At The Money: Looking Beyond Market Cap Weighted Indexes (April 22, 2026)

Cap weighted indexes have come to dominate ETFs. Is it time for investors to consider a strategy based on fundamental weightings, such as profits or revenue growth?

Full transcript below.

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About this week’s guest:

Rob Arnott is known as the “godfather of smart beta” and founder of Research Affiliates, which oversees strategies for over $100 billion in assets.

For more info, see:

Professional Bio

Masters in Business

LinkedIn

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Find all of the previous At the Money episodes here, and in the MiB feed on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, and Bloomberg. And find the entire musical playlist of all the songs I have used on At the Money on Spotify

 

 

 

 

TRANSCRIPT: Rob Arnott

 

Intro:
Boy, you’re gonna carry that weight
Carry that weight a long time
Boy, you’re gonna carry that weight
Carry that weight a long time

 

Barry Ritholtz:  Big, broad market-cap-weighted indexes, like the S&P 500, have dominated investor inflows and performance really since the financial crisis. But lately, critics of cap weighting point out that increased market concentration of just a handful of stocks — AKA the Magnificent Seven — is increasing risks for investors. What should a portfolio manager do about this? Well, to help us unpack all of this and what it means for your portfolio, let’s bring in Rob Arnott, founder of Research Affiliates and a longstanding critic of market cap weighted indexes. RAFI runs a variety of fundamental indexes that are based on things outside of cap weighting. Let’s jump right into it. So, Rob, you’ve spent decades challenging cap weighted indexes as simply just owning more of what just went up. Frame the case for alternative weighting — regardless of what it is, equal weight, fundamental, whatever — versus traditional cap weighted indices.

Rob Arnott:  Let’s play a thought experiment. Suppose I came to you and said, I have a brilliant strategy. You’re gonna love it. This strategy involves watching companies and waiting until their market value gets above a certain threshold and buying them. On average, I’m buying them when they’re up 75% relative to the market in the last year and trading at twice the market multiple. Some of these go on to achieve great success, some don’t. And our sell discipline is very simple: when the market cap falls below a certain threshold, we’re gonna sell them, and we’ll sell them at, on average, half the market multiple, at a loss of about 7,000 basis points relative to the market. What do you think?

Barry Ritholtz:  Hard pass. Hard pass.

Rob Arnott:  What I’ve just described is the active side of indexing. I’ve got a monograph coming out shortly — CFA Institute Research Foundation — called The Active Side of Indexing. Indexing is described as passive, but if it has 5% turnover, the 95% is passive — it moves up and down with the market movements and it’s blissfully ignorant and indifferent to what’s going on in the economy or the companies or whatever it is. Really passive. The 5% looks like a hypergrowth manager on crystal meth. The weighting is also an issue. Why? If I came to you and said, I’ve got a brilliant idea, I’m gonna weight stocks proportional to their price — so the more expensive they are, the bigger its weight in your portfolio — don’t you just love it?

Barry Ritholtz:  So let’s dive into that a little bit. Anybody who’s an indexer watches in horror every time something gets added to the index, and then there’s this grace period where the stock runs up and it’s even more expensive when it gets added. It’s even worse when there’s a deletion — they announce a deletion and the stocks plummet. Anticipating, front-running the sell — is this just a hidden cost?

Rob Arnott:  It’s legal front-running.

Barry Ritholtz:  I mean, if you’re gonna tell me — hey, we have $2 trillion in this index, we’re gonna sell this position in a month — why would you hold onto that?

Rob Arnott:  Exactly. The S&P’s a beautiful example. The S&P is now big enough that the stocks held in S&P index funds represent roughly 25% of the total market cap of every stock that’s in the index — not each individual ETF or index fund, but aggregated. And that means that, to the extent that indexers are obsessed with having no tracking error with matching the index, they’re gonna buy that stock at the same price that it’s added to the index, which means a market-on-close price. I will pay whatever the price is at the close on the day that it’s added to the index. Now, if you’re a hedge fund, you’re gonna wanna accommodate that and help out by buying it early and then flipping it to the indexers. And that’s been going on for a quarter century or more. I documented the pattern back in 1986 in an article called “S&P Additions and Deletions: A Market Anomaly.” And I heard anecdotally that that article was used in part to lobby S&P to pre-announce so that the index funds wouldn’t get nailed by the index changes. Now they gotta buy this and sell that, and they’re buying it higher and selling this lower, and so they have an automatic drag. The magnitude of that drag is actually very simple. If you could transact at the price at which S&P announced the decision, not the price at which it becomes effective, you would add 15 basis points per annum. So the indexes lose 15 basis points just from trading costs, with 5% annual turnover or less — three to 5% annual turnover. That’s equivalent to three to 500 basis points per stock per trade. That’s a heavy trading cost, but it’s because it’s a crowded space. It’s a herd of elephants trying to go through a single revolving door.

Barry Ritholtz:  Let’s talk about the flip-flop problem. Every time there’s an addition, something like 28% within a decade get dropped. And similarly, after there’s a deletion, almost half of those deletions rejoin the S&P, right, within a decade. What does this flip-flop do to performance?

Rob Arnott:  Well, it does what you would expect. When I did my little thought experiment describing a brilliant strategy, I was actually citing statistics from our flip-flops paper. On average, stocks that are added are added after 75 percentage points of outperformance. If they falter and are kicked back out, they’re removed at a 7,000 basis point loss. Now, if you gain 75 and lose 70, you aren’t back where you started — you’re down 50. And it’s worse than that, because you didn’t participate in the 75, you did participate in the down 70. The deletion flip-flops — stocks that are deleted and re-added — are even more dramatic. They underperform by 3,500 basis points, give or take, in the year before they’re dropped, and then they outperform by 180 percentage points. They roughly triple relative to the market before they’re added back in. So flip-flops are very, very costly, and none of this is disrespect to the index providers. This stuff has not been studied much until we took a deep dive into it. If you don’t know you have a problem, how are you gonna fix it? And the problem is big, but it’s on a very small part of the portfolio. It’s on the active side of indexing — the little sliver of active trading.

Barry Ritholtz:  Really, really interesting. So let’s talk about fixing it. You have been discussing for as long as I’ve known you — which is decades — economy-weighting indices rather than cap weighting or price weighting. Define what a fundamental economic weighting of an index is. What goes into that?

Rob Arnott:  Let’s suppose you want an index that studiously mirrors the economy instead of studiously mirroring the market. Well, you wouldn’t weight companies by market cap, you wouldn’t choose them based on market cap. Let’s choose them based on how big their business is. Well, how do you define that? How big are its sales? How big are its profits? How big is its net worth? Today we would go a step further and say, net worth adjusted for intangibles. How much does it distribute to shareholders in dividends and buybacks? Four different measures. You could argue endlessly about which is right, or you could simply say, I’m gonna take the average of the four weights. So Nvidia is a decent slug of total profits in the economy, but it’s not seven or 8% — not its market weight. It’s in the 2% range in terms of sales. It’s in the 2% range in terms of dividends or net worth. It rounds to a very, very small number. So you could argue, is it half a percent or 1% or 2%? Average those, and you’re gonna say it’s about one, one-and-a-half percent of the economy. Okay, that’s big enough to make the cut. We’re gonna include it, and we’ll include it at a one, one-and-a-half percent weight. Now, if you do that, what you’re doing is taking the frothy growth stocks — beloved and expected to grow fabulously — and down-weighting them to their current economic footprint. You’re taking the value stocks — the unloved, out-of-favor, cheap stocks — and you’re saying, let’s reweight those up to their economic footprint. So you wind up with a stark value tilt. And that means the sensible way to measure RAFI, the fundamental index, is to measure it against the value indexes. And that’s where it gets really interesting. Schwab and Invesco have ETFs and mutual funds, PIMCO has some ETFs tied to RAFI — the fundamental index — and collectively those three organizations have over a hundred billion dollars in RAFI assets. So this is not new, it’s not small. We introduced the idea about 20 years ago. If you compare it with the cap weighted value indexes, you get an astonishing result. On average, RAFI beats the cap weighted value indexes by two to 2.5% per year compounded, and does so with variability.

Barry Ritholtz:  How does that tracking error compare to the cap weighted growth indexes?

Rob Arnott:  The growth indexes have outperformed hugely, but they’ve outperformed by dint of becoming more and more expensive relative to fundamentals. The underlying fundamentals of the value indexes — in terms of sales, profits, book value, dividends — have grown roughly pari passu with growth portfolios this century to date, which shocks most people, because the relative performance has been about two to 3% per annum for a quarter century. And the notion that, wow, this has beat this now by — call it something on the order of two to one, 10,000 basis points of outperformance — but the underlying fundamentals have grown in parallel.

Barry Ritholtz:  Let me re-ask that question in a different way, which is: if we know there’s a disadvantage to cap weighted indexes, well isn’t the obvious and simple alternative just equal weight? Why not just go equal weight?

Rob Arnott:  Equal weighting is a perfectly legitimate way to create a portfolio. It’s gonna have a stark small cap tilt, because a tiny company will get the same weight as Nvidia or ExxonMobil. It will have a stark value bias, because companies that are trading at low multiples will get the same weight as stocks trading at high multiples. It will have a rebalancing alpha. If a stock soars, you’re gonna trim it. If it tumbles, you’re gonna top it up. The only Achilles heel that I think matters for equal weighting is: equal weighting what stocks? Equal weighting the S&P, for instance — you’re going to be equal weighting a portfolio that includes companies that have soared into being big enough to be added. You’re gonna be leaving out companies that have performed badly enough to be really cheap, and the result is that you’re going to have a portfolio that’s biased towards higher multiple stocks. So, interestingly, equal weighting over long periods of time performs about the same as fundamental index, which we launched 20 years ago — but with much more variability.

