Connect, Aggregate
and Analyze

Two numbers published yesterday tell one big story about the U.S. economy. First, the July CPI: Headline inflation: +3.4% YoY (down slightly from 3.5%), +0.1% MoM. Core CPI: +2.6% YoY. The print came in right on consensus. No surprises, which is why equities rallied early and the Fed likely has cover to stay on hold in September. Second, a 10-Year Treasury Auction: $42B in notes sold at a high yield of 4.68%, up from 4.58% last month and the highest since 2007. Bid-to-cover

The July CPI report drops at 8:30 AM ET today, and it could be the most consequential inflation print of the year. The market is expecting a Headline CPI of +0.1% MoM / 3.4% YoY (down from 3.5%) and for Core CPI: +0.2% MoM / 2.5% YoY (down from 2.6%, lowest since January). This isn't just another data point. The Fed's September decision is genuinely in the balance (No meeting in August). After last week's surprise jobs contraction (-23K vs. +85K expected), markets briefly rel

NVIDIA just turned AI compute into an investable asset class, and that's a bigger deal than it sounds. Yesterday, Jensen Huang and NVIDIA announced partnerships with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR to mobilize $500B+ in third-party capital for AI infrastructure. Here's why this matters beyond the headline: (1) Compute is now infrastructure, not just CapEx. For years, GPUs were treated like servers, bought project-by-project, depreciated on a

Japan’s 2-year yield just hit its highest level in roughly three decades, and it’s quietly reshaping one of the biggest trades in global markets. Japan’s 2-year JGB yield has climbed to around 1.5%, as the BOJ signals another hike is likely in September on the back of stubbornly high inflation. The US 2-year, meanwhile, sits near 4.2–4.3%. That still leaves a wide gap versus Japan, but the gap is narrowing. The BOJ-Fed policy rate spread has compressed from roughly 325bp earl

The chart below plots profit margins for three groups since 2015: the Magnificent 7, the S&P 493 (the S&P 500 minus those seven names), and the broader Bloomberg 500. The Mag 7 line has more than doubled, from around 11% margin in 2015 to roughly 25% today. The other two lines? Basically flat. The S&P 493 has crawled from ~8.5% to ~10% margin over a decade. No trend, just noise around a flat line. Here’s why that matters right now. Every earnings call outside of Big Tech has

Yesterday’s jobs report was a shock, and markets are telling the story loud and clear. Nonfarm payrolls fell by 23,000 in July, versus expectations for an ~80-95K gain. June and May were revised down a combined 103,000 jobs. Unemployment actually ticked down to 4.1%, but the underlying trend is unmistakably softening, the US has added an average of just ~34K jobs/month over the past year. Here’s how markets reacted: (1) Equities: Stocks rallied. The S&P 500 pushed toward reco

We are crossing the 6 month anyversaryvof the beggining of the Iranian conflict. It’s time to check where things actually stand with the global oil market. in the U.S., the SPR just hit its lowest level since 1983, around 305M barrels, less than half of the 714M-barrel capacity. It’s been drained repeatedly to blunt price spikes from the Iran war, and a chunk of what’s left reportedly can’t even be pulled quickly due to aging infrastructure. On the flip side, US crude produc

Iran and Oman just agreed on the coordinates of a shipping corridor through the Strait of Hormuz. It’s not a signed deal yet, the joint statement is still in final drafting, but it’s the clearest sign yet that the waterway carrying roughly a fifth of the world’s oil could reopen in a meaningful way. Here’s why the details matter more than the headline: (1) Iran wants to retain operational control: security, de-mining, and maritime services handled by Tehran. That’s effectivel

SpaceX published yesterday after the close its first-ever quarterly earnings as a public company, and the numbers are staggering. After months of volatility, skepticism, and a stock that's been cut nearly in half from its highs, SpaceX showed the world what it's been building behind the curtain. These are the numbers: Revenue: $7.81B vs. ~$6.9B expected (+13%). Adj. EBITDA: $3.5B vs. $2.0B expected (+75%) • AI operating loss: $1.26B vs. $2.39B feared, nearly half what analys

Corporate earnings are on a historic run, both on top and bottom lines, but at what point does “good” become “too good”? Take a look at the top chart below: S&P 500 quarterly EPS is now further above its long-term trend channel than at any point since 1955. Not since the mid-’50s has profitability run this hot relative to its historical baseline, not during the dot-com boom, not during the mid-2000s credit expansion, not during the post-COVID recovery. At the same time, the b

