CMR is the leading provider
of funding and management
support for small to
medium-sized businesses and
entrepreneurs
Established 1984 C MR
is the leading venture
capital, management
support and business
services provider for
small to medium-sized
businesses - linking
excellent management
skills with the
substantial financial
resources of a global bank
of private investors.
CMR has over 450 senior
executives, operating
in the UK, USA, Europe, Asia,
Australasia and
globally,
providing both funding and
specialist help for
entrepreneurial
businesses .
For Businesses
CMR provides excellent
resources:
CMR FundEX Business Exchange - gives all companies & entrepreneurs direct access to CMR's global investor base.
CMR Catalyst Group
Programme -
transform
profitability through
merging.
CMR Company Sales Division helps owners to exit
at the best price.
CMR Corporate Recovery
Division -
experts in rescue and
turnaround.
CMR Technology Licensing
Division -
commercialising
innovation.
CMR Executive
Professionals - management support
and consultancy.
CMR Executives-on-Demandâ„¢ Fully experienced
senior executives
available quickly and
cost effectively.
We always welcome
contact with new
business clients- please get in touch
- we will do our
best to match
your needs and exceed
your expectations.
For Investors
Preferential access to new opportunities for investment and/or acquisition
P re-vets
propositions and
provides a
personalised service
to our investors
Syndication service
enabling investors to
link together as desired
Executive and
management support for
investments as needed
CMR's services to
our investors are not
only fast & efficient
but also free
W e
always appreciate new
members- you are welcome
to join as an investor
or as a CMR Executive.
When you
join us as a Senior
Executive:
CMR's strength is in the
skills and experience of
our executive members -
all senior, director level
people with years of
successfully running and
managing companies.
Because the demand for
CMR's support and services
is ever-increasing,
especially as we enter
recessionary times, we
have a growing need for
more high calibre
executives to join us from
every industry and
discipline.
You will be using your
considerable experience to
help smaller businesses
and entrepreneurs to grow
profitably.
We offer full training
and mentoring support to
help maximise potential.
We are
always keen to find more
high calibre senior
executives in all areas-
skills and location.
Make contact with us today
and maximise your
opportunities.
HEAD
OFFICE
124 City Road
London EC1 2NX
Tel: +44 (0)207-636-1744
Fax:+44 (0)207-636-5639
Email: cmr@cmruk.com
Registered Office:
124 City Road ,
London EC1 2NX
Also Glasgow,
Dublin, Switzerland, Europe, USA/Canada
Privacy Statement: CMR only
retains personal details
supplied directly by executives
joining CMR themselves either as
Full Executive Members or
Interim Management Members or
Investors. Those details are
only used within CMR and not
disclosed to any third parties
without that person’s
agreement. We will keep that
data until requested by the
person to be removed – at that
point it will be deleted.
Personal data is never sold or
used for purposes outside of
CMR’s normal operations. Any
correspondence should be
directed to the Managing
Director, CMR,
Kemp House,
152-160 City Road, London EC1V
2N
Senior Executives
CMR is a worldwide network of senior executives. Join us to expand your career and business horizons.
Business Entrepreneurs
CMR has a complete range of resources & services provided by experts to help all businesses to grow and prosper.
Investors & Venturers
CMR has a continuous stream of business and funding propositions, which are matched to investor preferences. Join us - it's FREE!
FundEX
FundEX is CMR's worldwide stock market for small to medium sized companies and entrepreneurs to raise new capital.
Interim & Permanent Management
Many of CMR's executives can be recruited on an interim, permanent or NED basis.
Login
Main CMR Intranet members only
Regional Intranets
Fri, 11 Sep 2026 17:35:00 +0000 Anthropic Says Russian, Chinese Threat Actors Used Its AI Model Claude For Malicious Activity
Anthropic Says Russian, Chinese Threat Actors Used Its AI Model Claude For Malicious Activity
Anthropic Says Russian, Chinese Threat Actors Used Its AI Model Claude For Malicious Activity
Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times ,
Anthropic said on Sept. 10 that it had disrupted malicious campaigns involving the use of its artificial intelligence model Claude, including operations allegedly linked to threat actors in China and Russia.
The company said the threat actors include suspected state-sponsored groups, financially motivated criminals, commercial spyware vendors, state propaganda institutions, and politically motivated individuals.
According to its report, most of the cyber operations detected between December 2025 and August 2026 were enabled by AI through direct execution or orchestration. Humans remained involved in selecting targets and reviewing exfiltration, it stated.
"The use of AI went beyond simple questions and responses from a chatbot but rather involved the use of multi-agent frameworks executing reconnaissance, exploitation, and data exfiltration," Anthropic said.
Among the threat actors named by the company was a group linked to Russia-based Midnight Blizzard. Anthropic alleged that the group used AI to attack military intelligence targets in Ukraine and Europe, as well as diplomatic and defense organizations and individuals connected to U.S. foreign policy.
Anthropic said it also disrupted distillation attacks against Claude from seven labs based in China, including operators allegedly linked to Alibaba, DeepSeek, Xiaomi, and Moonshot.
The company defined distillation as "an industrial-scale, covert campaign" aimed at illegally extracting the capabilities of an AI model and replicating them in another model.
Operators linked to Alibaba, China's largest e-commerce platform, carried out the largest distillation attack to advance the reasoning capabilities of Alibaba's models, generating more than 151 million exchanges between May and July 2026, the report found. The activity peaked at nearly 3 million exchanges per day launched from over 3,500 accounts that Anthropic deemed fraudulent.
Anthropic also alleged that Chinese AI company Moonshot secretly forwarded customer requests to Claude and then displayed the resulting responses to users as if they were generated by its AI model Kimi.
In one instance, Moonshot allegedly routed nearly 300,000 customer requests to Anthropic's model over a 10-day period using a proxy service network of 5,380 fraudulent accounts, most of which appeared to be located in Singapore and Japan, according to the report.
"Our investigation also revealed that user queries that Moonshot rerouted to Claude included sensitive information about various Moonshot customers," Anthropic said.
"We do not know if Moonshot notified their customers that their requests were being rerouted to Anthropic and exposed to a third party."
The report also identified new categories of threat actors misusing Claude, including those who seek to develop "software for conventional weapons, including firearms, missiles, armed drones, bombs, and other munitions."
Anthropic said it disrupted a "guided weapons engineering cell" operating three weapons development programs in northern Yemen that used Claude "to develop the guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) software that steers and stabilizes a flying vehicle."
