Tracing The Crypto Market Selloff: Hong Kong Hedge Funds, Or TradFi Cross-Asset Whales?

Via Wu Blockchain,

Market Turmoil Sparks Rumors

In early February 2026, the crypto market saw a sharp correction, with Bitcoin briefly falling to around $60,000, its lowest level since November 2024. The selloff closely coincided with cross-asset deleveraging across traditional financial markets: equities declined markedly, while precious metals also suffered steep losses — silver posted one of its largest single-day declines on record, while gold saw its largest one-day drop since the early 1980s. Analysts broadly attributed the crypto downturn to rising macro uncertainty (such as reports of a more hawkish candidate for Federal Reserve chair) and large ETF outflows.

Against this backdrop, a narrative began circulating on crypto social media suggesting that the violent selloff was not driven purely by macro factors, but instead originated from the blow-up of a large fund forced to liquidate its Bitcoin positions. One line of speculation pointed to a Hong Kong hedge fund active in Bitcoin options trading. Multiple industry participants subsequently joined the discussion, offering both clues and strong skepticism.

Parker’s Hypothesis: Early Bitcoin Long-Term Holders, IBIT, and a Volatility Squeeze

Crypto commentator Parker (@TheOtherParker_) proposed an explanation linking the downturn to changes in how large, long-term Bitcoin holders manage their assets.

He noted that on July 29, 2025, U.S. regulators formally approved in-kind creation and redemption for Bitcoin ETFs, allowing investors to exchange real BTC directly for ETF shares and vice versa. This enabled large holders to move Bitcoin into ETFs (such as iShares Bitcoin Trust, commonly referred to as IBIT) under potentially tax-efficient, near-zero-slippage conditions, thereby gaining access to regulated options markets.

According to Parker, IBIT’s options market rapidly developed into one of the most liquid Bitcoin options venues globally, second only to SPY, QQQ, and SPX index options. This attracted substantial whale activity deploying covered call strategies and volatility-selling on ETF holdings. Throughout the summer of 2025, observers saw large-scale migration by early Bitcoin long-term holders, while realized volatility, implied volatility, and overall trading volume in Bitcoin compressed significantly. In Parker’s view, widespread options writing effectively suppressed market volatility.

This apparent calm was shattered during the October 10, 2025 selloff (“10/10”). Parker speculates that at least one, and possibly multiple, funds selling volatility on IBIT were severely hit when volatility suddenly spiked.

In his scenario, a fund backed by early Bitcoin holders may have been running income strategies on massive IBIT positions. This model had worked until October 10, when the short-volatility exposure was decisively breached, resulting in heavy losses. That initial blow-up may have triggered a chain reaction, especially if the affected funds then spent subsequent months quietly attempting to repair their balance sheets. Parker emphasizes that this remains a hypothesis based on fragmented clues, and that direct evidence is still lacking.

Dovey Wan: No Signs of Hong Kong Funds Blowing Up

Primitive Ventures founding partner Dovey Wan pushed back firmly against the “Hong Kong hedge fund quietly blew up” narrative, offering several key observations from her position inside the Hong Kong fund ecosystem.

First, Hong Kong imposes no capital gains tax, meaning any “tax-loss harvesting” logic driving ETF redemptions or selling is fundamentally U.S.-centric and does not apply locally. Hong Kong funds have no incentive to sell for tax reasons.

Second, she disclosed that her team is currently conducting due diligence on one of Hong Kong’s largest Bitcoin options funds, and based on both recent performance and direct conversations, “there has been nothing abnormal since October 11.” Hong Kong’s crypto investment circle is extremely small and information travels quickly; if a major fund had blown up, it would be nearly impossible to conceal for long. She cited the previous episode involving the Hong Kong market maker Taipingshan linked to 3AC, where the industry knew almost by the second day. As of early February, she had heard no credible information supporting the claim of a Hong Kong fund collapse.

She further noted that many Asian Bitcoin OGs had already moved BTC into structures like IBIT via Galaxy Digital and similar channels well before in-kind redemption was approved. Their motivations were primarily safer custody, lower operational and counterparty risk, easier collateral mobility within TradFi, and cleaner liquidity for rotation into other assets. As such, Asian whales’ use of IBIT is not a recent phenomenon and does not inherently imply financial stress.

Wan also observed that since the second half of 2025, Bitcoin liquidity has increasingly concentrated during U.S. trading hours, especially around the New York open. Recent spot selling has likewise clustered in those windows, which she views as more consistent with ETF redemption flows than a single fund collapse.

Finally, she argued that standard options writing alone is unlikely to cause catastrophic losses for a Bitcoin fund unless it involves naked options or highly leveraged basis trades. Conventional covered strategies are relatively conservative; true blow-ups typically imply excessive leverage or cross-asset margin structures. Therefore, if someone did fail via options, she leans toward it being a TradFi multi-strategy fund with cross-asset margining, rather than a purely crypto-native institution.

Franklin Bi: A Hidden Asian Macro Trader?

Pantera Capital partner Franklin Bi offered another perspective. He speculated that the real distressed party might not be crypto-native at all, but rather a large traditional trading firm based in Asia with some exposure to crypto.

Because such institutions often have few crypto-native counterparties, even severe losses might not immediately surface within crypto circles. He outlined a possible sequence of events: the institution had previously been market-making on platforms such as Binance while maintaining leverage funded by cheap capital (potentially via the JPY carry trade); the rapid appreciation of the yen combined with the October 10 Bitcoin liquidity shock materially damaged its balance sheet, triggering margin stress; the firm may then have received an approximate 90-day reprieve to stabilize; during that period it attempted to recover losses through gold and silver trades, but the recent ~20% single-day collapse in silver alongside gold’s decline worsened its position; ultimately, in early February 2026, it was forced to liquidate remaining crypto holdings, precipitating the concentrated Bitcoin selloff.

Franklin acknowledged this is speculative, but described it as “a reasonable sequence of events.” This framework also explains why the crypto community did not detect it early — the player would not belong to traditional crypto fund networks. Parker additionally pointed out that certain 13F filings show funds with nearly 100% allocation to IBIT, potentially designed to isolate single-trade risk. If one such single-asset fund collapsed, it would fit this profile.

Hard evidence remains absent. Parker noted that the decisive proof would be a Q1 2026 13F filing showing a large fund’s IBIT position dropping to zero, though such disclosures will not be available until mid-May.

Industry Skepticism: The View from Wintermute’s CEO

Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy expressed strong skepticism toward claims that “someone blew up.” He noted that when large institutions fail, informal industry channels usually surface warnings quickly — as happened with 3AC and FTX, where internal alerts emerged within days. This time, he sees no similar signals, and current rumors originate almost entirely from anonymous accounts.

He also emphasized that unlike the previous cycle, where hidden leverage accumulated via uncollateralized lenders such as Genesis and Celsius, today’s crypto leverage is largely concentrated in exchange perpetual markets, which are more transparent and orderly. Exchanges now employ automatic deleveraging and stricter margin controls, making large collapses harder to conceal.

Gaevoy likewise doubts the existence of FTX-style exchange-level issues, arguing that no institution would replicate that model post-FTX. Moreover, if an entity were in fact insolvent yet publicly denying it, it could face serious legal consequences in the U.S., U.K., EU, or Singapore — significantly reducing the feasibility of prolonged concealment.

In his view, the episode more likely reflects macro pressure combined with the liquidation of highly leveraged traders: “Maybe someone blew up, but there simply aren’t systemic spillover effects worth worrying about.”

Conclusion: The Truth Has Yet to Emerge

The true cause of Bitcoin’s early-February 2026 plunge remains unresolved. Macro factors clearly played a major role, but the persistence of the decline and certain anomalous trading volumes continue to prompt the market to search for more specific triggers.

Two main explanatory paths currently exist.

One centers on early Bitcoin long-term holders selling volatility via ETF structures, suffering outsized losses during the October 10 selloff and being forced into final deleveraging recently.

The other points to TradFi cross-asset strategies failing — spreading from yen carry trades into crypto and precious metals — triggering cascading margin pressure that ultimately manifested as concentrated Bitcoin selling.

As of now, no public filings, official disclosures, or confirmed loss figures substantiate either narrative. Multiple industry participants urge caution, noting that if structural issues truly exist, their impact will eventually surface through internal information channels or upcoming 13F disclosures.

Regardless of the ultimate answer, this episode once again highlights how deeply crypto markets are now intertwined with traditional finance. Shocks need not originate from crypto-native players; macro leverage and cross-asset risk can exert equally material impact on digital assets. Until facts are clarified, speculation remains highly susceptible to amplification.

As many industry voices have repeatedly emphasized, low liquidity combined with high leverage is often a powerful amplifier of market volatility.

That lesson is once again being reinforced by the markets of 2026.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 10:05

Key Events This Week: Payrolls, CPI And Retail Sales

The next five days will feature an unusual pairing of major US data releases: the January employment report on Wednesday and the January CPI report on Friday, two reports which usually never appear in the same week. Ahead of those, markets will digest December retail sales and the Q4 employment cost index tomorrow, alongside a heavy schedule of Fed speakers, many of them current voters. Global inflation updates from China (Wednesday) and several European economies will add to the momentum, while the UK’s Q4 GDP (Thursday) will also be released. Corporate earnings remain in full swing, even if six of the Mag-7 have now reported, thus reducing some potential volatility until Nvidia report on February 25th.

For the employment report (which we will preview fully tomorrow), DB economists expect headline and private payrolls to rise by 75k (consensus at +69k and +75k respectively), a modest improvement relative to recent trend rates. If this holds, they anticipate the unemployment rate staying at 4.4%. They also expect average hourly earnings to increase 0.3%, with hours worked unchanged at 34.2, leaving the year over year growth rate of our payroll based nominal compensation proxy drifting up to 4.5% from 4.3%.

This month’s release will include the usual benchmark revisions to the establishment survey, though the population control adjustment to the household survey has been postponed to next month. The preliminary benchmark revision of roughly 0.6% to March 2025 employment was already unusually large, and the BLS is also introducing more frequent updates to the birth death model. While it’s impossible to know exactly how these higher frequency adjustments will influence recent data, even small changes could matter given that January typically shows the largest non seasonally adjusted job losses of the year. The final benchmark revision may also shift again, as it often deviates from the preliminary estimate once updated QCEW data are incorporated. All of this raises the uncertainty around Wednesday’s figures.

Turning to inflation (which we will also preview fully later this week), DB economists expect headline CPI to increase 0.26%, held down by an expected 2.4% drop in motor fuel prices, while core CPI should rise 0.35%. On this basis, headline CPI would slow to 2.46% year over year (from 2.68%), and core to roughly 2.55% (still rounding to 2.6%). The January release will include updated relative importances and new seasonal factors, which could affect individual components and possibly lead to firmer readings when last year’s data are re-examined. This could prompt some Fed officials to reassess the near term path of inflation.

Elsewhere in the data flow, tomorrow’s retail sales report should mirror evidence of solid holiday demand. Economists expect headline sales to rise 0.4%, with ex autos and retail control up 0.4% and 0.5%, respectively. That would leave Q4 retail control growing at a 4.5% annualized pace for the seventh straight quarter above 4%, supporting a firm consumption contribution in the Q4 GDP report due later this month. They also expect a 0.8% rise in the Q4 ECI, bringing the year over year pace down to 3.5%, still above its pre-pandemic average. Thursday’s jobless claims should ease back toward 226k after last week’s weather related spike.

Fed communication will be constant throughout the week. Governor Waller, Governor Miran, and Atlanta’s Bostic speak today, followed by Cleveland’s Hammack and Dallas’s Logan tomorrow. Vice Chair of Supervision Bowman speaks Wednesday, where regulatory topics and the balance sheet outlook may surface. Discussions around balance sheet strategy are gaining attention amid the nomination of Kevin Warsh for Fed Chair, given his previously stated preference for a smaller balance sheet. Logan, Miran, and Kansas City’s Schmid will offer additional views later in the week, including first reactions to the jobs report.

In Europe, economic indicators due include Q4 GDP in the UK on Thursday as well as CPI prints in Denmark, Norway (both tomorrow) and Switzerland (Friday). In geopolitics there will be notable focus on the Munich Security conference to be held Friday through Sunday.  Remember that last year's summit was home to the extraordinary speech by JD Vance which was partly credited as responsible for the huge rearmament drive in Europe.

In Asia, we also have the January inflation reports in China due Wednesday. Our economists forecast producer prices to further rebound to -1.6% YoY from -1.9% in December 2025. In contrast, CPI inflation will likely slow to 0.4% YoY from 0.8% (see more here). Japanese PPI is out on Thursday.

Rounding out with earnings, this week’s lineup features tech names including Cisco, Applied Materials and Shopify as well as US consumer firms Coca-Cola and McDonald’s.

A busy week for European large caps includes results from AstraZeneca, Hermes, Siemens and L’Oreal. Other highlights feature energy firms TotalEnergies and BP as well as Unilever, AB InBev and Ferrari among consumer stocks.

Courtesy of DB, here is a day-by-day calendar of events

Monday February 9

• Data: US January NY Fed 1-yr inflation expectations, Japan January Economy Watchers survey, M2, M3, bank lending, December BoP trade balance and current account balance, labour cash earnings, Norway Q4 GDP
• Central banks: Fed's Waller and Bostic speak, ECB's Lagarde, Nagel and Lane speak, BoE's Mann speaks
• Earnings: UniCredit, DBS, Apollo, ON Semiconductor

Tuesday February 10

• Data: US January NFIB small business optimism, Q4 employment cost index, December retail sales, import price index, export price index, November business inventories, Japan January machine tool orders, Denmark January CPI, Norway January CPI
• Central banks: Fed's Hammack and Logan speak
• Earnings: Coca-Cola, AstraZeneca, Gilead Sciences, S&P Global, Welltower, Spotify, BP, CVS Health, Barclays, Marriott International, Williams, Robinhood, Cloudflare, Ferrari, Ford, Datadog, Kering, Fiserv
• Auctions: US 3-yr Notes ($58bn)

Wednesday February 11

• Data: US January jobs report, federal budget balance, China January CPI, PPI, Japan January PPI, Italy December industrial production, Canada December building permits
• Central banks: ECB's Cipollone and Schnabel speak, BoC Summary of Deliberations
• Earnings: Cisco, McDonald's, T-Mobile US, Shopify, AppLovin, TotalEnergies, Siemens Energy, EssilorLuxottica, NetEase, Equinix, Vertiv, Heineken, Deutsche Boerse, Commerzbank, Dassault Systemes, Kraft Heinz, Humana, Albemarle
• Auctions: US 10-yr Notes ($42bn)

Thursday February 12

• Data: US January existing home sales, initial jobless claims, UK Q4 GDP, January RICS house price balance, Germany December current account balance
• Central banks: ECB's Radev, Lane, Stournaras, Nagel and Cipollone speak, BoC’s Rogers speaks
• Earnings: Applied Materials, Hermes, Siemens, L'Oreal, Arista Networks, SoftBank, Unilever, Anheuser-Busch InBev, British American Tobacco, Vertex, Agnico Eagle Mines, Howmet Aerospace, Airbnb, Vale, Mercedes-Benz, RELX, Zoetis, Adyen, Legrand, Expedia, PG&E, DSM-Firmenich
• Auctions: US 30-yr Bonds ($25bn)

Friday February 13

• Data: US January CPI, China January home prices, Q4 BoP current account balance, Germany January wholesale price index, Eurozone December trade balance, Q4 employment, Switzerland January CPI
• Central banks: Fed's Miran and Logan speak, BoJ's Tamura speaks, BoE's Pill speaks
• Earnings: Safran, NatWest, Cameco, Capgemini, Norsk Hydro, Moderna
• Other: Munich Security Conference (through January 15)

Finally, looking at just the US, Goldman writes that the key economic data releases this week are the retail sales report on Tuesday, the employment report on Wednesday, and the CPI report on Friday. There are several speaking engagements by Fed officials this week, including events with Fed Governors Waller and Miran on Monday and the Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Bowman on Wednesday. 