Barry Ritholtz:  Got it. That makes a lot of sense. So if we’re looking at a fundamental-driven index in a period where mega caps are dominating or growth is dominating, how do you ride that out? Up until last year, it felt like if you weren’t overweight the Mag Seven, you were underperforming — until we learned, last year, five of the seven Mag Seven underperformed in 2025.

Rob Arnott:  Yeah, yeah. Shocking. The thing that I find interesting here is, we introduced fundamental index in 2005 — live strategies at PIMCO go back to mid-2005, at Invesco go back to late 2005. So it’s live, it’s been investable for 20 years. The thing that’s interesting is, just two years later, in 2007, value crested, and it underperformed ferociously until summer of 2020. Since then it’s been bottom-bouncing — outperforming handily, then crashing, outperforming, then crashing, bottom-bouncing. And so at the end of 2025, value had underperformed — Russell Value had underperformed the Russell 1000 peak-to-trough by 3,800 basis points. Wow. You were 38% poorer than a simple Russell or S&P index investor. That’s a horrific headwind for anything with a value tilt. RAFI Fundamental Index has a rebalancing alpha: a stock soars and its fundamentals don’t validate that, then you’re gonna say, thanks for the nice high price, I’m gonna trim it. If it tanks and the fundamentals don’t falter, you’re gonna say, thanks for the bargain, I’m gonna top it up.

Barry Ritholtz:  So let’s talk a little more about that rebalancing strategy. What sort of alpha does that create? How does that drive returns?

Rob Arnott:  The best way to measure the performance of RAFI is against the cap weighted value indexes. Relative to the value indexes — this is live — the RAFI indexes have beat the cap weighted value indexes by a little over 2% per year compounded. Now, with compounding, that’s a big number. That means that you’re over 50% richer than you were with a cap weighted value index after 20 years. So that’s important. Now the other thing that’s interesting is, relative to the value indexes, the tracking error is pretty tight. It’s about two-and-a-half percent variability in that 2% value add, which means that RAFI has beat cap weighted value in most years when value’s been winning and in most years when value’s been losing. It doesn’t matter. RAFI has been winning about three out of every four years. And this is live. This is not a back test.

Barry Ritholtz:  So, to wrap up: investors who are concerned about market concentration, concerned about valuation, but a little skittish on the underperformance that value has created in a cap weighted format, should consider a fundamental index. It trades differently than both growth and value, and has a better risk profile and a better valuation profile. I’m Barry Ritholtz. You are listening to Bloomberg’s At the Money.

 

 

The post At the Money: Looking Beyond Market Cap Weighted Indexes appeared first on The Big Picture.

 

 

Today! I walk into the lion’s den to explain to crypto true believers why they need to bring the same level of skepticism to Bitcoin and/or Blockchain that they should bring to every other trading opportunity.

 

12:00 PM Between Hype and History: Pricing the $2 Trillion Experiment

In this fireside chat, the Ritholtz Wealth Management Chairman brings his trademark wit to the crypto stage. He’ll explore why he treats Bitcoin as a massive, speculative tech company rather than a religious movement, and why he’s grown tired of the “early adopter” narrative. If you’re looking for an echo chamber, this isn’t it. If you’re looking for a rigorous, high-level debate on where crypto actually fits in a diversified institutional portfolio, pull up a chair.

Interviewer: Debbie Soon, Head of Marketing, Privy

Keynote Speaker: Barry Ritholtz, Chairman, CIO, Ritholtz Wealth Management

Location: The Metropolitan Club of New York – New York, NY

 

If you are in town and would like to attend, you can register here.

The post Pricing the $2 Trillion Experiment appeared first on The Big Picture.

Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile Weigh Potential Mega-Merger

A new Bloomberg report states that Deutsche Telekom AG is exploring a mega merger with its U.S. subsidiary, T-Mobile US, in a move that would create a telecom giant valued at roughly $400 billion. If completed, the deal would rank as the largest public M&A transaction ever.

Deutsche Telekom shares fell 4% in Germany on Wednesday morning after Bloomberg reported overnight that the company is in the early stages of considering a combination with T-Mobile US, in which it already holds a 53% stake.

Here's more color from the outlet:

The potential deal would create a single, simplified corporate group that controls the operations of Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile and would be jointly owned by the two companies’ current investors. The combined entity may then seek a listing in the US and a major European exchange, though the details are still being worked out, some of the people said.

. . .

Discussions are at a preliminary stage and any transaction would require political support to move ahead, the people said. Details of the possible deal could also change. The companies have considered a closer tie-up on-and-off for years, and there’s no certainty they will decide to proceed this time, the people said.

Commenting on the report, NewStreet Research analysts told clients earlier that a transatlantic group would provide the companies with "more optionality" to pursue potentially large acquisitions without diluting Deutsche Telekom.

"For that alone, we think this is a highly worthwhile deal for DT to consider, as it would give DT more future options in a consolidating marketplace where convergence could take any form over the next 5 to 10 years," NewStreet Research analysts said, adding that they believe a deal would likely be a "nil-premium merger."

Citigroup analysts are more skeptical: They do not see immediate benefits for T-Mobile shareholders unless Deutsche Telekom offers a meaningful premium.

"The possibility of a merger scenario also raises the question as to whether or not DT would be willing to pay a significant premium to consolidate ownership, especially since DT could argue its non-US operations are already undervalued within the DT share price," Citigroup analysts noted.

If successful, the M&A deal would eclipse the $203 billion Vodafone-Mannesmann merger in 1999, which remains the largest merger on record, according to LSEG data.

Deutsche Telekom currently has a market value of about $159 billion, while T-Mobile is valued at roughly $215 billion.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/22/2026 - 08:20

Trump's "Sock Puppet"

By Philip Marey of Rabobank

Summary

• The confirmation hearing of Fed Chair nominee Kevin Warsh by the Senate Banking Committee was a very partisan affair.
• In his prepared remarks, Warsh stressed that monetary policy independence is essential, but he does not believe that the operational independence of monetary policy is particularly threatened when elected officials state their views on interest rates. Warsh thinks the Fed must stay in its lane and avoid straying into fiscal and social policies.
• Warsh was walking a tightrope between convincing the Senate Banking Committee that he is going to be an independent Fed Chair and staying loyal to President Trump. Meanwhile, there was as much interest in Warsh’s personal balance sheet as in the Fed’s balance sheet.
• Obviously, there were several questions about Fed independence and whether Warsh had promised President Trump to cut rates in order to get the nomination. Of course, he denied.
• Warsh repeatedly said that interest rates rather than the balance sheet should be the dominant tool of monetary policy. He did not have a specific target for the balance sheet in mind, and eased fears of a rapid change.
• Warsh wants a robust reform of the inflation framework and improve the data to assess the underlying inflation trend.

Introduction

First Democratic senator Warren called nominee Warsh president Trump’s sock puppet. Then Republican senator Kennedy tried to settle the issue by asking: “Mr Warsh, are you going to be the president’s human sock puppet?” “Absolutely not,” said Warsh. This was clearly a very partisan confirmation hearing for Kevin Warsh and near the end of the 2.5 hour session one of the more empathetic senators asked him why he would want this job. This was a big change from 20 years ago when Warsh was confirmed as Fed Governor with bipartisan support. Warren gave him a couple of litmus tests of his independence by asking whether Trump lost the election of 2021 and if Warsh could name one aspect of Trump’s policies that he disagreed with. Warsh gave evasive answers and the tone for the hearing was set. Warsh was walking a tightrope between convincing the Senate Banking Committee that he is going to be an independent Fed Chair and staying loyal to President Trump.

Meanwhile, there was as much interest in Warsh’s personal balance sheet as in the Fed’s balance sheet. Warsh said he had made an agreement with relevant authorities to divest his assets before sworn in (or within 90 days of his confirmation), but that answer did not seem satisfactory to several (Democratic) senators. Ironically, Senator Tillis (Rep) – who wants to hold up the confirmation until the case against Powell is dropped – had to come to the rescue by stressing that Warsh was not out of compliance.

Warsh wants the Fed to stay in its lane

Warsh did not read the full text of his prepared remarks that were published a day before the hearing, as Chairman Scott tried to keep the meeting on schedule. In his speech, he stressed that monetary policy independence is essential, but he does not believe that the operational independence of monetary policy is particularly threatened when elected officials – presidents, senators, or member of the House – state their views on interest rates. He said that Fed independence is largely up to the Fed. He highlighted three important implications. First, Congress has tasked the Fed with price stability and that means that low inflation is the Fed’s plot armor (against criticism). Second, Fed independence is at its peak in the operational conduct of monetary policy, but that does not mean that the central bank has the same degree of independence in other areas, such as regulation and supervision. Third, the Fed must stay in its lane and avoid straying into fiscal and social policies. In response to the opening question by Chairman Tim Scott (Rep), Warsh said that he wanted a new inflation framework, that he preferred the interest rate tool over the balance sheet tool, and that he wanted a new communications approach. For a more detailed discussion of the nominee’s ideas, we refer to The Warsh Regime

Rates and independence

Obviously, there were several questions about Fed independence and whether Warsh had promised President Trump to cut rates in order to get the nomination. When Senator Reed (Dem) asked him about Fed independence, Warsh said that presidents (in general, not just Trump) want lower rates, but that independence is up to the Fed. In an answer to Senator Kennedy (Rep), Warsh said that the president never asked him to pre-commit on any interest rate decision. It got really heated when Senator Gallego asked Warsh whether it was his sworn testimony that the President had not asked him to commit to cutting rates. When Warsh confirmed, Gallego (Dem) concluded that either Warsh or Trump was lying, referring to an article in the Wall Street Journal on December 12. In response, Warsh said that these reporters needed better sources and that he took independence very seriously: “the President never asked me and I would never do so.”