According to the report, the threat actors allegedly test-fired a guided rocket but failed, prompting them to seek guidance from Claude to identify the cause of the failure.
Among other newly categorized threat actors was a China-based threat actor that used Claude to advance three parallel projects on "an anti-torpedo weapons system."
Anthropic also identified alleged Russia-based freelance threat actors who sought to build a "full-stack autonomous first-person-view kamikaze drone swarm" and another Russia-based actor who used Claude to research and draft procurement documents for goods likely intended for the Russian government and defense industry customers.
The company said it would continue to strengthen its safeguards and work with partners to prevent misuse of its AI model.
"In each case, we disrupted the activity, used what we learned to strengthen our safeguards, and shared intelligence with authorities and industry partners, where appropriate,"
Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 13:35 Close Fri, 11 Sep 2026 16:53:00 +0000 US Officials Confirm Saudi East-West Pipeline Attacked By Drones, Badly Damaged
US Officials Confirm Saudi East-West Pipeline Attacked By Drones, Badly Damaged
US Officials Confirm Saudi East-West Pipeline Attacked By Drones, Badly Damaged
Summary
Saudi oil pipeline attacked: US officials confirmed strikes on Saudi pumping stations, with drones likely launch from Iraq.Houthis expand in Yemen: Houthi forces are gaining control along the Red Sea coast, threatening key shipping routes.Oil and diesel prices rising: Russia's damaged refining capacity & shipping disruptions are also tightening fuel markets.Stagflation risk grows: Higher energy and shipping costs could push inflation higher while weakening global economic growth.
Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by November 30? View full market & trade on Polymarket US Officials Confirm East-West Pipeline Was Attacked
Open source satellite imaging has shown the crucial 'Hormuz bypass' East-West oil pipeline that cuts straight across Saudi Arabia has been on fire. A some 80km to 100km giant smoke plume has been observed. The damaged section is said to be located near the town of Al Mesba'ah.
Amid speculation that this is probably the result of a major Houthi attack out of Yemen, CNN in a new Friday report cites two US officials who've given confirmation that the pipeline was struck by projectiles on Thursday . Iraq was named as possible attack origin point. According to the report :
An early analysis found that pump stations, which are located next to the pipeline itself, were hit , one of the US officials said. A satellite image taken Friday appears to show extensive fire damage at one pumping station, and an image of a different pumping station, taken Thursday, showed a small fire sending up plumes of thick, black smoke.
It could have been the result of a drone attack by paramilitaries operating out of Iraq . "It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the strikes or if sections of the pipeline itself were damaged but one of the officials said it was struck by drones originating from Iraq ," CNN reports. "It was also not immediately clear how long it would take to repair the damage, sources said."
On Sept. 10, via EUMETSAT/CNN News on Saudi oil has gone from worse to worse, as in Yemen the Houthis have reportedly taken over the entire Red Sea coastline. They have renewed the threats to attack all Saudi (as well as Israeli) shipping, but have also sought to assure transit is 'safe' for other international vessels.
Threats Rapidly Converge
Three converging threats to watch are intensifying pressure on global energy markets : damage to Russian refining capacity, ongoing disruption at Hormuz, and new, expanding Houthi threats to Red Sea shipping . The resulting physical market squeeze extends well beyond the Gulf area. Record-high diesel prices in the US and other markets, such as China's return to buying crude , raise the risk that oil markets will remain exceptionally tight into the Northern Hemisphere winter .
What we know so far is that the Russia-Ukraine war has knocked out a whole bunch of refining capacity and halted exports of critical fuels from Russia. The Gulf area has seen an escalation in fighting this week as the Hormuz chokepoint remains open with tanker transits but still limited and far from pre-war levels.
Couple this all with the chokepoint madness still being disrupted and new developments overnight: Iran-backed Houthi forces advanced toward a strategic port near the southern entrance to the Red Sea , threatening to tighten control on a second critical shipping corridor.
Houthis Take Yemen's Red Sea Coast
Bloomberg reported that Houthi rebels have gained ground around Mokha , with some geopolitical analysts reporting that the Yemeni port city has fallen.
Its fall would give the Houthis another coastal stronghold alongside Hodeida and the ability to control more of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, suggesting commercial traffic could begin to drop and transits would be rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope , increasing shipping time and freight costs.
Alternative Route: Cape of Good Hope
On top of this, China has returned to global oil markets , and ex-Goldman Commodities head Jeff Currie warned Thursday that this is the real driver of soaring crude prices .
Saudi Key East-West Pipeline on Fire
Also overnight, Saudi Arabia's East-West oil pipeline appears to have been struck by Houthi forces, which the pipeline served as an oil escape route, effectively bypassing the Hormuz chokepoint to the Red Sea.
Andrew Farrand, a political-risk analyst at Horizon Engage, described the rapid Houthi advance as a major setback for Saudi efforts in Yemen, warning that it could bring the Houthis closer to territory overlooking the waterway's narrowest section .
Simultaneous disruption of Bab el-Mandeb Strait and Strait of Hormuz creates a two-sided squeeze : less energy can leave the Gulf, while tankers that can move face longer, more expensive journeys. It also threatens Saudi Arabia's Red Sea terminal.
Beyond Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb, these are the main straits to watch :
Global Maritime Chokepoints
Where the routes narrow
What could interrupt commercial traffic
Stage Set for Stagflationary Squeeze?
The twin disruptions threaten shipping corridors that carried roughly a quarter of global seaborne oil trade through Hormuz and through Bab el-Mandeb, while jeopardizing a Red Sea shipping route central to trade between Asia and Europe and risking ignition of a stagflationary squeeze as diesel prices soar to new highs that eventually feed into supply chains, freight costs, and ultimately, at a lag, higher prices on store shelves.
Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 12:53 Close Fri, 11 Sep 2026 16:45:00 +0000 Now They Think Babies Can Be Racist...
Now They Think Babies Can Be Racist...
Now They Think Babies Can Be Racist...
Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News ,
A woman sat in front of a camera this week and told the internet she had witnessed a "racist baby"...
Not a joke account. Not a sketch. A straight-faced lecture about an infant who looked at someone for a few seconds - and, in her telling, revealed the original sin of race hatred barely out of the womb.
The woman declares that "watching children mirror racist behavior is WILD." She describes a baby staring at her 'friend of colour', the mother looking stricken, and then announces that the child is "literally mimicking" hostility toward "black and brown people."
She also flashes a 2012 Science Daily headline as if it were a conviction.
This is the new priesthood. A baby looks at a black person and the verdict is racism.