Monday, February 9 

• No major data releases are scheduled. 
• 01:30 PM Fed Governor Waller Speaks: Fed Governor Christopher Waller will speak on digital assets at an event organized by the Global Independence Center. Q&A is expected. On January 30, Waller said, “I dissented at the most recent meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) after concluding that cutting the policy rate by 25 basis points was the appropriate stance of policy.” He added that the reasons for his dissent are that “the labor market remains weak” and “though inflation is elevated from tariff effects, appropriate monetary policy is to look through these effects as long as inflation expectations are anchored, which they are.”
• 02:30 PM Fed Governor Miran Speaks: Fed Governor Stephen Miran will participate in a moderated conversation at Boston University. Q&A is expected. On January 5, Miran said, “I’m looking for about a point and a half of cuts [in 2026]” because “underlying inflation is running within noise of our target, and that’s a good indication of where overall inflation is going to be in the medium term.”
• 03:15 PM Atlanta Fed President Bostic (FOMC non-voter) Speaks: Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic will participate in a moderated conversation with Bill Watts, editor of Pro Farmer. Q&A is expected. On February 2, Bostic said, “We are still too high in inflation, so I think we need to be somewhat restrictive.” He added that “I do feel the downside risk—that a catastrophe is going to happen in employment—is much further away from us than it was even a month ago, and that gives me some confidence we can be patient.”
• 05:00 PM Fed Governor Miran Speaks: Fed Governor Stephen Miran will be interviewed on WBUR Podcast in Boston. Q&A is expected.

Tuesday, February 10 

• 08:30 AM Import price index, December (consensus +0.1%, last flat); Export price index, December (consensus +0.1%, last flat) 
• 08:30 AM Retail sales, December (GS +0.4%, consensus +0.4%, last flat); Retail sales ex-auto, December (GS +0.3%, consensus +0.4%, last +0.4%); Retail sales ex-auto & gas, December (GS +0.4%, consensus +0.4%, last +0.5%); Core retail sales, December (GS +0.3%, consensus +0.5%, last +0.8%): We estimate core retail sales increased 0.3% in December (ex-autos, gasoline, and building materials; month-over-month SA), reflecting solid alternative data but a headwind from potential residual seasonality. We estimate headline retail sales increased 0.4%, reflecting an increase in auto sales but lower gasoline prices.
• 12:00 PM Cleveland Fed President Hammack (FOMC voter) Speaks: Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack will speak on the banking and economic outlook at the 2026 Ohio Bankers League Economic Summit. Speech text and Q&A are expected. On December 12, Hammack said, “I see rates as right around a neutral level, [and] I would prefer to be on a slightly more restrictive stance to help put more pressure on inflation that remains too high.”
• 01:00 PM Dallas Fed President Logan (FOMC voter) Speaks: Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan will deliver remarks and participate in moderated Q&A at the 2026 Asset Management Derivatives Forum in Austin, Texas. Speech text is expected.

Wednesday, February 11 

• 08:30 AM Nonfarm payroll employment, January (GS +45k, consensus +69k, last +50k); Private payroll employment, January (GS +45k, consensus +75k, last +37k); Average hourly earnings (MoM), January (GS +0.35%, consensus +0.3%, last +0.3%); Unemployment rate, January (GS 4.4%, consensus 4.4%, last 4.4%): We estimate nonfarm payrolls increased 45k in January. On the negative side, we estimate that the birth-death model—which will be updated with this report, more details below—could contribute 30-50k fewer jobs to payroll growth (on a seasonally adjusted basis) than in recent months and big data indicators suggested a modest pace of private sector job growth. Additionally, we expect unchanged government payrolls—reflecting a 10k decline in federal government payrolls that is offset by a 10k increase in state and local government payrolls. On the positive side, the pace of layoffs—a particularly important determinant of net job growth in January—remained subdued. However, the seasonal factors have evolved to expect smaller declines in employment in recent Januarys, limiting the potential boost from this channel. We do not expect a drag from winter Storm Fern, which formed about a week after the reference week. 
  • We estimate that the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.4% in January, but we see the risks as skewed to a decline: the bar for rounding down to 4.3% is not high from an unrounded 4.38% in December and the January unemployment rate appears to suffer from modestly negative residual seasonality (the unrounded unemployment rate has declined in each of the last three Januarys). We estimate average hourly earnings rose 0.35% month-over-month in January, reflecting positive calendar effects.
  • This month’s report will be accompanied by the annual benchmark revision to the establishment survey and a methodological update to the birth-death model. The BLS's preliminary estimate of the benchmark payrolls revision indicated that cumulative payroll growth between April 2024 and March 2025 would be revised 911k lower. We estimate that the final downward revision will likely be somewhat smaller—in the range of 750-900k—as job growth in the QCEW, which informs the revision, has been revised up since the BLS issued the preliminary estimate. The BLS will also update the net birth-death forecasts in the post-benchmark period (April 2025-December 2025) to incorporate information from the QCEW and the monthly payrolls survey. A downward revision to the post-benchmark period appears likely, reflecting the continued slowdown in the QCEW and weak private payroll growth during the post-benchmark period. Starting with this month’s report, the birth-death model will incorporate current sample information each month. 
• 10:00 AM Kansas City Fed President Schmid (FOMC non-voter) Speaks: Kansas City Fed President Jeff Schmid will speak at the Economic Forum of Albuquerque in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Speech text and Q&A are expected. On January 15, Schmid said, “I believe that there is a risk that lowering rates could do more harm to the inflation side of our mandate than benefit on the employment side.” He added that “I see little reason at this point to further lower the policy rate, though of course, I will be watching the data closely for signs that growth is losing momentum or that the labor market is weakening more substantially.”
• 10:15 AM Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Bowman Speaks: Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman will participate in a virtual moderated conversation at Keefe, Bruyette & Wood 33rd Annual Winter Financial Services Conference. Q&A is expected. On January 16, Bowman said, “Absent a clear and sustained improvement in labor market conditions, we should remain ready to adjust policy to bring it closer to neutral.” She added that while monetary policy is not on a preset course, "we should also avoid signaling that we will pause without identifying that conditions have changed."
• 04:00 PM Cleveland Fed President Hammack (FOMC voter) Speaks: Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack will participate in a leadership dialogue at Ohio State University. Q&A is expected.

Thursday, February 12 

• 08:30 AM Initial jobless claims, week ended January 31 (GS 220k, consensus 224k, last 231k); Continuing jobless claims, week ended January 24 (consensus 1,850k, last 1,844k)
• 10:00 AM Existing home sales, January (GS -2.5%, consensus -3.2%, last +5.1%)
• 07:00 PM Dallas Fed President Logan (FOMC voter) Speaks: Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan will give opening and closing remarks at an event with Governor Stephen Miran. Speech text is expected.
• 07:05 PM Fed Governor Miran Speaks: Fed Governor Stephen Miran will participate in a moderated discussion at the Dallas Fed. Q&A is expected.

Friday, February 13 

• 08:30 AM CPI (MoM), January (GS +0.24%, consensus +0.3%, last +0.1%); Core CPI (MoM), January (GS +0.33%, consensus +0.3%, last +0.2%); CPI (YoY), January (GS +2.44%, consensus +2.5%, last +2.7%); Core CPI (YoY), January (GS +2.52%, consensus +2.5%, last +2.6%): We estimate a 0.33% increase in January core CPI (month-over-month SA), which would lower the year-over-year rate by 0.1pp to 2.5% on a rounded basis. Our forecast reflects upward pressure from seasonal distortions on the communications (GS forecast: +0.4%) and private transportation (+1.5%) categories. We expect a modest boost from start of the year price resets in categories like medical care commodities (GS forecast: +0.7%), and upward pressure from tariffs on categories that are particularly exposed (such as recreation) worth +0.07pp. We expect firm travel services inflation (airfares: +2%; hotels: +1%), reflecting signals from alternative price data. We expect softer autos inflation, reflecting a 1.5% decline in used car prices, unchanged new car prices, and a moderate increase in the car insurance category (+0.4%). We forecast a slight slowdown in the shelter categories (rent: +0.24%, OER: +0.25%), reflecting a continued slowdown in their underlying trend. We expect unchanged medical services prices, reflecting a continued decline in medical insurance prices (-0.7%) but increases in other medical care services categories. We estimate a 0.24% rise in headline CPI, reflecting higher food prices (+0.4%) but lower energy prices (-1.3%).
  • In this month’s report, the BLS will release recalculated seasonal factors that reflect the price movements of 2025—which could reduce the impact of seasonal distortions that explained some of the month-to-month variation in core inflation last year—as well as updated weights. The annual seasonal factor revisions tend to cause monthly inflation readings to be revised toward the annual average. In other words, higher inflation readings for the year tend to be revised lower and lower readings tend to be revised higher. On average over the last decade, about 20% of the relative strength of a month’s initial core inflation vintage has been revised away in its first annual revision. Last year, monthly core CPI inflation was particularly elevated in January (23bp above the 2024 average) and particularly low in March-May (8bp below).

Source: Goldman, DB

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 09:55

Eye On Iran: Pentagon Held Live-Fire War Drills In Persian Gulf

US forces conducted live-fire military drills in the Persian Gulf at a moment of ongoing Washington threats to attack Iran over its nuclear program as well as ballistic missile arsenal. 

"Last week, Navy Sailors from USS Santa Barbara participated in the exercise Killer Tomato, a live-fire maritime gunnery exercise conducted in the Central Command’s area of responsibility and supported by an Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft," US Central Command (CENTCOM) posted on X Sunday.

US CENTCOM/Navy's 5th Fleet

It continued, "The exercise provided realistic training to improve surface gunnery proficiency while reinforcing joint air-maritime integration, combat readiness, and deterrence across the region."

It's unclear why the US military only chose to reveal it Sunday, and not in real-time while the drills were actually being conducted. This was perhaps a security measure, to ensure no incidents or run-ins with Iranian forces, after previously an Iranian drone was shot down as it was said to be headed toward US warships.

As for use of the A-10 Thunderbolt, this long in service aircraft would assist in thwarting any small vessel threat or attack against American ships, as it is able to fly very low and take out craft with its powerful machine guns. It conducted low strafing runs as part of these latest Persian Gulf drills.

The futuristic-looking vessel featured in the US Navy's photos is the USS Santa Barbara, described by a defense journal as follows:

The vessel is one of the U.S. Navy’s high-speed, modular Independence-class littoral combat ships, designed for operations in contested coastal waters. USS Santa Barbara is capable of speeds exceeding 40 knots and has a range of around 4,300 nautical miles at cruising speed, allowing it to conduct extended patrols and rapid response missions across the region. It displaces more than 3,100 tonnes at full load and is powered by a combined diesel and gas turbine propulsion system driving four waterjets. It carries a core crew of around 40 personnel, with capacity for additional mission specialists depending on the role assigned.

Central Command's photo set from the war drills...

Last week, @USNavy Sailors from USS Santa Barbara (LCS 32) participated in the @USAFCENT-led exercise Killer Tomato, a live-fire maritime gunnery exercise conducted in the @CENTCOM area or responsibility and supported by @usairforce A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft. The exercise… pic.twitter.com/esO5BtCMKT

— U.S. Naval Forces Central Command/U.S. 5th Fleet (@US5thFleet) February 8, 2026

Since late January, American and Iranian forces have been holding dueling drills and war games in the region, in an effort to signal military readiness amid a tense showdown.

Ultimately it is Israel that is most alarmed by Iran's missile program, given Tel Aviv was on the direct receiving end during the June war - also said to involve hypersonic missiles sent.

US bases within range of Iranian ballistic missiles.

AFP Infographic with a map showing the range of Iran's main intermediate-range ballistic missiles and the location of major US bases and infrastructure housing American personnel in the Middle East. Ranges are approximate as… pic.twitter.com/ilewg6e2lp

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) February 9, 2026

CENTCOM has recently said that while Iran's military has a "right" to operation professionally in international waters, it must avoid any provocative or harassing behavior involving American vessels or forces. The two enemy sides are one small 'live fire' incident away from potentially sparking major conflict.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 09:45

Democrats Flip-Flop On ICE Agents And Body Cameras

Last week, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries sent a letter to Republican leadership calling for sweeping reforms at the Department of Homeland Security before funding expires on Feb. 13. The letter outlined ten "guardrails" for DHS, including the demand that ICE agents wear body cameras when interacting with the public. 

REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

While most of the demands on Schumer’s and Jeffries’ list were never going to be agreed to, the use of body cameras by ICE agents has bipartisan support. Even President Donald has voiced support for body cameras, pointing out that they “generally tend to be good for law enforcement because people can't lie about what's happening.”

.@POTUS on body cams: "They generally tend to be good for law enforcement because people can't lie about what's happening." https://t.co/LbAeV4YXdL pic.twitter.com/Hy7wBg8dFp

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 2, 2026

Days later, Democrats reversed course after left-wing privacy advocates raised “concerns” about body cameras becoming a mass surveillance tool. Democrats now fear the technology could feed video of protesters into facial recognition systems, allowing ICE to identify and track demonstrators. 

“Obviously, we want them to be wearing body cameras, but we would want restrictions placed on what that information could be used for,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said. “We want to make sure that we have the accountability for how these officers conduct themselves on the streets of our country, but we don't want it in turn to be used as a way of coming back and suppressing free speech."

