Jeff Diamond

@Timodc "When you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything." "When you're President they let you do it. You can do anything." -- Donald J. Trump

Trump is a fool. He is also corrupt through & through. He will not abandon Israel or the gulf countries as they are the largest source of money into his own pockets. He also cannot envision his own actions leading to the downfall of American power & influence, so he will not act accordingly. He will act in his own self-interest (as always.)

If I was selected to be a President of USA and tasked to remove US from Middle East, this is what I would have done: - Start a war with Iran and let Iran destroy all my bases and all my allies' infrastructure in the region. - After a month of destruction, beg for cease fire - After getting cease fire, behave like a complete moron - Pretend to be making a deal and tell my allies in the region it is mandatory to join Abraham Accords and support #Israel. There is no King, President or Prime Minister in Middle East that can join Abraham Accords if they haven't done so already. Why would a US President ask something like that then? Either he is a fool or he wants to alienate them even more... or both. If there was no #IranWar, Israel was already winning... we had no idea how much control they had over UAE and Bahrain. #Dubai was the New York of the region and looks like under complete control of Israel. Status quo was in Israel's favor... another 10 years, Dubai could have been the most important financial center outside NY and London and entice more Iranians there while Iran got crippled under sanctions. Israel is the biggest loser in this war but USA not really if you support the founding ideas of America. This war will remove USA from Middle East and later from Indian Ocean... that's precisely what Founders of USA would have wanted. There is a giant problem though. Post 1945 USA was reestablished as a refurbished United Kingdom that relied on selling money. If USA is forced out of Middle East and other parts of the world, it cannot sell dollars anymore which means life standards would go down a lot, especially in the following few decades until Americans start to learn how to do things themselves. Is there any chance Trump considers any of these while making all these actions? Zero chance...

@JohnDoss1 Fake rallies in equities & bonds, and selloffs in DXY & crude while people are discussing their incredible 401k gains over some bbq.

$SPY $QQQ it’s very difficult to get the truth on Iran US negotiations. If you had a deal, I would expect a rotation to sectors that benefit from lower rates. Quants will use fake news to exit Tuesday imho. I’ll be 🎣. You do you!

@VitalTrades @KobeissiLetter Good thing AI data centers don't rely on energy (or profits for the AI consumers), otherwise there would be trouble and those earnings projections to infinity might come under some scrutiny, but in the meantime, party on! 🤣

@JeffDiamond3 @KobeissiLetter Right on the analog. The difference: 2022 was a rates shock on ZIRP positioning with earnings decelerating. 2026 has elevated rates AND Q1 earnings +27% YoY, best beat quality in 25 years ex-2021. The bull has a foundation 2022 didn't.

BREAKING: S&P 500 futures extend gains to over +1% on the day and hit the highest level on record as President Trump asks Iran to join the Abraham Accords. That's +$11.3 TRILLION in market cao since the March 30th bottom.

@VitalTrades Fake rally in bonds while the market is "closed" for Memorial Day. Party on...

HOUSING IS CRACKING The bond market is signaling. The housing market is confirming. The consumer balance sheet is paying both bills. The receipts: - Foreclosures Q1 +26% YoY to ~119,000. Highest since the Q1 2020 COVID shutdown. - Florida foreclosures +44% YoY. - Freddie Mac home price index near negative. First time since the GFC. - Inventory above 1 million homes. Days-on-market surging. - 30Y mortgage at 6.65-6.75%. Nine-month high. - Only 25% of non-owners plan to buy in five years. Lowest reading on record per Gallup. - Housing stocks at 52-week lows: WHR, HD, SHW, RH, LEN. The counter-signals are real. REITs broke out last week. Purchase mortgage apps are higher YoY against weak comparisons. The cross-currents exist. The structural receipt set still leans stress. The COVID-era FHA foreclosure mitigation program ended. The backlog is now releasing into a market with rising inventory and falling demand. CRE alongside: CMBS office delinquency near 12%, above the GFC peak. Multifamily CMBS at 7.7%. $5 trillion in total CRE debt outstanding. Distinct mechanism from residential. Same macro drivers. The structural payload: The 30Y at 5.08% sets the mortgage floor. The Fed cannot ride to the rescue. Yesterday's $857B Lock framework named why. The standing buyer at the long end has left. The lender of last resort is structurally constrained. Add this to the Pressure Cooker transmission channels: oil, real wages, consumer sentiment, $857B Lock, Standing Buyer Left, and now housing. The bond market is signaling. The housing market is confirming. The consumer balance sheet is paying both bills. Relief is faster than recovery. The bull isn't over. The easy part is. Bonds and USD remain the underweights at the reserve level.