The U.S. is closing in on $40 trillion in debt, and the pace this month is worth a special mention. Please take a look at the top chart below: as of July 1, 2026, total debt was $39.39Tn. By July 30th, it was $39.84Tn. That’s roughly $452 billion added in just 29 days, about $15.6 billion per day. Interestingly, the debt actually ticked down slightly in the first week of July before accelerating sharply in the back half of the month. Let’s do an exercise that probably has li

The Long end of the curve is where the story is right now. Every long end of every curve. The US 10Y is near 4.7%, highest since Jan 2025; 30Y broke 5% and hit a ~19-year high near 5.2%. The Fed has passed the batton to the bond market to produce rates forward guidance. That implies volatility. Sticky inflation plus a Fed now debating hikes, not cuts, is repricing the whole curve. in the UK, 30Y gilts are near 5.7–5.8%, the highest since the late 1990s. New spending pledges f

A rare move has occurred in currency markets: the U.S. just stepped in to defend the yen. It’s even more rare if we consider the context: No natural disaster, war, or recession/depression is happening in Japan, and yet, on Friday, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, acting on behalf of the Treasury, sold euros to buy yen. It’s the first time Washington has intervened directly to support the yen since 2011, and reportedly the first time it’s used euro sales to do it in over

On Thursday night, the yen jumped from around ¥162.80 to ¥157 against the dollar in about an hour. Japanese financial authorities intervened to prop up the currency, which had been trading near a 40-year low. Friday’s Bank of Japan meeting confirmed the backdrop: the BOJ left its benchmark rate unchanged, having just raised it from 0.75% to 1% back in June. Notably, hawkish board member Hajime Takata dissented, pushing for a hike to get ahead of inflation risks. This isn’t

Yesterday’s FOMC meeting concluded with rates held at 3.50%–3.75%. But the real story was the vote; three officials (Hammack, Kashkari, Logan) dissented in favor of an immediate hike. That’s a serious “family fight” playing out in public. Then came Chair Kevin Warsh’s press conference, and it was a philosophical shift as much as a policy update. Warsh doubled down on the 2% inflation target, refused to signal a path forward, and essentially told markets: the data, and the bon

What started as a rumor is little by little being shaped into a full worry by the credit market. Nvidia’s credit default swaps just told a different story than its earnings ever have. On Monday, NVDA fell nearly 5% to close at $196.51, but the more telling number was in the credit market, not the equity market. The cost of insuring Nvidia’s debt against default posted its biggest single-day jump since CDS contracts on the company began actively trading. That’s notable for one

Take a look at the chart below. It shows most developed economies M2, rebased at the beggining of 2004. As you can see, those economies have printed money like there is no tomorrow. Japan, by a wide margin, has printed the least. If “money supply growth debases a currency” were a clean, standalone rule, the yen should be the strongest G7 currency over this period. USD/JPY just hit 163.79, up 7.4% over the past six months alone, and near 2-year highs. The yen has been one of t

This week’s Fed meeting is one of the more interesting ones in a while, not because a rate move is likely, but because of the mixed signals policymakers are sitting with. The FOMC meets Tuesday and Wednesday (July 28–29), with the decision landing Wednesday at 2pm ET. This isn’t a “dot plot” meeting, so no fresh economic projections. Just the statement and Chair Warsh’s press conference. But that doesn’t mean it’s uneventful. Here’s the tension shaping the discussion: (1) Oi

The AI capex bill is coming due, and the market hasn’t fully priced it in. For instance, Google just reported its first quarter of negative free cash flow in the company’s history. Two decades of steadily climbing FCF, wiped out in a single quarter, the direct result of the scale of data center and AI infrastructure spend. You can see that in the bottom chart below. It’s not just Google. BofA’s aggregate hyperscaler FCF forecasts have been revised down sharply and repeatedly,

The U.S.-Iran conflict has moved well past the “limited strikes” phase, and it’s now tangled up with domestic politics in ways worth understanding before the November Mid Terms. First, the military options: the White House has been weighing a range of options beyond the current nightly strike campaign: seizing Kharg Island (the hub for 90% of Iran’s oil exports), bombing underground facilities tied to Iran’s nuclear program, and further degrading Iran’s grip on the Strait of