Lawmakers and activists have accused ICE of using various cameras to surveil protesters by running images through license plate readers and facial recognition systems, and Democrats are now claiming they believe body cameras could serve the same purpose. DHS said its body cameras are not equipped with facial recognition. Democrats fear the images could be downloaded and later run through facial recognition.

Republicans had already agreed to provide more funding for ICE body cameras before Democrats began pushing for limits on how the images are used. The homeland security bill that passed the House last week included $20 million for equipping immigration enforcement personnel with body cameras. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced on Feb. 3 that all federal agents deployed to Minneapolis would immediately be equipped with body cameras. She said the program would expand nationwide as funding becomes available.

The reversal raises questions about whether Democrats are genuinely concerned about protester privacy or worried that body camera footage will protect ICE agents from false accusations. 

Lora Ries, director of the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation, explained how wearing body cameras could shield agents from misconduct claims. "Defund ICE is the same movement and has the same funders and organizers as the 'defund the police' movement," Ries told The Daily Signal. "Just as bodycams have helped police defend against false claims made by rent-a-rioters, so too will bodycams help ICE defend against false claims made to obstruct ICE and prevent deportations to protect the Left's political power.”

Video recorded by an ICE agent on his phone when he fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis not only showed Good striking the agent with her car before she was shot, but also gave critical context of the events before the shooting that debunked several left-wing narratives about what happened. Democrats claimed that Good was just a scared mom who accidentally ended up in the middle of an ICE operation and was merely trying to leave the scene. The footage proved she was there to obstruct the operation. The agent’s phone footage also showed Good’s wife yelling at her to drive her car before striking the agent.

Democrats went from demanding body cameras for accountability and transparency to proposing legislation that would limit their use within days. The shift suggests Democrats may have realized that body camera footage could work in favor of ICE agents rather than against them. Video evidence from encounters like the Good shooting has already shown that footage can exonerate officers and contradict activist narratives. 

If body cameras protect agents from false claims, as Ries suggested, the technology undermines the broader effort to obstruct immigration enforcement operations. That possibility may explain why Democrats are suddenly claiming concern about surveillance and privacy, concerns that were notably absent when they first demanded the cameras.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 09:05

GLP-1 Feud: HIMS Fires Back At Novo Nordisk, Slams Lawsuit As "Blatant Attack" By Big Pharma

Update (0859ET):

Hims & Hers Health fired back at Novo Nordisk's lawsuit on X, calling it a "blatant attack by a Danish company on millions of Americans" who depend on compounded medications to access personalized care.

HIMS continued:

Once again, Big Pharma is weaponizing the US judicial system to limit consumer choice. This lawsuit attacks more than just one medication or company – it directly assaults a well-established, vital component of US pharmacy practice that has improved patient care for everything from obesity to infertility to cancer. Hims & Hers has a long history of providing safe access to personalized healthcare to millions of Americans, and we will continue to fight to provide choice, affordability, and access.

Novo Nordisk’s lawsuit is a blatant attack by a Danish company on millions of Americans who rely on compounded medications for access to personalized care. Once again, Big Pharma is weaponizing the US judicial system to limit consumer choice. This lawsuit attacks more than just…

— Hims & Hers Comms (@HimsHersComms) February 9, 2026

Shares of HIMS crashed in New York premarket trading, down about 20%, after the telehealth firm pulled its Wegovy copycat GLP-1 pill on Saturday. Novo hit the HIMS with a lawsuit earlier this morning.

*   *   * 

The GLP-1 feud between Hims & Hers Health and Novo Nordisk keeps accelerating by the day.

HIMS rejected again trying to make a criminal racket into a business model https://t.co/URBLu257l8

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 6, 2026

The latest is that Novo is now taking legal action against HIMS, alleging that the telehealth firm "unlawfully mass markets unapproved versions of Novo Nordisk's FDA-approved semaglutide medicines, deceiving patients and putting their health at risk."

In late January, Novo released a $149 per month Wegovy pill, with HIMS just days later releasing a GLP-1 copycat pill of Wegovy for $49 a month.

By late last week, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary warned against companies "mass-marketing illegal copycat drugs, claiming they are similar to FDA-approved products."

FDA will take swift action against companies mass-marketing illegal copycat drugs, claiming they are similar to FDA-approved products.

The FDA cannot verify the quality, safety, or effectiveness of non-approved drugs.

— Dr. Marty Makary (@DrMakaryFDA) February 5, 2026

Then, on Saturday, not even a day after Makary's comments, HIMS pulled the GLP-1 copycat pill ...

*HIMS & HERS TO STOP OFFERING WEIGHT LOSS PILL https://t.co/tiQoqBHf0K

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 7, 2026

Back to Novo's lawsuit.

Here are the three takeaways:

• Hims & Hers unlawfully mass markets unapproved versions of Novo Nordisk's FDA-approved semaglutide medicines, deceiving patients and putting their health at risk

• Novo Nordisk takes decisive legal action to stop Hims' illegal conduct, protect public health, and defend the scientific innovations that deliver better health outcomes to Americans living with serious chronic diseases like obesity and diabetes

• Novo Nordisk is asking the court to permanently ban Hims from selling unapproved, compounded drugs that infringe our patents, and is seeking to recover damages

"Hims & Hers is mass marketing unapproved knock-off versions of Wegovy and Ozempic that evade the FDA's gold standard review process – that's dangerous and deceptive to patients, and undermines the scientific innovation and regulatory rigor in place to ensure these treatments are safe and effective," John F. Kuckelman, senior vice president, Group General Counsel, Global Legal, IP and Security, wrote in a statement.

Kuckelman noted, "We've taken legal action to protect the American public and our intellectual property and will continue to work with regulators, law enforcement, and other key stakeholders to ensure patients have access to FDA-approved safe and effective medicines."

In markets, HIMS shares fell 20% in New York premarket trading after its GLP-1 copycat pill was pulled, with additional pressure from Novo's lawsuit.

On the other hand, Novo Shares in Denmark moved up 7%. Shares were beaten down last week amid a dismal full-year earnings outlook and HIMS' GLP-1 copycat pill.

Here's our coverage on the HIMS-Novo feud:

• "Much-Needed Win": Novo Shares Jump Most In Nearly Two Years After US Approval Of Wegovy Obesity Pill

• "Big Miss": Wall Street Disappointed After Dismal Novo Nordisk GLP-1 Sales Outlook, Shares Plunge

• $49 Wegovy Copycat Pill Sparks Selloff In Novo Shares

• HIMS Halts Copycat GLP-1 Pill After FDA Warns Of "Swift Action"

Citi analyst Daniel Grosslight told clients that the FDA's crackdown on HIMS' "aggressive compounding practices" suggests there could be further downside if the FDA "completely eliminates or severely curtails" HIMS' ability to compound GLP-1s. He rates the stock "Sell" and slashed his price target to $16.50 from $30.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 08:59

Futures Flat, Erase Overnight Losses As Nervous Traders Brace For Key Week

S&P futures are unchanged, erasing all overnight losses, extending last week’s choppy price action focused on AI repercussions; Nasdaq 100 futures underperform slightly ahead of an important week that has both the January jobs and CPI report on deck (at least the firehose of earnings is slowing down). As of 8:15am ET, S&P futures are unchanged, and Nasdaq futures dip 0.2% with tech the biggest laggard as Semis come back under pressure and Mag7 names are all weaker.  The yield on 10-year Treasuries rose three basis points to 4.24% after BBG reported that China tells state and local banks to limit/reduce Treasury exposure (does not affect Federal holdings) which according to JPM may raise risk of a "Sell America" trade esp with Japan / APAC poised to rip in the near-term. The dollar dipped 0.3%, supporting gold and silver. Bitcoin slipped below $69,000. Commodities are big with precious metals and gasoline the upside standouts. Today’s macro data focus is on the NY Fed’s inflation expectations release.

In premarket trading, Mag 7 stocks are mixed (Microsoft +0.6%, Amazon +0.03%, Meta -0.1%, Tesla -0.1%, Alphabet -0.3%, Apple -0.1%, Nvidia -0.9%)

• Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF) falls 3% after fourth-quarter adjusted Ebitda from the steel company missed the average analyst estimate.
• Eli Lilly (LLY) rises 1% after agreeing to buy US biotech Orna Therapeutics Inc. for up to $2.4 billion in cash.
• Hims & Hers Health (HIMS) tumbles 20% after the telehealth company said it will stop selling its recently launched copycat version of the new Wegovy weight-loss pill.
• Kroger Co. (KR) is up 5% as the supermarket chain named Greg Foran as its chief executive officer. Foran led Walmart US for six years
• Kyndryl Holdings (KD) sinks 40% after the information-technology services company spun off from IBM reported adjusted earnings per share for the third quarter that missed the average analyst estimate.
• Li Auto’s ADRs (LI) fall 3% after JPMorgan downgraded the stock to underweight on a view that new EV models from five other carmakers are likely to pressure the Chinese auto firm’s sales this year.
• Monday.com (MNDY) slumps 14% after the software company forecast revenue for the first quarter; the guidance missed the average analyst estimate.
• SoFi Technologies (SOFI) gains 3% as Citizens upgrades the online personal finance company to market outperform.
• Tegna Inc. (TGNA) rises 9% after President Donald Trump backed television broadcaster Nexstar Media Group’s proposed $3.5 billion acquisition of the company.

In corporate news, Nvidia-backed Firmus Technologies secured a $10-billion loan from a group including Blackstone-led funds to boost its data center rollout. 

Stock futures are jittery after last week's nosebleeding volatility while Treasuries fell after Chinese regulators urged banks to limit their holdings. It’s a big week for eco data, with delayed January releases for payrolls on Wednesday and CPI due Friday. Stocks will remain choppy, according to Goldman Sachs’ trading desk, with systematic strategies expected to be net sellers. A renewed decline could trigger about $33 billion of selling this week, they said, although that will likely be more than offset by a huge short squeeze after last week saw record short selling of single stocks.

“These moves also make people say, ‘Let me be a little bit more cautious than I had been” and wait for a better opportunity,” said Keith Lerner, chief investment officer at Truist Advisory Services.

The AI debate continues, with Deutsche Bank strategists noting significant rotation out of tech, while Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson sees opportunity in enablers and adopters.  Tech stocks had been caught up in a rout due to worries over the billions of dollars being spent on AI. The release of a new automation tool from Anthropic PBC added to the pressure, as investors ditched stocks seen as vulnerable to AI disruption. 

“Expect swings to continue until we have clearer visibility on the AI monetization, as well as the Fed’s rate path,” said Desmond Tjiang, chief investment officer for equities and multi-asset investment at BEA Union Investment. 

The employment report this week is predicted to show payrolls rose 69k in January, which would be the best in four months. The report will also include an annual revision to the jobs count, which is expected to reveal a notable markdown to payrolls growth in the year through March 2025. CPI may be lukewarm due to prices of cars and medical commodities offsetting a spike in other core goods.

While the US is winning the AI race, “its markets are footing the bill,” write Bloomberg Intelligence strategists Gillian Wolff and Michael Casper. After recent volatility, US tech valuation premiums have narrowed to around 23% versus China and Taiwan tech. After a challenging week for stocks, with rising performance dispersion and single-stock volatility, global equity markets look primed for short-term consolidation, according to strategists at Citi.

In geopolitics, Iran’s President described US nuclear talks as a “step forward.” Bessent cited Chinese traders as a reason behind last week’s wild swings in the gold market. Japanese equities surged to fresh record highs on Monday after PM Sanae Takaichi’s party achieved a landslide victory.

Apollo, Becton Dickinson and Waters are among companies scheduled to report before the market open. Apollo’s AUM are likely to expand 25%, the most since 1Q 2021, helped by continued inflows growth. Earnings from Arch Capital and ON Semi are due later in the day.

The Stoxx 600 is up 0.2% as European stocks rise on Monday, lifted by Novo Nordisk A/S shares after a US competitor scrapped a copycat Wegovy weight-loss pill. Travel and leisure as well as banking shares outperform, while the personal care and retail sectors lag. Here are some of the biggest movers on Monday: 

• InPost shares jump as much as 14% after Advent, FedEx, A&R and PPF announced plans for a €15.60 share buyout.
• Novo Nordisk shares surge as much as 8.6%, reversing some of last week’s plunge, after Hims & Hers Health Inc. pulled a copycat version of the new Wegovy weight-loss pill.
• STMicro shares rise as much as 7% after Amazon deepened its ties with the Franco-Italian chipmaker to secure semiconductor technologies for its data centers.
• Plus500 shares rise as much as 7.1% to a record high as the trading platform says its performance in FY26 is likely to be better than the market expects.
• UniCredit shares gain as much as 6.5% after the Italian lender reported fourth-quarter net income that beat estimates, and said it plans to return about €50b to investors in next five years.
• Coor Service Management shares rise as much as 14% in Stockholm, the steepest gain since December 2015, after newspaper Dagens Industri reports that six new owners have simultaneously built up almost identical holdings in the Swedish company.
• DSM-Firmenich shares fall as much as 5.7% after the firm agreed to sell its animal nutrition and health business to CVC Capital Partners at a lower valuation than some analysts expected.
• NatWest shares fall as much as 5.6% as the UK lender says no further buybacks are likely before 1H 2027 results after it agrees to buy wealth manager Evelyn Partners for an enterprise value of £2.7 billion.
• Greggs shares drop as much as 6% after Jefferies downgraded the bakery chain to hold, noting that the uptake of weight-loss drugs was a headwind to the earnings outlook.
• Ayvens shares fall as much as 3.7% after Oddo BHF cuts the French vehicle rental firm to neutral from outperform over a reset of used car sales results.
• Eramet shares fell as much as 6.3% after the Financial Times reported that the French company suspended CFO Abel Martins-Alexandre last week, days after the board announced it had terminated the mandate of CEO Paulo Castellari.

Earier in the session, Asian stocks gained, as Japanese stocks rallied to a record and South Korea led a wider surge in technology shares.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose as much as 2.5% to a fresh high, with Japanese stocks leading gains after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s ruling party achieved the biggest post-war victory for a single party in a general election. Korean stocks also surged by more than 4% following report that Samsung Electronics will start mass production of HBM4 chips after the Lunar New Year holiday. Stocks also traded higher in Taiwan, China and Hong Kong. The renewed optimism comes as a relief after Asia’s benchmark index posted its first weekly loss in seven. Meanwhile in Japan, Takaichi’s win is expected to benefit sectors including AI, semiconductors and defense on her expansionary fiscal policies. The yen strengthened away from levels seen as a danger zone for intervention. In Thailand, stocks surged as much as 4% to the highest levels since December 2024 after an election win by the ruling party paved the way for more policy clarity. Stocks also gained in India, Indonesia and Malaysia.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s “historic victory gives Prime Minister Takaichi a stable majority, reducing coalition constraints and enabling decisive action on fiscal stimulus, AI, semiconductors, energy security, and strategic reforms,” said Marc Jocum, senior investment strategist at Global X Management. “Markets now have a clear fiscal policy runway through 2028 until the next election.”

