My favorite part about his new position is that if we don't allow our representatives to make money somehow, we'll stop attracting talent to Washington, D.C.
You know, like Trump, whose primary talent is corruption.
💋
Sunday, May 17, 2026
Silver is still up 6.14% year to date, gold 5.09% even as energy prices march higher
But SPX is up 8.02% ytd.
WTI is up 84.01% ytd.
VGENX is up 20.88% ytd.
Investment grade corporate securities:
VWESX is down 1.54% ytd.
VFICX is down 0.65% ytd.
VFSTX is up 0.27% ytd.
US Treasury securities:
VUSUX is down 2.52% ytd.
VFIUX is down 1.05% ytd.
VFIRX is up 0.16% ytd.
Inflation:
CPI (CPIAUCSL) is up 3.77% year over year in April.
PCE (PCEPI) is up 3.49% yoy in March.
Nominal Broad Dollar Index:
April: 119.03
1Q2026: 119.01
2025: 122.75
5Y: 119.94
GDP, Compound Annual Growth Rate
5Y: 7.031% nominal, 2.775% real
Daleep Singh: I personally don’t think the bond-vigilante trade will be alive very long
The bond market is flashing a warning over Iran. A veteran of energy geopolitics explains the risk
... A deal would have to be guaranteed by a trusted third party. There’s no trust at all between the U.S. and Tehran right now, because the bombs have been dropping every time they’ve sat down to negotiate. That’s where China comes in, and I’ll be interested to hear more details of what was said and agreed in Beijing [during Trump’s summit with Xi Jinping]. ...
You have got to be kidding me.
China is the primary beneficiary of the world's sanctioned oil.
Global oil will pick demand destruction and recession in order to save itself once visible supply falls closer to 6.8 billion barrels
Global oil stockpiles could hit record lows if Strait of Hormuz remains closed
... Inventories were near a decade high at just over 8 billion barrels at the end of February, Swiss bank UBS estimated in a Tuesday report. By end of April, stockpiles fell to 7.8 billion barrels, UBS analysts said.
Inventories will approach record lows of 7.6 billion barrels by end of May if demand remains the same month over month, the UBS analysts said. Inventories falling to that level would stress the supply chain, JPMorgan analysts said in an April 30 note.
Billions of barrels in inventory may sound like a lot but the reality is that only about 800 million barrels are available without straining the system, the JPMorgan analysts said. The rest is needed to keep pipelines and tanks filled at minimum levels so the supply chain operates efficiently, they said.
“Like blood pressure in the human body, the issue is circulation,” said Natasha Kaneva, JPMorgan’s head of global commodities strategy. “The system does not fail because oil disappears, it fails because the circulation network no longer has enough working volume.”
Oil inventories would fall to a critically low level of 6.8 billion barrels by September if Hormuz is still closed at that time, JPMorgan forecast. Product inventories would hit critical levels sooner in July or August, according to a forecast from Rapidan Energy.
The global economy would “seize up, with critical transportation infrastructure unable to source fuel at any price,” Rapidan analysts said in May 7 note.
But inventories are very unlikely to reach these critically low levels, the analysts said. Instead, oil and product prices will spike to curtail demand which will cause “a severe economic contraction.”
“That’s likely to happen before 3Q26,” the Rapidan analysts said.
Saturday, May 16, 2026
Democrat primary slugfest in Michigan for retiring US Senator Gary Peters' seat features three candidates unfamiliar to a third of Democrats, giving opportunistic Republican Mike Rogers another shot
... Each unofficially represents an ideological faction. El-Sayed is the Democratic Socialists’ candidate, backed by Senator Bernie Sanders and supportive of single-payer health care. McMorrow is the progressive populist, backed by Senator Elizabeth Warren and supportive of a public health insurance option. Stevens is the moderate, tacitly backed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and, while nominally supportive of a public option, doesn’t lean into it nor mention it on her website’s issues page.