There was also a lot of interest in Warsh’s argument that the Fed could cut rates because of AI. Warsh said that he expected the supply effects to outweigh the increase in demand, but he did not really answer the question how fast AI needed to show up for cutting interest rates. Senator Van Hollen (Dem) asked him what would happen if the Fed cut rates to 1% in 2026 as suggested by Trump and thought it implausible that AI could cause a situation where this would be justified. Again Warsh gave an evasive answer.

Fed independence is not just about rate decisions. When Senator Alsobrooks (Dem) asked him a number of questions regarding the court cases of Governor Cook and Chair Powell, Warsh gave evasive answers and managed to briefly mumble “I’ll defend Fed independence” somewhere in between.

Balance sheet reduction

Warsh repeatedly said that interest rates rather than the balance sheet should be the dominant tool of monetary policy, because the distributional effects of the latter favored the rich, while the more pervasive effects of the former reached everybody. He did not have a specific target for the balance sheet in mind, but he did say the Fed should not be holding longer-term assets as if it’s a fiscal authority. In response to Senator Kim’s concerns about fears of a rapid change, Warsh said it should be a public discussion and that any regime change should be deliberate and well-described. He wants to work with the Treasury Secretary to see how the Fed can reduce the balance sheet and get out of fiscal policy.

Communication and inflation framework

Warsh indicated that while at present most FOMC decisions are taken unanimously, he liked messier meetings with “good family fights” and that he was not for pre-deciding meetings. Warsh said there is nothing wrong with dissents. He said that one of his lessons was that there is a lot of groupthink in the economics profession , so openmindedness is important. Warsh said that too many Fed officials give forward guidance and we need central bankers that are humble, nimble, and open minded.

Warsh stressed that the Fed has to deliver on price stability and full employment so that politicians stay out. He gave his own definition of price stability as a change in prices that nobody talks about. He also prefers trimmed averages as measures of inflation. However, Warsh said that we need new data to assess what’s the real underlying inflation rate and that would be one of his first reforms: a data project. Warsh lambasted the 2020 change in the Fed’s inflation framework – the change to Flexible Average Inflation Targeting – that ‘’asked for a little more inflation and got a lot more and we’re still living with it.” Instead, Warsh wants a robust reform of the inflation framework. He said that the cumulative increase in prices in recent years is a legacy of past policy error.

What happens next?

On Wednesday, the Senate Banking Committee members have an opportunity to pose additional written questions to the nominee. On Thursday, Warsh is supposed to answer these questions. The crucial vote is Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who wants the DOJ to drop the inquiry into current Fed Chair Jerome Powell before advancing the nomination to the Senate floor. An offramp seems possible because Tillis said he would agree with replacing the DOJ inquiry by a congressional inquiry. However, so far Trump has dismissed this option. If this standoff continues, it may be difficult to get Warsh confirmed by May 15, the end of Powell’s term as Chair. In this case, Powell wants to stay on as Chair pro tempore, but this is disputed by the Trump administration. So we could be heading for some verbal fireworks in DC in the coming weeks.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/22/2026 - 08:05

The Middle Corridor Emerges As A Strategic Lifeline For Global Trade

Via RFE/RL,

• Global trade is shifting away from vulnerable maritime chokepoints toward overland routes like the Middle Corridor amid rising geopolitical instability

• A $3.3 billion World Bank-backed investment push aims to address infrastructure gaps and unlock the corridor’s long-term potential

• While promising, the route still faces major capacity and coordination constraints before it can rival established northern trade flows

While diplomatic efforts struggle to stabilize access to the Strait of Hormuz amid tensions between the United States and Iran, Eurasian trade is increasingly being redirected toward overland alternatives, with the Trans-Caspian Transport Route, also known as the Middle Corridor, emerging as a key diversification route in Eurasian logistics.

The World Bank described the Middle Corridor back in 2023 as a strategically important but structurally constrained route. While geopolitical fragmentation, driven in part by Russia's war in Ukraine, has increased the demand for alternative corridors, the World Bank emphasized that the corridor's long-term viability requires coordinated investment, the removal of infrastructure bottlenecks, and improved cross-border customs and transport procedures.

To address these roadblocks, the World Bank and its partners on April 14–15 committed $3.3 billion to strengthening key missing links along the corridor, including $1.9 billion for Turkey's Istanbul North Rail Crossing and a $1.4 billion investment in the reconstruction of Kazakhstan's Karagandy–Zhezkazgan highway.

On the same day that this was announced, Turkish Vice President Cevdet Y?lmaz underscored the importance of such investment at a meeting in Astana.

"The Northern Corridor [through Russia] has become unpredictable due to geopolitical tensions. The southern route is pushing the limits of its capacity," he said.

"This situation has made the Middle Corridor not an alternative but a mandatory choice."

Dosym Satpayev, director of the Risk Assessment Group in Almaty -- an independent think tank analyzing political risks, corruption, and foreign policy processes in the region -- says that Russia's war in Ukraine and the resulting sanctions deepened global dependence on maritime chokepoints such as the Strait of Hormuz. but the current crisis has potentially long-term consequences for global trade.

"Even if the Strait of Hormuz is reopened, I believe that the image of it as a stable transport and logistics route has been damaged for many years, if not permanently," Satpayev said.

"The same applies to the stereotype that the Persian Gulf and Middle Eastern countries can guarantee stable supplies of energy resources and other goods through the Strait of Hormuz."

Uncertainty is already reshaping global pricing and trade behavior, he added, saying that a "risk premium" will most likely be embedded in prices of oil and nitrogen fertilizers.

"About 25–35 percent of global fertilizer supplies pass through the Strait of Hormuz, and this will inevitably be reflected in final prices. Therefore, many countries will seek to diversify routes regardless of how the situation develops. Most likely, instability will persist for a long time, which means risks will remain high. And this is bad for business, because business needs predictability."

A Region Surrounded By Geopolitical Chaos

A key factor behind the growing appeal of the Middle Corridor, Satpayev says, is the relative stability of the regions it passes through. Despite the conflicts raging nearby, Central Asia and the Caucasus have "demonstrated stability in the conditions of geopolitical chaos."

"This has increased interest in it as a platform for transport and logistics projects," he said. "As a result, the region's status at the global level has risen."

The Middle Corridor suits everyone, he added, except Russia.

"We see that major geopolitical players are seeking to strengthen their positions in the region, primarily in the economic and transport-logistics spheres. China and the European Union are particularly active," Satpayev said.

"The Samarkand summit last year demonstrated the EU's interest in developing the Middle Corridor, including investments in hubs around the Caspian Sea. The United States is also showing interest in the Middle Corridor, as it seeks access to critical materials and rare earth metals in Central Asia.”

However, some analysts caution that the Middle Corridor is not yet capable of fully replacing existing trade routes, especially the northern land route via Russia.

Central Asia analyst Temur Umarov of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace argues that while geopolitical narratives increasingly favor diversification, the physical and logistical realities of trade still impose clear constraints.

"The Middle Corridor, however interesting and potentially ambitious it may appear, is not yet developed to a level where it can replace the northern flows through Russia," Umarov said. "The issue is not a lack of interest in the Middle Corridor, but the simple fact that it is technically impossible, for now, to reroute the entire flow of goods and energy resources through it instead of the existing northern routes."

He adds that this structural limitation is not only about infrastructure gaps, but about time and scale.

"From a practical perspective, it is still too early to expect the Middle Corridor to absorb full trade volumes. It will require sustained investment, coordination between multiple countries, and years of development before it can operate at the scale of established northern routes."

What Does The Middle Corridor Mean For Kazakhstan?

For Kazakhstan, the significance of the World Bank-backed highway project extends beyond infrastructure financing. It signals the country's growing role as a central transit hub in a rapidly evolving Eurasian logistics landscape, one increasingly defined not only by geography but by geopolitics, risk diversification, and the search for resilient trade routes.

If Central Asian governments manage the process effectively, investments in the Middle Corridor could also translate into tangible benefits for ordinary people in the region, Satpayev maintains.

"Infrastructure such as railways and roads, especially given the size of Kazakhstan, can revive certain regions that are economically depressed," he said. "From the perspective of building hotels, gas stations, services, and maintenance infrastructure, this can create a multiplier effect that gives such regions a second life."

He added that this potential is not automatic but depends on governance and implementation quality.

"There's hope that if this is implemented under the supervision of investors and international organizations financing these projects, it will also to some extent improve the well-being of citizens in our countries."

The Middle Corridor, formally the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, was established in 2014 by Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Georgia to connect China and Europe via Central Asia, the Caspian Sea, and the South Caucasus, with onward links through Turkey. For years, it remained secondary to the Russian-led northern route.

The corridor is supported by a mix of multilateral lenders such as the World Bank, EBRD, and ADB, alongside EU funding initiatives and major state-led investments from Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey, with China acting as a key trade driver through its Belt and Road connectivity.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/22/2026 - 07:20

China "Aggressively" Selling Oil In Recent Weeks

We knew there was a reason why China had accumulated a cool 1.5 billion barrels in its strategic petroleum reserve: the reason, to become the world's strategist petroleum reserve when the time arises... for a price of course.

According to the chief executive officer of commodity trader Mercuria, Chinese oil companies have been aggressive sellers in recent weeks, selling barrels to several nations in tenders.

“What has been happening in the last two or three weeks is actually they have been aggressively selling crude oil,” Mercuria CEO Marco Dunand said at the FT Commodities Global Summit in Lausanne on Tuesday. “They’ve taken out a lot of demand from various countries and offered aggressively in tenders."

Dunand said there are a variety of possible explanations for the selling. They include the release of oil inventories within China, continued sales of Iranian oil in the weeks after the war started, and possible optimism that the Strait of Hormuz would reopen quicker than it has so far. 

He also said that Mercuria sees Chinese gasoline demand falling by 1 million barrels a day this year as a result of electric-vehicle adoption, which also could have played a factor in the sales.