In FX, the yen is gaining against the greenback in the wake of Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi’s election victory. Expect this kneejerk reversal, which may have had some help from local authorities to unwind soon. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot index is down 0.2%. While the pound has picked up, it remains near the bottom of the G-10 pile amid a UK political risk premium. This is also being seen in other UK assets with gilts down 35 ticks versus losses of 13 ticks for bunds.

In rates, treasuries are mixed, tracking a curve-steepening gilt selloff following the resignation of a second senior aide to Prime Minister Keir Starmer.US long-end yields are 2bp-3bp higher on the day with shorter maturities little changed, widening 2s10s and 5s30s spreads by about 2bp, triggered by a Bloomberg report noting that China directed banks to limit holdings of US Treasuries. The bond market is also trying to figure out what a Warsh-led Fed will mean, particularly his call for a new accord with the Treasury Department. UK long-end tenors are about 3bp cheaper on the day, steepening its 2s10s curve by 3bp. The delayed January jobs report is ahead on Wednesday and quarterly new-issue auctions start Tuesday.  Treasury coupon auctions resume Tuesday with 3-year notes, followed by 10- and 30-year new issues, totaling $125 billion.

“There is no credible alternative as a global reserve asset at present,” said Geoff Yu, senior macro strategist at BNY. “Our holdings data indicates 72% of global sovereign bond allocations are in US Treasuries, with the euro zone at 11%. There is no comparison.”

Meanwhile, the Treasury is due to offer a combined $125 billion in three-, five- and 10-year debt.
 

“At least two cuts this year, maybe three cuts. Given the easing that we’ve already seen, I think the US economy probably will accelerate this year,” Paul Jackson, global market strategist at Invesco, told Bloomberg TV.

In commodities, precious metals are higher but off best levels with gold and silver showing respective gains of 0.9% and 2.7%. WTI crude futures have picked up throughout the European session, gaining 0.3%. Bitcoin is down 2.5% with selling picking up after slipping below the $70,000 level.  

US economic calendar includes January New York Fed 1-year inflation expectations at 11am. Ahead this week are December retail sales and January employment and CPI.Fed speaker slate includes Waller (1:30pm), Miran (2:30pm, 5pm) and Bostic (3:15pm)

Market Snapshot 

• S&P 500 mini -0.1%,
• Nasdaq 100 mini -0.2%,
• Russell 2000 mini -0.1%
• Stoxx Europe 600 little changed,
• DAX little changed, CAC 40 -0.1%
• 10-year Treasury yield +3 basis points at 4.24%
• VIX +0.8 points at 18.52
• Bloomberg Dollar Index -0.1% at 1189.33
• euro +0.3% at $1.1856
• WTI crude little changed at $63.56/barrel

Top Overnight News

• Democrats won’t pass the remaining DHS funding unless their demands to reform ICE are met, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told CNN. BBG
• Kevin Warsh’s call for a new Fed-Treasury accord has stirred debate in the $30 trillion bond market, raising concerns over central bank independence and potential market volatility. BBG
• Chinese regulators have advised financial institutions to rein in their holdings of US Treasuries, citing concerns over concentration risks and market volatility. BBG
• Japanese stocks swept to all-time peaks while super-long bonds quickly reversed early weakness in an apparent vote of confidence in Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's "responsible, proactive" fiscal policy. BBG
• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent cited Chinese traders as a reason behind last week’s wild swings in the gold market. He said “They’re having to tighten margin requirements. So gold looks to me kind of like a classical, speculative blowoff.” Bessent expects the Federal Reserve to move cautiously in any effort to trim its balance sheet, and to take at least a year to decide what to do. RTRS
• Thailand’s ruling party clinched a surprise election win over the pro-democracy People’s Party. PM Anutin Charnvirakul’s victory marks the first this century for a party aligned with the royalist establishment. Thai stocks and currency rose. BBG
• UK PM Keir Starmer is battling to save his premiership after the dramatic resignation on Sunday of his most trusted aide Morgan McSweeney, as Labour MPs and officials warn that his job is still in grave peril. FT
• The ECB’s Gediminas Simkus said there’s an equal chance that policymakers’ next move will be to raise or lower borrowing costs. BBG
• Big Tech’s AI push and data center building being financed by some of the world’s biggest companies in the AI boom is becoming one of the most momentous capital efforts in US history (as a percentage of GDP). It’s bigger than the railroad expansion of the 1850s, the Apollo space program that put astronauts on the moon in the 1960s and the decadeslong build-out of the U.S. interstate highway system that ended in the 1970s. WSJ
• Trump posted "Record Stock Market, and National Security, driven by our Great TARIFFS. I am predicting 100,000 on the DOW by the end of my Term. REMEMBER, TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING! I hope the United States Supreme Court is watching".

Trade/Tariffs

• Indian imports of Russian oil could nearly halve following the White House order, Bloomberg reported citing sources. Within the order, it stated that India has committed to stop directly or indirectly importing Russian oil or import tariffs will be raised.
• South Korea’s legislature approves creation of special US investment committee.
• Australia has imposed 10% tariffs on China's steel ceiling frames, following an investigation by the nation’s Anti-Dumping Commission, according to Bloomberg.

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

APAC stocks began the week higher after last Friday's rally on Wall St, where the DJIA topped the 50k level for the first time, while the Nikkei 225 also hit a fresh record high after PM Takaichi's landslide election victory and supermajority. ASX 200 rallied with all sectors in the green and the advances being led by broad strength in tech, real estate, miners, materials and resources. Nikkei 225 rose to fresh record highs above the 57,000 level after the Japanese PM Takaichi's LDP won a supermajority in the lower house election, which would allow it to override the upper house in legislation, while the decisive win paves the way for the government to proc eed with further stimulus and a sales tax cut. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp conformed to the widespread upbeat mood across the region, while it was also reported late last week that China's Cabinet studied measures to promote effective investment and pledged to boost support for private investment.

Top Asian News

• Japan's PM Takaichi said that she has received strong mandate for her policies, following the election. Confirms a swift restart of of parliamentary session. Discussions on refundable tax credit will commence. Will not resort to debt to fund the suspension of food sales tax. Will summit bill to establish national information and committee on foreign investment in the next parliament. Want to pursue a coalition expansion with the DPP if they are keen to do so. Want to lay out interim finding at cross-party meeting on food sales tax suspension by around summer this year. Closely watching market moves, including FX.
• Japanese PM Takaichi said the potential of our alliance with the US is limitless and she is sincerely grateful to US President Trump for his warm words.
• US President Trump congratulates Japanese PM Takaichi and her coalition on a landslide election victory.
• Japanese Finance Minister Katayama said will not comment on FX levels, but noted that recent yen moves are somewhat rapid and one-sided.
• Hong Kong court sentences media tycoon Jimmy Lai to 20 years in jail.
• Japan's top currency diplomat Mimura said closely watching FX moves with a high urgency.

European bourses (STOXX 600 +0.2%) are firmer across the board, as strength across APAC equities filters through into Europe. European sectors hold a positive bias. Travel & Leisure leads, followed closely by Healthcare and Banks whilst Optimised Personal Care and Retail lags. Healthcare is buoyed by gains in Novo Nordisk (+8.3%), which benefits after Hims & Hers said it will stop selling a copycat version of Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy weight-loss pill two days after launch.

Top European News

• Norwegian GDP Growth Rate YoY (Q4) Y/Y 2.2% (Prev. 2.1%).
• Norwegian PPI YoY (Jan) Y/Y -7.8% (Prev. -11.4%).
• Norwegian GDP Growth Mainland QoQ (Q4) Q/Q 0.4% vs. Exp. 0.4% (Prev. 0.1%).
• Norwegian GDP Growth Rate QoQ (Q4) Q/Q -0.3% (Prev. 1.1%).

FX

• DXY is on the backfoot and trades at the bottom end of a 97.33-97.76 range; further pressure could see a test of last week’s trough at 97.00. Much of the pressure this morning can be associated with JPY strength (post-election, discussed below) and following a Bloomberg report which noted that China is urging banks to curb US Treasuries exposure amid market risk – whilst this piece pertains to USTs, it renews fears of a “sell America” theme. US data is lacking for the remainder of the day, so focus will be on Fed speak via Waller, Miran and Bostic. Note: Waller is to discuss “digital assets”, markets know what they expect from arch-dove Miran, and Bostic is set to retire. The docket picks up later in the week, where markets will await US NFP (Wed) and then CPI (Fri); as a reminder, recent jobs metrics have been pointing towards a weakening of the labour market.
• JPY is amongst the outperformers this morning. USD/JPY initially gapped higher at the open (157.47), edged lower a few moments later, before reversing back to highs of 157.65. Since, the JPY has been strengthening vs the USD, potentially on a) high expectations of an LDP victory, b) higher JGB yields, c) jaw-boning via Finance Minister Katayama, d) political stability, e) odds of a BoJ hike in April rising to circa. 60% (prev. 54%). For the latter, analysts at Barclays believe that LDP’s landslide victory may allow the BoJ to proceed with normalisation “somewhat” faster. As such, the bank brought forward its expectations of a 25bps hike to April (prev. saw July), and increased its terminal forecast to 1.5% (prev. 1.25%). This morning, PM Takaichi has provided commentary, has reiterated her vows of fiscal stability, noting that she “will not resort to debt to fund the suspension of food sales tax” – another factor which is likely helping the strength in the JPY this morning. [More details can be found on the Newsquawk headline feed at 07:40GMT/02:40ET]
• G10s are broadly stronger against the USD, with JPY, AUD, EUR, and CHF all firmer by around 0.5%. GBP is the laggard this morning, as domestic political woes remain for the PM. On Sunday, Chief of Staff McSweeney resigned from his role following the Mandelson scandal. Irrespective of this, risks remain, as members of the Cabinet are potentially set to call for the PM to resign, and if he doesn’t, they will possibly step down themselves.

Fixed Income

• JGBs gapped lower by 30 ticks from 131.42 to 131.12 at the open, and then continued to trundle lower to a 131.10 trough; there was then a brief bounce overnight, before gradually declining back to the APAC low. Action today can be characterised by concern around potential increased spending and fiscal instability fears, but overall, the response to Takaichi's LDP securing a super majority has been within recent levels - see the 07:40GMT post for more details and next steps.
• USTs are lower, given the above initially. More recently, pressure is a function of a Bloomberg report that China has urged banks to diversify exposure to US Treasuries amid heightened market risk, guidance that reportedly does not apply to state holdings. A report that pushed USTs to a 111-26 low. Fed speak ahead, though the individuals scheduled are, on face value, not particularly interesting. Reminder, the week ahead has NFP on Wednesday and CPI on Friday.
• Bunds followed the above. Interestingly, while they were initially hit by the Bloomberg report, the benchmark bounced off a 128.03 trough in short order. As the report is, potentially, a net-positive for EGBs long-term, as Chinese banks have to reposition their holdings.
• Gilts hit on the ongoing Mandelson/McSweeney fallout. In brief, while McSweeney has resigned, the pressure around Starmer hasn't abated. Action that saw Gilts gap lower by 42 ticks before slipping another two to a 90.21 base. Since, the benchmark has rebounded by around 30 ticks, but remains in the red by some 10 ticks. The Spectator highlights that some ministers are concerned that Starmer could stand down at any moment. More likely, we could see Cabinet Ministers, privately initially and then possibly publicly, call for the PM to resign, and then they themselves may resign from Starmer's cabinet if he does not comply.
• China is reportedly urging banks to curb US Treasuries exposure amid market risk, Bloomberg reported citing sources; guidance does not apply to China's state holdings of US Treasuries.

Commodities

• WTI and Brent gapped lower but then traded with an upward bias as the morning progressed, to currently trade flat; Brent now trading around USD 68.20/bbl, with a recent bid higher led reports that Qatar is pushing the start of its LNG expansion to the end of 2026. US-Iran meetings last week lacked a material outcome, with the pair agreeing to further talks. For the next meeting, the Trump administration has told Iran to arrive with meaningful substance, following the "good meeting" on Friday.
• Precious metals have continued Friday's rebound, with spot gold regaining the USD 5k/oz handle. Over the weekend, the PBoC announced its 15th straight month of gold buying, which reinforces the key structural driver of major central bank buying of the gold bullion. The dollar has also weakened at the start of the European session, weighed on by the Bloomberg report that China is urging banks to limit USTs exposure. Silver has gradually bid higher as European trade continues, returning back above USD 80/oz and briefly topping above USD 82/oz.
• 3M LME Copper gapped higher but trades muted in a USD 13.02k-13.14k/t band, heading into the Chinese New Year celebrations.
• US Energy Secretary Wright intends to visit Venezuela soon to discuss the future of PDVSA, Politico reported; focussed on improving the management of the Co. Expects Venezuela to hold elections in 18-24 months.
• Vitol Group forecasts peak oil demand to be pushed back to the mid-2030s, with peak demand reaching around 112mln bpd.
• New Zealand energy minister said has shortlisted proposals related to building a first LNG import plant and facility could be operational by 2027 or early 2028.
• Qatar reportedly pushes the start of its LNG expansion to the end of 2026.

Central Banks

• ECB's Kocher said that inflation expectations are fully anchored and FX movements are factored in; Europe must prepare for a greater financial safe haven role. Policy is appropriate and it would require a change in the environment to change current policy stance.
• ECB's Simkus said there's a 50/50 chance that their next move is a hike or cut; rates are at neutral level with growth near potential. Economic environment is fragile.

Geopolitics: Ukraine

• Indian imports of Russian oil could nearly halve following the White House order, Bloomberg reported citing sources. Within the order, it stated that India has committed to stop directly or indirectly importing Russian oil or import tariffs will be raised.
• Russia’s FSB said an attempted assassination of General Alexeyev was ordered by Ukraine with Poland’s participation, according to Interfax.
• US reportedly aims for a March peace deal in Ukraine, followed by quick elections, according to reported.

Geopolitics: Middle East

• Iran's advisor to Supreme Leader is to visit Oman on Tuesday, Tasnim reported.
• Iranian Parliament Speaker said they discussed defence and security in a secret session.

CRYPTO

• Bitcoin is on the backfoot and trades around USD 69k, whilst Ethereum remains just above the USD 2k mark.