And as I covered last week, the three are divided on Israel. El-Sayed would end all military aid to Israel (in fact, he “opposes directly funding foreign militaries” everywhere). McMorrow would stop selling Israel offensive weapons and has the support of the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” J Street PAC. Stevens defines herself as a “proud pro-Israel Democrat,” and is backed by AIPAC PAC.
... Moreover, every poll taken pegs at least one-third of the primary electorate as undecided. The Glengariff Group poll shows at least 40 percent of Democrats “never heard” of any of them (for McMorrow, it’s 60 percent), and that number is probably higher among the general electorate. The more they attack each other, the more voters will be introduced to them in the worst possible way. ...
More.
Stevens is the obvious choice of Michigan voters who are put off by the extremism of the Democratic left. She will complement Michigan's other moderate Senator Elissa Slotkin and help Democrats speak with one clear voice for sensible policies for Michigan workers.
Only just discovered on May 10th, Chelyabinsk-size 15-35 meter Asteroid 2026 JH2 will fly by on Monday at only 56,000 miles
May 10th!
Yes, out of nowhere, the Sweet Meteor of Death will someday blow us all away without (much) warning, but not today.
From the story here:
... Asteroid 2026 JH2 was initially observed by the Mount Lemmon Survey in Arizona, which uses a 60-inch telescope to detect near-Earth objects like comets and asteroids. ...
Kevin Warsh wasn't sworn in as Fed chair on Friday and Powell is still in charge because Warsh has so many assets to unload to meet ethics requirements he couldn't get 'em all done on time lol
So the bond vigilantes threw a party and sold off, spiking yields across the board 1.44% on the day, throwing down the gauntlet at Warsh, daring him to cut in the face of all the chaos Trump is causing.
The 20-year soared to 5.14%.
Yields are up 2.8% in the aggregate since the beginning of the month.
6% inflation is knocking on the door.
Inflation rate projected to hit 6% in the second quarter, top economic forecasters say
Friday, May 15, 2026
Speaking of corruption, Trump makes Biden & Co., Clinton & Co., et alia, look like pikers
Democrats blast Trump over ‘slush fund’ in possible IRS lawsuit settlement
... “This administration is dripping with corruption from top to bottom, but rushing a settlement to steal $1.7 billion taxpayer dollars for a slush fund before a judge can toss your junk lawsuit would be among the most corrupt acts in American political history,” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.
“This lawsuit has never been anything more than a shakedown of the American people by a crook president and his crook lawyers,” Wyden said.
Trump, his two eldest sons, and his family business sued the IRS and the Treasury Department in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida over the 2019 leak of the president’s tax returns. It was an unprecedented move that raised concerns about conflicts of interest at the time. ...
News of the potential settlement comes ahead of a May 20 deadline set by U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Williams, who asked the Justice Department and Trump’s legal team to explain whether the case with the president on both sides can even be heard by a federal court.
″(A)lthough President Trump avers that he is bringing this lawsuit in his personal capacity, he is the sitting president and his named adversaries are entities whose decisions are subject to his direction,” Williams wrote in a court filing in April.
“It is unclear to this Court whether the Parties are sufficiently adverse to each other so as to satisfy” the constitutional requirement that federal cases only adjudicate cases or controversies. ...
Trump cares as little for freedom in Taiwan as he does in Ukraine
Trump told Xi ‘I don’t talk about’ whether U.S. would defend Taiwan from China
Biden meanwhile publicly committed to the defense of Taiwan right out of the gate in 2021 after a U.S. freedom of navigation exercise in the South China Sea by the USS Theodore Roosevelt strike group in late January, and multiple times thereafter in 2021, 2022, and 2024.
Trump is truly disgraceful.
Barron's/AFP, Feb 5, 2021:
... The new US administration has said its commitment to Taiwan is "rock-solid," with officials in Washington signalling that they will not tolerate any expansionist moves by Beijing. ...
Hey, when does Starmer resign anyway?
... Britain’s government bonds have the highest yields in the G7. ...
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