Anyone who has any experience at all with babies knows they stare. At glasses. At beards. At bald heads, bright coats, dogs, ceiling fans, and their own hands. They are cataloguing the world with amazement, not forming a manifesto.
The woman in the video treats curiosity as contamination. She reaches for a University of Massachusetts Amherst study from 2012 - "Infants begin to learn about race in the first year" - and reads it as proof that a pre-verbal child is already a bigot.
The paper does not say that. It found that by nine months, babies get better at recognising familiar-looking faces and worse at telling apart unfamiliar ones.
Psychologist Lisa Scott, an author of the work, said the results "suggest that biases in face recognition and perception begin in preverbal infants, well before concepts about race are formed."
Face recognition is not a worldview. A nine-month-old does not have a theory of systemic oppression.
This is not an isolated freak-out. It sits inside a wider epidemic of deranged white leftist women.
They police stares, invent motives for infants, and treat ordinary childhood as a moral emergency. These people staff HR departments, classrooms, nurseries and social-work offices. They write the guidance.
They decide which toddler is a "perpetrator." exporting their own neurosis onto the smallest most innocent people in the room.
The viral clip would be easier to laugh off if governments were not writing the same fantasy into official guidance.
In Wales, childcare workers have been trained under a taxpayer-funded programme - more than £1.3 million via the Welsh Government - to spot "racist incidents" among toddlers and, if staff decide the behaviour could amount to a hate crime, contact police.
The toolkit from Diversity and Anti-Racist Professional Learning (DARPL) at Cardiff Metropolitan University has been circulated to more than 300 nurseries, playgroups and childminders.
Staff are told to audit toys and books for "diversity," discuss skin colour with very young children, and rate their own grasp of "white privilege" on a one-to-five scale. If the incident falls short of a hate crime, workers are advised to offer "age-appropriate learning support opportunities for the perpetrator." If that is "met with resistance," a disciplinary route appears on a flowchart. The "perpetrator" may still be in nappies.
Lucy Marsh, communications officer at the Family Education Trust, asked "Do they want toddlers to have a criminal record?"
VIDEO
Kent Police went one better. A one-year-old girl was logged as a crime suspect after allegedly causing a minor injury to another toddler.
Freedom of Information figures showed 683 children under 10 reported for offences over three years - including six two-year-olds, 11 three-year-olds and 20 four-year-olds.
None can be prosecuted. The age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales is 10. Kent County Council cabinet member for children's services, Councillor Paul Webb, called the numbers "not great." Chief Superintendent Rob Marsh said the focus was "safeguarding rather than punishment." The record still exists. A baby is on a crime log.
The contempt is not limited to infants who look at people the wrong way. Wanting people to have children at all has been recast as an extremist project. Politico framed a natalism conference as proof that "the far right is so obsessed with making babies, they just held a whole conference about it."
Reporter Gaby Del Valle treated collapsing fertility as a punchline and smeared those who notice it as plotters of "a total social overhaul."
Meanwhile the CDC recorded a U.S. fertility rate of 1.6 in 2023 against a replacement level of 2.1. A Lancet study put the global rate at 2.23 and warned the world's population will start to fall within decades. Co-author Dr Natalia Bhattacharjee said declining fertility "will completely reconfigure the global economy and the international balance of power." That is biology, not a rally chant.
So the sequence is complete. Have children and you are suspect. The children themselves are suspect. A glance is evidence. A nursery becomes a reporting desk. The state writes "racist" next to a toddler and calls it safeguarding.
A baby is not a political actor. It does not owe a land acknowledgement between feeds. It does not need Critical Cradle Theory. It needs parents who are attached to reality and institutions that stop treating childhood as a crime scene.
Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 12:45 Close Fri, 11 Sep 2026 16:25:00 +0000 DeepSeek's New Hyper-Efficient Model Stokes Fears Over Korea's Memory Makers
DeepSeek's New Hyper-Efficient Model Stokes Fears Over Korea's Memory Makers
DeepSeek's New Hyper-Efficient Model Stokes Fears Over Korea's Memory Makers
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix each fell more than 3% in Seoul on Friday after DeepSeek said its newest AI model needs a fraction of the memory required by its predecessor. Both stocks had been trying to recover from July's selloff and remain more than 25% below their highs. Local retail traders, who helped drive the rally earlier this year, have sold around $10 billion of the pair this month alone.
The trigger came Thursday out of Hangzhou. DeepSeek's V4.1-Flash is fast, cheap and, by the company's own numbers, stronger than its flagship model. But the title of DeepSeek's paper had nothing to do with intelligence benchmarks. It called the release "Pushing the Limits of KV Cache Compression ," and its abstract identifies memory consumption during long AI sessions as the main obstacle to making these models cheaper to run.
What DeepSeek Shipped
V4.1-Flash is a 552-billion-parameter model (parameters are the numerical values a model learns during training). DeepSeek does not activate all 552 billion for every word. It uses 8 billion parameters while processing input and 16 billion while generating output , a design that lowers the amount of computing needed for each step.
The model can handle a context window of one million tokens , meaning roughly a million small pieces of text or other input can remain available to it during a session. It also reads images natively, and its model weights are available under an MIT license, allowing anyone with sufficient hardware to run it. Nine providers were serving it through OpenRouter within a day of release.
The memory problem needs a little more explanation. As an AI model works through a long document, conversation or agent task, it keeps a running record of what it has already processed so it does not have to recalculate everything from scratch each time it generates another token. That record is called the key-value cache, or KV cache.
The cache is normally stored in high-bandwidth memory, or HBM. HBM consists of stacks of DRAM placed next to the processor to move data extremely quickly. It is among the fastest and most expensive memory in production, and booming AI demand for it helped turn SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron into some of the biggest semiconductor trades of 2026. As an AI session gets longer, however, the cache keeps growing . In long-running agent workloads, the memory needed for the cache can eventually exceed the memory occupied by the model itself.
DeepSeek has attacked that problem directly. Its new architecture reuses cached information across layers of the network, stores the cache at 4-bit precision and reconstructs part of it when needed rather than storing the entire record. The result, according to DeepSeek, is 890 bytes of cache per token, one-quarter of what the previous Flash model kept in HBM and one-eighth of what it wrote to SSD storage.
DeepSeek's post on X gave the commercial reason plainly. Cached input can account for a large share of the cost of running an AI agent. Shrink the cache, and the bill falls with it.