US Event Calendar

 

DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

 

 

 

 

 

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 08:34

My back-to-work morning train WFH reads:

• You’ve Never Seen Super Bowl Betting Like This Before: Prediction markets are turbocharging America’s obsession with sports gambling. (The Atlantic)

• The Coming Crypto Apocalypse. The future of money and payments will feature gradual evolution, not the revolution that crypto-grifters promised. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies’ latest plunge further underscores the highly volatile nature of this pseudo-asset class; one only hopes that policymakers will wake up to the risks before it’s too late. (Nouriel Roubini)

• Who is America’s Largest Landowner? The Land Report 100 Research Team analyzes transactions and scours records to determine America’s leading landowners. That’s how we broke the news in 2020 that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was America’s largest farmland owner with more than 260,000 acres. That’s how we identified Shanda Investment Group founder Tianqiao Chen as the owner of almost 200,000 acres of Oregon timberland in 2024. It’s one of the many reasons why news organizations worldwide rely on the Magazine of the American Landowner to understand this asset class. (Land Report)

• Is It Really a Good Sign When Executives Buy Their Own Stock? We Ran the Numbers: We looked at 1,400 insider purchases over the past five years to find out whether they give share prices a boost. (Wall Street Journal)

• AI ‘slop’ is transforming social media – and a backlash is brewing. “I would say AI slop increases the brain rot effect, making people quickly consume content that they know is not only unlikely to be real, but probably not meaningful or interesting,” he says. (BBC) see also The AI Trade Is Entering a New Era of Skepticism: A selloff in software and data analytics stocks reveals growing fears AI tools could cannibalize established industries. Stock Market Survives AI Panic, Even as Tech Collapses. It’s a Monster of Our Own Making. (Barron’s)

• How the Capitalists Broke Capitalism: In a financialized economy, businesses become mere sources of cash, assets to be manipulated and then operated for maximum investor returns. Workers become just another cost, like lumber. Customers are just revenue streams to be tapped. (New York Times)

• The Economic Costs of Brexit on the UK. Ten years on, the economic cost of Brexit has been larger than analysts predicted and that prolonged policy uncertainty contributed importantly to the magnitude of the impact. Understanding the ways in which Brexit resulted in a drag on economic growth for the United Kingdom provides potential lessons about the costs of abruptly pulling back from the global economy for other countries. (Econofact)

• FBI Couldn’t Get into WaPo Reporter’s iPhone Because It Had Lockdown Mode Enabled: Lockdown Mode is a sometimes overlooked feature of Apple devices that broadly make them harder to hack. A court record indicates the feature might be effective at stopping third parties unlocking someone’s device. At least for now. (404 Media)

• People’s Choice: Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026: Organizers of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest are inviting the public to vote for their favorite images from this year’s competition. (The Atlantic)

• Efforts to Ground Physics in Math Are Opening the Secrets of Time: By proving how individual molecules create the complex motion of fluids, three mathematicians have illuminated why time can’t flow in reverse. (Wired)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview  this weekend with Bob Moser, CEO and founder of Prime Group Holdings, a private investor in unique real estate holdings. They created Prime Storage, one of the largest, privately-held self-storage brands in the world, with over 19 million rentable square feet of space and 255 locations across 28 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The firm has acquired over $10 billion in real estate assets.

 

Software relative to the S&P 500 is a particularly brutal chart … essentially 6 years of relative gains wiped out

Source: @KevRGordon

 

Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.

 

The post 10 Monday AM Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

Europe's Chemical Sector 'Will Disappear' Under Weight Of EU Green Deal, CEOs Sound Alarm

Via Remix News,

The visible decline in production in Europe’s chemical sector could soon have far more serious consequences. Production capacity is disappearing, and the further consequences will be alarming, warn leaders of the largest companies in an industry that recently experienced a period of prosperity.

They are calling for swift and far-reaching changes to EU law, writes Polish Business Insider.

In just a few years, nearly 10 percent of production capacity on the Old Continent has disappeared. Industry representatives are warning that cheaper products from Asia and the Middle East are taking their place, as European companies suffocate under the weight of energy prices, CO2 costs, and a thicket of regulations. This is the view of both state-owned (Azoty), private (Qemetica), and foreign companies operating in Poland (BASF).

The chemical sector accounts for approximately 7 percent of the EU’s total industry and generates over 1 million direct jobs, with 3-5 times as many indirect jobs, primarily in small and medium-sized companies. Meanwhile, according to Katarzyna Byczkowska, CEO of BASF Polska, over the last three years, approximately 9 percent of chemical production capacity has been liquidated in Europe, and in 2023-2024, the European chemical industry alone will shrink by 14 percent. During this same period, chemical production grew in countries such as China, Russia, and the United States.

“In Europe, we’re playing a different game than the rest of the world, but on the same playing field. We’re starting to lose,” warns Kamil Majczak, CEO of Qemetika (formerly Ciech), during a debate organized by Siemens with other representatives of the chemical sector. In his opinion, Europe still believes it can impose its rules on others, while China, the U.S., and India view the world as a field for expanding their spheres of influence and taking over markets.

“We can’t expect developing countries to suddenly make everything green, three times more expensive, because we think it’s the right thing to do,” he adds.

Majczak emphasizes that the consequences of rising costs are already tangible. More and more plants are closing in Europe, and some companies have survived the last two or three years by leveraging previous profits. “This buffer is running out, and once a plant closes, it won’t reopen. People will leave, production capacity will disappear, and it won’t return after a year or two,” warns the CEO of Qemetica.

In the case of fertilizers, the price of gas accounts for 75-80 percent of the product’s production cost. For years, Europe has been an importer, now forced to use much more expensive sources than before. This poses a significant challenge for fertilizer companies like Azoty.

This is especially an issue for the chemical sector, as it is such an energy-intensive industry, says Paweł Bielski, vice-president of Grupa Azoty.

“At certain points, gas in the U.S. was 4-6 times cheaper than in Europe,” recalls Katarzyna Byczkowska, CEO of BASF Poland. The differences in energy costs are immediately visible in the profit and loss accounts of European and American plants, admits Kamil Majczak, CEO of Qemetica, who compares the results of factories in Europe and the US. CO2 emissions fees must also be added to the total, which, Majczak says, are practically nonexistent outside of Europe, with the exception of a specific system in California.

Industry representatives emphasize that they are not questioning the direction of decarbonization, but the pace, scale, and structure of regulatory burdens in a situation where Europe is already starting from a worse position, because it is more expensive in terms of energy.

Katarzyna Byczkowska highlights two levels of regulatory costs.

First, there are direct costs resulting from regulatory compliance, as in the case of the EU’s CLP regulation. The change in font on chemical labels was reportedly costing her company over €300 million before, after a year of intense negotiations, some of the provisions were withdrawn.

Second, there is the increasing structural burden resulting from the sheer number and volatility of regulations, which generate chaos, reduce predictability, and drain resources from research and development.

“In Europe, we already spend twice as much on regulatory compliance as on research and development,” notes the head of BASF Poland. Across the continent, this translates to an 8 percent decline in R&D spending, while in China and the US, spending is rising year over year.

Paweł Bielski, Vice President of Grupa Azoty, points out that the EU climate package and subsequent elements of Fit for 55 were developed under completely different conditions than those in which the industry operates today. “The Green Deal was adopted when no one took into account the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, or the rapid change in Europe’s energy balance,” he argues. In his opinion, the direction of decarbonization will remain unchanged, even if some regulations are formally suspended, but the rules themselves should be improved.

A symbolic example is the ETS system, or emissions trading. Free allowances are shrinking every year, and, as Byczkowska explains, companies are unable to “add” another billion euros a year to purchase certificates in a time of crisis and blocked new investments. “We need someone to stop tightening their grip on us even more,” she says.

The clash between European climate ambitions and the realities of global competition is most acute in the clash with Asian production. “We used to be an exporter, now we’re an importer, and that fundamentally disrupts the balance,” says Majczak. China has built vast, modern production capacities in recent years to satisfy its own market, but the slowdown in demand has freed up a significant portion of this capacity for export. 

Taking advantage of cheaper energy and less restrictive regulations, Chinese producers are aggressively entering the European market, from fertilizers to plastics.

Paweł Bielski points out that until recently, Europe had a strong polymer industry, including the production of polyamides for automotive, construction, and packaging. Today, China’s dominance is overwhelming in many segments — in one of them, as he points out, as much as 67 percent of global production capacity is already located in China. He believes a similar trend is visible in fertilizers: Massive installations are being built in Russia, the U.S., and the Persian Gulf countries, which will not consume all of their production domestically, but will instead direct it to Europe, among other countries.

One positive sign is that technological advances reduce costs. “We’re seeing increased activity from companies investing in solutions that enable faster, cheaper, and safer production,” says Maciej Zieliński, CEO of Siemens Polska.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 05:00

Visualizing The Changing Political Affiliation By Generation In The US

Political identity in the U.S. is changing, and the divide is increasingly generational.

Younger Americans are stepping away from traditional party labels, while older generations remain more closely tied to the two-party system.

This visualization, via Visual Capitalist's Niccolo Conte, shows how political affiliation varies across generations, highlighting the growing role of independents in American politics.

The data comes from Gallup. It is based on annual averages from Gallup’s telephone interviews, asking respondents whether they identify as Republican, Democrat, or independent. “No opinion” responses are excluded, and figures may not total 100% due to rounding.

Younger Generations Favor Being Independents

A majority of both Generation Z and Millennials identify as independents. Among Gen Z, 56% say they are independent, compared with just 17% identifying as Republican and 27% as Democrat. Millennials show a similar pattern, with 54% identifying as independent.

 

Party Loyalty Rises With Age

 

Political affiliation becomes more evenly split among older generations. Generation X shows a more balanced distribution, with 31% Republican, 25% Democrat, and 42% independent. Among Baby Boomers, party identification nearly overtakes independence altogether.

The Silent Generation is the most partisan group, with roughly seven in 10 identifying as either Republican or Democrat. This cohort came of age during periods when party affiliation was more stable and closely tied to identity, such as the New Deal era and the Cold War.

Implications for U.S. Politics

The rise of independents among younger generations has major implications for elections and governance. While independents may still lean toward one party, their lack of formal affiliation makes voter behavior less predictable. It also complicates messaging for political parties trying to mobilize younger voters.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out The Distribution of Income in America (2024 vs 1974) on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 04:15

Spain's Prime Minister Tries To Cover Up Corruption With Censorship

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, has appeared at a summit along with autocratic and undemocratic leaders from Georgia and Burundi to talk about protecting citizens and democracy. Fascinating. It is very revealing.

The president talks about protecting minors from the harms of social networks and launches tirades against alleged techno-oligarchs. However, the evidence shows that beneath the supposedly “noble” goal of protecting minors, there is an agenda that includes the introduction of digital identities, biometric control for all, and prior censorship accompanied by state surveillance.

It is obvious to everyone that the objective is to silence independent media.

If the digital control law had been implemented in 2018, the corruption scandals surrounding the Socialist government would never have come to light. Koldo García, accused of embezzlement, would still be a member of the board of public train company Renfe today; Jose Luis Ábalos, under investigation for various corruption scandals, would still be minister; Salazar, investigated for sexual assault, would be an exemplary socialist; Venezuela’s dictatorship’s Delcy Rodriguez would be a VIP nighttime visitor; and the Socialist party’s number two, Santos Cerdán, would still be “Super Santos.” For Sánchez, all those cases were “disinformation” and “fake news” from the “far right”; do not forget it.

If he really cared about teenagers, he would not condemn them to unemployment and ruin and would give greater responsibility to parents, based on freedom. But he wants to ban access to social media because the goal is to silence dissenters.

It is no surprise that his words have been met with enormous enthusiasm by millionaires such as Alex, the son of George Soros, or by defenders of censorship and propaganda who see their dream of social engineering and control slipping away these days.

Hadn’t this inquisition shifted to Bluesky, with the intention of ending X and establishing the true social majority? They treat Bluesky as though it were a non-governmental organization.

Curiously, what Sánchez calls techno-oligarchs does not bother him if they serve his interests. Elon Musk, when aligned with the Democrats, set a global example. Sánchez courted Soros, Gates, Fink, and anyone he could for years. If anyone has used social networks to spread hate, division, polarization, and disinformation, it has been his government and his far‑left partners. However, it is important to note that his objective is not to restrict young people’s access to communist propaganda messages, but rather to prevent them from voting for the right. They thought teens were ideal and wanted them to vote when they thought they’d vote left. Now, when they see that young people are of no use to them, they launch their other favorite social‑engineering tool: the mass regularization of irregular immigrants.

Sanchez lies on immigration policy by deliberately misleading the public about the regularization of illegal immigrants in the country with the highest unemployment rate in the euro area. This tactic serves as a form of social engineering and control, similar to his digital protection strategy, rather than being based on economic logic.

This is not solidarity. The objective is to create a dependent subclass, buy votes, and inflate GDP through immigration, which is why, according to the IMF, Spain’s per capita GDP is expected to increase by only 1.1% from 2017 to 2026 with 10% “official” unemployment (14% real). It delays all those trying to enter legally and passes the enormous cost and social challenges to taxpayers.

Cornered by corruption and the disastrous management of infrastructure and public services, Sánchez launches yet another smokescreen operation to try to silence independent opinions.

The reality? His flagship socialist propaganda projects have failed, TikTok has not helped them win elections, and freedom is advancing. That is what bothers them.

The far left perceives X as a threat, yet none of their criticisms mention TikTok. One is free, and the other is controlled by a dictatorship. Fascinating.

The left loves social networks and billionaires when they serve its purpose of control.

Just remember how thrilled they were with Davos a few years ago. What bothers them is freedom and diversity of opinion. Furthermore, what fills them with uncontrollable rage is that the Grok community dismantles their propaganda in the notes section.

If Musk calls Sánchez a traitor and a tyrant, it is a grave insult against an elected president and against Spain, according to the extreme left, but if socialists and the far left call the elected president of the United States or of Argentina a murderer, dictator, fascist, Nazi, terrorist, and racist, that is fantastic and normal.

The evidence of X’s independence and plurality is that every time I open the app, I see posts from socialist cheerleaders, whom I neither follow nor search for.

All this crisis is yet another example of Sánchez’s mastery in applying the 11 principles of propaganda, especially that of the single enemy and reversal: demonizing a supposed all‑powerful enemy to present himself as victim and savior, and accusing everyone else of being guilty of corruption and negligence, pointing at others to cover his government’s issues.

Whenever corruption scandals or negligence in infrastructure management put the Spanish government under fire, Sanchez creates a smokescreen and applies the main propaganda principles to shift attention. His favorite tactic is to select a “special enemy” for vilification. The far-left government even fabricated a fake “bomb threat” to portray Sanchez as both a victim and a savior to stay in power at any cost. Sanchez has targeted various groups for vilification, including tech companies, energy companies, banks, supermarkets, social media, the independent press, specific nations, and any political opponent, as well as the far-left government’s favorite tactic, promoting antisemitism. Choose one. Divert attention. Move on.