But the most important thing Dunand said, was his response to question how long this last: “How long can they do this for? I think the guess would be probably for about another three weeks and then I think at that point they would have to revise their position."

Well, three weeks is also how long Iran has before its oil sector is permanently shut in. The good news: the end of the Iran war is - one way or another - now in sight. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/22/2026 - 06:55

My mid-week morning train WFH reads:

• What Do You Believe About Investing? Asking questions about what an investor believes, or what their investment philosophy is, can increasingly feel like a mundane tick box exercise quickly covered by some generic, unfalsifiable answers. This really shouldn’t be the case. Investment beliefs are the foundation to any approach and will likely define its success or failure. An underwhelming process supported by some robust beliefs will likely do just fine, whereas flawed beliefs won’t be saved by a good process. The investment beliefs we hold should underpin any decision we make, without them it becomes incredibly difficult to make coherent choices – particularly dur ing spells of market stress. (Behavioural Investment)

• The Trade: The war produced a market mechanism. Someone knew how it worked before the public did. Every announcement moved markets and every extension of a deadline crashed oil. Then escalation would push it back up and the cycle would repeat. This happened seven times in fifty-two days. (The Omission)

• Has the Stock Market Really Been More Volatile Than Usual This Year? For most investors, stock market volatility is something to endure, not act upon. (Morningstar)

• Tim Cook Was Very, Very Good at Making Money: How Cook turned Jobs’s creation into a $4 trillion machine. Whatever you think of him as a product visionary, the operator’s ledger is unassailable. (New York Times)

• Breaking cover: the future of the business book: Authors are experimenting with new technology and formats to better communicate ideas. Business books are being replaced by podcasts, Substacks, and LinkedIn posts. The 300-page hardback is becoming a vanity artifact, not a vehicle for actual ideas.  (Financial Times)

• San Diego Now Has So Much Water That It’s Selling It: Once a drought poster child, the California city now generates enough water to rescue parched states like Arizona—and brew beer from recycled sewage  (Wall Street Journal)

• You Should Be More Freaked Out by Shingles: The viral infection leaves millions with chronic pain, increased stroke risk, and lifelong nerve damage—yet vaccination rates remain dangerously low. (Wired)

• Scientists identify five ages of the human brain over a lifetime: Four major turning points around ages nine, 32, 66 and 83 create five broad eras of neural wiring over the average human lifespan. (University of Cambridge)

• Ukraine Has Finally Given Up on Trump: Kyiv has started hitting Russian oil-export facilities — a sign it’s no longer waiting on Washington. (The Atlantic)

• The man who saw the future: the legacy of cultural theorist Mark Fisher: Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? was published in 2009 to critical silence—now a film revisits Mark Fisher’s prescient legacy. Touching on everything from late-stage capitalism to Adele, the work of the late writer is proving increasingly influential. Now a documentary on him is looking to live up to his ideals. Touching on everything from late-stage capitalism to Adele, the work of the late writer is proving increasingly influential. Now a documentary on him is looking to live up to his ideals. (The Guardian)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business this week with Philippe Bouchaud, co‑founder, chair & head of research/chief scientist at Capital Fund Management (CFM). The $20 billion firm specializes in managed futures. He began his career in theoretical physics, was awarded the IBM Young Scientist Prize (1990) and the C.N.R.S. Silver Medal (1996), and has published over 300 scientific papers and several books in physics and finance.

 

Renewables overtook coal power in 2025 for the first time in over 100 years

Source: @nicolasfulghum

Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.

 

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

What Does This Guy Have To Do To Get Deported?

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Britain’s immigration system has hit a new low. A convicted Islamist terrorist who helped plot a bombing at the London Stock Exchange remains free to live in the UK, protected by human rights laws despite his asylum application being thrown out years ago.

The case of Shah Rahman exposes exactly how foreign terror offenders exploit loopholes that put British citizens at risk while officials tie themselves in knots over “rights.” As the migrant crisis spirals and taxpayers foot the bill for endless monitoring, this is not justice – it’s institutional surrender.

Rahman was jailed in 2012 alongside three other extremists inspired by Al-Qaeda over the plot to plant an improvised explosive device. He was released onto Britain’s streets just five years later in 2017, only to be recalled to prison in 2022 for breaches of his licence conditions.

This guy plotted to blow up the London Stock Exchange, went to prison twice and married a woman who was banned from Britain for life for having ISIS material, yet he gets to stay in the country because it would 'violate his rights' to deport him. https://t.co/MlKnUBupjs

— m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) April 21, 2026

After his initial release he lodged an asylum claim. It was rejected under Article 51 of the Refugee Convention, which bars refugee status for those convicted of “war crimes, crimes against humanity, terrorist acts or other serious criminal offences.”

Yet despite that rejection, an immigration judge ruled he could not be deported to Bangladesh. The judgement stated: “He was granted restricted leave to remain in the United Kingdom on the basis that he could not be removed to Bangladesh without breach of his rights under Article 3 of the Human Rights Convention.”

Article 3 guarantees the absolute right to be free from torture, inhuman or degrading treatment. In practice, it has become a get-out-of-deportation-free card for some of the most dangerous individuals on British soil.

Details of Rahman’s continued presence emerged during a separate legal battle involving his wife, Mauritian national Parveen Purbhoo. The pair married in an Islamic ceremony at East London Mosque in 2019 while he was on licence. Purbhoo was later barred from Britain for life by then-Home Secretary Suella Braverman after officers at Heathrow discovered Isis-related material on her phone.

A recent judgement in her case confirmed Rahman’s situation and delivered a damning assessment of her own conduct: “The applicant was complicit in Mr Rahman’s unlawful breach of notification requirements; and she has not provided either the police or SIAC with an explanation of how Islamist material came to be on her phone. Her willingness to place her own interests over and above legal or administrative processes is troubling and risky.” The court found she had been “reasonably assessed as a national security risk” and upheld the ban.

This is the same pattern of weakness we have highlighted before. In February we reported how the UK released another dangerous bomb-plot terrorist from prison early.

And back in January we covered the case of a convicted terrorist who plotted to bomb the British consulate now standing for election in the UK. Time after time, the system chooses leniency over public safety.

While ordinary Brits face rising costs, crime and the constant threat of terror, the state bends over backwards to accommodate those who plotted mass murder on our streets. Rahman’s case is not an outlier – it is the direct result of open-borders policies, ECHR activism and a political class more worried about international lawyers than British security.

Successive governments have talked tough on migration. Yet here we are in 2026 with an Islamist terrorist who targeted the London Stock Exchange still here, his wife’s Isis links exposed, and human rights lawyers still calling the shots. The Home Office insists it takes national security seriously. The evidence suggests otherwise.

Britain does not owe protected status to those who plotted to kill its citizens. Deportation should not be optional when the threat is this clear.

File this latest farce alongside a growing litany of ridiculous reasons sex criminals and other offenders have dodged deportation under the same broken system.

Albanian migrant Klevis Disha, who entered the UK illegally in 2001 under a false name and was later convicted for possessing £250,000 in dirty money, successfully fought deportation by claiming it would be unduly harsh on his 11-year-old British son – who apparently dislikes “foreign” chicken nuggets because of texture issues. 

First-tier Tribunal Judge Linda Veloso accepted the Article 8 family-life argument. Reform UK’s Shadow Home Secretary Zia Yusuf said: “A criminal migrant who entered Britain illegally under a false name and lied in a failed asylum claim has successfully fought his deportation by arguing his son disliked foreign chicken nuggets. This is the country the Tories and Labour have created.”

A Somali criminal, schizophrenic and alcohol-dependent for nearly 20 years, was allowed to stay because deportation would cause him excessive “stress” and breach Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights by worsening his mental health. Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge Ian Jarvis ruled: “I conclude that the weight of the evidence before the Tribunal indicates that the [man] will very quickly become noncompliant with his medication… without the 24/7 support and monitoring which he currently receives in the United Kingdom.”

An insane Pakistani paedophile who reoffended by assaulting a teenage girl after release from prison for sex offences escaped deportation because his “uncontrollable” alcoholism would allegedly lead to “inhuman or degrading treatment” in Pakistan without proper treatment. He remains in Britain.

A separate Pakistani migrant arrived on a spousal visa and was convicted of attempting to cause children under 16 to engage in sexual acts after grooming decoy “barely pubescent girls” online while his wife was hospitalised with Covid. He won his appeal because deportation would be “unduly harsh” on his British children and family life.

Migrant shambles as unnamed judge lets paedophile we cannot name (to protect HIS privacy) stay in UK because pervert's Pakistani family might disapprove of him lusting after 'barely pubescent girls' https://t.co/4by6HxEcZ6

— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) February 7, 2025

The judge even factored in the wife’s lack of intimate relations during her illness. Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick called the case “disgraceful,” adding: “The public are right to think that our immigration system is rigged in the interests of people who mean us harm, illegal migrants, against the interests of the British public.”

And as the Daily Mail also revealed, another migrant won asylum by claiming he was gay and fleeing persecution – only to be exposed with a secret wife and child back in Cameroon. 

Revealed: Migrant granted asylum in Britain after claiming he was gay has a secret wife and child in Cameroon https://t.co/TMiC6wcoUI

— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) March 22, 2026

Even being a convicted pedophile as well as an illegal migrant isn’t enough to warrant deportation:

The pattern is undeniable. Activist judges, human rights laws that handcuff the Home Office, and a political class addicted to open borders keep handing victories to those who should never have been here in the first place. 

Britain’s children and communities deserve better. The safety of the public must come first – not endless excuses for foreign criminals.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/22/2026 - 06:30

Nearly 1 In 4 Americans Over 65 Are Still Working

For a growing share of Americans, retirement no longer starts at 65.