Memory Per Token, Down 437-Fold
The figure in DeepSeek's paper that matters most for Seoul is the second one. It tracks the amount of cache memory required for every token across successive generations of DeepSeek models. From the company's first release in January 2024 to V4.1-Flash, that figure has fallen 437-fold .
KV cache per token, indexed to the V4 predecessor at full context. Chained from DeepSeek's stated ratios; V4.1-Flash's persistent SSD cache falls further, to one-eighth of V4-Flash. Source: DeepSeek model card; Wccftech. The decline did not begin this week. April's V4 had already cut KV-cache requirements to one-tenth of its predecessor at the full context window . September's model reduced them by another three-quarters. DeepSeek describes V4.1-Flash as the smallest member of a new architecture family designed to scale to larger models.
On the other side of that chart are the growth assumptions embedded in the memory trade. Micron says its entire calendar 2026 HBM supply is already contracted on both price and volume. In December, the company told investors the HBM market could grow from about $35 billion in 2025 to roughly $100 billion in 2028. By June it had moved the $100 billion estimate forward to 2027 .
Micron reports earnings on September 30 and has guided the quarter to roughly $50 billion in revenue, about 350% above the year-earlier period, with an 86% gross margin.
How much premium memory each unit of AI work requires is the whole point.
Out With The 'Old'
This seems a little risky, but beginning September 14, DeepSeek will route every request for V4-Pro, its 1.6-trillion-parameter flagship, to V4.1-Flash and charge the lower Flash rate until a V4.1-Pro arrives. No date has been given for the larger model.
DeepSeek says the smaller model now beats V4-Pro on performance, cost, speed and the time required to complete a task. Model size alone is becoming a worse guide to how much computing and memory a useful AI system will consume.
Against the leading American models, V4.1-Flash fits the pattern that has held for much of this year. On DeepSeek's own benchmark tables , it narrowly beats the best reported score from Claude Opus 5 or GPT-5.6 Sol on Terminal-Bench 2.1, DeepSWE, CyberGym and Humanity's Last Exam when tools are allowed.
On newer and harder tests, however, the American frontier remains well ahead. V4.1-Flash scores 30.0 against Opus's 43.3 on Terminal-Bench 3.0, 31.2 against 51.8 on version 4.0, 20.3 against 37.0 on ProgramBench, and 15.3 against GPT-5.6 Sol's 33.7 on ExploitGym. The results have not been independently verified .
DeepSeek's open model is clearing benchmarks that defined the frontier last year at a fraction of the price, while the American frontier keeps moving to harder tests. It is the same pattern seen with V4-Flash earlier this year.
86x Cheaper!?
According to X user NIK (@ns123abc), V4.1-Flash is 86 times cheaper than the American flagships . This is because AI providers charge separately for input tokens, the material sent into the model; output tokens, the material the model generates; and cached input, previously processed material that can be reused without running the full computation again.
At peak hours, V4.1-Flash costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens , with prices cut in half during off-peak hours. Anthropic charges $5 and $25 for Claude Opus 5. On output, that makes DeepSeek roughly 20 times cheaper at peak and about 40 times cheaper off-peak.
The 86-fold figure comes from cached input. Anthropic charges 50 cents per million cached tokens, while DeepSeek charges six-tenths of a cent. Cached input is precisely the cost DeepSeek's new memory architecture was built to reduce.
Peak-hour list prices per million tokens, log scale. The 83x on cached input is what the listed rates give; the 86x circulating on X is that post's own math. Source: VentureBeat; Dataconomy. Meanwhile, DeepSeek raised its prices only a month ago. On August 16 it moved V4-Flash from flat rates of $0.14 for input and $0.28 for output to peak rates of $0.44 and $1.32 . Thursday's release brought those prices back down, although not to July's levels, while giving V4-Pro customers a reduction of roughly 70%.
V4-Flash list prices at launch, after the August 16 hike, and at Thursday's V4.1-Flash release. Off-peak rates are half of peak. Source: TechJack Solutions; VentureBeat. The timing also comes as DeepSeek moves toward the public markets. On Wednesday, Reuters reported that the company had hired CITIC Securities to prepare for a Shanghai listing. That followed a June financing round of about $7.4 billion involving investors including Tencent and CATL, along with reports of another potential round at a valuation near 500 billion yuan.
July Was Supply, September Is Demand
The July selloff in Korean memory stocks centered on supply. SK Hynix signaled a major increase in spending , while Chinese memory manufacturers continued ramping cheaper output .
Friday's scare came from the other side of the market: each unit of AI activity needing fewer memory chips.
Micron and SanDisk, which held up overnight, were rising in Friday's premarket after Oracle's cloud results. The Korean names, where leverage and local retail participation are greater, took the immediate hit.
Moves of 5% or more in a single day remain common for both Samsung and SK Hynix. Bloomberg notes that volatility remains near levels last seen during the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid shock. The shares also look inexpensive on conventional measures. Samsung trades at about 2.7 times book value and Hynix at 5 times, compared with roughly 11 times for the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index. Both Korean companies trade near 4 times forward earnings, versus 19 times for the index.
Within hours, Fibonacci Asset Management's Jung In Yun said cheaper AI could drive more usage and offset the efficiency gains. Eugene Asset Management's Ha SeokKeun called the issue a near-term concern.
When Seoul reopened after the Lunar New Year on January 31 last year, eleven days after DeepSeek's R1 release, SK Hynix fell as much as 12% in a day and Samsung dropped 4%. Investors initially feared that more efficient models would weaken demand for AI hardware. Instead, AI spending kept climbing, and the argument that lower costs stimulate greater usage won the year that followed.
R1 challenged the amount of computing required to produce useful AI. V4.1-Flash is attacking the amount of memory required for every token, and DeepSeek has published a chart, running back to January 2024, showing that requirement falling by more than 400-fold. The company also says the same architecture is intended for larger models.
Export Controls And Huawei's Own HBM
Since December 2024, U.S. export controls have barred sales of advanced HBM to China, making access to fast memory one of the hardware constraints on Chinese AI developers.
Huawei has been working on a domestic alternative. Its Ascend 950DT uses Huawei-made HiZQ 2.0 memory, with 144 gigabytes of capacity and bandwidth of 4 terabytes per second. That remains well behind the HBM SK Hynix supplies for Nvidia's leading accelerators.
DeepSeek's V4 in April was the first frontier model validated on Huawei Ascend hardware alongside Nvidia chips. The company also has a reported order for 160,000 Ascend 950DT processors for a gigawatt-scale data center in Ulanqab.