A man who is incapable of winning elections presents himself as the voice of the social majority. It is ridiculous when he is held hostage by the minorities that keep him in power. And power is the only thing he cares about. That is why he seeks censorship at all costs, to silence the majority that does not suit him.

Sánchez wants to create a state of surveillance and censorship in Spain under the pretext of digital “protection.” To all the Sánchez-aligned press that is defending this outrage against freedom of expression, maybe thinking that being political commissars will benefit them, I would like to remind them that purges come afterwards.

If you believe that supporting Sánchez’s totalitarian whims will be advantageous for you, remember that actions you consider acceptable when “your side” does them can also be used by the opposing side against you.

Disinformation and polarization may happen in a free society, but those risks are 100% certain when information is controlled by the state.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 03:30

Humanoid Robot Nails Perfect Backflip As Mobility Progress Accelerates At Scary Pace

Boston Dynamics has released new footage of its flagship humanoid robot program, "Atlas," showcasing next-level mobility and reinforcing our greatest fears that when these bots are paired with "brains," adoption can quickly move from factory floors to offensive defense missions.

"Now that the Atlas enterprise platform is getting to work, the research version gets one last run in the sun. Our engineers made one final push to test the limits of full-body control and mobility, with help from the RAI Institute," Boston Dynamics, which is owned by Hyundai Motor Group, wrote in the description of a video titled "Atlas Airborne."

The video shows Atlas pulling off an impressive cartwheel, capped by a near-perfect backflip landing, at the Robotics & AI Institute testing facility. The institute is a research organization focused on solving fundamental challenges in robotics and AI. The video also highlights several other mobility accomplishments.

What's clear to us is that these humanoid robots are set to march en masse onto assembly lines, warehouses, and other factory floors this year.

As we noted earlier, “robot brains” are already here, accelerating the shift from promotional stunts to real-world use cases and, ultimately, mass commercial adoption across manufacturing settings.

We think there is a rising probability here, frankly high enough that someone should start a Polymarket bet, that humanoid robots for dual use could show up at testing grounds in Ukraine as soon as this year.

We have warned about the dual-use risk even as leading companies, including Boston Dynamics, Agility Robotics, ANYbotics, Clearpath Robotics, Open Robotics, Unitree, and Figure AI, publicly state they will not weaponize their bots.

To our knowledge, Foundation is the only U.S. humanoid robotics developer with an offensive contract with the Department of Defense.

Read the latest on where the humanoid robotics space is headed:

• Humanoid Robots Get "Brains" As Dual-Use Fears Mount

• AI's Next Frontier Is Physical As Humanoid Robots Begin March On Assembly Lines And Beyond

• Watch: Russian Soldiers Surrender To Gun-Wielding Robot; Humanoid Warfare Nears

• AI 'Kill Chains' And Rise Of Skynet-Like Weapons Offer Glimpse Of 2030s Battlefield

These bots have gone from clunky machines that could barely walk in a straight line to running and doing flips in just several years. Our reporting should give readers a framework for the 2030s that makes dual-use humanoid robots unavoidable.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 02:45

Germany Rejects Billion-Euro Data Center: Bureaucracy Wins

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

In Groß-Gerau, Hesse, a billion-euro project has been blocked by citizen opposition and the local council’s majority. The town now seems the epitome of Germany’s decline: backward-looking, stubborn, and hopelessly lost in an era that leaves no room for passive solipsism.

With roughly 27,000 residents, Groß-Gerau benefits from direct connections to Frankfurt and Darmstadt, making it an ideal commuter town. Here lives Germany’s traditional middle class: partly insulated from the nation’s economic and social upheavals, yet close enough to major developments to suddenly find itself in the public eye.

CDU Votes for the Project

Last week, the town council rejected a data center from the U.S. company Vantage Data Centers following protests from residents. With votes from SPD, Greens, and the Left, the town turned down a private investment of roughly €2.5 billion. 

Visualization of the planned data center by Vantage Data Centers in Groß-Gerau.

The planned facility would have been part of the Rhein-Main region’s digital infrastructure, anchored by DE-CIX, one of the world’s most significant internet hubs. It’s about the world’s new data highways—AI, autonomous systems, autonomous driving, cloud solutions—all the infrastructure major economies like the U.S. and China rely on to escape economic stagnation.

For Germany, these developments are treated as marginal at best. The prevailing attitude cloaks itself in ideological-moral superiority, using regulation to ensure companies and users do not “go too far.” In European politics, the digital sphere is little more than a playground for polemic opposition and petty criticism of the master plan to build a green-socialist ideal state.

With an 18-14 vote, the town council ultimately opposed the project. Only the CDU, alongside the Kombi-FWG, supported it. This illuminates German political dynamics: absent the AfD, the CDU surprisingly acts independently—even defying the so-called “firewall” party cartel. Could this hint at Germany’s potential political liberation? Or was this local CDU action merely a fluke within the party’s otherwise steadfast Brussels-aligned ideology?

The proposed site would have been a few hundred meters from residential areas, separated by an industrial park. Yet this was enough for alleged noise concerns to dominate local discourse. The Greens argued the data center would create “heat corridors” and depress property values—a concern never applied when building wind turbines. While public interest routinely overrode private property during wind farm construction, here ideology replaced rational risk assessment. From the outset, local politics sought excuses to kill the project—driven by avoidance, fear of responsibility, and bureaucratic inertia.

Excuses and Evasion

Justifications for rejecting the investment were as bizarre as they were German: timid, defensive, and devoid of any vision. Expected tax revenues were deemed insufficient, potential jobs minimal—excuse piled on excuse. Bureaucracy has so deeply entrenched itself that private investment is now perceived as a threat rather than an opportunity.

This system has eroded abstraction skills and converted real weakness into moral superiority. The future is no longer seen as malleable, change is perceived as a burden, and imagination is systematically weakened. People learn to follow rules instead of solving problems.

The solution is breaking free from this iron cage of regulation—reviving innovation and building the infrastructure essential for tomorrow’s economy.

The Gaulish Village of Green Ideologues

German politics has never had a serious problem dispossessing homeowners for wind turbines. So-called citizen participation is little more than soothing ointment over real, material losses imposed on residents. Even symbolic compensation schemes in some states fail to address the structural disregard for property rights. Private property is viewed with suspicion and treated as a fiscal quarry for ideological ambitions.

Groß-Gerau’s project could have been a chance to implement a market-oriented model of fair compensation, putting economic principles above ideological command politics. Instead, Germany remains in a psychological “Gaulish village”: perpetually defensive against modernization, with bureaucracy and NGOs nurturing provincialism.

For U.S. companies, this is standard practice: property rights enforce serious negotiations with affected residents, or litigation ensures balance. France offers a contrasting example: President Emmanuel Macron recently poured €30 million into his nation’s “Silicon Valley,” while U.S. private investment dwarfs such state initiatives by hundreds of billions. The lesson is clear: Europe remains shackled by centralization, unable to compete with more agile, market-oriented systems.

It’s high time Germany abandoned climate-socialist rigidity and started embracing new business models. Stubbornness and timidity should no longer prevent the country from recognizing opportunities for growth and innovation.

* * *

About the author: Thomas Kolbe, a German graduate economist, has worked for over 25 years as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 02:00

Epstein's Gates To Pandemonium

Authored by Jordi Pigem via the Brownstone Institute,

“We are going to have fun,” writes Jeffrey Epstein on December 7, 2009.

This phrase is his reply to an email by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Science Advisor (and Scientific Advisor to Bill Gates), Boris Nikolic, who is making a list of “raising stars,” many of them scientists, that they “should visit together.”

By then, everyone must have known that Epstein was a notorious, convicted sex offender. He had been released from jail only a few months before, on July 22. He had been under investigation since 2005: federal officials had identified three dozen girls whom Epstein had allegedly sexually abused (after a controversial plea deal agreed by the US Department of Justice, he was only convicted of two crimes). Why would a high ranking official of Gates’ Foundation want to organize meetings between Epstein and prominent scientists? If it was about money, surely they could find better-looking investors. What, eventually, were they “going to have fun” with?

Source: EFTA01822311.pdf

One of the revelations of the latest batch of Epstein files is his strong interest in viruses, vaccines, pandemics, and mRNA. Two months after getting out of jail, he is writing about viruses, infectious diseases, and something he calls “My BIG idea.”

Source: EFTA00739886.pdf

Or, for instance, in January 2010, he was discussing mRNA and codons.

The latest batch documents of the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, released on January 30, consists of over 3 million pages, with many names redacted. A helpful simulation of Epstein’s inbox has been created, fully searchable and giving access to the contents of over 7,000 emails. With keywords and patience the original documents can then be located on the DOJ website.

The trio Epstein-Nikolic-Gates also features prominently in a long agreement letter sent by Epstein to Gates. According to this 2013 document, Gates “specifically requested” Epstein to “personally serve as the representative” of Nikolic in negotiations over the termination of his work with Gates. The first section of this six-page letter states: “Mr. Gates acknowledges that Mr. Epstein has an existing collegial relationship with Mr. Gates in which Mr. Epstein received confidential and/or proprietary information from Mr. Gates.” An analysis of its contents and wider implications can be found in a detailed article by Sayer Ji on Epstein, Gates, and “Pandemics as a Business Model.”

In March 2017, two and a half years before Event 201, three years before Covid-19 was officially declared a pandemic by the WHO, an email thread involving Gates and bgC3 (Bill Gates Catalyst 3, now Gates Ventures) speaks of “pandemic simulation.”

Source: EFTA02381427.pdf

A number of emails in the Epstein files speak of pandemic preparedness. One of them, from March 2015, explicitly invites to discuss “how to officially involve the WHO” for the sake of “co-branding” (it looks like the “product” to “co-brand” is a pandemic).

Source: EFTA00861674.pdf

In 2017, an email from Boris Nikolic addressed to both Epstein and Gates (four years after the agreement letter about Epstein mediating the rupture between Nikolic and Gates) mentions “pandemic” as a key area for a Donor Advised Fund.

Source: EFTA02389903.pdf

Nikolic was later named as executor in Epstein’s will, signed two days before his death, officially by suicide, in August 2019. (As I’m writing this, a friend points out to me that according to Fortnite Tracker, a player with Epstein’s username, littlestjeff1, was still playing, from Israel, in 2024…)

Epstein was a node in a large network of darkness, and the release of the files may be a threshold into it. In a video interview included in the release, Epstein tells Steve Bannon that he is only “tier-one,” “the lowest level” of sexual predator. As researcher Whitney Webb has stated in conversation with James Corbett:

Jeffrey Epstein was as much a financial criminal as a sex criminal. There’s a very particular reason why mainstream media only wants to talk about his sex crimes between 2000 and 2006. Jeffrey Epstein was also not an anomaly in the network in which he operated. Numerous people engage in sex blackmail and sex trafficking. If you think these issues died with Jeffrey Epstein, you are sorely mistaken. […] And if you were to pull on the Epstein thread, I guess you could say, you start to unravel a lot of the bigger picture.

In early 2020, not everyone knew the word pandemic. Much less familiar still was the word (more common until 1900) pandemonium. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines pandemonium, in its first sense, as “the abode of all demons” and, later on, as “a place or state of utter confusion and uproar.” Covid was a pandemonium: it did generate a “state of utter confusion.” The word was coined by John Milton in Paradise Lost (1667), where Pandemonium is “the palace of Satan,” “the high capital of Satan and his peers,” and “city and proud seat of Lucifer.” Other than the prefix pan- (Greek for “all”), these words are unrelated.

It seems Gates and Epstein were much closer than it had been assumed. Gates brings to mind, among other things, pandemic preparedness (as in CEPI, the “Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations,” and Event 201, both of which had the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as key funder). Epstein brings to mind a darkness that involved horrible violence to children and, most likely, explicit invocation of powerful evil forces — as is increasingly common in the highest tiers of political, economic, and technological power. Gates and Epstein, pandemic and pandemonium, may be closer than we thought.

A final word. We find ourselves in a world that, to a large extent, is morally, cognitively, and spiritually already collapsing. To face this darkness without being bulldozed by it, it is essential to be aware that the primordial Source of reality (call it God or what makes sense to you) is ultimately Light, Goodness, and Truth. And that is what shall prevail at the end.

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/08/2026 - 23:20

Loeffler: SBA Suspends Over 100,000 California Borrowers In Pandemic-Loan Fraud Sweep

The U.S. Small Business Administration said Friday it has suspended more than 100,000 California borrowers amid suspected fraud tied to pandemic-era relief programs, a move the agency said represents one of the largest enforcement actions since Covid-19 aid was rolled out.

Kelly Loeffler, administrator of the Small Business Administration, during a news conference at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., Oct. 27, 2025.  (Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

111,620 California borrowers were linked to suspected fraudulent activity involving Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan funds. Those borrowers received 118,489 loans totaling more than $8.6 billion, according to the agency.

SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler said the action reflects a broader crackdown on abuse of emergency lending programs created during the pandemic. “Once again, the Trump SBA is taking decisive action to deliver accountability in a state whose unaccountable welfare policies have created a culture of fraud and abuse at the expense of law-abiding taxpayers and small business owners,” Loeffler said in a statement.

‘WE’RE PROSECUTING’: SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler says the agency suspended more than 111,000 California borrowers after uncovering $8.6 billion in suspected fraudulent activity linked to the COVID pandemic:

“We're gonna continue to work with our federal partners to ensure… pic.twitter.com/qBg3eHZrJL

— Fox News (@FoxNews) February 7, 2026

The programs were designed to help businesses stay afloat during pandemic shutdowns - however both have been plagued by fraud since their rapid deployment, prompting years of investigations by federal watchdogs and law-enforcement agencies.

The California action follows a similar enforcement effort announced last month in Minnesota, where the SBA said it suspended 6,900 borrowers after identifying what it described as widespread suspected fraud. In that review, the agency flagged nearly $400 million in potentially fraudulent PPP and EIDL loans tied to about 7,900 approvals during the pandemic, according to Loeffler. 

“As we did in Minnesota, we are actively working with federal law enforcement to identify the criminals who defrauded American taxpayers, hold them to account and recoup the stolen funds,” Loeffler said. “As we continue our state-by-state work, our message is clear: Pandemic-era fraudsters will not get a pass under this administration.”

The SBA has previously said at least $2.5 million in PPP and EIDL funds were linked to a Somali-connected fraud scheme based in Minneapolis, underscoring how organized networks exploited gaps in oversight as billions of dollars were rushed out the door during the public-health emergency.