@JamesMartinSJ Sounds reasonable, but anathema to Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Christian Nationalists, Peter Thiel, JD Vance & the greed/power/corruption coalition in Washington D.C.

News: Pope Leo XIV's profound new encyclical, "Magnifica Humanitas," centers human dignity in an era of artificial intelligence, provides a masterclass in Catholic social teaching, and warns against the dangers of not only AI, but economies that are not "inclusive." 5 takeaways.

Lindsey Graham has convinced Bozo the Clown POTUS that all of the Arab countries in the gulf will forget their hatred & enmity of Israel in order to sign Little Jared's Abraham Accords (which they already refused to do previously) in order to make Bozo the greatest peace President in American history!

@KobeissiLetter All-time highs on the back of an ultimatum that hasn’t been accepted. The market is pricing in the best case. The other side hasn’t agreed yet.

I seem to remember that 2022 wasn't a great year for the stock market... and, separately, the great SPX rally while the market is "closed" has started to pull back since Trump made his latest dumb "mandatory request" for all the Arab countries in the gulf accept Israel as their close ally via the Abraham Accords.

@KobeissiLetter The market cap is real. The dry powder is not. FMS cash 3.9%, equity OW +50% (largest monthly increase ever recorded), positioning at January 2022 levels. Last time positioning was this loaded was January 2022.

@JenniferEValent Inciting political violence is not a concern to the GOP again, I guess? When are people going to get sick of this behavior once and for all? 2026 midterms would be a really good time to make it clear that we're done with this...

He has debased our nation on every level. If we don’t learn from this how destructive it is to play frivolous games with our country, we will eventually have no country left.

@MichaelPBento For me, it's a toss-up between Japan/Korea or the U.S. bond market (along with Japan, U.K., Germany bond markets) that tip this thing off its tractor beam higher. Dark horse catalyst: $5 trillion in IPOs sucking the life out of the high flyers that make up 40 pct of SP500.

This is what I think a lot of the amateurs and tourists in here are missing when they think their weekend markets will last into Tuesday. Japan and Korea are open Monday and their price action can absolutely derail any perceived momentum in US markets.

@JTheretohelp1 That's good sign. Your kids are sharp with a good sense of humor. Keep up the good work!

I ask my kids for a banana sandwich 🍌 This is what I get

The U.S. needs an economic, financial, and political reset. The bond market seems to be heading down that path already. It will likely be the catalyst to drag the equity market down with it. Recessions clear the dead wood. The Fed has been blocking the natural process for decades. The next downturn might be large enough to overwhelm government meddling. An incompetent leader like Trump might just be the unwitting accomplice that economic forces need to reassert themselves over government interference.

The market is about to top... I care not what you say... It's over Check out my #DJI analysis on @TradingView: tradingview.com/x/9n1rOvWm/

@citrinowicz The U.S. needs a new generation of leaders. Until the Lindsey Grahams & Chuck Schumers are out of Congress & the WH has a younger, visionary, pragmatic leader, then there will be no improvement in ME relations. Americans need to stop electing old men & militaristic hawks.