So - a model that needs one-quarter as much memory per token can be deployed more broadly on hardware that has less memory to offer. The V4.1-Flash model card does not identify the hardware used to train the model.
DeepSeek has not announced a date for the larger member of the V4.1 family. Micron reports on September 30.
Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 12:25 Close Fri, 11 Sep 2026 16:10:00 +0000 Trump Says He Wouldn't Have Bombed Nuke-Armed Iran
Trump Says He Wouldn't Have Bombed Nuke-Armed Iran
Trump Says He Wouldn't Have Bombed Nuke-Armed Iran
Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com
President Trump said at the Republican National Midterm Convention in Dallas, Texas, on Wednesday night that if Iran had a nuclear weapon, he would have politely called up the Supreme Leader instead of "bombing the crap" out of the country .
"If they had a nuclear weapon, I’d be calling the Supreme Leader, and I’d be saying, ‘Mr. Supreme Leader, how are you, sir? Is there anything we can do for you?’ as opposed to bombing the crap out of him ." Trump said, evoking cheers from the crowd.
"It’s very simple. We cannot let them have a nuclear weapon," the president added.
While Trump has continued to frame his war with Iran as necessary to prevent the country from obtaining nuclear weapons, there was no evidence either before the June 2025 war or the current conflict that Tehran had decided to pursue a bomb, and that was the consensus of US intelligence agencies at the beginning of Trump’s second term.
"We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003 , though pressure has probably built on him to do so ," read the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s annual threat assessment that was published in March 2025 and represented the assessment of the entire US intelligence community .
Trump also spent the months following the June 2025 war, known as the 12-Day War, boasting that the US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities had "obliterated" its nuclear program.
During negotiations with the US before both wars, Iran made clear it was willing to reduce uranium enrichment back down to 3.67%, the level it agreed to under the 2015 nuclear deal, far below the 90% needed for weapons-grade.
But as Joe Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center who resigned due to opposition to the Iran war, has pointed out, the administration adopted the Israeli position, conflating any nuclear enrichment for civilian energy purposes with a desire for a nuclear bomb .
Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 12:10 Close Fri, 11 Sep 2026 15:52:00 +0000 Mideast Chaos Sends Supertanker Rates Soaring To Near Record $1 Million A Day
Mideast Chaos Sends Supertanker Rates Soaring To Near Record $1 Million A Day
Summary:
Gulf Tanker Rates Hyperinflate A day later: Mideast Chaos Sends Supertanke
Read more.....
Mideast Chaos Sends Supertanker Rates Soaring To Near Record $1 Million A Day
Summary:
Gulf Tanker Rates Hyperinflate A day later: Mideast Chaos Sends Supertanker Rates Soaring To Nearly $1 Million A Day Mideast Chaos Sends Supertanker Rates Soaring To $800,000 A Day Supertanker rates on the Baltic Exchange's benchmark Middle East-to-China shipping route have jumped to nearly $1 million a day.
The jump in tanker rates comes as the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the southern Red Sea falls further under the control of Iran-backed Houthi rebels, while the Strait of Hormuz remains highly contested, an indication that two critical maritime chokepoints are under severe threat.
The squeeze on shipping costs extends beyond the Persian Gulf area, with VLCCs traveling from Oman to China costing $571,000 a day, even though Oman’s ports sit outside Hormuz. That is roughly 10 times last year’s average.
For buyers seeking alternative supplies in the Gulf of America, shipping crude from the US Gulf to China now adds about $18 a barrel.
The windfall for shipowners is becoming a cost shock for the wider energy market.
The Breakwave Tanker Shipping ETF (BWET), which gives investors exposure to the cost of transporting crude oil by sea through tanker freight futures, has had an impressive run so far this year:
With inventories falling and buyers competing for supplies, freight is threatening to become another bottleneck, keeping available barrels from reaching the markets that need them.
Mideast Chaos Sends Supertanker Rates Soaring To $800,000 A Day
Supertanker rates on the Baltic Exchange's benchmark Middle East-to-China shipping route have surged to a staggering $800,000 a day . With US forces having destroyed five Iranian-linked tankers and Tehran threatening further escalation in recent days, prospects for near-term stabilization remain limited.
The freight surge signals that crude oil and refined products continue to flow but are becoming increasingly costly to transport out of the Gulf region to global markets.
According to Bloomberg , US Gulf-to-Asia shipments on very large crude carriers average about $29.5 million per voyage , equivalent to $15 a barrel before any additional war-risk charges or unexpected delays.
Kpler expects VLCC earnings to remain above $100,000 a day into early next year , compared with historical levels that exceeded $45,000. Morgan Stanley analysts point out that two-year leasing rates could surge another 20% to 30%.
Manu Sehgal, vice president of strategy and feedstock supply at Indian refiner HPCL-Mittal Energy, told Bloomberg that "crude volume is there. What's hampering it is the transit; what's hampering it is the shipping ."
A fleet of tankers conducting ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman is helping keep barrels flowing through the Hormuz chokepoint. Vitol's CEO estimated earlier this week that roughly 10 million barrels a day were crossing the waterway , while Goldman analysts put that figure at around 15 million .
The Baltic Exchange's new Gulf of Oman-to-East Asia benchmark has surged 85% since inception, reaching almost $386,000 a day this week .
This means surging tanker rates add another layer of inflation pressure for global central banks . Those costs can filter through to gasoline, diesel, freight, and ultimately consumer goods on store shelves.
Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 11:52 Close Fri, 11 Sep 2026 15:40:00 +0000 Piper Sandler Sounds Alarm: Shrinking Oil Buffers To Collide With Winter Demand
Piper Sandler Sounds Alarm: Shrinking Oil Buffers To Collide With Winter Demand
Piper Sandler global energy strategist Jan Stuart wrote in a note on Friday that the physical oil market is flashing major warning signs, including dis
Read more.....
Piper Sandler Sounds Alarm: Shrinking Oil Buffers To Collide With Winter Demand
Piper Sandler global energy strategist Jan Stuart wrote in a note on Friday that the physical oil market is flashing major warning signs, including disrupted exports, depleted inventories, and an ongoing diesel shortage crisis, all converging ahead of stronger fourth-quarter demand .
Saudi Arabia's export squeeze is becoming a major problem. The kingdom's crude shipments remain halved as Iran-backed Houthis begin to dent Red Sea loadings while Persian Gulf shipments remain depressed. Houthis overnight seized Mokha in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, suggesting commercial traffic could begin to drop .