Loeffler said the scale of the California suspensions highlights what she characterized as years of insufficient enforcement. The announcement criticized what she described as tolerance of fraud under the Biden administration, while framing the current actions as part of a renewed push under the Trump administration to recover misspent funds and pursue criminal accountability.

The SBA said its review of pandemic lending is ongoing, with additional state-by-state actions expected as investigations continue.

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/08/2026 - 21:35

What's The Likelihood Of A Global Nuclear Arms Race?

Authored by Andrew Korybko,

Russia and China are expected to reciprocally respond to the US’ potential development of new nukes and/or new nuke tests after it just let the New START lapse, which could be exploited by European and East Asian countries to develop their own nukes, thus emboldening some Muslim ones to follow suit.

RT reported on German politician Sahra Wagenknecht’s condemnation of a prominent AfD politician for claiming that Germany “needs nuclear weapons”, which followed ruling CDU lawmaker Roderich Kiesewetter calling for their country to participate in a European nuclear umbrella. The context concerns France’s proposal last year of extending its own such umbrella over the EU amid newfound fears among some European elites that a US invasion of Greenland could lead to it removing the EU from its umbrella.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz just confirmed that Berlin is exploring this. NBC News cited six European officials a week prior to report that options “include improving France’s nuclear weaponry, redeploying French nuclear-capable bombers outside of France, and beefing up French and other European conventional forces on NATO’s eastern flank. Another option under discussion is to equip European countries that do not have nuclear weapons programs with the technical abilities to acquire them.”

RT’s report reminded readers that “Germany is prohibited from developing nuclear weapons under international law, including the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the Two Plus Four Treaty”. Nevertheless, international law is only upheld if there are credible enforcement mechanisms or the political will to unilaterally enforce international law if the aforesaid no longer exist, which is arguably the case at present due to the UNSC’s dysfunctional deadlock over the past decade.

So long as Germany is under someone’s nuclear umbrella and they have the political will to uphold their commitment, whether that’s the US, France, and/or the UK, then it’s unlikely that Russia would risk World War III by attacking Germany if it begins developing nukes. The same goes for any other European country like Poland or the Nordics, the first of which already strongly implied its future intent to develop nukes while a Norwegian lieutenant colonel introduced the second in an article at War On The Rocks.

The “publicly plausible” pretext for either extending France’s and/or the UK’s nuclear umbrella over the EU, including to reinforce the US’ if it isn’t removed, and/or the abovementioned countries developing nukes could be Russia’s reciprocal response to the US’ potential development of new nukes and/or new nuke tests. Trump 2.0’s decision to let the New START with Russia lapse instead of agree to Putin’s proposal for extending it another year releases the US from its legal obligations not to do any of that.

It’s therefore possible that a nuclear arms race could erupt between not only the US on one side and Russia (and China) on the other, but also between the EU and Russia, possibly with the US being the one that transfers nuclear technology to its EU allies. In that scenario, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Turkiye might no longer restrain themselves either, the first two driven by perceived threats from China and/or North Korea and the last two by those from Israel (possibly with technical support from Pakistan).

The world is on the brink of a global nuclear arms race. John Mearsheimer argues that “nuclear weapons are a superb deterrent” since “no state is likely to attack the homeland or vital interests of a nuclear-armed state for fear that such a move might trigger a horrific nuclear response”, but this assumes that states are rational, which some EU ones arguably aren’t. Instead of stabilizing the world and preserving peace, a global nuclear arms race might destabilize it and spike the risk of an accidental nuclear war.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/08/2026 - 21:00

The Idiocracy That Is California Politics

Authored by William Andersen via The Mises Institute,

After having lived in California the past four years, I can attest to the near-insanity of progressive politics in this state, yet California’s very progressive governor, Gavin Newsom, is considered a front-runner for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president in 2028.

Given how the Trump administration has helped to tank the economy through its tariffs, inflation, and outright regime uncertainty, there is a real possibility that Newsom can make California governance a reality for the entire country.

In other words, politically speaking, there seems to be no ceiling for the damage that progressive politicians in California can do with no objections from their constituents.

Thanks to the state’s governance, the cost of living here is well above the national average, even though there is no reason as to why that should be the case.

The highly-abstract worldview from which progressives draw their governing ethos continues to claim victims, but Democrats — who make up the overwhelming voter bloc in this state—do not care about the damage being done, since they can always blame Republicans and capitalism just like Big Brother blamed Goldstein.

The latest legislative caper is a wealth tax on the state’s 200 or so billionaires that is so onerous that, should voters approve it in November of this year, will drive businesses and their owners out of the state altogether.

However, California’s mostly-Democratic voters have signaled they are more than willing to approve the tax even though they know it will cause economic harm. 

While I wrote the following piece more than four years ago, it still holds true and there is no chance that the political and legislative balances in this state will change — except for moving further to the left. 

*  *  *

My colleague from the philosophy department at my former employer, Frostburg State University, was becoming increasingly angry. He was trying to be polite, but it was clear that he was raging inside. After a few minutes, he smiled a very strained smile and excused himself.

Our conversation was about California, or to be more specific, California governance. As readers can imagine, he was bullish on how the Democratic Party governs the state, California being perhaps the most one-party state in the USA. Every statewide election has gone to a Democrat in the last decade, and Democrats have a supermajority in the state legislature, which means that there is no meaningful Republican opposition and whatever the Democrats want, they get.

Not surprisingly, California governance is squarely progressive. The unions representing government employees effectively run the legislature, and as a result, pay, benefits, and pensions for those workers increasingly are straining the state budgets. (Steven Greenhut, a libertarian journalist based in California, has documented the unsustainable growth of government in that state for nearly two decades.) Yet, the state continues to march politically and economically in the progressive direction as though the laws of economics didn’t matter.

For the most part I have observed progressive California from far away, but my life took a different turn a few years ago, and the state is becoming my new home. I married a retired nurse from Sacramento in 2018, and because of health issues with her adult daughter, she has to remain in that city, something not in our original plans. Because my school’s campus either was closed or severely restricted during the covid-19 lockdowns, I spent most of the 2020 working from my wife’s home.

Living and working in California has offered me the opportunity to observe California progressivism up close, and it has been an interesting experience. Yes, the state where I officially reside, Maryland, is famously one-party and progressive, but the progressivism of California makes Maryland’s legislature look almost red state by comparison and surreal in some ways.

For example, the California legislature in its progressive wisdom effectively decriminalized theft as long as thieves take less than $950 worth of merchandise, officially reducing such theft to a misdemeanor but in effect making it legal, since progressive California prosecutors don’t like to be bothered by petty criminals. In practice, that means consumer goods are much harder to find in California stores than one might experience elsewhere. For me, the difference was quite revealing, as I recently returned to Maryland after spending close to nine months in Sacramento.

When I go to the Walmart near my wife’s home, I find many things openly are on display in Maryland are behind locked cases in California. Furthermore, California’s draconian labor laws mean Walmart has fewer employees, so if I wish to purchase something I easily could buy in Maryland, I have to wait for a long time and often I just walk away because no one is available to open the glass case. Yet, even with these provisions, shoplifting losses for California retailers are enormous, and the state’s pro-theft laws have encouraged organized grab-and-run rings.

My progressive colleagues, like my philosophy professor friend, see no problem with such developments. To them, the real thieves are the capitalists, the retailers like Walmart which refuse to pay “living wages” to their employees, and, according to Senator Bernie Sanders, the capitalists have “been looting” Americans for years. Thus, the wave of theft in that state is a positive development, according to progressives.

I can go on, but it isn’t difficult to expose the vast array of sins (economic and otherwise) committed by the California political classes, and I liken this kind of punditry to swinging a bat in a room full of pinatas—one simply cannot miss. Steven Greenhut has been exposing California’s follies for years. However, perhaps the best recent commentary I have read on the progressive mentality that governs the state comes from blogger Mike Solana, who deftly skewers progressive politicians from the Golden State who now accuse the tech industry of having “extracted wealth” from California before leaving for the greener pastures of lower-tax havens such as Texas and Florida.

Solana’s rip is worth the read if for no other reason than that he exposes the cluelessness of progressive politicians and pundits, and one can be assured that progressive politicians will fit Tallyrand’s description of the Bourbons: “They had learned nothing, and had forgotten nothing.” Yet, Solana also is puzzled as to why Bay Area politicians who fail spectacularly also win landslide elections:

Nothing in San Francisco can be set on a path to slow correction until at least six of the eleven district board seats along with the mayorship belong to sane, goal-oriented leaders cognizant of our city’s many problems, and single-mindedly focused on solving them. These politicians will likewise need to be extremely well-funded. This is to say we need a political class, funded by a political machine, neither of which currently exist. Even were both the class and the funding apparatus to rapidly emerge, and even were the new political coalition to win an undefeated string of miracle elections, it would take four years to seize meaningful political power from the resident psychotics in charge, who, as per the last election, appear to be very popular among close to ninety percent of voters (a curiosity for another wire). This is to say nothing of the broader Bay Area political toxicity, nor the state political dynamics, which are poised to exacerbate every one of our problems. It is a multi-front political catastrophe.

During the covid-19 pandemic, which California politicians—and especially Governor Gavin Newsom—mismanaged spectacularly, California voters overwhelmingly chose the progressive status quo. While writers go on and on about the mind-boggling politics of California, the voters continue to send the left-wing progressives into office at all levels of government. While some might believe that “education” is the key to the so-called self-governance of democracy, voters in California clearly are choosing their candidates for reasons other than demonstrating wisdom in office. Indeed, why voters insist on putting the worst on top is perhaps the most intriguing question one asks about California politics.

Typical wisdom says that voters “vote for their pocketbooks,” but the progressives whom the lower-income voters overwhelmingly choose to elect are responsible for California having the nation’s highest poverty rates. Furthermore, for all the antiwealth rhetoric that California’s progressive candidates spew out, the very poor and the very rich voters in California tend to choose and support the same candidates, and the Democratic Party is the party of choice of the state’s large number of billionaires.

There is little or nothing that the current progressive state government has done that promotes the promotion of real wealth in California, yet even as state authorities actively destroy economic opportunities, the voters respond by demanding more of the same. That would seem to be a mystery, but maybe not. Let me explain.

In the past few years, wildfires have ravaged huge tracts of mostly public land in California (and in much of the West, although California has been hit the hardest). There are many reasons for the fires, the most obvious being that most of California receives little rainfall and many fires occur in mountainous terrain, where it is difficult to fight them. But there is much more, and most of it has to do with progressive policies. Even the George Soros–funded Pro Publica recognizes the role of fire suppression-based land management practices in making the fires worse:

The pattern is a form of insanity: We keep doing overzealous fire suppression across California landscapes where the fire poses little risk to people and structures. As a result, wildland fuels keep building up. At the same time, the climate grows hotter and drier. Then, boom: the inevitable. The wind blows down a power line, or lightning strikes dry grass, and an inferno ensues. This week we’ve seen both the second- and third-largest fires in California history. “The fire community, the progressives, are almost in a state of panic,” (Tim) Ingalsbee said. There’s only one solution, the one we know yet still avoid. “We need to get good fire on the ground and whittle down some of that fuel load.”

Yet, the progressivist religion that defines the Democratic Party in California cannot acknowledge that the leave-nature-alone policies could have anything to do with the scope and intensity of the wildfires. Instead, the powers that be have decided that climate change—and only climate change—is responsible, and the way to deal with the problem is to impose draconian rules that make life difficult for most people living there, from outlawing new natural gas residential hookups to its infamous “road diets” imposed to discourage people from driving cars. Despite the fact that California politicians, such as Gov. Gavin Newsom, claim that these policies will significantly reduce global temperatures and make wildfires less intense, the reality is quite different, as California accounts for less than 1 percent of so-called greenhouse gases in the world.

Perhaps the most symbolic action by California’s government of progressive arrogance is the continued development of the “bullet train,” an ambitious (to be charitable) project to build high-speed rail from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Under urging from then governor Jerry Brown, voters in the Golden State in 2008 agreed to permit a bond issue to begin funding what Brown claimed would require a maximum of $33 billion. California’s mountainous terrain forced design and route changes, turning the LA-SF “dream” into a train that would run between Bakersfield and Merced, two cities in the flat Central Valley. To make matters even worse, passenger rail service via Amtrak already exists in the valley, and even if everything were to go to plan (a heroic assumption, one might add), the bullet train would save only forty-five minutes in travel from the existing route.

As the proposed length of the bullet train becomes shorter, the costs continue to skyrocket. The original $33 billion estimate now has ballooned to more than $100 billion—if the project even is completed. Yet the project continues to live. Last year I spoke to a former coworker of my wife who enthusiastically supports the rail project. When I asked her about the cost and the fact that there really is no demand for this service, her response was instructive: “But we NEED trains!” Never mind that this is a boondoggle that dwarfs almost anything else we know as government waste; never mind that California taxpayers are being forced to fund a massive wealth transfer to politically connected contractors in which there are all costs and no benefits. The state “needs” trains.

My faculty colleague also became angry at my panning the California bullet train, and I have wondered why progressives are so defensive about this project. There is no doubt that it is a huge waste of money and that the passenger-mile costs are well above anything else that exists in public transportation, but that doesn’t seem to matter. One would think that “good government” progressives would see the disconnect here.

One possible explanation comes from Murray Rothbard, who recognized that progressives ultimately are at “war with nature.” While Rothbard was writing about egalitarianism, nonetheless one can argue that progressive policies are aimed at producing very different outcomes than what would happen if people were free to make their own choices, and especially choices with their own money.

Because of the rise of the tech industry, California has seen an increase in wealth that probably is unprecedented in the history of this country—and maybe the world. Not surprisingly, the state’s tax take has massively increased in the past two decades, with the percentage of income tax revenues rising dramatically as tech entrepreneurship has created a new billionaire class. While one can think of these new billionaires as a new class of wealthy, in many ways their outlooks (at least after they become wealthy) often reflect the outlooks of the wave of entrepreneurs such as Andrew Carnegie who developed new technologies, put them to economic use, created vast amounts of wealth, and then created the foundations that ultimately would be governed by a wealth-destroying philosophy of progressivism.

In part, the wealth created permits foundation-financed “visionaries” to demand that resources be directed in a different way than would be done in a market economy, with “serve the people” and “make a difference” as mantras. We see that time and again in California, where tax-engorged “visionary” progressive politicians seize wealth created by private enterprise in order to pursue their own causes such as environmentalism.