This map, via Visual Capitalist's Gabriel Cohen, shows where people aged 65 and older are still working across U.S. states, based on 2024 data from the U.S. Census Bureau via FinanceBuzz.

About 22% of Americans 65+ remain in the workforce, but the share climbs to nearly one-third in some states. The gap highlights how cost of living, job availability, and shifting retirement systems are reshaping when—and whether—Americans stop working.

The Workforces With The Most Seniors

The New England states of Vermont and New Hampshire (both 28.6%) lead the country in the number of seniors still working, followed by South Dakota at 27.6%.

A clear regional pattern emerges: Northeastern states dominate the top ranks, with many posting rates above 26%. Higher living costs and longer life expectancy likely contribute to more Americans 65+ staying in the workforce.

Most people are not working full-time, however. In fact, among its retirement-age workers, Vermont has the highest concentration of part-time employees nationwide, reflecting in part the social role work plays in many older Americans’ lives.

The Two Full-Time States

On the flip side, there’s Maryland, which has the highest share of full-time retirement-age workers in the country.

Maryland and Hawaii are actually the only two states in which a majority of working people aged 65 and up are employed full-time. Full-time work is generally essential for seniors who cannot rely on other retirement sources of income, such as Social Security, or who obtain needed benefits through their job.

The decline of traditional pensions is a key driver behind this shift. With retirement savings increasingly tied to 401(k) plans and market performance, many Americans are working longer to maintain financial security.

West Virginia and the Truly Retired

Among the 50 states in the country, West Virginia (16.7%) has the lowest share of retirement-age workers. It’s followed by Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, and Oregon, all of which sit around 19%.

In lower-ranking states like West Virginia and Arkansas, fewer Americans 65+ remain in the workforce—likely reflecting a mix of fewer job opportunities and lower living costs. In these areas, retirement may still be more attainable than continuing to work.

They may also have differing lifestyle preferences, electing to devote more time to family commitments than to the structure or social component of a job or so-called “side hustle.”

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Mapping Unemployment Claims per 100,000 Workers on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/22/2026 - 05:45

Study Shows Some Humans Are Evolving To Be 'Foxier'

Authored by David Randall via RealClearScience,

The latest report from David Reich’s genetics lab at Harvard is that “Ancient DNA reveals pervasive directional selection across West Eurasia.” In other words, humans have been continuing to evolve in Europe and the Middle East for the last 10,000 years, with significant effect. Reich’s paper broadly substantiates the thesis of Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending’s The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution. Civilization hasn’t ended biological evolution, but proceeds alongside it. 

Reich’s genome-wide association study (GWAS) indicates that West Eurasians have increased or reduced their vulnerability to a variety of ailments. Genetic changes have rendered them less susceptible to leprosy, rheumatoid arthritis, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, and moreso to coeliac disease and gout. At the same time, there has been positive selection for fair skin, red hair, and intelligence, and negative selection for male-pattern baldness. In summary, West Eurasians have grown foxier, as the arc of their genetic history bends toward fluffy ginger genius. 

Reich’s conclusions are pretty likely to hold water. Too many scientific and social scientific fields have been affected by the irreproducibility crisis of modern science. The worst-hit disciplines use far too loose a definition of statistical significance, p < 0.05. Genome-wide association studies, by contrast, tend to use the extraordinarily tighter standard of p < 5 × 10^ −8. Reich lab’s research includes a variety of different standards of statistical significance, including some that are only of p < 8.9 × 10^ −5. That standard is orders of magnitude more reliable than most research. 

The data Reich’s lab can work with, after all, is remarkably bounteous. As the researchers wrote:

[W]e increased power through a 14-fold increase in sample size, driven by 10,016 ancient individuals for whom we report new data, which combined with previously reported data yields a dataset of 15,836 people spanning 18,000 years … The final dataset included 8,074,573 SNPs [single-nucleotide polymorphisms] and 1,665,051 insertions or deletions (indels) on chromosomes 1–22. 

Science only can advance on sure foundations when you’re reasonably likely the research will hold up. Sociology, psychology, any discipline where you cannot work with millions of pieces of data, cannot be expected to match GWAS levels of rigorous statistical significance. But, as many scientists have proposed, p < 0.01 or p < 0.005 are not impossible goals, even for disciplines less rich in data. Reich’s peers in other disciplines should look at his work and consider the benefits of reasonable certainty that a paper you publish actually says something true. 

Americans in general might also take Reich’s work as a prompt to reconsider our various moratoria on using American Indian biological data to provide gene samples. Reich’s report on West Eurasian genetic data presumably is only a beginning. We may expect reports to come on East Eurasians, Sub-Saharan Africans, Aboriginal Australians, Khoisan in South African, American Indians in Latin America—reports on people all over the world.

Except on the American Indians of the United States.

Our legal, regulatory, and cultural inhibitions mean that there will be an enduring blank spot in the knowledge we gain from the genetics revolution—knowledge which will aid not only paleogenetic research but also advances in medicine tailored to each individual’s DNA. American Indians might be the last people on Earth to benefit from such advances in genetically individuated medicine if we continue to veto researchers’ use of American Indian genetic and paleogenetic data. 

Science funders also should note that science proceeds by joint work in many disciplines and isn’t just a high-tech plaything. The Reich lab’s research depended not least upon “10,016 ancient individuals for whom we report new data.” Those individuals didn’t just show up in laboratories by magic. They came there by careful work by archaeologists, by intelligent observations from interested amateurs, by hard and careful work in caves, in ancient graves, and in sudden gullies opened by rainstorms. Brawn, physical finesse, and something of the Indiana Jones spirit of adventure were as important for making this research possible as microscopes and microchips. Dear Mr. and Mrs. Moneybags: no dig, no data. We all should remember that, too. 

David Randall is the Director of Research at the National Association of Scholars.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/22/2026 - 05:00

US Throttles Intelligence-Sharing With South Korea After Nuclear Disclosure Row

The United States has reduced intelligence sharing with South Korea pertaining to eavesdropping on North Korea following an alleged leak tied to sensitive information, according to local media reports.

But it is a major allegation that the government has dismissed as 'absurd'. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung took to X at the start of this week to write, "Any claim or action based on the premise that Minister Chung ‘leaked classified information provided by the US’ is wrong."

Bloomberg, citing Yonhap and others, wrote that "South Korean media reported that the US is limiting intelligence sharing on North Korea with Seoul after Unification Minister Chung Dong-young publicly identified North Korea’s uranium enrichment facility in Kusong last month."

AFP/Getty Images

Washington reportedly began limiting access earlier this month to certain intelligence linked to North Korea’s technological capabilities, widely believed to involve aspects of its nuclear program, according to Yonhap News.

"It's true that the US side has been restricting sharing parts of North Korean intelligence collected through satellites from early this month," a senior military official said. "(The restricted sharing of intelligence) is related to information regarding parts of North Korea's technology."

Some 28,500 US troops are permanently stationed in South Korea, and the US is a longtime military partner going back to the Korean War of the mid-20th century. US intel-sharing has always heavily assisted Seoul with missile warning data and satellite surveillance.

The whole rare episode stems from remarks by South Korea's Unification Minister Chung Dong-young during a March 6 parliamentary session, when he openly identified Kusong as a third North Korean uranium enrichment site alongside facilities at Yongbyon and Kangson.

The speech marked a first official acknowledgment by Seoul of the Kusong site, which then triggered backlash from Washington, featuring complaints from US officials through diplomatic and military channels who viewed it as a potential exposure of sensitive, possibly shared intelligence.

Chung in turn rejected the accusations, framing his remarks as all based in open source and public data which can be found through research reports.

Pyongyang is probably enjoying the spectacle, having long vehemently denounced the US presence on the Korean peninsula, also given the sporadic docking of a US nuclear submarine. This is a very rare moment of tensions among allies on the Korean peninsula. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/22/2026 - 04:15

Coinbase Now Lets UK Users Borrow Against Their Bitcoin And Ethereum

Via Decrypt.co,

• Coinbase launched crypto-backed USDC lending for U.K. users on Monday.

• Bitcoin holders can borrow up to $5 million in USDC, with Ethereum-backed loans capped at $1 million.

• The service uses Morpho, an open-source lending protocol on Ethereum layer-2 network, Base.

Crypto exchange Coinbase has expanded its lending service, now allowing U.K. customers to borrow USDC stablecoins using their Bitcoin or Ethereum holdings as collateral.

The service operates through Morpho, an open-source lending protocol on Base—the Coinbase-backed Ethereum layer-2 network—that powers Coinbase's crypto-backed loans.

U.K. users can pledge cryptocurrency as collateral to access USDC liquidity without liquidating their digital assets.

Borrowing limits vary by collateral type.

Bitcoin holders can access up to $5 million in USDC, while Ethereum-backed loans top out at $1 million, depending on the amount pledged.

Coinbase first launched the crypto-backed loan service in the United States in January 2025, and said it has facilitated $2.17 billion USDC in loan originations as of April 14.

The lending product adds to Coinbase's growing U.K. service portfolio.

The exchange introduced decentralized exchange trading for U.K. users just last week, and previously launched savings accounts in November 2025.

These offerings followed Coinbase's February 2025 FCA registration, which enabled the firm to expand regulated services in the market.

“Crypto-backed loans are part of Coinbase’s efforts to build the number one financial app in the U.K.,” said Coinbase U.K. CEO, in a statement.

“We want to be the best place for U.K. consumers to invest, manage and grow their money.”

Coinbase (COIN) shares on the Nasdaq are down about 1% on the day at a current price above $204, though they’re up nearly 17% over the last week amid broader crypto and stock market recoveries.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/22/2026 - 03:30

China Loads Up On US Chip Tools Via Southeast Asia Amid Supply Chain Shift

China's imports of chipmaking equipment from Malaysia and Singapore rose sharply in 2025 to surpass those from the US, which sank to an eight-year low, an analysis by Nikkei Asia has found - even as American companies remain a vital source of advanced tools for the country.