Some crude crosses Hormuz through "dark" tanker passages along the Omani channel. But the partial recovery has not restored regional exports: Middle Eastern crude loadings averaged 13.3 million barrels a day in the week through Sept. 9, with Stuart warning that the shortfall is roughly 5 million to 6 million barrels a day.
Stuart added more color on the current state of the Gulf energy market:
The Flowing Oil Data Digest Dire Straits, Choking Oil Exports Through Two of Three Mideast Waterways
Sure this is "not a war" but the oil market is rallying like it is: Futures gained ~$10/b on the week (so far); structure is exploding; physical markets in Asia are leading - and are most dependent on Mideast exports. And, adding insult to economic injury, surging crude oil values are barely compressing diesel margins.
Seems to us that oil markets began to price several deep problems:
A) there are no easy, quick resolutions to the war in the Mideast or the one in Ukraine.
B) tellingly, Washington hasn't claimed an "imminent deal" in weeks - ask us for color from conversations with DC insiders at our 12th Annual Piper Sandler Macro Conference.
C) physical market behavior underscores that there are real supply deficits of crude oil, 3-4 mb/d, and traded diesel supply remains short too.
In vogue suddenly are Saudi troubles the Houthis have curtailed Red Sea crude oil loadings, while its Persian Gulf loadings remain moribund. Aggregate KSA crude oil exports have averaged barely 3 mb/d (less than half of 'normal') since late July. This week, Houthi attacks and military advances threaten a longer lasting choke-hold. Absolutely fascinating is that reportedly Pres Trump twice declined to assist MbS who, again reportedly, asked for him to bomb the Houthis.
Lastly, sentiment is turning on Q2 demand' destruction' that in fact that was more 'suppression' (i.e. it comes back again) and inventory depletion (i.e. unsustainable). Inside: market signals and loadings data.
2026 Brent: Spot Brent v Dubai pulling away
Shape of the Brent Futures Curve (month 1-6)
MARKET SIGNALS AND DATA TO WATCH – MIDEAST LOADINGS AND DIESEL SCARCITY Things are tightening up in a hurry, as we approach peak seasonal demand in Q4 with far less inventory
Asia's refiners scramble to fill Q4 schedules …
Much is made of "China buying again" we don't know if it is, but it strikes us that given historic diesel margins, every refiner that can run crude oil is buying to run At the margin, that means that even simple, hugely cost disadvantaged refiners will want more crude oil.And the easy to get at oil released during the MoU phase of the war on Iran - some 200-300 mbs worth - has been digested, nor is there nearly as much inventory left to draw on. Despite sustained relatively high crude oil exports through the SoH - or about 9 mb/d, total Mideast exports remain some 5 mb/d below normal judging from the latest daily loadings data, see p. 2.
China's crude oil buying may have picked up, it was way too low (down >4mb/d to 7 mb/d). We model imports of 10 mb/d in Q4 We think and model that China did not suppress its final oil product demand by that much and instead drew some 250+ mbs from its vast inventories. In an open-ended supply disruption no one (China included) can keep drawing down inventories. Indicative Margins: ~2x normal on global supply shock diesel, rbob and the gross 3:2:1 margin v dated brent
Strength (=backwardation) in Key Crude Oil Markets (Futures contracts 2-7, $/b)
China's Crude Oil Inventory: Volume & import cover
WHAT FLOWS: MIDEAST OIL LOADINGS & TRANSITS, IMPLIED DEFICITS OF ~5 MB/D
For the record, since July 15th overt SoH crossings have been sharply reduced; but there is a more or less steady flow of dark passages through the Omani channel
Mideast crude oil loadings averaged 13.3 mb/d (7 days ending September 9th). That's a post-MoU record. But traffic in the SoH is still far from normal And Saudi Red Sea flows remain below wartime par… We compile tanker loadings (Petro-Logistics ) and monitor refiner utilization (OilX et al ).
Mideast crude oil loadings are running about 6 mb/d below normal with SoH gains offset by Red Sea declinesThe market seems to have finally woken up about Red Sea issues - these involve the UAE, Oman and Saudi's Red Sea terminals. Latest: outside Hormuz is down ~3 mb/d from peakAdd to that a deficit of some ~2-3 mb/d of NGLs and add to that deficit our guesstimate of some 3 mb/d of the roughly 5 mb/d of clean products that were exported from the Mideast and that will not run normally for a while yet … Redirecting of flow through new-/expanded-pipes will take anywhere from 1-2 yrs (UAE & Saudi) to from 3+ yrs to never
Mideast loadings rise to 13.3 mb/d Based on daily tracking
Mideast Port Loading Deltas of Crude Oil + Cond.
To sum up, the partial recovery in Hormuz flows has not resolved the physical supply deficit, while new pressure on Red Sea exports is derailing the critical alternative route. With inventories depleted and fourth-quarter demand approaching, the market has less capacity to absorb further disruption, leaving crude and diesel prices vulnerable to even higher prices.
Professional subscribers can track energy market trends here at our new Marketdesk.ai portal.
Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 11:40 Close Fri, 11 Sep 2026 15:30:00 +0000 Rate-Hike Odds Soar Despite Lowest Core Consumer Price Inflation Since 2021
Rate-Hike Odds Soar Despite Lowest Core Consumer Price Inflation Since 2021
Rate-Hike Odds Soar Despite Lowest Core Consumer Price Inflation Since 2021
Following fuel-driven jump in Producer Prices , consensus was for a concomitant jump MoM in Consumer prices this morning, after last month's decline as energy prices have rebounded (though we warned that amid all the interventionist-y chatter, nothing would surprise us less than 'cool' print to offset the PPI scare).
And analysts were right with headline CPI biggest MoM since May - but prices rose 3.5% YoY (in line with expectations and flat to the prir month)...
Core Services accelerated...
...BUT Fuel prices dominated the rise in headline CPI...
Headline CPI rose 0.4% MoM in August, after rising 0.1% in July. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 3.4%.
The index for energy increased 2.1 percent over the month: The index for gasoline rose 3.9% in August, accounting for over one third of the monthly all items increase.
The shelter index rose 0.3 percent in August after rising 0.1 percent in July.
The index for food increased 0.1 percent over the month, as the index for food away from home increased 0.3 percent.
Just like we saw yesterday with PPI, the rebound in crude (and refined product) prices snapped CPI's Energy component notably higher...
Core CPI YoY basis it decline from 2.5% to 2.4% - the lowest since March 2021...
Core CPI rose 0.3% after increasing 0.2% in July. Core CPI rose 2.4% over the year, following a 2.5% increase over the 12 months ending July.