There needs to be an end to the false expectations surrounding Israeli-Saudi normalization. Let’s start with the semantic issue. Anyone familiar with the relationship between Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, and the broader regional order understands that if normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia ever happens, it will not be branded as an extension of the “Abraham Accords.” From the Saudi perspective, that is not a cosmetic or semantic matter. Riyadh will insist on its own framework, its own terms, and its own political narrative. But that is the smaller issue. To understand just how detached current normalization talk is from regional realities, it is worth reading the recent arguments made by Prince Turki al-Faisal and other influential Saudi voices. In essence, the prevailing Saudi view today is that Israel has become a major source of regional instability, in some respects viewed as even more destabilizing than Iran. At the same time, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who sees himself as a central leader of the Arab world, is unlikely to move toward normalization without significant and visible progress on the Palestinian issue. The reality is that renewed Saudi-Iranian accommodation is far more likely in the near term than Saudi-Israeli normalization. That may be uncomfortable for many in Washington and Jerusalem to acknowledge, but it reflects the region as it actually exists, not as some policymakers wish it to be. Saudi Arabia will not agree to normalization in exchange for cooperation on Iran alone while the Palestinian issue remains unresolved. Contrary to the hopes of some in Israel and the United States, there was never a realistic path toward bypassing the Palestinian question on the road to broader regional normalization. This is also why comprehensive peace agreements between Israel and countries like Lebanon or Syria remain highly unlikely under current conditions. Much of the regional diplomatic architecture ultimately runs through Riyadh, and Saudi Arabia is not prepared to legitimize a regional order that sidelines Palestinian aspirations. From the Saudi perspective, Israel cannot indefinitely hold both ends of the stick, deepening control over the West Bank while simultaneously expecting the political and economic benefits of normalization with the Arab world. The sooner policymakers internalize that reality, the more grounded and effective regional diplomacy can become. And this is true not only under Israel’s current government, but very likely under future governments as well. That is precisely why it is irresponsible to continue selling illusions to the Israeli public on this issue. There is no serious regional pathway to normalization with Saudi Arabia that completely bypasses the Palestinian question. Repeating that promise over and over may serve short-term political narratives, but it does not change the strategic reality in the Middle East. At some point, Israeli policymakers and the public alike will have to confront a basic fact: normalization with the Arab world, especially with Saudi Arabia, will almost certainly require meaningful movement on the Palestinian track. Not symbolic gestures, but substantive political steps. Pretending otherwise may be politically convenient, but it only deepens the gap between expectations inside Israel and the diplomatic realities shaping the region. #IranWar‌ #Iran

@BitcoinSavesXYZ @LukeGromen I've been reading Luke Gromen for quite some time, and one thing I can say with absolute certainty is that Luke is no fool. So, if it's a binary choice, then there's only one conclusion 🤔

Your either the fool or I am and the good thing is time will reveal. Either Iran ends this conflict with the nuke program intact and charging tolls in the Strait, or they have no nuke program and charge no tolls. I will leave foreign policy to you if I'm proven the fool and I would hope you leave it to me if you are the fool. Agreed?

Left: Netanyahu posts at 9:50a ET Right: Trump posts at 10:10a Iran deal seemingly delayed.

@HormuzLetter @goldbugger So, if there's a deal, then it's safe to say that the country that won is imposing its terms on the United States.

BREAKING: Iran says contrary to what the US claims, the now fully leaked "Memorandum of Understanding" contains no Iranian commitments to hand over nuclear stockpiles, remove equipment, shut down nuclear facilities, or even commit to not build a nuclear bomb. Instead, all nuclear issues are deferred to a 60 day period of negotiations after signing, per Fars News. For this period to start, the US would need to accept no nuclear commitments from Iran, agree to release $100 billion of Iranian frozen assets, lift the naval blockade, lift all oil and petrochemical sanctions during the negotiation period, pay $270 billion in war reparations, and accept Hormuz under "full permanent sovereign Iranian management and authority" at pre-war traffic levels with no US presence.

