.com.
Every little bit helps!
Edition 1,423
Last week in my opening, I criticized President Trump for the umpteenth time on how he refuses to criticize Presidents Xi and Putin, and how he coddles other authoritarians like Turkey’s Erdogan, let alone the likes of Kim Jong Un.
So, I can’t help but note a Wall Street Journal editorial on the topic, Wed. PM:
“President Trump has been nothing if not consistent in playing down the support for Iran’s regime by Russia and China. Armed with assurances from Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, Mr. Trump lets Iran’s enablers off the hook.
“The latest is a Reuters report that Iran expects to receive 400 Chinese-made shoulder-fired missiles. ‘Things like that happen,’ Mr. Trump said Wednesday when asked, ‘but that would be surprising.’ Mr. Xi ‘told me very strongly he wouldn’t partake.’
“Well, in that case, never mind. Except that China lies about its support for Iran, even claiming not to import Iranian oil. That’s all officially from Malaysia, you see, where the shadow tankers transfer their cargoes.
“Queried about Russia giving Iran intelligence to hit U.S. bases, Mr. Trump said, ‘I’ll ask Putin about it.’ His own view? ‘I don’t think they’ve been doing it, certainly not at a high level. If they have, it has been very unimpactful.’ Asked about Russian and Chinese support for Iran last week, Mr. Trump said, ‘I don’t know that they’re enabling…I think I trust them.’
“He shouldn’t. As Gen. Dan Caine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, testified in June 2025, ‘China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are pursuing unprecedented levels of cooperation, driven by a desire to challenge U.S. interests and stability around the world.’….
“The outcome of the Iran war will be shaped in part by axis behavior. As much as the U.S. has degraded Iran’s missile arsenal, will China swiftly facilitate its rebuilding? Will Russia, indebted for the assistance in fighting Ukraine, help revive Iran’s nuclear program? Will either one provide more air defenses?
“They will without U.S. pressure.”
—
Investigators believe a cyberattack this week on dozens of municipal water systems in Minnesota was probably the work of Iranian hackers, according to U.S. and state officials, a potential act of aggression that comes at a precarious time in the Iran war.
But it’s important to note it has not been definitively determined who was responsible for the attack. Sometimes hackers could be tempted to pose as Iran-based in an effort to ratchet up tensions between the two countries, though intelligence officials, speaking to the New York Times, said such a scenario is unlikely.
Former officials and cybersecurity experts said they expected the suspicions around Iran’s involvement would only grow stronger.
—
Tale of the Tape
Oil / West Texas Intermediate (WTI)
Friday, Feb. 27…$67.30
Friday, July 31…$84.80
Nationwide averages at the Gas Pump [Source: AAA]
Friday, Feb. 27…regular $2.98; diesel $3.75
Friday, July 31…regular $4.10; diesel $5.35…not good….
As it went down, day by day, in the Iran War….
After 13 consecutive days of tit-for-tat strikes between the United States and Iran, the two sides paused Friday, Saturday and Sunday, as top U.S. officials raise concerns about dwindling munitions stockpiles.
President Trump had threatened last week to drastically escalate the war if Iran continued to threaten ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, the Wall Street Journal reporting the U.S. was poised to launch an intensive series of strikes against Iran, which could have lasted up to two weeks.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz did the Sunday news show circuit, telling “Fox News Sunday” that Trump is trying to give peace talks “some space.”
“He’s giving it a little bit of room,” Waltz said. “We’ve had both Oman and Iran and a number of our other negotiators engaged at every level, from the most senior levels all the way down to the technical level, over the past few weeks and particularly in the past few days.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said Iran has made progress in talks with Oman about establishing safe passage for ships seeking to traverse the waterway. Still, he maintained that the Strait’s status is the same, requiring oversight of vessels passing through the Strait on an approved route – a status quo that has thus far been unacceptable to the Americans.
The New York Times reported Gen. Dan Caine, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has privately argued resuming major combat operations against Iran would seriously deplete the antimissile interceptors available to U.S. Central Command (Centcom). The Times reported the threat to interceptor stockpiles is one of many considerations that have made a return to major combat operations risky.
CNN reported Vice President Vance raised concerns about escalating the war in a meeting with the president at the White House on Friday.
Two sources with knowledge of Centcom commander Adm. Brad Cooper’s position told Axios that Cooper has recommended stopping the bombing campaign around the Strait because it has reached the limit of its effectiveness, though the Wall Street Journal reported Cooper said the U.S. can cope with the limited stocks of Patriot and other air defense interceptors because stepped-up strikes would blunt Iran’s ability to launch large numbers of missiles.
Amb. Waltz told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the U.S. has “everything that it needs” to conduct military operations against Iran.
“I want to be crystal clear: The U.S. military, and I’ve verified this every which way, has everything that it needs to conduct this campaign as effectively as it needs to be,” he said.
Waltz also pointed the finger at the Biden administration, arguing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “inherited a depleted situation” because of U.S. support for Ukraine and strikes on the Houthi rebels in Yemen. But the Trump administration also conducted strikes against the Houthis last year.
President Trump told the Wall Street Journal in a statement that “we have far more munitions than anyone in the world, and far more than we need,” which just isn’t true.
Editorial / Wall Street Journal
“A remarkable thing happened this weekend with too little attention: In the middle of a war with Iran, officials in the Trump Administration leaked to the press that the U.S. is running out of ammunition [Ed. there was lots of attention, as I showed above] ….
“Mull over that one. Mr. Trump was saying all last week he is prepared for a major military escalation. But, suddenly, the leakers undermine the credibility of that U.S. resolve by telling the press – and thus the Iranians – that the U.S. can’t sustain the fight.
“Do the leakers think this public admission of weakness will make the Iranians more likely to open the Strait? Do they think it’s wise to tell enemies trying to kill U.S. soldiers not to worry about a sustained American response? This is an astonishing display of incompetence, or disloyalty, or both.
“If the U.S. really is running out of missiles and interceptors, that should be a five-alarm fire. Mr. Trump should be calling on Congress to skip its recess and do something about it immediately, and rallying industry for the effort. But if the missile gap is being floated for political purposes by officials who want Mr. Trump to stand down, then the President should banish those voices from the Situation Room. Either way, they’re laughing in Tehran.”
As for the Houthis and the Red Sea, the rebels asserted responsibility for strikes Saturday on oil facilities belonging to the Saudi state oil company, Aramco, in the Red Sea towns of Yanbu and Jazan.
On Sunday, Iranian state-affiliated media reported that an oil tanker exploded after hitting a mine in the Strait of Hormuz. [I did not see confirmation of this.]
On Monday, Iranian state TV said Tehran forced six ships going through the southern corridor near the Omani coast to turn around. One of the ships suffered an “incident,” according to the reporting.
“We have never allowed, and will never allow, the United States to determine the timing of the war,” an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said separately on Monday. “We will defend ourselves whenever our interests require it, and we will certainly use diplomatic tools whenever we feel it is appropriate.”
The aforementioned Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Baghaei said Monday that while “it’s possible that mediators share messages from the U.S. side about current developments,” no formal negotiations are taking place.
The Houthis on Monday claimed they targeted Saudi Arabian oil facilities with drones, although they didn’t say when. Saudi Arabia hasn’t announced an attack from Yemen since Saturday morning, but Monday said it had intercepted drones from Iraq.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Trump in Washington on Tuesday. He said he planned to press Trump on keeping a “constant watch” on Iran’s nuclear program, one of many issues now in limbo following the breakdown of the interim peace deal.
Netanyahu was expected to share Israeli intelligence about Pickaxe Mountain that experts fear Iran might be using to reconstitute its nuclear program.
Trump downplayed that Netanyahu had new information on Pickaxe.