Indexes that increased over the month include communication, lodging away from home, airline fares, education, and used cars and trucks.
Conversely, the index for medical care and the index for motor vehicle insurance were among the major indexes that decreased in August.
MoM Core CPI (0.3%) Details
The shelter index increased 0.3% over the month after rising 0.1% in July.
The index for owners’ equivalent rent rose 0.2% in August as did the index for rent.
The lodging away from home index rose 2.4% in August after falling 2.8 percent the previous month.
The index for communication increased 2.3% over the month after rising 0.6% in July.
The airline fares index rose 2.7% in August, and the education index increased 0.8%.
The index for used cars and trucks increased 0.4% in August, and the index for new vehicles rose 0.3%
The personal care index and the household furnishings and operations index also increased over the month.
The medical care index decreased 0.2 percent in August after rising 0.4 percent in July.
The index for dental services fell 0.6 percent over the month.
The hospital services index, physicians’ services index, and prescription drugs index were all unchanged in August.
The motor vehicle insurance index declined 0.8 percent in August after falling 0.3 percent in July.
The index for apparel was unchanged in August as was the index for recreation.
YoY Core CPI (2.4%) Details
The shelter index increased 3.0 percent over the last year.
Other indexes with notable increases over the last year include airline fares (+23.4 percent), recreation (+2.7 percent), medical care (+1.6 percent), and personal care (+3.8 percent).
Shelter dropped...
Shelter Inflation rose 0.26% MoM, and up 2.75% YoY, down from 2.86% YoY in July and the lowest since March
Rent inflation rose 0.23% MoM, same as July, and up 3.04% YoY, down from 3.18% in July and the lowest since March
The much-watched SuperCore CPI
...with a big spike in Education & Comms costs...
Driven by a record jump in Telephone Services...
Which was all Wireless Telephone price hikes
Here's JPMorgan with an explainer:
Education and communication goods: This category posted a near-record 1.3% rise in July, led by computer prices, as Apple repriced its Mac and iPad products .
Memory prices should continue to put upward pressure on computers and phones, which sometimes takes the form of new features being combined with price increases.
One more thing...
Bloomberg's Simon White notes that the fastest-changing input in the CPI report betrays signs that AI spending is leaking into consumer prices via the information and information processing sector.
The chart below shows the change in each CPI component’s contribution (based on its weight in the basket) to the year-on-year headline number between July and August.
The information processing sector is contributing only 0.03 percentage points to the headline rate of 3.4% at the moment, but this has risen faster than any other sector.
It includes IT hardware, where prices are starting to rise for semiconductor and memory chips, as data centers are massively fueling demand.
Apple recently announced a rise in the price of its iPhone.
If the impact from data-center spend continues, then it’s clearly an upside risk for CPI, but it should be borne in mind along with leading indicators for inflation, which are rolling over and anticipate a more subdued backdrop for price pressures over the next few months.
As an aside, real average hourly earnings growth was negative for the 5th month in a row (is it any wonder consumer confidence is low)...
On the bright-side, we are decoupling from the 19070s CPI analog...
Understandably, a lower CPI print is better for markets, and JPM's market scenario analysis affirms that:
Core MoM prints above 0.30%. SPX declines 1.5% – 2.5%; Odds 10.0%
Core MoM prints between 0.25% – 0.30%. SPX declines 25bp – 1%, Odds 25.0%
Core MoM prints between 0.20% – 0.25%. SPX gains 50bp – 1.25%, Odds 30.0%
Core MoM prints between 0.15% – 0.20%. SPX gains 1% – 1.5%, Odds 25.0%
Core MoM prints below 0.15%. SPX gains 1.5% – 2%, Odds 10.0%
For now, rate-hike odds soared to over 90%, almost certain pricing for a 25bps move higher by Warsh and his pals next week...
Rate-change expectations for 2026 has swung wildly this year from over 60bps of cuts in Feb to now 47bps of hikes (the highest of the cycle)...
Wall Street is now convinced Warsh is cornered...
Top Goldman short-term macro trader, Brian Bingham, noted that:
“The Fed is now in the most paradoxical of all positions, beholden to a single data print and potentially reactive to the rounding on the ECO screen…
Warsh told the market in his first press conference that he didn’t want to focus on the number to the right of the decimal point, but now it’s the number to the right of that one that will be the determinant. Waller’s speech on Thursday was surprisingly and overtly dovish, confirming our view that the Board skews heavily if not unanimously dovish relative to the regional presidents, but offered little new information beyond implicitly confirming a 30bp core CPI will merit a hike.
The market appears to be penciling the over/under at 25, but we struggle to see a meaningful rally on an in-line 20bp core print following this week’s jobs report ; in a world where the meeting goes in pricing greater than 50% chance of a hike, the risk of the bond market interpreting a hold as a policy error seem far greater than the harm of hiking into above-target inflation. ”
UBS FX team noted a somewhat muted reaction in currencies (dollar spiked then slipped lower)...
Warsh painted himself in a corner here . Well, we've gotten the hard language tough guy speech at Jackson Hole.
His remarks were prepared and his messaging was intentional.
Now, we've gotten the data - labor market print more robust, inflation still supported.
September FOMC pricing goes to just under 23bp immediately, so the market is pretty much fully expecting a hike to come.
At this point, it would be a massive blow to credibility if they fumble the football on following through with the adjustment, but the market seems to have been correct to lean into this data with a long USD gamma bias.
Interestingly, the yield curve is flattening rapidly (Fed credibility at the long-end? locked in hike will slow growth?)...
So while the world and his pet rabbit was watching for 0.2% or 0.3% - knowing energy would be a driver - it turns out it was cellphone carriers hiking prices that had forced Warsh into a corner.
The jawboning is over... it's shit or get off the pot time for Kevin (every new Fed head is tested early on by the markets).
Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 11:30 Close Fri, 11 Sep 2026 15:00:00 +0000 Dies-aster: California Diesel Nears $10 A Gallon As Global Fuel Crisis Deepens
Dies-aster: California Diesel Nears $10 A Gallon As Global Fuel Crisis Deepens
New AAA data show US diesel prices reached a record $6.05 a gallon , signaling Read more.....
Dies-aster: California Diesel Nears $10 A Gallon As Global Fuel Crisis Deepens
New AAA data show US diesel prices reached a record $6.05 a gallon , signaling severe tightening in global refined-fuel markets .