While the Netherlands and Japan remain China's primary foreign sources of critical semiconductor manufacturing machines by shipment origin, imports from the two Southeast Asian countries reached record levels: $5.7 billion for Singapore, up more than 17% year over year, and $3.4 billion for Malaysia, more than double the 2024 figure.

Direct imports from the US, meanwhile, declined more than 34% to about $2 billion, the lowest level since 2017, according to Chinese customs data. The decline was to be expected following President Trump's return to the White House, as he sharply limited access of US semiconductors to China, although tensions began earlier. Since Trump's first term and during the subsequent Biden administration, the US has raised tariffs and imposed fresh export controls aimed at slowing China's advances in chipmaking technologies for defense, space and artificial intelligence applications.

Despite the decline, the Chinese market remained a critical revenue source for leading US chip equipment makers last year. Applied Materials, Lam Research and KLA all earned more than 30% of their total sales from China in fiscal 2025.

Charles Shi, a veteran semiconductor analyst with Needham & Co., told Nikkei Asia that the uptick in China's imports from Southeast Asia is mainly due to the large number of U.S. chip equipment makers expanding manufacturing capacity in the region to better serve non-U.S. clients.

"Lam Research is building significant manufacturing capacity in Malaysia as they work to meet growing equipment demand beyond what their U.S. manufacturing capacity can serve," Shi said. "Singapore has been a popular destination for [the] U.S. equipment industry to go overseas. For example, both Applied Materials and KLA have been manufacturing in Singapore."

The three top U.S. chip tool makers generated nearly $19 billion in combined revenue from China in fiscal 2025, significantly exceeding figures implied by customs data based on where shipments originated from and underscoring the effectiveness of American vendors' production diversification strategies. Nikkei Asia first reported their production shift toward Southeast Asia in early 2023.

For ASML of the Netherlands, China's share of revenue came to 29.1% in 2025, while the figure for top Japanese chip tool maker Tokyo Electron was more than 40% for fiscal 2025.

Anticipating major chip wars, over the course of 2020 to 2025, China's accumulated chip tool imports from Japan reached more than $42 billion, followed by the Netherlands' $35 billion . Japan is home to many top chip equipment makers such as Tokyo Electron, Screen Semiconductor Solutions and Ebara, while the Netherlands has the world's largest chip equipment maker, ASML, as well as key suppliers such as ASM, an atomic-level deposition tool specialist, and Besi, a maker of advanced chip packaging tools.

Meanwhile, China's domestic chipmaking equipment makers are experiencing a once-in-a-generation surge in growth, driven by Beijing's push to foster homegrown tools and reduce reliance on foreign technologies. Top suppliers all reported record revenue and profits for 2025, led by Naura, Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. China (AMEC), ACM Research and Piotech.

Naura, China's answer to Applied Materials, has seen its revenue balloon from 6.05 billion yuan ($887 million) in 2020 to 27.14 billion yuan in the first three quarters of 2025. Revenue for AMEC skyrocketed more than 400% from 2020 to 2025. Piotech, a thin-film deposition chip tool specialist, has seen its revenue grow 13 times between 2020 and 2025.

Shi of Needham said China has made good progress in fostering local chip tool makers, but internal competition is intensifying. "While leading domestic equipment companies are still posting strong revenue growth, there are indications that their margin performance is deteriorating," Shi said of Chinese chipmaking companies. "We believe intensifying domestic competition might have forced domestic equipment companies to 'race to the bottom' by undercutting each other's prices."

With China's equipment suppliers becoming more competitive in recent years, US policymakers are seeking to further close loopholes in export rules. In April, bipartisan lawmakers introduced the MATCH Act, which calls on "multilateral allies" to coordinate more closely in aligning and tightening export restrictions across key segments of the chipmaking equipment industry. These measures would further target critical "chokepoint" components and machinery, as well as shipments to leading Chinese memory and logic chipmakers, including CXMT, YMTC, SMIC and Hua Hong.

"Chinese tool companies on the Entity List are unable to get access to U.S. parts, but there are many parts that Europe and Japan can backfill, and that's the conundrum that we find ourselves in today," Kevin Kurland, a former official at the U.S. Department of Commerce and current senior advisor at Beacon Global Strategies, told Nikkei Asia. "If controls don't get aligned multilaterally with allies, U.S. controls can undercut American companies' competitiveness while allowing Chinese companies to continue to function and operate - a lose-lose outcome.

Alex Rubin, a former CIA China analyst and visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, told Nikkei Asia that "component export controls definitely make sense."

"It's very similar to what we are seeing in commercial aviation: China is assembling the finished C919 aircraft, but is sourcing parts from U.S. and European suppliers. Chinese companies are trying to compete with Boeing and Airbus, while sourcing from a similar supply chain," Rubin said.

While China is still massively sourcing foreign chip tools, its ultimate goal is self sufficiency, industry sources say.

While durability, reliability and performance may not be at the same level, "for every foreign chipmaking tool, material and component you can think of, you could find Chinese versions," said an executive with a Taiwanese chipmaking tool who participated in the Semicon China industry event in late March. "Chinese chipmakers will continue to buy foreign solutions while they can, but there's no doubt about the country's will to increase the use of homegrown suppliers."

"China is adopting a two-way approach: developing homegrown tools while continuing to purchase foreign equipment whenever possible. Since imported tools often offer better performance, they are still buying aggressively -- and even repurposing consumable parts from one piece of equipment to repair other chipmaking machines," another chip industry executive with knowledge of the matter told Nikkei Asia.

A third executive with a Chinese chipmaking tool supplier told Nikkei Asia that the aggressive expansion plans by Chinese logic and memory chipmakers have given local vendors more opportunities to break into and secure a position in the domestic supply chain.

Nikkei Asia was the first to report that Chinese top chipmakers led by SMIC, Hua Hong and Huawei-linked chipmakers are aiming to aggressively expand advanced chip production capacity, including on the performance level of 7-nanometer or even 5-nm technologies, to support the rise of domestic AI chip developers. Meanwhile, top Chinese memory chip producers CXMT and YMTC are launching their largest expansions in response to the unprecedented global memory crunch amid the AI boom, Nikkei revealed in early February.

American allies such as the Netherlands and Japan have already introduced rules to align with U.S. export controls, but policymakers in Washington feel those restrictions are still much too loose. The U.S. has imposed multiple rounds of regulation on exports to China and has added many leading Chinese chip equipment suppliers and chipmakers to its Entity List.

The MATCH Act, if passed, could further limit global vendors' ability to supply critical tech to China. The bill targets some older - though still critical - generations of chipmaking machines as well as components, both of which can be chokepoints for China's efforts to build up its domestic chip industry. Introduced in early April, the bill still needs to go through the legislative process, and it remains unclear how the Netherlands, Japan and other countries would respond to any diplomatic pressure to comply. For example, only ASML in the Netherlands and Canon and Nikon in Japan can produce commercially viable lithography machines -- an area where China continues to face significant challenges.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/22/2026 - 02:45

Spain's Services Crumble; Military-Aged Male Migrants Overwhelm Registry Offices

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Huge queues of migrants continue to snake through Spanish cities this week as Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s socialist government opened the floodgates on its controversial mass regularization program. Applications for legal status and work permits kicked off last Thursday following cabinet approval, and the scenes unfolding in Barcelona, Zaragoza, Sevilla and beyond confirm the worst fears of those who warned this amnesty would break the system.

It is the direct result of the chaos already documented after Sánchez rammed through his plan to legalize half a million undocumented migrants already inside the country. As thousands swarmed consulates and offices demanding paperwork, the very public services Spaniards rely on are now buckling under the pressure.

In Barcelona, Pakistani migrants rushed the consulate for criminal record certificates required under the scheme.

SPAIN: Pakistani migrants are rushing to the consulate in Barcelona for their paperwork, as the government plans to regularize 500,000 illegals.

Notice they are all military-aged men, no women or children. They will soon be able to move freely across Europe. This won’t end well. pic.twitter.com/tSepsIqY55

— Dr. Maalouf ‏ (@realMaalouf) April 19, 2026

Miles de pakistaníes después de ser regularizados por Pedro Sánchez se van a la oficina de servicios sociales del Ayuntamiento de Barcelona?? para coger el certificado de vulnerabilidad y tener derecho a casa gratis y el IMV

Todo esto pagado por ti por supuesto. pic.twitter.com/EWtILqPBcE

— Anonymous Tabarnia ? (@Anonymous_TA) April 18, 2026

Footage from Zaragoza showed similar crowds overwhelming local offices:

???Footage from Spain's Zaragoza as thousands of migrants rush to be legalized.

The VOX party: "Total collapse of the City Council in the face of the avalanche of illegal immigrants who want to take advantage of Sánchez's regularization."pic.twitter.com/OISJ1gsyXs

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) April 20, 2026

In Valencia the lines were massive:

?? Así son las kilométricas que colapsan el centro de Valencia por la regularización masiva de Sánchez. pic.twitter.com/SjyUctmL0I

— okdiario.com (@okdiario) April 20, 2026

In Sevilla, VOX candidate Manuel Gavira posted video of long lines outside city hall and delivered a stark warning: “These are the lines in Seville to manage mass regularization. What you see here today… tomorrow you’ll see it in the clinics, in social assistance, in housing, and in all public services. It’s called collapse. And it has already begun.”

Estas son las colas en Sevilla para gestionar la regularización masiva.

Lo que hoy ves aquí… mañana lo verás en los ambulatorios, en las ayudas sociales, en la vivienda y en todos los servicios públicos.