“I don’t need Bibi to tell me that,” Trump said on “Fox & Friends” Tuesday morning. “Bibi is telling me that because he wants me to stay involved.” He added, “We took out their nuclear sites, and we’ll have to take out Pickaxe if we don’t make a deal.”
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the country “very much wants to attack energy targets in Iran but that the United States does not allow it at the moment, out of concern that Iran will hit neighboring states, and that there’ll be a global fuel crisis.”
Iran reiterated there’s no change to the status of the Strait of Hormuz, meaning its likely to continue targeting commercial ships that don’t receive its permission before transiting. Traffic through the Strait remained negligible Tuesday.
The U.S. is maintaining its blockade on Iran’s ports.
Separately, Iran summoned a Ukrainian diplomat to Tehran on Sunday after Ukraine attacked an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea.
Monday afternoon, President Trump told reporters on Air Force One that the U.S. was having “good talks” with Iran and there was a chance of a deal, but warned U.S. strikes would resume if the negotiations failed to deliver.
“We’re talking right now,” Trump said. “We’re having good talks. The only reason they want to meet is because we’ve been hitting them very hard. I think there’s a good chance that something could happen, and if it does, good; if it doesn’t, we go back to doing what we were doing two days ago.”
Tehran appeared to test the pause in the U.S. military campaign, with Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq reporting drone attacks on Monday.
And then Tuesday night, Iran fired multiple ballistic missiles at a U.S. base in the Middle East in what the U.S. called a “surprise attack” interrupting the brief pause in tit-for-tat strikes.
Centcom said the missiles fired Tuesday were all shot down and forces remain “vigilant and in a high state of readiness.” The base was reportedly in Jordan.
Centcom also announced U.S. and Saudi forces conducted precision strikes in Iraq against Iranian-aligned terrorists in response to the attacks, hitting logistics and weapons sites.
The Iran-backed militias in Iraq had fired drones at Saudi oil facilities for the second day in a row.
The IRGC had launched 30 drone attacks in the past 72 hours.
The attacks came after Netanyahu’s visit to the White House.
The Houthis said they targeted a Saudi oil tanker on Tuesday with ballistic missiles for violating the maritime blockade, forcing it to retreat.
Iran also rejected a proposal to evenly divide control of the Strait of Hormuz with Oman, jeopardizing hopes that Tehran and Washington would quickly resume negotiations to end the war.
Officials in mediating countries said they were incensed by Tehran’s rejection of the Oman plan. Tehran will only move to the next stage of negotiations if Oman agrees to Iran’s Hormuz plan, said Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi.
Oman had proposed an equal division of transit routes between the two states. Gharibabadi said that plan “doesn’t address Iran’s security concerns.”
Tehran countered with a plan under which one direction of traffic would pass through solely Iranian waters and part of the opposite land would also be Iranian, Gharibabadi told state television.
Wednesday morning, President Trump told a Fox News reporter: “We’re going to beat the f—ing s— out of them. We’ll be hitting them hard. They’re going to get a beating.”
Earlier Iran had said there’s no change to the status of the Strait of Hormuz, meaning it’s likely to continue targeting commercial ships that don’t receive its permission before transiting.
Separately, Reuters reported Iran is expected to receive within weeks a first shipment out of up to 400 Chinese-made shoulder-fired air defense missile launchers.
And two ships, one of them a U.S.-owned natural gas storage tanker, caught fire after an explosion at an Egyptian port on Wednesday, further broadening the conflict. One of the companies said it was a drone attack.
Kpler, a maritime tracking firm, said both vessels had been moved away from the Damietta Port, which is near the Suez Canal on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast.
Two Iranian officials said the explosion was a drone attack designed to show that global shipping and energy supplies could be more deeply disrupted if Iran chose to escalate. It wasn’t clear if it was Iran or an Iran-allied militia in the region that launched the attack, or from where.
The U.S. military then carried out a “heavy wave” of strikes against Iran Wednesday night in retaliation for Tuesday’s attempted missile attacks on American forces.
Centcom said it hit “dozens” of IRGC targets in response to Iran’s firing on U.S. bases in Jordan and at ships in the Strait.
Axios reported that Saudi Arabia’s defense minister met with President Trump and that the Saudis want to de-escalate tensions.
Twenty-one commodity vessels crossed the Bab el-Mandeb strait in either direction on Wednesday, compared to 38 a day earlier, Kpler said.
Shipping across the Strait of Hormuz has picked up in recent days despite a continuation of hostilities.
–On a different, but related topic, President Trump hailed an agreement for the “complete disarmament” of Hamas in Gaza, with senior Hamas officials saying they have agreed to the plan and an official statement will follow.
Israel had yet to comment after Trump’s announcement in a Truth Social post on Thursday, and it remains too early to judge whether this agreement will stick – but it marks the first time ever that Hamas has said it would completely disarm, which has been the most significant obstacle for peace talks.
The second phase of a U.S.-brokered Gaza ceasefire plan – released last October – includes the disarmament of Hamas.
“Israel says it will not take any action until Hamas is disarmed with its weapons, tunnels and infrastructure and we all understand the complexity of this,” Moshe Sa’ada, from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud party told public broadcaster Kan News.
“Hamas is already saying that it’s the other way around: that it expects Israel to withdraw and only afterwards it will disarm.”
The far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, lambasted the emerging deal before Trump’s social media post.
“You only talk with Nazis through the crosshairs – and no other way,” he wrote on X. “The only solution in Gaza to which Israel is willing to be a partner is encouraging emigration and destroying Hamas.”
The announcement was positive, but with Netanyahu facing elections in a few months, implementation of the agreement doesn’t seem likely.
Hamas, in a statement Friday, said the “first step” to carrying out the Gaza deal was Israel’s “committing to stop the killing and ending its attacks.”
The statement said the inclusion of “heavy weapons” in the agreement was linked to Israel ending “all forms of aggression” and withdrawing from Gaza in addition to reconstruction and the establishment of a Palestinian state.
At his Cabinet meeting today at Camp David, President Trump said, “Israel is very happy about it.”
No they aren’t. This deal is going nowhere.
—
Wall Street and the Economy
Aside from some key earnings reports, it was all about the Federal Reserve and Chair Kevin Warsh’s second Federal Open Committee Meeting (FOMC).
The Fed held the line on interest rates Wednesday, but by a 9-3 vote, three members voting against the action, preferring to raise the target range for the federal funds rate by a ¼-point.
The formal statement issued after the meeting was the same as in Warsh’s first meeting in June:
“Economic activity is expanding at a solid pace despite elevated uncertainty that owes, in part, to the conflict in the Middle East… Job gains have kept pace with the workforce, and the unemployment rate has changed little.
“Inflation remains elevated relative to the Committee’s 2 percent goal, in part reflecting supply shocks that have driven price increases in certain sectors, including energy. The Committee will deliver price stability.”
We then had Warsh’s second press conference and he stressed, again, “There is no soft inflation target…it’s 2%.” And he basically said the markets have been doing the Fed’s work, taking yields higher since the last meeting, as in the Fed is looking at the message of the markets.
But the stock and bond markets were unimpressed and what had been an already bad day for equities worsened considerably following the press conference.
For all of the chair’s tough talk about taming inflation, he’s not rushing fast enough to deliver; as in, ‘What are you waiting for?’ The 30-year Treasury shot up as much as 14 basis points to 5.23%, a 19-year high.
The moves in Treasury yields revealed investors are growing increasingly concerned that Warsh won’t manage to rein in inflation that has run above the Fed’s 2% target for five straight years.
The next day, Thursday, we then got the key personal consumption expenditures price index (PCE) for June and the numbers came in as expected, -0.1% from a month ago on headline, 3.7% year-over-year, and on core, ex-food and energy, 0.1% (a tick less than consensus) and 3.3% vs. a year ago.