Of course, as we already have pointed out, progressive policies tend to make the original problems worse. Not only have progressives made mass wildfires more likely, but they also have been behind the rise in homelessness in California. In the late 1970s, the San Francisco city government instituted rent controls. Not surprisingly, housing shortages followed, and the real price of housing skyrocketed. As shortages became worse, progressive politicians doubled down on the controls. Today, more than five thousand people live on the streets in San Francisco, and the government—bound by its own progressive ideals—is helpless to do anything but hand out money and defend its policies. And this in the city with the most billionaires per capita in the world.

There are three reasons why California governance will not change even as it heads toward a fiscal cliff.

First, and most important, progressive ideology is intractable and does not yield to the laws of economics. Progressive politicians are feted in the mainstream media and in California’s left-wing education institutions, and voters don’t seem to want any alternatives. (After all, California “needs” trains.) Politicians who raise questions as to this model of governance can expect to be demonized in the media and will face violent protests if they show up in public venues—and especially on college campuses.

The second reason is that California voters are drawn to progressive Democrats no matter what disasters these politicians might inflict. The highly educated voters do not support progressive Democrats just on economic issues, but also on the highly contentious social issues, and with the 2020 “revolt of the rich” dominating Democratic Party politics at the present, it is doubtful that this current wave of progressive-favoring voters will change direction.

Democrats also have the immigrant vote in their back pockets, and California has seen a wave of immigrants help turn it into a one-party state. For now, the numbers are just overwhelming, and we can expect California to move even further to the left as its housing and poverty problems become worse and Democrats successfully convince voters that free markets are cause.

The third reason things won’t change in California is that progressive government creates its own sets of monopoly rents that are distributed to politically connected interest groups. In the case of the Golden State, state-employee and municipal labor unions are by far the most powerful political entity, and they control vast blocs of voters. Their power was recently demonstrated by their support of the covid-19 lockdowns in the state—during which public employees continued to draw full pay even as the lockdown policies ravaged the state’s tax base.

Should one doubt the power of California’s government-employee unions, witness the “success” of what was called AB 5, the law that almost killed the “gig” industries in the state, putting thousands of freelance writers and musicians out of work. Written by the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations) as a means of ending the Uber and Lyft rideshare services (and protect unionized taxi and public transportation workers), the fallout was so bad that even the legislature had to back off some of the restrictions. Voters did the rest last November when they beat back most of the most onerous provisions of the law. (One doubts that the musicians and writers that lost their jobs changed their progressive voting patterns in the most recent election. Such is the staying power of progressive ideology.)

If one believes that perhaps the wave of progressive voters will become “converted” to a “free minds and free markets” approach (the “left libertarian” position), the experience of New York City should be instructive. In 1975, the economy was in recession, businesses were fleeing the city’s onerous tax rates and antibusiness climate, and city officials were fraudulently selling capital bonds to pay for previously issued capital bonds. (William E. Simon, the US secretary of the Treasury in 1975, laid out the entire scenario in his blockbuster A Time for Truth.)

New York’s problem was obvious—except in the minds of progressives. Where most of us would understand that having unions running away with the budgets while suppressing productive private enterprises is a losing proposition, progressives see a nefarious capitalist plot. That New York City had a relatively brief renaissance in large part because of the deregulation of banking and finance (which was begun by President Jimmy Carter) plays no role in progressive thinking at all.

Unlike New York City, California does not have an economic ace in its pocket. Even though much of the tech industry has prospered during the state’s draconian pandemic shutdowns, the state government (not to mention cities and counties) is facing the worst financial crisis perhaps in its history. Not surprisingly, the progressive response is to increase incendiary rhetoric toward wealth creators and demand even higher taxes and more business regulations.

Progressivism is a utopian philosophy of governance that will never find nor create its utopia. If California voters and politicians do not understand the current crisis and how it came about, they probably never will understand. Instead, we will see the continuous march to perdition as California politicians refuse to acknowledge that they are killing the geese laying the golden eggs.

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/08/2026 - 20:15

Trump Lifts Biden-Era Restrictions On Commercial Fishing In Atlantic Marine Monument

Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

President Donald Trump revoked a prohibition on commercial fishing in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument on Friday, restoring rules that allow regulated harvesting in the protected Atlantic waters while citing existing federal laws as adequate safeguards for the area’s ecosystems.

A commercial scallop fishing boat enters the Manasquan Inlet in Point Pleasant, N.J., on May 4, 2012. Wayne Parry/AP Photo

The move reverses a 2021 decision by President Joe Biden that reinstated fishing restrictions in the roughly 4,913-square-mile monument, located where the continental shelf meets the Atlantic Ocean off New England. The monument was created by President Barack Obama’s Proclamation 9496 in 2016.

In Trump’s proclamation, he said that well-regulated commercial fishing is in the public interest.

The president’s proclamation argues that laws such as the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act ensure sustainable fishing practices and protect marine species, making a total ban unnecessary.

“Following further consideration of the nature of the objects identified in Proclamation 9496 and the protection of those objects already provided by Federal law, I find that appropriately managed commercial fishing would not put the objects of historic and scientific interest that the monument protects at risk,” the new proclamation states.

Trump’s action comes after his 2020 modification of the monument, which removed fishing restrictions imposed by Obama’s 2016 proclamation under the Antiquities Act. Obama designated the area as a monument to preserve deep-sea canyons, seamounts, and associated marine life, including highly migratory fish species and rare corals.

In his proclamation, Trump noted that many fish in the monument are not unique to the area and are managed by regional fishery councils using scientific data. Other statutes, such as the Endangered Species Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act, and Clean Water Act, provide additional protections for wildlife, habitats, and water quality.

Trump’s latest action revokes Biden’s Proclamation 10287 in 2021, which restored protections for the monument, and reinstates the terms of Proclamation 10049, issued in 2020, which removed restrictions.

The monument’s boundaries remain the same, but management will align with Trump’s 2020 proclamation, allowing commercial activities under existing regulations.

Trump’s proclamation notes the Antiquities Act requires monuments’ boundaries to be the “smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected.”

Environmental groups have long supported the monument’s protections, arguing they shield vulnerable species from industrial impacts. A 2019 federal appeals court ruling upheld Obama’s designation against challenges from fishing interests, affirming the ban on commercial fishing and resource extraction to protect whales, turtles, fish, and deep-sea corals.

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/08/2026 - 18:40

America's Record Health Spending Explained In 5 Charts

Authored by Lawrence Wilson via The Epoch Times,

U.S. health care spending reached $5.3 trillion in 2024, according to recently released data from the Department of Health and Human Services.

That includes all health spending through federal and state health programs like Medicare and Medicaid, money paid by individuals to health insurers and providers, spending by employers, and payments made by insurance companies.

Here’s a look at the overall picture of America’s health spending and what that means for consumers and taxpayers.

The United States spends more on health care than any nation in the world.

That’s true whether as a gross amount, a per-capita average of $15,474, or a share of the national economy, 18 percent.

And the amount keeps growing. Per capita health care spending has grown every year since 2000, rising at 77 percent higher than inflation.

Health care is the largest industry in the United States by total spending and employment.

Health care, grouped with social services by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employed more people than any other industry and was one of the fastest growing U.S. industries.

About $18 of every $100 spent in the United States went to pay for health care in 2024. That’s more than was spent on housing ($12), groceries ($5), national defense ($4), or cars ($3).

Health care spending rose 7.2 percent in 2024, but health care prices accounted for less than half of the increase.

Those prices rose 2.5 percent, which was below the overall inflation rate of 2.9 percent that year.

Most of the increase was due to increased cost or use of other goods and services, the increased demand for medical services, and changes in the population.

The overall demand for medical services increased and was the most significant reason for increased spending, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Americans spent $768 billion on non-medical expenses in 2024, about 15 percent of health care spending.

Most health care funding is provided by individuals through out-of-pocket payments, health insurance premiums, taxes used to fund government health care programs, or money paid by employers to health insurers in lieu of employee wages.

Most of the money flows through other hands, which include the federal government, state governments, and employers.

President Donald Trump and some Republicans in Congress have proposed placing more discretion for health care spending in the hands of consumers, for example by providing funded health savings accounts to individuals rather than paying subsidies directly to insurance companies.

Democrats, whose legislative and policy proposals generally favor controlling costs through increased regulation and subsidies, have so far opposed that idea.

Health care spending accounted for more than a quarter (27 percent) of all federal spending in 2024 and was the largest spending category.

The cost of health care is the greatest financial worry for Americans, according to recent polling from health policy research group KFF.

Two-thirds of Americans (66 percent) said they worried about being able to afford insurance premiums and medical bills. Health expenses were a greater concern than paying for utilities, food, housing, and gas.

More than half (55 percent), said their health care costs had increased in the past year.

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/08/2026 - 17:30

ICE Urges Newsom Not To Release 33,179 Criminal Illegal Immigrants Into Communities

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have requested the state of California and Gov. Gavin Newsom not to release over 33,000 criminal illegal immigrants with ICE detainers back into the streets, ICE said in a Feb. 6 statement.

ICE detainers are requests to state, local, or federal law enforcement to notify ICE before releasing a removable immigrant. A detainer can also request that an immigrant be held for 48 more hours beyond their scheduled release date to allow DHS time to take custody. The request is sent to prisons and other confinement facilities.

California’s failure to honor ICE detainers has resulted in the release of 4,561 criminal illegal immigrants since Jan. 20, ICE said in its statement.

“There are currently 33,179 aliens in the custody of a California jurisdiction with active detainers. The crimes of these aliens include 399 homicides, 3,313 assaults, 3,171 burglaries, 1,011 robberies, 8,380 dangerous drugs offenses, 1,984 weapons offenses, and 1,293 sexual predatory offenses.”

Some of the illegal immigrants already released from California jails into communities include a Mexican national arrested for lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 years of age, a Chinese national arrested for sexual battery, a Mexican national who has been arrested for a sex offender violation, and a Guatemalan convicted of first-degree murder.

DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin accused Newsom and other “sanctuary politicians” in the state of putting American lives at risk by releasing criminals into neighborhoods.

“Criminal illegal aliens should not be released from jails back onto our streets to terrorize more innocent Americans. If we work together, we can make America safe again. 7 of the 10 safest cities in the U.S. cooperate with ICE law enforcement,” McLaughlin said.

Newsom has defended California’s sanctuary policies. California’s Senate Bill 54 prohibits state and local law enforcement from using their money or personnel to investigate, detain, or arrest people for immigration enforcement purposes, the governor told conservative commentator Ben Shapiro in a Jan. 16 podcast.

However, California cooperates with federal immigration enforcement under certain circumstances, Newsom said.

“We have over 10,000 that I’ve cooperated with since I’ve been governor of California,” he said. “California has cooperated with more ICE transfers probably than any other state in the country. And I vetoed multiple pieces of legislation that have come from my legislature to stop the ability for the state of California to do that.”

ICE Administrative Warrants

ICE acting Director Todd Lyons sent a letter to California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Feb. 4 regarding the arrest of immigrants in their homes in the state. The letter focused on administrative warrants used by ICE to arrest aliens.

Administrative warrants, also known as ICE warrants, allow immigration officers to arrest and detain a foreign national. Unlike judicial warrants issued in criminal cases, administrative warrants do not require a neutral magistrate. Instead, an officer must establish probable cause to believe the illegal immigrant is removable from the United States.

A 2024 ruling from a California district court held that entering the land surrounding a home to arrest the occupant violated the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act.

In the letter, Lyons highlighted a 2007 judgment from the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit that supported the use of administrative warrants to arrest “aliens with final orders of removal in their place of residence.”

“An alien subject to a final order of removal has a diminished reasonable expectation of privacy when federal officers arrive with a valid administrative warrant and reasonable cause to believe he or she is in a residence,” the ICE acting director wrote.

Lyons highlighted that an alien with a final order for removal has generally undergone proceedings in which an immigration judge has determined that the individual is removable from the United States. This neutral immigration judge also ensures the foreign national receives all necessary protections under the U.S. Constitution.

As such, “ICE officers may enter an alien’s residence with a final order of removal and an administrative warrant. No community serious about keeping its residents safe will tolerate a clear aberration of the law,” Lyons wrote.

“ICE and the American people once again demand California honor ICE detainers to take the worst of the worst off the streets and make America safe again.”

The Epoch Times reached out to Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta for comment, but did not receive a response by publication time.

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/08/2026 - 16:20

Gambling Stocks Slide Ahead Of Super Bowl As Prediction Markets Shine

The rise of prediction markets ahead of Super Bowl weekend has become a major overhang for legacy sportsbooks, prompting investors to de-risk their equity positions and sending shares of Flutter Entertainment (owner of FanDuel) and rival DraftKings sharply lower year to date.

Today's matchup between Seattle and New England at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara is expected to drive record trading volumes on prediction markets, according to Jordan Bender, a senior equity analyst at Citizens.

"A big piece of why we think Super Bowl handle will be down is that prediction markets are taking a bite out of that," Bender said.

Since the 2024 presidential election cycle, prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket have attracted growing trading volumes that would have traditionally flowed to sportsbook apps.

Professional sports gambler Rufus Peabody told Bloomberg, "It really feels like everything's prediction markets, prediction markets, prediction markets."

Peabody, who began trading on Kalshi in September, noted, "Maybe not for the average recreational bettor, but certainly in the sharp community."

Kalshi and other federally regulated exchanges have opened prediction markets to millions of Americans living in states where sportsbooks remain illegal, sparking a fierce legal battle with federal and local gaming regulators.

These event contracts are not just for sports but also offer bets across markets, elections, and geopolitics. The fastest growth, however, is in sports betting.

According to the Dune data dashboard, Kalshi saw nearly $10 billion in contracts traded in January, with the vast majority tied to sports betting (about $8.5 billion).

Traders on Kalshi and rival Polymarket have swapped $800 million worth of contracts tied to the Super Bowl so far, the American Gaming Association wrote in a report. This compares with $1.8 billion Americans are expected to bet on the game through traditional regulated sportsbooks.

In November, Polymarket received regulatory approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to return to the US markets.

"Polymarket is back. Polymarket's U.S. app is now being rolled out to those on the waitlist," Polymarket states on its platform.

Despite the rise of prediction markets, several Wall Street analysts still expect the existing US sportsbook companies to take in a record Super Bowl haul this weekend.

https://t.co/7qawl9HAt5

— Polymarket Sports (@PolymarketSport) February 8, 2026

H2 Gambling Capital senior analyst Ed Birkin forecasted that total wagers - before prediction markets are taken into account - will soar 9% this year to $1.78 billion. He pointed out that prediction markets will attract $630 million in bets for the Super Bowl and account for 80% year-over-year growth in wagering activity for the event.

Polymarket's latest Super Bowl bets:

More bets 

Let the games begin. 

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/08/2026 - 15:45