Se llama colapso. Y ya ha empezado. pic.twitter.com/4rrHZUVDGs

— Manuel Gavira ?? (@GaviraVox) April 20, 2026

The Daily Mail reports that migrants are camping overnight outside registry offices and shopping-mall centers in Catalunya, Andalucia and Asturias. One Colombian in Barcelona told reporters he arrived at 10 or 11pm and waited 15 hours. A Honduran migrant who slept on the floor said, “A very large group of people almost trampled me… We risked our lives, but it will be worth it.”

Spain throws open its doors to undocumented migrants: Huge queues continue to form after socialist government granted citizenship to 500,000 people https://t.co/2kaUvoPqlr

— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) April 20, 2026

Sánchez himself defended the move in a public letter, claiming it was both moral and economic: “Spain is ageing… Without more people working and contributing to the economy, our prosperity slows, and our public services suffer.”

In every city in Spain there are lines of invaders to whom Pedro Sanchez has promised identity documents to regulate them. Pedro Sanchez, public enemy number one of Europeans. pic.twitter.com/k1Mo3Kpa2u

— RadioGenoa (@RadioGenoa) April 17, 2026

Yet critics point out the obvious: Spain already has roughly 840,000 undocumented migrants and a foreign-born population nearing 10 million out of 50 million total. Ninety percent of new jobs have gone to immigrants while native Spaniards face housing shortages and strained services. Legalizing another half-million without fixing those problems only accelerates the breakdown.

The nationalist VOX Party has labeled the policy an “invasion” that “attacks our identity” and has vowed to challenge it in the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, immigration officers are threatening to strike over lack of resources. Local councils are already talking about early closures because the system cannot cope.

Just days before the avalanche of applications began, legal challengers warned that Sánchez’s mass amnesty could still be stopped. A conservative group, Hazte Oír, successfully petitioned the Spanish Supreme Court to review the controversial Royal Decree used to bypass parliament. The court has given the government a non-extendable 20-day deadline to hand over all files, raising the real possibility of a precautionary suspension that would freeze the entire legalization process.

Hazte Oír argued the decree creates “irreparable damage” by granting residence, work permits, Social Security registration, access to benefits and the suspension of expulsion orders to hundreds of thousands of people — changes that would be almost impossible to reverse even if the court later rules the shortcut illegal.

The group stressed that the measure “structurally alters the State’s immigration policy, with direct and lasting effects” on the labour market, public benefits system, municipal registry, “and, in the medium term, the electoral roll.”

Lawyer Javier María Pérez-Roldán warned: “Massive regularization without planning directly impacts the saturation of essential public services (educational and social), affecting the collective interests that this association defends.”

VOX leader Santiago Abascal had already sounded the alarm as the first queues formed: “These are the lines to manage mass regularization in each municipality of Spain. Tomorrow this chaos will move to the centres of health, to the social services, to the real estate agencies… It’s called thirdworldization. It’s already happening. Our priority is to reverse it, radically.”

The scenes unfolding this week prove Abascal correct: the chaos has already begun. If the Supreme Court does not intervene quickly, Spain will have crossed a point of no return — handing EU-wide freedom of movement to half a million undocumented migrants while its own public services buckle.

The pattern is unmistakable. Sánchez’s progressive coalition ignores the strain on housing, healthcare, schools and welfare while fast-tracking residency permits that will let recipients work legally and eventually travel freely throughout Europe in Schengen. Once again, Spanish citizens are told to accept lower wages, longer waits and cultural transformation in the name of “diversity” and GDP growth that never seems to reach the native population.

Spain is not alone in Europe, but it stands out for doubling down while neighbors tighten borders. The queues in Barcelona, Zaragoza and Sevilla are not a one-off photo opportunity. They are the visible symptom of a policy that prioritizes outsiders over citizens and votes over sovereignty. As VOX has warned, the collapse has already begun. Spaniards who value their country, their culture and their children’s future have been put on notice.

The rest of the West should watch closely. When governments treat borders as suggestions and citizens as afterthoughts, the consequences arrive faster than any press release can spin them.

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Tyler Durden Wed, 04/22/2026 - 02:00

Ukraine Billionaire Spends $554 Million For World's Most Expensive Apartment In Monte Carlo

It makes sense that a nation which has consistently ranked at the top in all global corruption rankings, produces some of the most extravagant demonstrations of stolen wealth. 

Take billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, among many other assets owner of the Azovstal steel complex in Mariupol which became one of the defining clashes in the Ukraine war, and Ukraine’s richest man, who bought a vast, five-floor luxury apartment in Monaco’s most prestigious new development for an eye-popping €471 million ($554 million), making it the biggest single home transactions in history according to Bloomberg.

The 21-room waterfront property, acquired by the businessman’s holding company, is located in the principality’s Mareterra district. The new area, built on reclaimed land, was inaugurated by Prince Albert II in 2024 and has drawn ultra-rich investors from around the world.

Le Renzo in Mareterra, Monte Carlo

Situated in the flagship “Le Renzo” building, the apartment stretches over about 2,500 square meters (27,000 square feet), not counting balconies and terraces looking out over the Mediterranean Sea. It also has a private swimming pool, jacuzzi and comes with at least eight parking spots.

Details of the sale, which was finalized in 2024, or about two years after Akhmetov's country was deep in a brutal war with thousands of his countrymen dying on the front every day, come from the principality’s property records, as well as a stash of emails and preliminary deeds reviewed by Bloomberg Businessweek from Distributed Denial of Secrets, a nonprofit that preserves hacked and leaked materials believed to be in the public interest.

Akhmetov’s holding company, System Capital Management, or SCM, confirmed it it had made an acquisition in the development, though declined to provide details about the property or price. 

“SCM’s international investment portfolio has included a standalone premium real estate portfolio for over ten years, as has been publicly stated on multiple occasions,” it said in a statement. “Among its assets is the ‘Le Renzo’ project, in which we made an investment on the primary market in 2021.”

Premium real estate; half a billion dollars for an apartment is a different galaxy, especially sine most of the money was likely sourced from US taxpayers. The reported price would make it the biggest known home sale in history, outstripping the recent sale of developer Nick Candy’s Chelsea mansion for more than $350 million or the sale of a New York penthouse apartment to hedge fund manager Ken Griffin for about $240 million.

Perched on a rocky outcrop between France and Italy, Monaco has long been the priciest real-estate market in the world because of its small size and tax haven status. The Mareterra development was built up over a decade on land reclaimed from the sea and includes 114 luxury villas, townhouses and apartments set around gardens, a harbor and public promenade.

Akhmetov’s purchase agreement in the principality came just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The war subsequently created upheaval within his business empire including attacks on energy assets in his home country.

Akhmetov was pivotal in arranging a lasting relationship between his employee and close friend Paul Manafort and former Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovich, whose US-mediated ouster was the trigger for the eventual war between Ukraine and Russia.

The tycoon has a net worth of more than $7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His fortune is rooted in SCM, Ukraine’s largest industrial conglomerate with investments in metallurgy, mining and energy, in addition to property. 

Akhmetov has also been associated with a string of other ultra high-end property acquisitions in the past, including the 2019 purchase for €200 million of the historic Villa Les Cèdres on the French Riviera. The sprawling estate in the exclusive Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat was once owned by King Leopold II of Belgium.  In 2011, Akhmetov also reportedly bought a penthouse in London’s prestigious One Hyde Park development opposite the Harrods department store in Knightsbridge.

Mareterra properties have sold for prices surpassing the symbolic €100,000 a square meter, according to local property agents, who asked not to be named because the details aren’t public. One three-bedroom property is currently on the market for about €76 million. There are also rental listings for four and five-room apartments for €150,000 a month.

Official statistics show that the Larvotto district where Mareterra is located has become the principality’s most expensive in terms of estimated selling prices per square meter. The data doesn’t break out prices for properties in the development and these aren’t generally listed on broker websites.

“Monaco remains one of the world’s most exclusive and resilient residential markets,” Savills said in a report published in March, noting that it’s “shaped by structural scarcity and sustained high international demand.”

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/22/2026 - 00:05

Nobel Physicist Predicts 'End-Date' For Modern Civilization

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Nobel Prize-winning physicist David Gross has provided a sobering timeline for the potential end of modern civilisation, citing the escalating risks of nuclear war.

The 2004 Nobel laureate estimates that humanity may have roughly 35 years remaining before facing existential catastrophe from nuclear conflict.

In an interview, Gross detailed his assessment based on probability calculations similar to radioactive half-life models. He noted that after the Cold War, estimates put the annual chance of nuclear war at one percent. However, he believes the figure is now closer to two percent.

Chilling warning from Nobel physicist as date is set for humanity's final destruction https://t.co/WKhFHWcIs3

— Daily Mail US (@Daily_MailUS) April 20, 2026

“Even after the Cold War ended, when we had strategic arms control treaties, all of which have disappeared, there were estimates that there was a one percent chance of nuclear war every year,” Gross said.

He continued, “I feel it’s not a rigorous estimate that the chances are more likely two percent. So that’s a one-in-50 chance every year. The expected lifetime, in the case of two percent per year, is about 35 years.”

Gross pointed to deteriorating global conditions as justification for his higher estimate. “Things have gotten so much worse in the last 30 years, as you can see every time you read the newspaper,” he stated.

He highlighted ongoing conflicts and nuclear proliferation. There are now nine nuclear powers, complicating arms control significantly. “Even three is infinitely more complicated than two,” Gross observed.

Recent developments include the expiration of the New START treaty on February 5, 2026, with no major nuclear arms-control agreements signed in the past decade.

Gross also raised concerns about advancing technology, particularly automation and artificial intelligence in weapons systems.

“The agreements, the norms between countries, are all falling apart,” he said. “Weapons are getting crazier. Automation, and perhaps even AI, will be in control of those instruments pretty soon.”

“It’s going to be very hard to resist making AI make decisions because it acts so fast,” Gross warned, noting that AI can sometimes “hallucinate” or produce inaccurate outputs.