Chair Warsh had said during the press conference that the PCE is still the Fed’s preferred inflation barometer (until his task force tells him there is something better), and so the core year-over-year figure of 3.3%, the money ball, is still well above the Fed’s targeted 2%, so, again, some traders wondered why he didn’t hike rates this week.
I did not think the Fed would hike, simply because it was too early in his term (thinking politically and his relationship with the president) and the data has been all over the place due to the month-to-month volatility caused by the Iran war and the stop-and-go nature of it.
But the bottom line is core PCE remains above 3%.
The next meeting is Sept. 15-16, and the odds of a Fed rate hike then have increased. But the midterms are fast approaching and that complicates matters.
Kevin Warsh lost a lot of credibility this week with many on Wall Street, and some are now doubting his claim he would be truly “independent” of President Trump’s wishes. He had, after all, at his first meeting vowed to reestablish the central bank’s reputation as an inflation fighter.
Friday, Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack, one of the three dissenters, issued a statement through her regional bank.
“Inflation has remained stubbornly above 2% for more than five years, and I am not confident it will return to our objective on its own,” Hammack said.
“A higher federal funds rate would help restrain economic activity and reduce inflationary pressures,” and the economy can deal with higher interest rates given the stability of the job market…I preferred to move at our recent meeting because I did not see the current policy stance as appropriately restrictive.”
Another of the three dissenters, Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan, said in a separate statement: “Without any policy restraint, inflation will likely continue to trend above target until there’s an unanticipated shock. The FOMC cannot count on unanticipated shocks to achieve its goals and can always adjust policy if unanticipated shocks occur.”
Raising rates by a “modest” amount, “in the near term could reduce the likelihood of needing to take sharper action later,” Logan said.
Meanwhile, we also had the first look at second-quarter GDP, and it came in at a tepid 1.5%, lower than the consensus of 2.1%, which would have matched the first quarter’s growth rate.
Instead, GDP the last three quarters is 0.5%, 2.1% and 1.5%…hardly the robust growth President Trump talks about. ‘Growth like no one has ever seen before!’
[The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow final look at Q2 was exactly 1.5% as well…like the second time in three quarters these good folks have nailed it!]
Elsewhere…June durable goods rose a less than expected 0.3%, ex-transportation up 0.6%.
The Chicago manufacturing PMI, which offers our first look at July activity, was a robust 57.6 (50 the dividing line between growth and contraction).
And the S&P Case-Shiller 20-City Home Price Index for May rose 1.6% year-over-year, accelerating from an upwardly revised 1.2% increase in May and exceeding expectations of 1.3%. The annual gain was the strongest since Aug. 2025.
However, after adjusting for inflation, home prices declined for a 12th consecutive month.
Chicago recorded the strongest annual price increase among the 20 cities, up 6.9%, followed by New York (4.2%) and Cleveland (3.1%). Las Vegas posted the steepest decline (-1.9%).
Speaking of housing, Freddie Mac’s 30-year fixed-rate mortgage hit 6.68%, highest in a year.
Next week we have a big jobs report, along with more key earnings releases, including SpaceX’s first report since its IPO, as well as AMD and Caterpillar.
Europe and Asia
Today we had a flash reading on July inflation for the eurozone, up 2.9% vs. 2.8% in June. Ex-food and energy, the figure was 2.2%, up from 2.1%, all looked at closely by the European Central Bank.
The euro area unemployment rate for June was 6.3%, unchanged from May.
In Asia….
China: The National Bureau of Statistics reported the manufacturing PMI for July was 49.2, non-manufacturing 49.0; the first time the former had been in contraction mode since Feb.
Japan: June retail sales fell 4.1% over May, the steepest fall since April 2021.
The Bank of Japan kept interest rates steady but warned for the first time that underlying inflation could exceed its target, signaling further rate hikes in the wake of the government’s yen-buying intervention. Borrowing costs are still at their highest level since September 1995 after raising the rate by 25 bps in June.
The BOJ cut its FY 2026 inflation forecast to 2.5% from 2.8%, the target 2%.
Street Bytes
—Four tech heavyweights reported earnings, detailed below, and the picture was mixed. Otherwise, it was a volatile week, with Chair Warsh not helping, but in the end the three major indices registered gains…the Dow Jones up 1.0% to 52485, the S&P 500 1.1% and Nasdaq rose 1.6%. All three now up 9% for the year.
Talk about volatility, the South Korea Kospi index fell 22% (intraday) over a three-day period this week, and then on Friday staged a nearly 18% jump, a record, as artificial intelligence-related stocks bounced back, specifically Samsung, which surged 28%, and memory chipmaker SK Hynix, which soared the limit of 30% today.
The rebound followed Microsoft’s strong report.
—U.S. Treasury Yields
6-mo. 3.93% 2-yr. 4.27% 10-yr. 4.72% 30-yr. 5.26%
The yield on the 10-year finished the week at its highest level since Jan. 2025, and the 30-year is at its above-noted 19-year high.
—Saudi Arabia proposed an international maritime coalition to protect shipping routes in the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb Strait, with representatives from 43 countries participating in talks to safeguard navigation in the Red Sea following the Iran-backed Houthis’ announced blockade against the kingdom.
—ExxonMobil missed Wall Street estimates for second-quarter profit on Friday, even as high oil prices and refining margins due to the war led to its biggest quarterly profit in four years.
Adjusted earnings of $3.52 per share were below consensus of $3.60. But the profit of $14.5 billion was more than double the amount in the same period last year and could draw further backlash from President Trump.
“The second quarter was shaped by disruption, but defined by execution,” Exxon CEO Darren Woods said in a statement. “As conditions changed, we moved products where they were needed.”
Exxon’s total production was 4.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in the second quarter, down from 4.6 million in Q1. About 450,000 barrels per day of lost output is related to liquefied natural gas production from Qatar, which suffered Iranian attacks on energy facilities this year. The LNG production “remains substantially shut-in,” Exxon’s CFO said.
Exxon is seeing record production from the Permian Basin in the U.S.
Rival Chevron beat earnings estimates as the war sent refinery margins surging. The company reported earnings of $6.06 per share, well above consensus of $5.57. Profit was $12.1 billion.
Chevron’s total production climbed to a quarterly record of 2.1 million barrels a day, up 382,000 barrels a day from the same period last year. That growth was driven primarily by assets it bought from Hess last year.
In Venezuela, where Chevron is the only active U.S. oil producer, the company has boosted oil production 15% over the past six months to about 280,000 barrels a day.
—Four of the Mag 7 reported earnings on Wednesday and Thursday.
A disappointing earnings report looked set to knock Meta Platforms off course as it struggles to get Wall Street’s buy-in on its massive artificial-intelligence spending.
Investors wanted more details on Meta’s AI strategy when the social-media giant reported second-quarter results on Wednesday. Instead, they got weaker-than-expected earnings and a warning about potential legal troubles.
The shares fell about 10% on the open Thursday.
Revenue in the second quarter jumped 28% year over year to a record $60.8 billion, surpassing consensus of $60.2 billion, as Meta’s advertising engine kept chugging along with help from AI models.
But earnings came in at $6.18 a share, down from $7.14 a year ago and below the Street’s forecast of $7.19. The weak results reflected a $2.4 billion charge from legal proceedings, $1.2 billion in severance expenses from recent layoffs, and a 67% jump in research and development costs.
The company raised the low end of its forecast for 2026 capital expenditures from $130 billion to $145 billion for the year, up from an earlier range of $125 billion to $145 billion. CFO Susan Li declined to offer 2027 guidance.
Plans to sell data-center capacity as part of a cloud business weren’t forthcoming either. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Meta would “potentially” sell compute, adding that the company had received “a lot of offers,” but made no firm commitments.
