Monday, September 14, 2026
Sunday, September 13, 2026
Middle East tanker transits Sep 6-12, 2026: Strait of Hormuz 2.0/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 9.6/day
WTI: $100.05
BRENT: $104.61
GASOLINE USA: $4.28
Joint Maritime Information Center Update 096 to JMIC Advisory Note
Friday, September 11, 2026
It turns out that election integrity is pretty important for consumer confidence
The November 2000 election didn't lead to the biggest percentage drop in consumer confidence on record, but it did mark the point after which we turned to make consistently lower percentage lows once again, beginning with 911, then Hurricane Katrina in late August 2005, the bailout debacle of October 2008 and the protracted unemployment from the Great Recession thereafter, and the pandemic shutdown of April 2020 and its inflationary aftermath.
Overall consumer prices in August 2026 are up 3.39% year over year, core up 2.44%
That's 78% worse than during Trump I, and 24% worse, respectively, mostly due to higher energy prices affecting overall prices this year but also due to tariffs which were worse last year than this year for core prices but remain an overall drag.
Not seasonally adjusted:
CPIAUCNS January - August 2026:
2.38, 2.41, 3.25, 3.81, 4.24, 3.53, 3.36, 3.39
Trump I CPIAUCNS average 1.90
2025 Average 2.63
2026 to date 3.29
CPILFENS January - August 2026:
2.50, 2.45, 2.59, 2.75, 2.85, 2.59, 2.47, 2.44
Trump I CPILFENS average 1.96
2025 average 2.83
2026 to date 2.58
Trump voters be like:
CNBC is all about how to trade the easy money, that's all
Inflation persisted in August, potentially locking in a Fed interest rate hike
... The report is the final major inflation indicator the Fed will see before it holds its policy meeting next week, concluding Wednesday with a vote on its key interest rate.
Traders responded to the numbers by ramping up bets that the Federal Open Market Committee will increase its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point. Odds for a hike jumped to nearly 90%, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tracker of fed funds futures prices. ...
Hassett is just another shady Trumpie giving off the appearance of impropriety
If it weren't for low standards, they'd have no standards at all.
Hassett kept up to $5 million Coinbase stake as Trump reshaped crypto policy
... “I think he’s got a major conflict of interest, or the appearance of one,” said Virginia Canter, chief counsel and director of ethics and anti-corruption at Democracy Defenders Fund. ... “Crypto was a major initiative of the Trump administration,” Canter said. “Did [Hassett] not review anything in crypto? Did he not participate in any meeting with the administration on policy? Did everyone know not to talk about crypto around him? I doubt it.” ...
Thursday, September 10, 2026
Middle East tanker transits Sep 2-9, 2026: Strait of Hormuz 1.5/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 13.0/day
Ah, an 8-day table instead of a 7-day.
Not gonna catch me dividing by a smaller number, no-sir-ee.
This JMIC Advisory Note leads off with no fewer than 8 ship incidents, 5 of which were U.S. CENTCOM disabling actions.
For the tanker table please go here:
Joint Maritime Information Center Update 095 JMIC Advisory Note 10 September
Meanwhile at this hour . . .
WTI $102.87
BRENT $108.16
USA GASOLINE $4.27
Overall wholesale prices in August 2026 are up 5.4% year over year, core up 4.62%
Not seasonally adjusted:
PPIFID January - August 2026:
3.07, 3.36, 4.28, 5.69, 5.91, 5.57, 4.84, 5.44
PPICOR January - August 2026:
3.71, 3.83, 3.94, 4.91, 4.49, 4.79, 4.25, 4.62
Trump I PPICOR average 1.88
2025 average 3.28
2026 to date 4.31
There is plenty of housing available, but year over year sales in August are up only on homes priced more than $1 million
New houses are selling at an annualized rate of 607,000 in July 2026, with 488,000 available in July and supply at 9.6 months.
Existing homes are selling at an annual rate of 3.98 million in August with 1.62 million available and supply at 4.9 months.
Highest supply in a decade for existing homes indicates sellers are asking too much.
You know what to do.
Home sales fall in August despite the highest supply in over a decade
... Sales of previously owned homes fell 2% in August from July to 3.98 million units on a seasonally adjusted, annualized basis, according to the National Association of Realtors.
... Housing supply totaled 1.62 million homes for sale at the end of August, up 3.2% from July and up 5.9% from the year before. At the current sales pace, that represents a 4.9-month supply — the highest level in over a decade, according to NAR.
Despite more supply, prices continue to rise. The median price of a home sold in august was $429,100, up 1.6% from August 2025. That is a new record high for the month of August.
... Homes are sitting on the market longer, averaging 31 days in August compared with 29 days in July. ...
C'mon man, the Fed has bought trillion$ in U.S. Treasury securities and can't keep yields down, how is the Treasury buying billion$ going to do anything?
This is nothing but another gimmick in a long line of gimmicks, brought to you by the unserious.
Serious governments attack high interest rate problems by cutting spending and raising taxes.
Neither American political party has had the courage to do those things in decades because Democrats demand endless spending to reduce endless poverty and Republicans demand endless tax cuts to stimulate endless lousy economic growth.
Bessent’s political turn in GOP speech tests his bond-market credibility
... His speech comes against the backdrop of the Treasury Department on Wednesday saying it would buy back as much as $6 billion in long-term Treasury debt this week, with a cap of at least $4 billion in operations later this year. The department began the buyback program in 2024 to solve a well-documented problem where trading can be thin for some long-term debt. ...
10Y yield at this hour is 4.92%.
20Y is 5.36%.
30Y is 5.351%.
And 2Y is at 4.514%, a 52-week high like the rest.
ECB playing catch up to reality, as always
ECB hikes interest rates to 2.5% as policymakers see risk of higher inflation, weaker growth
... Eurozone inflation hit 3.3% in August, with energy inflation spiking to 14.3%. ...
10Y yields at this hour:
Germany 3.4777%
France 4.382%
Expected inflation makes into the headline, not the not-expected inflation
Wholesale prices rose 0.4% in August, as expected
... On an annual basis, that put PPI at 5.4%, still well above the Fed’s 2% inflation target and 0.1 percentage point higher than expected. ...
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