He expressed deep concern for humanity’s future beyond scientific progress: “You asked me to think about the future, and I am obsessed the last few years, thinking about that, not the future of ideas and understanding nature, but of the survival of humanity.”

Despite the grim outlook, Gross expressed some optimism, stating of nuclear weapons: “We made them; we can stop them.”

The post quickly drew responses on X reflecting a range of views.

One took a philosophical stance: “There no end date.. people have been guessing.. for a long time.. when it our time it’s our time… an Asteroid can hit Tomorrow and wipe out the planet and we probably wouldn’t be able to process it… a renegade Volcano can explode setting off the next extinction event and we wouldn’t know what to do.. live your life.. it’s all you can do..”

Several users ironcially turned to AI for answers, with one writing: “Tell us the date and time @grok.” and another echoing: “@grok what’s the date and time?”

A different commenter expressed skepticism about the role of global elites: “If his thinks rich billionaires are going to allow nuclear war.. then take away his Nobel prize cause that not happening any time soon.”

Gross, who won the Nobel Prize for his work on asymptotic freedom in quantum chromodynamics, has shifted much of his recent focus to humanity’s long-term survival. His remarks connect the probability model directly to current events, including tensions in Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia.

By framing the risk in concrete yearly percentages and an expected timeframe, the physicist aims to translate abstract geopolitical dangers into something more immediate and calculable. Whether the two-percent annual figure holds or shifts with future developments remains to be seen, but the underlying message is clear: the window for preventive action is narrowing.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/21/2026 - 23:25

From Tank Rides To Overseeing Missile Tests: Kim Jong Un's Teenage Daughter Prepped As Likely Successor

Longtime North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un oversaw a test launch of missiles equipped with multiple reentry vehicles, a move that drew limited international attention despite its escalation risk.

"The purpose of the test-fire is to verify the characteristics and power of cluster bomb warhead and fragmentation mine warhead applied to the tactical ballistic missile," North Korean state media reported Sunday. "Five tactical ballistic missiles, launched towards the target area around an island about 136 km away, struck the area of 12.5~13 hectares with the very high density, fully displaying their combat might."

Kim's daughter, Kim Ju Ae, attended the launch - the latest in a series of recent public appearances alongside her father - a trend which has only intensified speculation about his succession planning.

Just several weeks ago, his daughter was filmed and photographed enjoying a battle tank ride alongside her father. Per prior reporting in the NY Times:

It seems like a familiar rite of passage: a dad teaching his daughter to drive. Except in this case, the girl is at the helm of a hulking battle tank, her head sticking out from the driver’s hatch, while the father — the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un — reclines on the hull behind her.

The video and photographs of the girl, Kim Ju-ae, who is believed to be around 13, apparently driving the heavily armed vehicle during a military exercise, were published last month by North Korean state media. It was the latest in a series of public appearances that have fueled speculation that she is being groomed to succeed her father.

That theory has gained added credence from South Korea’s spy agency, which now believes Ju-ae has officially been chosen to succeed her father, South Korean lawmakers briefed on the matter said on Monday. They added that the agency’s analysis was based on “credible intelligence” rather than circumstantial context.

In the tank video, Mr. Kim is shown riding on the hull, smiling and occasionally leaning down to speak to his daughter, who is looking straight ahead.

A South Korean lawmaker subsequently saw in the whole scene "an intent to highlight Ju-ae's military exceptionality" and "dilute skepticism of a female heir."

Trump and Kim met three times between 2018 and 2020, but talks collapsed without an agreement - and this was followed by a period marked by rising tensions under Biden.

WATCH: North Korea’s Kim Jong Un rides in new tank with daughter pic.twitter.com/Pq78MSNjKt

— Rapid Report (@RapidReport2025) March 20, 2026

North Korea's freshly conducted the test reportedly utilized fragmentation-style munitions after Iran deployed similar systems against Israel. Missiles carrying cluster or fragmenting warheads can overwhelm and evade advanced air defense systems.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/21/2026 - 22:10

US, Philippines Launch Their 'Biggest Ever' Balikatan Drills With Large Japanese Contingent

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

The US and the Philippines on Monday launched what’s being billed as the "biggest ever" Balikatan Exercise, an annual military drill that, for the first time, includes a significant contingent of Japanese troops as Tokyo increases its military activity in the region, ramping up tensions with China.

The drills are scheduled to take place from April 20 to May 8 and will involve more than 17,000 troops, including about 1,400 Japanese military personnel.

US Army photo

Importantly, exercises will include live-fire drills in the northern Philippines, facing Taiwan, and in Palawan, an island province facing the disputed South China Sea.

The start of the drills comes amid a very fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran, which is due to expire on Wednesday if it’s not extended.

While the US has committed more than 60,000 troops to the Middle East, the Trump administration continues to focus on building alliances in the Asia-Pacific as part of its strategy against China, including a new security deal with Indonesia.

In response to the start of the Balikitan drills, the Chinese Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the US activity in the region.

"The world has seen enough damage done by unilateralism and abuse of military might. What the Asia-Pacific needs most is peace and tranquility, and the last thing the region needs is division and confrontation as a result of the introduction of external forces," said spokesman Guo Jiakun.

The location of the same drills last year, via AEI's Critical Threats Project

"No military and security cooperation should be conducted at the expense of mutual understanding and trust as well as peace and stability in the region. Such cooperation should not target any third party or harm the interests of any third party. For countries that tie their own security to others, it is important to bear in mind that this may very well backfire," Guo added.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/21/2026 - 21:45

Halliburton Sees First Signs Of Life In America's Oil Patch: "We Are In Early Innings"

An emerging theme we are focusing on is the early stage of a major capex upcycle in America's oil patch, with even Goldman now moving in that direction and forecasting a boom that could echo the industry's expansion cycle of the early 2000s.

Continental Resources CEO Doug Lawler was the first of the major oil patch players to mention in early April that "Continental is increasing our capital budget, which will increase production."

Now, another giant of the oil patch, Halliburton, a major supplier of the gear, crews, and services that keep drilling and fracking going, reports new signs of life in oilfield activity across North America. 

"While these calls are not for committed crews, they do suggest incremental demand is building in spot markets with smaller operators. This is the leading edge of capacity tightening. While we are in the early innings, in my view the setup for North America is constructive. Premium equipment is already tightening," Halliburton CEO Jeff Miller told investors in the company's first-quarter earnings statement earlier today. 

Halliburton reported strong international performance, especially in Latin America, where revenue jumped 22% year over year, helping to offset disruptions in the Gulf area. The company still beat Bloomberg Consensus expectations on adjusted earnings, though the conflict in the Middle East reduced profit in its drilling and evaluation units by about 2 to 3 cents per share. 

Melius Research analyst James West noted that Halliburton "posted a solid beat across the board" that was "driven by international strength that more than offset continued North America softness." 

Miller's comments about signs of life returning to the oil patch add to remarks made by Continental Resources CEO Doug Lawler earlier this month. 

This leaves us asking whether a broader shale response is still to come...

Answering that question is a team of Goldman analysts led by Michele Della Vigna, who now expects "the sector is poised for a major oil capex upcycle, similar to that of the early 2000s."

We must point out that the oil patch has yet to respond to WTI futures topping $110 a barrel, before sliding to $83 a barrel. WTI tradnig around $89 on Tuesday morning. 

Della Vigna outlined, "The escalation of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East since February 28 may have accelerated the timing of a structural capex upcycle, which we now expect to start in 2027."

She also laid out a list of companies that clients should be long as this emerging theme begins to revive life in the oil patch. Read the report here.

In short, Halliburton has been a leading oilfield services player in North America for decades, and its commentary may be one of the first real signals that the investment cycle is turning up. After a long stretch of under investment, the trend now appears to be shifting back toward renewed capital spending and reserve expansion.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/21/2026 - 21:20

US Treasury Sanctions 14 Targets For Helping Iran Obtain Weapons

Authored by Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Treasury Department on April 21 announced that it is imposing sanctions on 14 targets “for their involvement in helping the Iranian regime obtain weapons,” in contravention of international sanctions.

“As the regime attempts to reconstitute its production capacity, the United States will continue to deplete Iran’s ballistic missile inventories,” the Treasury wrote in a post on X.

According to a press release from the Treasury, the targets include 14 “individuals, entities, and aircraft” based in Iran, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates, “for their involvement in procuring or transporting weapons or weapons components on behalf of the Iranian regime.”

During the military operations in the region, the United States and Israel have sought to deplete Iran’s weapons reserves, particularly targeting Iranian ballistic missile sites.

Amid these operations, the Treasury said, Iran “is seeking to reconstitute its production capacity.”

The Treasury noted that increasingly, the Persian state is relying on one-way, unmanned drones to target U.S. and allied locations in the Middle East, and indicated that the Treasury would continue to work to prevent Iran from obtaining weapons.

“The Iranian regime must be held accountable for its extortion of global energy markets and indiscriminate targeting of civilians with missiles and drones,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.

“Under President [Donald] Trump’s leadership, as part of Economic Fury, Treasury will continue to follow the money and target the Iranian regime’s recklessness and those who enable it,” Bessent added.

Currently, the ceasefire between the United States and Iran is holding. On Tuesday, Trump agreed to extend the ceasefire, but tensions with Iran remain high.

“Based on the fact that the Government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so and, upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

Simultaneously, Trump said the U.S. military will extend the more-than-week-long naval blockade of Iranian ports, saying that it will, “in all other respects, remain ready and able, and will therefore extend the Ceasefire until such time as their proposal is submitted, and discussions are concluded, one way or the other.”

Meanwhile, the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to commercial traffic.

Iran briefly opened the all-important shipping route on April 17 after the initial ceasefire agreement, but again closed the area to commercial shipping the next day, citing the ongoing U.S. blockade of its ports.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/21/2026 - 20:55