Meta’s message on Wednesday was about diversifying its bets and balancing long- and short-term goals.
“You don’t want to only do long-term things,” Zuckerberg said. “But I also think it would be foolish to basically just sell all of the compute and take a short-term profit.”
The company is building personal AI agents, launching agent and developer tools for enterprise customers, and competing with Anthropic and OpenAI in the race to build advanced frontier models.
While AI investments commanded almost all of the attention on Meta’s earnings call, the company also warned that a series of lawsuits related to youth social-media use could result in material losses. Several trials are scheduled for this year in the U.S.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the $2.4 billion legal charge in the second-quarter stemmed from these cases, but any costs Meta has to bear while also making its enormous AI expenditures could add to investors worries around spending.
—Microsoft reported strong fiscal fourth-quarter results on Wednesday afternoon and the shares rose about 10% on the open Thursday, and closed up 16%. The one-day $450 billion gain in market capitalization was the largest by any U.S. business, ever.
Microsoft batted back two negative narratives with the results, showing a return on its extensive cloud investments and a software segment that keeps beating expectations.
Earnings per share were $4.81 for the quarter, up from $3.65 a year ago and above Street projections of $4.24. The result included a $3.2 billion unrealized gain on Microsoft’s Anthropic investment.
Revenue for the quarter reached $90 billion, ahead of expectations for $87.6 billion, and up 18% on the year.
As expected, capital expenditures reached around $41 billion, hitting $145 billion for the fiscal year. CFO Amy Hood said the company’s capex forecast for calendar 2026 remains unchanged.
The stock was also helped by strong guidance for the current quarter and fiscal year. The outlook was boosted by strong forecasts in the cloud and business software segments.
The closely-watched sales growth rate in the company’s Azure cloud unit was 43% versus expectations of 40%.
Azure sits with server software products in Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud segment and its sales were up 32% with a 40.6% operating margin, the same as last year.
Microsoft’s business software segment also positively surprised, with segment sales growing 15%, better than estimates.
Adoption for Microsoft’s flagship AI business software, Microsoft 365 Copilot, also improved. When the company first began reporting user numbers six months ago, only 3% of the more than 450 million Microsoft 365 users were paying for Copilot. Now that’s nearly 7% – still small, but growing rapidly.
—Amazon reported strong second-quarter earnings on Thursday afternoon. The shares were up 9% in after-hours trading, Thursday, after rising 9% during the day.
The company said it would be increasing its capital expenditure budget for the year, which is what the Street wanted to hear, after the company reported revenue reached $201 billion, above expectations, and up 20% on the year.
Earnings per share of $5.75 were well ahead of Wall Street’s projections, helped by $53 billion in non-operational income, mostly an unrealized gain on the company’s stake in Anthropic.
The closely-watched sales growth rate in the company’s Amazon Web Services segment was 37%, versus the Street’s expectations of 31%. AWS’ operating margin was 39%, also well ahead of consensus. AWS is the oldest and largest cloud, and its growth rate is now getting closer to its smaller competitors, Microsoft Azure and Alphabet’s Google Cloud.
On the earnings call, CEO Andy Jassey announced that the company was raising its 2026 capex guidance to $220 billion from $200 billion.
Even with all the spending on new data centers, AWS AI cloud demand seems to be outpacing it. The company has raised prices on AI server rentals twice this year, most recently a month ago.
Amazon’s ad services business continued its fast growth to $19.8 billion.
—Apple shares fell sharply as it reported its third quarter earnings on Thursday beat analysts’ expectations on the top and bottom lines on strong iPhone sales, but shares fell after Services and Greater China sales came up short.
And…Apple’s forecast for its September quarter also fell short of the Street’s forecasts, with sales growth of between 9% and 11%, when analysts are expecting 12%. Additionally, gross profit margins will fall short of consensus.
The disappointing forecast is partly due to supply constraints that have plagued the company for the past few quarters, which have made it difficult to meet demand for iPhones, Macs and iPads, and which are expected to get worse in the September quarter. It is selling the devices at a record clip, but it could be selling even more.
The difficulty remains securing enough logic chips, the brain inside Apple’s devices, that are made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
Meantime, the soaring price of memory chips is expected to weigh more on profits.
For the quarter, Apple saw earnings per share of $2.02 on revenue of $109.4 billion, ahead of the $1.89 and $108.8bn the Street was forecasting.
Apple’s iPhone revenue hit $54.2 billion (up 21%) vs. estimates of $53.5 billion. Sales were $44.5 billion in the same quarter last year. Mac sales jumped nearly 30%, thanks in part to Apple’s popular, new entry-level MacBook Neo.
Services, Apple’s second-largest business, brought in $30.7 bn, vs. projections of $31.3 billion. Greater China revenue was $18.8bn, shy of analyst estimates of $19.5bn.
—SK Kynix Inc.’s quarterly profit rose a smaller-than-expected 557%, adding to heightened fears that an AI boom that has propelled the semiconductor industry may be decelerating.
The key supplier of Nvidia Corp. reported operating profit of $42 billion in the June quarter vs. analysts’ average estimate of $44.2 billion. Revenue also fell short of expectations.
That’s as the company won multiyear contracts with around 10 customers, it said.
SK Hynix, which leapt past Samsung Electronics Co. to take the lead in the red-hot AI memory arena, has shed more than $500 billion of value since June as doubts grew about whether spending will justify lofty valuations. Tech companies’ rising debt levels are also weighing on investors’ minds.
Investors worry that soaring chip costs may trigger a broader economic slowdown, pushing prices of electronics higher and spurring manufacturers to cut production of devices like PCs and smartphones.
Chipmakers have pushed back, saying that demand is expected to outstrip supply for the long term. SK Hynix’s CEO had said earlier this month that the severe memory chip shortages that are roiling the computer, car and device makers would likely persist beyond 2030.
SK Hynix, along with Samsung and Micron Technology Inc., dominates global memory supply.
Last week, SK Group signed a pact with Nvidia on a partnership spanning deals that the two companies said could be worth more than $500 billion.
–The next day, Samsung Electronics reported a record operating profit of $62 billion for the April-June period, a 19-fold increase from a year earlier, and nearly all of it came from its semiconductor business, which benefited from rising chip prices driven by demand for Ai servers and increased shipments of advanced high-bandwidth memory chips used to power AI applications.
Samsung’s quarterly revenue of $119 billion was also an all-time high.
—DeepSeek has told prospective investors in its second fundraising round that it’s suspending the deal for now, days after comments widely attributed to founder Liang Wenfeng about U.S.-Chinese AI competition went viral.
The Chinese AI pioneer verbally informed some of its would-be backers that they wouldn’t be signing investment agreements in the coming days, as they had expected, people familiar with the matter said. DeepSeek might choose to resume the deal process at a later date.
The suspension stemmed in part from Liang’s frustration over online reports about his comments to investors during his first financing deal, which closed in June and raised $7 billion for the AI lab, sources said. Chinese media including Yicai reported this week that the billionaire founder talked about a reliance on Nvidia chips for AI development and China’s persistent lag in AI sophistication relative to the U.S.
DeepSeek has drawn enormous interest from would-be investors because it’s one of a clutch of companies that sit at the heart of China’s effort to compete globally on AI. It developed a model last year that stunned the industry, demonstrating the ability to build a cutting-edge yet efficient platform with fewer computing resources.
The startup is now chasing more funds to support an ambitious expansion plan, including an increase in computing capacity. AI labs around the world are striking deals to secure the data center infrastructure they need to train and operate AI services.
—Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot, said Thursday that AI systems it was testing hacked into three outside companies undetected earlier this year.
The disclosure comes just over a week after ChatGPT maker OpenAI said that an AI system it was testing found a way to break out of a test environment and hacked into another tech firm.