With all due caveats about a deal that has not been announced yet, some thoughts: The US-Iran deal being described in the news is a weak deal, and the net result of this war is significant damage to US strategic interests. That said, since the war was a mistake from the beginning, we can at least be thankful it appears President Trump is moving, belatedly, to end it. This war was ill-conceived in every respect. There were no clear strategic objectives, and no way to achieve most of the objectives mentioned at an acceptable cost. After the Strait of Hormuz was closed, and the global economic crisis started to spread, reopening it became the most important objective. That meant Iran had far greater leverage than we did. So President Trump faced only terrible options, of his own making. The deal being reported is among the less terrible options he could have chosen. At least he is not choosing to escalate the war, which would cause an even greater global economic crisis. The least terrible deal would have been a verified opening of the Strait -- and nothing else. Keep full sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, maintain watchfulness and deterrence established in the 12-Day War last June, and try to negotiate a significant rollback of the program and intrusive inspections. This deal is weaker than that. It reportedly provides $25 billion in unfrozen assets without receiving any concessions on the nuclear program. That money will give the regime a lifeline and help it begin restoring funding to its proxies. And there are no guarantees that Iran will make meaningful concessions on enrichment or HEU once those talks do start. Those talks, which will likely drag on, may well take place without a credible US military threat backing them up, as the United States labors to recover from all it expended and lost in this campaign and shore up other strategic priorities (IndoPacific) that have been set back, and as US midterm elections approach. Meanwhile, the deal says nothing about Iran's ballistic missile program or its support for proxies. Yes, US and Israeli strikes degraded, but did not eliminate, many Iranian attack capabilities. But overall, Iran has gained significant leverage for the future by demonstrating it can control the strait, by attacking its neighbors and US bases in the region and causing significant damage, and by taking the United States' and Israel's best punch and surviving with enough ability to project aggression in tact. It's a bleak day for US strategic interests. But it's better than continuing the war and making it even worse. Once the dust clears, one thing must not be forgotten. The Iranian people continue to live under a vicious regime. Trump has barely spoken of them in weeks. They deserve help, support, and appropriate non-military external pressures on the regime to give THEM the best chance to change it. The Administration, which put so much faith in military power to do what it could not, should invest in Iran experts, communicators, Persian language broadcasting, transition planning, diplomacy, and more aimed at supporting the Iranian people in their quest for freedom from tyranny. That was true in January when the Iranian people were demonstrating for their freedom. And it is still true today, despite this stupid war.

@VitalTrades I understand your approach, but to say Trump is no different from other politicians is a whitewash of the sheer magnitude and outrageous content of his lies. We're not talking spin or shades of truth. It's much bigger than that.

@JeffDiamond3 Fair. My lane is structural analysis, called as neutral and objective as I can. All politicians do this, red or blue. The rhetoric/text gap is structural, not personal. April produced the same MoU under the same dynamic.

The headline sells timing. The text delivers scaffolding. That's the locked Iran pattern. April halted strikes, sure. But three negotiation rounds later, nothing structural moved. The "almost agreement" is the same scaffolding with one unenforceable clause added: Pezeshkian restraining the IRGC. The same IRGC that operationally controls Hormuz, the missile program, and the uranium. The two issues that actually matter are still on the table. Hormuz tolls: Iran codified the PGSA in maritime law this week. Uranium: Khamenei said it stays in country. Procedural, not structural. Watch the text.

@JTheretohelp1 @BYOinvestor1 People who bought the top of the dotcom bubble didn't have any gains for 10 yrs, and plenty of those companies went bust. It destroyed the lives of a lot of people like this bubble will do when it bursts.

@BYOinvestor1 Correct, in 2001 NOT here

I’m being sarcastic. People buying here are idiots.

@JTheretohelp1 Maybe it's time for The Fed to take away the punchbowl. Just a thought...

@Bogachan_1971 Thank you. What a relief to read the truth of the matter.

Let's say you are down to two players in a hand and you read your opponent right and managed to bluff him. you got luck in the turn or river and got a strong pair vs your opponent clearly weaker after that. Would u force him out by increasing the bet strong or entice him to bet a little more to get more of his chips? If you bluffed and got lucky... do not show your hand. Force him out. #MAGA Cult Leader #Trump bet the wrong hand and not only he lost it but also showed his hand. That hand says...no matter what you do, I will attack you. This is what #Iran had been saying and getting ready for last 25 years. Despite the experiences in Libya, Iraq and Syria, most people did not expect that because Iran is not a Lbya, Iraq, Syria or Venezuella. Most people thought that no American President would be this stupid to do this. Netanyahu disagreed because he knows how dvmb this clown is. All Trump wants now is to go back to Feb 27 and pretend that nothing happened. Why? Because all his life he failed in one venture after another and Wilbur Ross showed up to clean it up. Rothschilds groomed a perfect narcissist who never faced the outcomes of his stupid decisions. Iranians invented chess.... and they figured out Trump better than most Americans did. They know they cannot trust Trump at all and have to keep the Hormuz closed as a leverage. The more the delay, they bigger the catastrophe that will be charged to Americans by rest of the world. Last... what happens if you bring a clown to a poker table?