Financial Sense

BREAKING: The Trump administration was preparing Friday for a fresh round of military strikes against Iran, according to sources with direct knowledge of the planning, even as diplomacy continued. No final decision on strikes had been reached as of Friday afternoon. cbsn.ws/4dX9MPA

We are currently seeing the fastest growth in US money supply in four years. And again, let’s stop solely blaming the war for this: Inflation is fundamentally a monetary phenomenon. tavicosta.substack.com/p/inflation-is…

Russia is selling its gold reserves at a rapid pace: The Bank of Russia's gold holdings dropped -900,000 ounces in the first 4 months of 2026, to 73.9 million ounces, the lowest since February 2022. Gold prices averaged ~$4,800 per ounce over the same period. Therefore, if Russia sold gold at the market price, the sales are estimated to have generated ~$4.3 billion in proceeds. Russia's central bank began reducing its gold reserves last year after the Finance Ministry liquidated gold and foreign currency assets from the National Wellbeing Fund to offset budget deficits driven by declining energy revenues. Before the pandemic, the Bank of Russia used to be one of the world’s largest official gold buyers, taking in nearly all domestically mined output until it halted purchases in early 2020. Russia is increasingly selling gold to raise cash.

Interview: @steven_kotler discusses his latest book, We Are as Gods, co-authored with @PeterDiamandis, on resurrecting extinct species from the grave, curing blindness, merging with superintelligence, and extending human life financialsense.com/podcast/21662/…

The 9.92M barrel weekly draw from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is the largest single-week decline on record going back to 1982.

Food is set to become even more expensive: World fertilizer prices have surged +44% since the start of the Iran War, to the highest since 2022. This comes as ~33% of globally traded fertilizers pass through the Strait of Hormuz, which remains effectively closed. This includes 23% of global ammonia, 34% of urea, the world's most widely used nitrogen fertilizer, and nearly 20% of global phosphate supply. Furthermore, the Bloomberg Agriculture Subindex has increased ~9% since the Iran war. The index tracks the futures prices of key agricultural commodities, including wheat, corn, soybeans, sugar, coffee, and cotton. In the past, world fertilizer prices have acted as a leading indicator for agricultural output prices, as rising production costs eventually force farmers to reduce supply, pushing crop prices higher. A new wave of global food inflation is imminent.

BREAKING: The Trump Administration is investing $2 billion in quantum computing companies and will receive equity stakes in return, per WSJ. Details include: 1. $1 billion of the package will be awarded to IBM, $IBM 2. Chip maker GlobalFoundries, $GFS, is receiving $375 million in funding 3. The rest of the companies will receive $100 million each, except for startup Diraq, which is slated to get $38 million 4. Multiple other public companies will receive funds including D-Wave Quantum, Rigetti Computing, and Infleqtion Trump's next big bet is on quantum computing.

From Boom to Backlash: The New War Over America’s Data Centers @pwrhungry financialsense.com/blog/21661/boo…

Iran said it would take the war beyond the Middle East if the US and Israel resume attacks, after President Donald Trump threatened new strikes: Here’s your Evening Briefing bloomberg.com/news/newslette…

Warsh has signaled he wants to change the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge. The Fed has used Core PCE, which excludes food and energy, as its benchmark since 2000. Warsh favors Trimmed Mean PCE, which removes the most extreme price movements each month instead of excluding whole categories. The practical difference: Trimmed Mean PCE currently reads 2.36%, well below the 3.20% reading on Core PCE. Depending on which measure the Fed follows, the case for rate cuts looks very different. This is not a minor procedural change. The metric the Fed uses to gauge inflation directly determines when it judges the economy to be at target. If Warsh moves the committee toward Trimmed Mean PCE, he is mathematically moving the Fed closer to a declared victory on inflation, which creates runway for rate cuts even as headline readings stay elevated. You’d think with 400+ Ph.D. economists and 500+ researchers on the payroll, the Fed would run the most sophisticated macro forecasting operation on the planet, leaving Bloomberg and every major hedge fund in the dust. Not even close. When the data doesn’t cooperate, just change the data. Same thing I saw in the Army when time or weather worked against higher leadership, and we would quietly move the goalposts rather than admit the standard couldn’t be met. Can you tell why I didn’t stick around for the full 20 years?

US oil reserves are falling at a record pace: The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) dropped -8.6 million barrels last week, the largest weekly drawdown on record, per Zerohedge. This marks the 7th consecutive weekly decline, the longest streak since 2023. Over this period, US oil reserves in the SPR have dropped -31 million barrels, to 384 million, the lowest since October 2024. This wipes out nearly half of all the oil added to the SPR between July 2023 and March 2026. Meanwhile, US crude oil exports jumped +742,000 barrels last week, to 5.5 million barrels per day, the 2nd-highest in at least 3 years, after a record 6.5 million barrels per day 2 weeks prior. The world is scrambling for American oil.

Interview with Craig Tindale: How China Won the Global Supply Chain War @ctindale financialsense.com/podcast/21656/…

Tether is buying more Gold than China

Time to upgrade the office robot dog

This chart is the most important leverage for China going into the Beijing summit. China's share of global production for the minerals that run the modern economy: 🔴 Gallium: 98.7% 🔴 Magnesium: 95.0% 🟢 Niobium: 90.9% (Brazil) 🔴 Tungsten: 82.7% 🔴 Bismuth: 81.3% 🔴 Graphite: 79.4% 🔴 Silicon: 76.3% 🔵 Cobalt: 75.9% (DRC) 🔴 Rare Earths: 69.2% 🔴 Antimony: 60.0% 🔴 Aluminum: 59.7% The pattern across critical minerals is the same. China is the leading producer in almost all. Even where China doesn't mine it, it processes it. Gallium at 98.7% is the number that should concern every defence ministry in the world. Gallium is essential for semiconductors, radar systems, satellite communications, and EV power electronics. Beijing already restricted gallium exports in 2023. It can turn that tap further at any moment. This is the leverage sitting across the table from Trump in Beijing this week. $575 billion in US-China trade repricing. 20 mb/d of oil. 20% of global LNG. Taiwan. Iran. Hormuz. Tariffs. All stacked into 48 hours against an active shooting war in the Gulf. The announcement will move prices.... Hard. 👇 Full breakdown in my latest article link in the comments

A supertanker docked in Long Beach just delivered California’s last incoming shipment of Middle Eastern oil, a milestone for drivers already paying the nation’s highest fuel prices. 🔗 on.wsj.com/4uKPGOg

BREAKING: The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve released last week >1.22 million barrels a day (~8.6 million for the week). That's the largest ever weekly release, surpassing the peak rate seen in 2022 when President Biden tapped the SPR after Russia invaded Ukraine.

BREAKING: China’s central bank bought +8 tonnes of gold in April, the most since December 2024. This follows +5 tonnes acquired in March, the 2nd-largest two-month addition since Q1 2024. This also marks their 18th consecutive monthly purchase, bringing total official holdings up to a record 2,322 tonnes. Year-to-date, China’s central bank has bought +15 tonnes of gold, on track for its biggest annual purchase since 2023. Since 2022, the country has officially increased its gold holdings by +372 tonnes, or +19%, making China one of the strongest gold buyers in the world. China is buying the dip in gold.

🚨 US Stocks at EXTREME Record Valuations on Nearly EVERY Measure — Jeffrey Huge (Huge Insights) sounds the alarm, outlines bull case for commodities and hard assets @Alpha_Insights financialsense.com/podcast/21649/…

Podcast: Robert Bryce on the Growing Backlash of Data Centers Erupting Across America @pwrhungry financialsense.com/podcast/21648/…