The Anthropic incidents will add fuel to debates over whether advanced AI models could cause widespread security problems that have roiled the tech industry and prompted interventions by the White House to contain the potential risks.
Anthropic said in a blog post Thursday that after OpenAI’s disclosure last week prompted it to review records from its own testing of AI models. The company discovered that on three occasions AI models challenged to break into software created solely to test their skills ended up going out onto the internet and breaking into real companies.
Anthropic said a third-party company named Irregular hired to help test its models provided the models with access to the internet due to a “misunderstanding.”
—Boeing reported a larger-than-expected quarterly loss after taking a $280 million charge on its troubled Air Force One replacement program, but generated positive free cash (when a negative figure was expected), due in part to higher customer payments than anticipated, as its turnaround plans gained momentum.
It took the charge due to higher engineering costs to ensure it delivers the two delayed U.S. presidential plane replacements in 2028, contributing to a $428 million net loss for the second quarter.
The planemaker was to deliver two 747-8 jets to serve as Air Force One under a $3.9 billion fixed-price contract signed in 2018 that is now four years behind schedule and more than $1 billion over budget.
Boeing increased capital investments in the quarter compared to last year, due largely to expanding capabilities for 787 production in South Carolina and military jet production in the St. Louis, Mo., area.
–Boeing rival Airbus posted sharply higher earnings for the second quarter and said a recent uptick in plane deliveries made it confident that it would be able to meet its annual target.
CEO Guillaume Faury said that strong plane deliveries in the second quarter fueled confidence in the group’s future performance, a sign it expects to meet its annual goal of roughly 87- commercial aircraft deliveries despite supply-chain hurdles that stifled the sourcing of engines and other equipment.
A Pratt & Whitney engine shortage forced Airbus to slow production of its bestselling A320 jets and the group initiated a process earlier this year to enforce its contractual rights against the RTX-owned company.
Those hurdles held Airbus back when investors were hoping the group would cash in on Boeing’s woes following the blowout of an Alaska Airlines door plug in 2024 that exposed the jet maker to tighter regulatory scrutiny.
—TSA checkpoint numbers vs. 2025
7/30…111 percent of 2025 levels
7/29…108
7/28…80
7/27…91
7/26…110
7/25…84
7/24…97
7/23…110
—SpaceX launched its huge Starship rocket last Friday night, the first since the Elon Musk-led company’s history-making initial public offering.
During the highly successful launch, the Starship spacecraft deployed upgraded Starlink satellites, a first for the vehicle. The 20 satellites, dubbed “V3” devices by the company, are designed to handle much more data than the satellites SpaceX currently lofts to orbit using its Falcon 9 fleet.
The company said it expects to begin deploying more advanced Starlink satellites with Starship in the second half of this year.
But the stock fell Monday, and this afternoon, Friday, was down to about $109 from its IPO price of $135.
—Ford Motor reported better-than-expected adjusted second-quarter operating profit and raised its full-year financial guidance; both good for investors, and the shares gained following Tuesday night’s report.
Operating profit of $2.5 billion came from sales of $48.3 billion, with the Street at $2.1 billion on sales of $47.2bn. A year ago, Ford reported an operating profit of $2.1 billion from sales of $50.2 billion.
For the full year, Ford expects operating profit of $10 billion to $11 billion, up from a range of $8.5 billion to $10.5 billion.
Ford’s sales in the first half of 2026 were down nearly 10% compared with a year prior. The automaker continues to recover from a supplier fire that significantly affected pickup production while fewer Americans overall are buying new vehicles.
Ford is aiming to roll out cheaper models, with the company racing to prepare the launch of a new all-electric pickup in 2027, which is expected to start at $30,000.
Ford’s EV business lost about $1.3 billion in the second quarter. Ford is expected to have a full-year loss of $4 billion.
—BMW is looking to shed 8,000 jobs, becoming the latest German automaker to warn that plunging sales in China will hit employment at home.
Germany’s luxury carmakers are under growing pressure in two of their most important markets. Fierce competition and a shrinking market have hit sales in China, while higher tariffs have sapped profits in the U.S.
BMW told employees it was launching a voluntary severance program for white-collar employees in Germany.
BMW reported a roughly 5% decline in second-quarter sales, compared with the prior-year period, led by China, where it sold 30% fewer vehicles.
—Situational Awareness, the once-highflying AI-focused hedge fund, sold the bulk of its stock portfolio to Ken Griffin’s investment firm Citadel after suffering deep losses, according to various sources.
Led by former OpenAI employee Leopold Aschenbrenner, Situational had amassed well over $20 billion in assets under management since its founding just around two years ago. Aschenbrenner, who is in his mid-20s, was seen by some as an AI oracle, with other investors closely tracking his firm’s movements as it placed big, leveraged bets.
As investors shed positions in artificial-intelligence related stocks, Situational was under pressure to raise cash, either through sales of holdings or new capital commitments, to meet margin-call demands from its lenders, some of the people familiar with the matter said.
The Wall Street Journal reported today that the firm is down around 67% so far in July after incurring heavy losses on AI stocks, according to a person who saw a letter Situational sent to investors Thursday.
“We let you down this month,” Aschenbrenner wrote in the investor letter, the contents of which were described to the Journal.
The Journal said that as Situational raced to gather cash to cover margin calls, it reached a deal late Wednesday to sell $3.5 billion worth of its stake in Anthropic to a consortium of investors, but then Situational had a change of heart by Thursday morning and backed out, according to the Journal’s reporting.
But the hedge fund, including July’s losses, is still up 80% on the year, the letter said. Through May, the fund had gained 270%.
No wonder its moves were so widely followed.
—Coca-Cola revenue in the second quarter rose about 6% to $13.37 billion, beating estimates behind its World Cup campaign that lifted trademark Coca-Cola and Powerade volumes, the company said Tuesday.
While many fans complained about World Cup hydration breaks slowing the pace of soccer games, Coca-Cola said it was pleased with the boost to sales for its energy drinks that drove quarterly results.
The hydration breaks that split the matches into four segments created additional advertising opportunities for brands and lined the pockets of broadcasters, such as Fox.
At the same time, the Iran war has led to input cost inflation, including in the beverage sector. The company said it would have more to say on expectations around these costs for 2027 in October.
—Procter & Gamble forecast slower revenue growth in fiscal 2027 after quarterly sales short of estimates and margins dropped under a “very challenging geopolitical and economic environment.”
Sticky inflation and higher food and gas prices have forced lower-income consumers to cut back spending, but consumer goods companies, mainly in the U.S., also face the challenge of offering products at varied price points as the divide between high and low-income shoppers widens.
P&G’s core earnings per share fell 3% to $1.43 in the April-June period from a year ago, but edged past estimates of $1.41, as higher commodity costs and increased marketing spend dragged operating margins lower for the quarter.
The Tide maker expects fiscal 2027 total net sales to grow in the range of 1% to 3%, compared with 3.3% growth in 2026.
The company stuck to its expectation of a roughly $1 billion profit impact in fiscal 2027 from higher costs as a fallout of the war in Iran, including in raw material, energy and transportation.
Its annual forecasts assume the war in Iran continues and oil prices remain elevated, the company said.
—Starbucks jumped in after-hours trading after the company reported third-quarter earnings and revenue that beat expectations and raised its full-year outlook, suggesting its turnaround is under way.
For the fiscal quarter ended June 28, Starbucks reported adjusted earnings of 85 cents a share, well above the 66 cents analysts expected. Revenue fell 1.4% from a year earlier to $9.32 billion – partially due to the conversion of Starbucks’ China operations into a licensed joint venture – but still topped the roughly $9.17 billion consensus estimate.
In the quarter, global comparable-store sales rose 7.9%, driven by a 4.2% increase in transactions and 3.5% gain in average ticket. U.S. comp sales also advanced 7.9%, including a 4.2% transaction gain.