The squeeze reflects converging pressures : damage to Russian refinery capacity and diesel export halts linked to the Russia-Ukraine war, ongoing disruption at Hormuz, expanding threats to Red Sea shipping, and renewed Chinese buying. Together, these developments threaten both fuel availability and the shipping routes needed to deliver supplies, with conditions appearing to worsen ahead of the Northern Hemisphere winter.
Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, wrote on X that five gas stations in California have maxed out their diesel prices at $9.999 a gallon.
The inflation risk extends well beyond gas stations. Diesel powers the industrial economy , and soaring prices risk creating a stagflationary squeeze. Diesel powers trucking, freight rail, farm machinery and construction equipment, so its cost spreads across the economy in many forms, from higher grocery bills to squeezed business margins to even weaker consumer spending.
The latest retail diesel price spike follows a renewed surge in crude, with Brent reaching nearly $110 a barrel overnight before falling to $104 after an IEA report warned about potential demand destruction for industrial fuels .
S&P Global Energy warned Thursday that it does not forecast Middle East crude production to return to prewar levels by the end of 2027.
Citi analysts warned Friday that soaring commodity costs and diesel prices will weigh on many of the companies in their coverage universe through the first half of next year:
In 2025, commodity costs were mildly inflationary except for select inputs such as coffee, gas, and tallow which up meaningful +DD%. However, in 2026, commodity inflation has reaccelerated with acute pressure on direct and indirect energy-based products driven by the geopolitical conflict in the Middle East including oil, resins, and diesel/freight costs. Additionally, prices for commodities impacted by tariffs and the global trade dynamics have also increased in 2026 including in aluminum and steel. Many of our companies have highlighted these input cost headwinds, which are pressuring margins this year and which we suspect will remain headwinds into at least 1H'27.
The question becomes whether the fuel price shock can push inflation higher while slowing economic growth, creating a stagflationary squeeze .
Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 11:00 Close Fri, 11 Sep 2026 14:40:00 +0000 Democracy, As Scheduled
Democracy, As Scheduled
By Molly Schwartz, cross-asset macro strategist at Rabobank
After breaking above $100/bbl on Wednesday, the rally in Brent crude oil continued yesterday, climbing almost 7% on the day and clo
Read more.....
Democracy, As Scheduled
By Molly Schwartz, cross-asset macro strategist at Rabobank
After breaking above $100/bbl on Wednesday, the rally in Brent crude oil continued yesterday, climbing almost 7% on the day and closing at $108/bbl, the highest price since May. US Treasury yields followed with a sharp bull-flattening, with the 2-year marking its highest level since July 2024 at 4.58%, and the 10-year making its way up to 4.96%—the highest level since October 2023. Meanwhile, US 30-year Treasury yields jumped 7.3bp to 5.36%, the highest level since 2002 and 2-year inflation expectations soared to 2.6%, their highest level since June and more than 0.71ppt above the July lows.
As the US midterm elections approach, many are anxiously trying to gauge whether GOP will be able to retain control of both houses of Congress. As mentioned in yesterday’s installment, one strategy the Trump administration is trying to use to ensure a victory is the promise of a $5,000 “Trump dividend” issued to every American adult if, and only if, Republicans win both houses. Logistics remain unclear as to how the dividends would be funded or issued, especially given Trump’s “condition” that they could only be spent in America, with Trump saying that “we don’t want you going to Canada to spend the money. We don’t want you going to China, to Germany.” Of course, money is fungible, and a $5,000 “America coupon” allows Americans to spend $5,000 elsewhere, especially on their favorite shiny imports. However, regardless if the midterms mark a turning point in the Trump Administration or not, it is possible that they will at least mark an inflection point in the war overseas.
Brent crude oil prices are stretched in part due to the continued hostilities in the Middle East, but American voters generally care more about gasoline prices than military intervention on the other side of the world, and with gasoline prices headed higher and equity prices headed lower, it doesn’t look good for the GOP. This past Tuesday, Trump “truthed” that “Oil prices will drop precipitously, like everything else is dropped, when we WIN the war with Iran. Three Dollars a gallon, but ultimately, below Two Dollars a gallon. It will all happen quickly, and Iran will never have a Nuclear Weapon. MAGA!” and later told reporters that “the war is going to end immediately after the election because [Iran] can’t hold out any longer.”
But American voters want lower prices now, and Iran is well aware of the US electoral calendar. Even as Trump shares his timeline for when he wants to wrap up the war in Iran, the IRGC has an incentive to escalate going into the midterms and drag out the conflict for as long as possible . The Wall Street Journal recently reported that VP Vance and Secretary of State Rubio estimate that the war could last through January 2029—creating additional problems for both of them, who may put their names on the presidential ballot in 2028.
In the meantime, energy prices screaming higher and inflation expectations are soaring. If Trump wants Fed cuts going into the midterms, the market expects him to be disappointed. The US OIS curve implies investors are pricing in more than a 70% chance of a hike (17.7bp) at the September 16 FOMC rate decision. This still stems from Warsh’s generously forward-guidance-laden speech at Jackson Hole two weeks ago, but renewed fears about the war in Iran have further stoked the markets’ hawkish bias. That said, economists surveyed by Bloomberg see things differently, with 66 out of 78 analysts forecasting a hold , including ourselves. Read more from Rabobank’s resident Fed whisperer, Philip Marey, here .
Hawkish expectations are shared across the pond after the ECB announced its decision to raise the deposit facility rate by 25bp to 2.50%, with ECB President Lagarde referring to the decision as a “no-brainer.” Rabobank’s ECB watcher Bas van Geffen argues in an ECB Post-Decision Report that “the ECB is now at the top end of the neutral range, and any next policy decision will be a trade-off between the risks that face the Eurozone economy,” and therefore urges caution with regard to future policy hikes. Nonetheless, OIS curve pricing implies investors are positioned for more than four ECB hikes by July 2027. Rabobank sees 2.50% as the terminal rate and does not forecast any additional hikes or cuts through the end of 2027, though the upside risks to our view have increased.
Canadian PM Mark Carney has apparently been speaking to Trump in recent days, but not necessarily about trade…rather, about Ukraine. Bloomberg reports that Carney and Zelenskyy spoke at a joint press conference yesterday, during which both parties signed a “declaration of a 100-year partnership…and Canada pledged to boost its drone production capacity and send one-third to Ukraine.” Other promises include Canada’s launch of a national drone marketplace and increased industrial cooperation between Canadian and Ukrainian drone and defense manufacturers.
Tyler Durden Fri, 09/11/2026 - 10:40 Close
Dotsquares