Starbucks raised its fiscal 2026 adjusted earnings forecast to between $2.55 and $2.65 a share, from $2.25 to $2.45 previously. It now expects global comparable sales growth to approach 6% for the full fiscal 2026, up from its earlier forecast of about 5% or more.
CEO Brian Niccol’s “Back to Starbucks” strategy – including menu simplification, increased staffing, reduced wait times, and a revamped Rewards program – is bringing more customers back.
—Yum Brands posted better-than-expected quarterly profit and a rise in comparable sales on Thursday, amid concerns the growing cyclospora outbreak linked to its Taco Bell chain may weigh on near-term demand.
Taco Bell has been Yum’s main growth driver, with its Tex-Mex menu and affordable offerings. Foot traffic at the chain has slumped every day since July 13.
For the second quarter ended June 30, Yum’s comparable sales rose 3%, compared with a 2% increase a year earlier, while Taco Bell same-store sales rose 7%, compared with 4% a year earlier. Both figures were in line with analyst estimates.
Yum, which his set to sell its Pizza Hut chain in a $2.7 billion deal, also posted 2% same-store sales growth for its other major restaurant chain, KFC.
–Late last week, Paramount said it will not move forward with its merger with Warner Bros. Discovery until legal challenges to the deal are resolved or June 1, 2027, whichever comes first.
The concession is the latest blow to the $81 billion merger between entertainment giants Paramount and Warner, which is being challenged on antitrust grounds by 12 states and the Writers Guild of America, who argue the deal is anticompetitive.
The potential delay in closing could prove expensive for Paramount. Its agreement with Warner includes a “ticking fee” with payments to Warner shareholders of roughly $650 million a quarter, beginning in October, until the transaction closes.
Shares in both companies fell.
Paramount was hoping to have the deal close this month or at least before the late fee penalty was triggered.
—Hilton Worldwide posted higher sales in the second quarter as renewed demand for mid-range hotels is helping to fuel revenue growth in the US.
Hilton’s U.S. business had the highest rate of revenue growth compared with other geographies. Luxury hotels in the U.S. did well, but it was mid-scale hotels that saw the biggest leap in demand, CEO Christopher Nassetta told analysts Tuesday.
Nassetta sees the boom in artificial intelligence development as a key driver behind the resurgence in mid-scale hotels. He said he thinks the AI boom is attracting middle-income people, such as contractors and engineers, to stay temporarily in areas where data centers are being built.
The more the technology industry spends to build AI infrastructure, the more middle-income people will be looking for a place to stay while they complete work on those jobs, he said.
Profit rose to $482 million, with adjusted earnings per share of $2.29, ahead of the $2.27 anticipated by analysts.
Revenue rose 6.5% to $3.34 billion, also beating the Street.
—Budweiser brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev said the World Cup and a focus on its more premium labels helped lift revenue and earnings above expectations at the start of the summer.
The world’s largest brewer said total sales volumes were 0.9% higher on year, driven by beer volumes rising 1.1%.
Revenue outstripped volumes, rising 5.6% from a year ago to $16.66 billion due in part to a concentration on said premium labels, beating analysts’ expectations, with the likes of Corona, Stella Artois and Michelob Ultra booking double-digit growth outside their home markets.
“Cheers to beer,” CEO Michel Doukeris said. Hear, hear, the editor chimed in.
—“The Odyssey” continued to rock at the box office, with $87 million in domestic (North American) theaters its second weekend, giving filmmaker Christopher Nolan his best second weekend ever, not accounting for inflation.
With $128.3 million from international theaters, “The Odyssey” has made an estimated $639.6 million globally in just two weeks. Theaters around the world are adding showtimes to try to meet the demand.
The coveted 70 mm IMAX screens, of which there are only 41 worldwide, earned $5.2 million. Most of those showtimes are sold out through September, the company said.
—A U.S. government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a State Department presentation at a global conference taking place in Brazil this week, causing a stir among attendees who took screenshots and posted them online.
Reuters viewed a video of the presentation given at the AIDS 2026 conference in Rio de Janeiro, which shows the State Department’s new health agreements.
A Reuters analysis found the image of the map included in the presentation contained an artificial intelligence watermark that signals it was made with OpenAI tools.
The map showed Nigeria, where the U.S. currently has several hundred troops deployed, as landlocked in the Sahara Desert. Ivory Coast in West Africa was placed on the other side of the continent.
Foreign Affairs
Russia/Ukraine:
—President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the White House Tuesday for talks with President Trump. The two met for about an hour, with Zelensky posting on social media after that he had a “good meeting.” He said they discussed Trump’s pledge to allow Ukraine to produce U.S.-designed Patriot air defense systems. “We also spoke about diplomacy,” he added – likely a reference to peace talks that have been stalled for months.
—Russian air strikes killed at least eight people in Ukraine on Thursday, including one in Kyiv, in attacks extending as far as the western city of Lviv, forcing neighboring Poland to scramble fighter jets to secure its airspace.
In Zelensky’s hometown, the central city of Kryvyi Rih, two girls aged 5 and 12 were among the six killed in what the city’s defense council head said was a direct strike by a Russian Iskander-M ballistic missile. [A family of five ended up being victims when their house was blown to pieces.]
The Ukrainian leader said more than 70 missiles and over 280 drones were fired at the country overnight. He had warned just hours before the strikes that Moscow was preparing for a “massive attack.”
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said an object that crashed into a field in eastern Poland in the early hours of Thursday was probably a Russian missile.
Ukraine said earlier it observed a Russian cruise missile crossing into Poland as part of Russia’s massive strike.
—Russia extended its curb on gasoline exports through year-end as the government battles fuel shortages but plans to lift a ban on diesel exports once the market recovers, said Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak.
The diesel ban will be lifted in due course to prevent refineries from facing a glut and having to cut processing volumes, Nowak told reporters in Omsk, Siberia.
On gasoline, “we also decided at the task force to extend it, both for producers and non-producers. That is, it will be extended until the end of the year,” he said.
Russia has faced a nationwide fuel crunch this summer, with many regions rationing gasoline and diesel sales as Ukraine intensified its attacks on refineries.
Novak did say the fuel situation is stabilizing – that a number of refineries have resumed operations, and the situation at filling stations has “considerably improved.”
But then Ukrainian forces hit two of Russia’s biggest oil refineries overnight Tuesday in its latest long-range strikes, officials said Wednesday, as Kyiv deepened its economic, military and diplomatic pressure on Moscow. One of the refineries in Russia’s Perm region was 900 miles from Ukraine.
—Laura Loomer, a close ally of President Donald Trump, has completely reversed her longtime criticism of Ukraine and is urging fellow conservatives to be wary of Moscow’s propaganda, which she blames for duping large swaths of the American right.
“You don’t need to listen to a podcaster and let them influence your opinion about a country. You can look at those facts yourself,” she told the Associated Press in Kyiv shortly after returning from a trip to the front line in Ukraine’s east.
Loomer has remained influential with Trump despite not having an official role, and she said they spoke over the phone after she sat down with Ukrainian President Zelensky. She also said that she expects to meet with Trump after returning from her trip.
Loomer’s turnaround on Ukraine has been welcomed by the country’s leaders, whose relationships with Trump have been strained at times. But it has also stirred confusion, surprise and suspicion in the United States. She continues to insist that Ukraine is not paying for her travels.
Ahead of the Trump-Zelensky meeting in Washington on Tuesday, Loomer said it’s clear that her trip has already made a difference, refocusing attention on the war as Congress debates new sanctions intended to punish Russia.
Loomer had spent years minimizing the war and amplifying Russian propaganda until she made a dramatic reversal this week.
“I’ve come to realize I was bamboozled by Russian propaganda and I came to believe a lot of untrue things about Ukraine. I used to think that this was a country full of Nazis,” Loomer told Zelensky as she interviewed him for her show on Ruble, an online video platform.
Loomer blamed her indoctrination on getting banned by American social media platforms, leading her to try Telegram, where Russian media is widely shared.
“The Russians,” she added, “are very good at capitalizing on people’s rage. And I was very angry,” she said, recounting her feelings about the 2020 election, which she falsely maintains was stolen from Trump.
She said her change in perspective had been gradual as she started to see podcasters like Tucker Carlson “turn on President Trump” while having their rhetoric amplified by Russian sources.
Trump appeared to be tracking Loomer’s trip, sharing video of her conversation with Zelensky on social media.
“Very good!!!” he wrote on Thursday evening.
Loomer has a long history of spreading conspiracy theories. She once shared a video that called 9/11 an “inside job” and amplified a lie about Haitian immigrants eating dogs and cats in Ohio, which Trump went on to repeat during a presidential debate with Kamala Harris.
North Korea: Kim Jong Un’s sister denounced calls for denuclearization, describing the country’s nuclear weapons as its “ultimate shield,” state media reported, as Ukraine warned that more North Korean soldiers could join Russia’s war efforts.
“Resolute and clear is the DPRK’s stand that nuclear deterrence is the ultimate shield for national sovereignty and the supreme guarantee for defending sovereignty,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried Monday by the official Korean Central News Agency, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Kim made the comments as she criticized a joint statement by foreign ministers at the ASEAN Regional Forum. She said North Korea’s nuclear status is “final and irreversible,” and that its “nuclear capability will be updated steadily without a momentary stagnation.”
The statement comes days after President Zelensky asserted that Russia wants 30,000 more troops and additional ballistic missile launchers from North Korea, without citing a source for the information. “Since June, preparations have been underway in Russia’s Voronezh region to receive them,” Zelensky said.
North Korea has been supplying troops and weapons to back Russia’s war against Ukraine, U.S. and South Korean officials have said.
Last week, North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui met with Vladimir Putin, who thanked Pyongyang for supporting his war efforts.
Spain/Morocco: The two reinforced the border fence of a Spanish enclave on Friday and appeared to have largely halted mass crossings after tens of thousands of people arrived by sea and land in a day, with at least 19 dead bodies found in the water.
The Spanish Department of National Security said on its website that more than 49,000 people were estimated to have crossed illegally in 24 hours, citing the Interior Ministry. The statement was later deleted without explanation.
The mass crossing into Ceuta, a tiny Spanish-held spit jutting into the Mediterranean from Morocco, caused shock and division in Europe. France said it was increasing checks on its border with Spain, and Italy threatened to suspend Spain from the EU’s internal open border scheme.
Spanish authorities said they would try to expel those who had entered illegally as quickly as possible, despite a court ruling that put some restrictions on special “border rejection” rules that allow immediate expulsions from the enclave.
Random Musings
–Presidential approval ratings….
Rasmussen: 44% approve of President Trump’s job performance, 55% disapprove (July 31).
A new CBS/YouGov poll had Trump’s approval rating at 35%, 65% disapproval.
When asked ‘How the conflict with Iran was going for the U.S.’, 37% said very/somewhat well, 63% very/somewhat badly.
When asked ‘What should the U.S. do now’, re: Iran, 67% said end the conflict now, 33% said ‘Continue until Iran gives up more.’ Independents came down 73-27 on this question.
A new CNN poll has Trump with a 34% approval rating, matching a career low he last saw at the close of his first term, following the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Among Republicans, his approval rating has hit a new low at 78%, and just 19% of Republicans say they’re enthusiastic about the rest of his second term, down from 38% last spring.
When asked if they think Trump’s decision about military action in Iran has: Hurt the U.S., 67% say yes; 33% say it has helped, or not made any difference.
A new Quinnipiac University national poll of registered voters gives President Trump a 32% approval rating, an all-time low for him in this survey, with 58% disapproving and 10% not offering an opinion.
Republicans (76-12 percent) approve of the way Trump is handling his job, while Democrats (94-3) disapprove. Independents (67-22) disapprove.
In a June 24 poll, the Republican split was 85-9.
On the economy, only 34% approve of Trump’s handling of it, while 62% disapprove.
Only 34% of voters support the U.S. military action against Iran and 60% oppose it.
On the generic ballot question, if the election were today, 48% would want to see the Democratic Party win control of the House, while 41% would want to see the Republican Party win control. This shouldn’t give Democrats that much comfort.
But it’s true Democrats seem more motivated to vote, and turnout is always the key.
—Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.) was still not cleared by his doctors to return to work nearly seven weeks after he was first hospitalized for a fall and pneumonia.
The senator’s health has been a source of widespread speculation and interest. He’s missed 40 roll call votes in the Senate, as well as high-profile confirmation hearings for Trump nominees like Todd Blanche.
A photo was released this week of McConnell, alongside his wife, Elaine Chao. “As always, I appreciate all of your continued well wishes, and I’m looking forward to getting back to the Senate and to Kentucky soon,” he said.
But no video, which is truly pathetic.
—The Trump administration on July 27 asked the Supreme Court to let President Trump tighten rules nationwide for mail-in ballots before this fall’s midterm elections as he seeks to exert more federal control over voting.
Trump filed the emergency appeal after lower courts blocked the administration from creating a federal list of eligible voters and limiting delivery of mail ballots only to people on that list in nearly half the states.
In June, a federal judge in Boston said key parts of an executive order Trump signed in March were unconstitutional, ruling that those components can’t be enforced this year in the 23 states that are challenging the order.
In July, an appeals court rejected the administration’s argument that the states’ lawsuit was premature because the executive order has not been fully implemented.
The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the changes are already straining states and “would sow confusion and threaten disenfranchisement of many eligible voters” if allowed to go into effect for the November elections.
Voting by mail has decreased since its peak during the pandemic. But nearly 30% of voters still cast a ballot that way in the 2024 elections.
Democrats are more likely than Republicans to vote by mail.
—Jay Clayton was confirmed by the Senate on a party line vote, 51-47, to become the Director of National Intelligence, replacing Bill Pulte, a housing official who has pursued campaigns of retribution against President Trump’s perceived enemies.
Though his nomination was initially met with some good will from Democrats, Clayton shed that bipartisan support during his confirmation hearing this month after he refused to clearly state that Joe Biden had won the 2020 presidential election.
—Editorial / Wall Street Journal
“Tuesday’s memorial ceremonies for Sen. Lindsey Graham were a rare moment of amity in today’s bitter politics of Washington. The South Carolina Republican was celebrated for his sense of humor, his bipartisan engagement, and for being at the center of the political action.
“ ‘For more than 30 years, nothing of consequence happened in this capital without Lindsey Grahma knowing about it. No bill became law without Lindsey Graham having a say in it,’ President Trump said about his friend in his fitting eulogy. ‘He was a man who gave America the full measure of his good and mighty heart until that heart itself just gave out.’
“Graham was all of those things. He was in that sense a politician in the best sense of the word – engaged in the debates of the day, passionate in making a difference with the power he had. He cared about using that power, not merely keeping it.
“But his memory shouldn’t pass without recalling the principles he fought for. Above all, he believed that America is a force for good in the world. Perhaps in part because of his time overseas in the Air Force, he believed U.S. military, economic and diplomatic power could be marshaled to expand freedom in the world in the American national interest.
“In that cause, he was crucial to the defense of Ukraine, against Russia’s marauding, and Israel against Iran and its terrorist proxy militias. There aren’t many current U.S. Senators who would draw the Prime Minister of Israel and the President of Ukraine to their memorial services. It’s a shame Graham didn’t live to see his Russia sanctions bill pass the Senate, or see Israel and Saudi Arabia normalize relations, two of his great causes.
“Graham quipped in his final days that he couldn’t die now because he was close to achieving both goals. At the current fraught moment, the country needs men and women like Lindsey Graham to step forward. Any volunteers?”
—Dr. Anthony Fauci refused on Wednesday to answer questions from a Senate committee investigating the origins of Covid-19, accusing the panel’s chairman, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky), of having an “unhinged obsession with me” before invoking his constitutional right under the Fifth Amendment not to incriminate himself.
Sen. Paul came out swinging, rattling off a fiery list of accusations on Fauci’s motives and handling of the pandemic.
Paul fumed over Fauci’s decision to take the Fifth. “It’s against the law to obstruct an investigation of Congress,” Paul concluded his unsuccessful questioning. “There will be repercussions for your refusal to testify today.”
Sen. Gary Peters (Mich.), the top Democrat on the committee, admonished Republicans for attacking Fauci.
“It also feels like there’s a new public health threat hitting us every month,” he said, noting thousands of Americans are sick from the cyclosporiasis outbreak without federal agencies pinning down the source. But instead, he argues Paul is “relitigating the past.”
Senator John Fetterman (D-Pa.) said that “it’s more and more emerging theory” that the coronavirus escaped from the lab in Wuhan, China. That question has divided intelligence agencies, some of which have endorsed the lab leak theory. In contrast, however, scientific publications looking at where early Covid patients lived and worked and genetic clues have pointed to the virus having spilled from animals into people at an illegal wild-animal market in Wuhan.
Sen. Paul concluded the hearing by saying the committee is planning a vote next week on whether to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress.
Paul acknowledged to GOP colleagues that there are legal questions about whether Fauci could be held in contempt – citing President Joe Biden’s preemptive pardon of Fauci last year – but contended that Fauci should have just answered questions on Wednesday, even if it meant admitting to a past lie or other wrongdoing.
As the Washington Post editorialized:
“(It’s) a real shame that the country cannot have an honest conversation, with the benefit of hindsight, about the many mistakes that were made six years ago. America has never fully grappled with the causes and consequences of Covid.”
—Senators on Wednesday night postponed a critical vote on Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general after two key GOP senators, John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who are not returning to Congress next year, accused Blanche of refusing to put on paper his promise to kill aspects of a deal he cut to settle President Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS.
In June, Blanche said he would drop a proposed $1.8 billion fund to compensate purported victims of Biden-era actions by the Justice Department but said a provision shielding Trump and his family from tax investigations would remain in place.
Cornyn said he had received no written assurances from Blanche that the audit shield would not apply to future tax liabilities or be extended to a wider circle of people. The senator was to meet with Blanche on Wednesday, but the meeting was canceled. [Cornyn and Tillis did reportedly meet with Blanche later but said nothing about it.]
The GOP holds a 12-10 edge on the panel, giving Blanche a narrow path forward. President Trump then said he may just pull the nomination, keeping Blanche in the interim AG role.
–Cases of cyclosporiasis, the stomach-churning parasite that causes explosive diarrhea, have now reached 45 states as infections climb well into the thousands.
There have been 6,707 laboratory-confirmed cases of the illness since May 1, the CDC said in its weekly update on Tuesday, July 28, a more than 2,500 increase from its last report on July 21. More than 11,500 additional cases, primarily in Michigan and Ohio, have not yet been confirmed by laboratories, the CDC said.
There have been 423 hospitalizations and no deaths, per the agency.
Federal health authorities are still investigating the sources, though the largest outbreak was linked to iceberg lettuce grown by produce giant Taylor Farms in central Mexico, prompting the company to issue a recall on July 17.
–From the Associated Press: “More than a month has passed since Venezuela’s devastating earthquakes, and the constant sound of heavy machinery still echoes through the hardest-hit neighborhoods of La Guaira on the northern coast.
“Dust from the collapsed buildings hangs in the humid air. Garbage has piled up. Families camp outside homes deemed too dangerous to enter. Water trucks weave through damaged streets.
“ ‘The smell of corpses is very strong’ in some neighborhoods, said Carolina de Jesus, Venezuela project director for the humanitarian organization Project HOPE, who has spent nearly every day in the region since the quakes.”
The latest official death toll is 5,546 as of earlier this week. Authorities have not said how many remain missing, though estimates put the figure in the tens of thousands. The World Bank estimates the quakes caused $19.6 billion in direct physical damage.
The coming weeks are critical to preventing secondary crises caused by the twin quakes. Managing an estimated 1.2 million tons of debris is a major environmental challenge. Much of the rubble could be contaminated with fuels, motor oil, paints, solvents, plastics and other hazardous materials released when buildings fell. Pollutants could spread if the debris is not properly sorted and disposed of.
But on the issue of water, one of the biggest challenges, as the AP notes: “Even where tanker trucks are supplying communities, de Jesus said, that does not necessarily mean the water has been properly treated.”
Would you drink water out of one of these tankers…in Venezuela…after an earthquake? I didn’t think so.
Health officials have said disease surveillance in temporary shelters has become an immediate priority.
—A 7.1-magnitude earthquake that struck southern Japan toppled houses and split open streets in the small city of Yatsushiro, killing at least 34 people.
There is a growing crisis with a lack of water and power amid the punishing summer heat impacting many of the port city’s roughly 58,000 households.
—Record-setting wildfires continued to blaze out of control across large swaths of France and Spain as a fourth heatwave hit.
Hot weather and dried out vegetation have fueled the fires, with hundreds of thousands evacuated around the large population centers of Bordeaux and Madrid.
Spain’s government said more than 378,000 acres had burned in the country this year, already more than six times as much as by this time last year. The blaze west of Madrid was already the biggest in Spain’s recent history.
Firefighters in both countries are stretched to the limits of their capacity.
But there was some good news…French authorities gave the go-ahead Thursday for 84,000 evacuees to go back to their homes in southwestern France, the strongest sign yet that firefighters are turning a corner in their battle against the flames.
Nearly two-thirds of the 224,000 people initially ordered to evacuate have now been allowed to go home.
Temperatures that peaked around 40 Celsius (104F) a day earlier, dropped Thursday, topping out at 80F along the coast.
—We had three deaths in my state of New Jersey on Tuesday as a result of yet another massive rainstorm, three in less than two weeks.
One man was killed by lightning, and two 10-year-olds drowned in the Passaic River, upstream from where I am (the Passaic one block away from HQ). So very sad.
[Newark, LaGuardia and JFK Airports had a combined 1,300 cancellations that day.]
—Back to the heat, the strengthening El Nino – a natural warming of seawater that influences weather around the planet – is setting daily warm water records.
It’s not only “very likely to be the strongest event since reliable records began – it may end up being the strongest by a truly mind-blowing margin,” Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist at Berkeley Earth, wrote in post for The Climate Brink earlier this month.
—
Pray for the men and women of our armed forces…and all the fallen.
Slava Ukraini.
God bless America.
—
Gold $4050…Silver $57.90
Oil (WTI) $84.80…Brent $88.25
Regular Gas: $4.10; Diesel: $5.35 [$3.14 – $3.74 yr. ago]
Bitcoin: $62,905 [4:00 PM ET, Friday]
Returns for the week 7/20-7/24
Dow Jones +1.0% [52485]
S&P 500 +1.1% [7489]
S&P Midcap -0.4%
Russell 2000 +0.2%
Nasdaq +1.6% [25373]
Returns for the period 1/1/26-7/31/26
Dow Jones +9.2%
S&P 500 +9.4%
S&P MidCap +14.0%
Russell 2000 +18.2%
Nasdaq +9.2%
Hang in there. Make a contribution.
Brian Trumbore
