NSX or 928 S4

@jackprandelli Seems to deliberately bypass Armenia? Right?

🇮🇹🇦🇿 Azerbaijan supplies 16% of Italy's gas. SOCAR just bought 4,500 Italian fuel stations. This is what energy security looks like when Hormuz closes. While the world watches the Strait Italy just rewired its energy architecture northward. The Meloni-Aliyev meeting, what was agreed? First Italian PM visit to Azerbaijan in 13 years. Framed explicitly as a "reliable partnerships" discussion during Middle East instability. → Azerbaijan exported 25 bcm of gas in 2025 7.5 bcm to Italy → Italy: top EU buyer of Azerbaijani gas → TAP cumulative deliveries: 47.5 bcm since startup → TAP covers ~16% of Italy's total gas demand → Both leaders: agreed to push volumes higher via TAP expansion Aliyev: TAP expansion "has already started but must continue" Meloni: Azerbaijani gas has been "decisive for Italy's energy security" and Hormuz makes it more critical still. The infrastructure behind the words The Southern Gas Corridor: Caspian → Azerbaijan → Georgia → Turkey → Greece → Albania → Puglia. TAP annual flows: 9.5 bcm and rising. Recent compressor upgrades: +1.2 bcm/year added capacity. Technical ceiling with full expansion: toward 20 bcm/year. Every bcm that comes through TAP is one bcm that doesn't need to come through Hormuz. The SOCAR downstream move This is where it gets structural. SOCAR Azerbaijan's state oil company just acquired 99.82% of Italiana Petroli (IP): → 10 mt/year refining capacity across 2 Italian refineries → 4,500 service stations across Italy → Aviation fuel, bitumen, logistics assets included → EC approved: February 2026 Gas flows in via TAP. Oil and products flow out via IP's refineries and retail network. SOCAR now has a vertically integrated position inside the EU's 3rd largest economy. Bilateral trade: €10.2 billion in 2025 Italy is Azerbaijan's largest commercial partner. Azerbaijan invested €2.5 billion in Italy. That's an energy alliance formalised by war. The EU wants Russian gas gone. Gulf supply is physically disrupted. The Caspian route via Azerbaijan is the one clean corridor left that avoids both. The Italy-Azerbaijan-SOCAR triangle is the EU's northbound hedge: Caspian gas in via TAP. Azerbaijani oil out via Italian refineries and 4,500 fuel stations. The map of European energy security is being redrawn not in Brussels, but in Baku.

@GlobalMktObserv Happened in the 1970s as well. Rhymes

🔴Global oil inventories are the world's last line of defense against the Iran war oil shock: JPMorgan estimates global inventories will fall to ~7.6 billion barrels by June 2026, the lowest level since at least 2017👇 globalmarketsinvestor.beehiiv.com/p/the-s-p-500-…

@RyanWeather Today, mid-grade $4.69 - $5 in Richmond, VA

Gas price spiked by 50 cents here in Atlanta (Kroger) ⛽️ 📈

@carlbildt Plus the Russian people see their energy and military assets attacked by Ukraine drones every night. It's not a secret little Operation anymore.

It’s clearly not going well for the Putin 🇷🇺 war. Previously his soldiers made increasingly marginal gains 🇺🇦, but In April his soldiers actually lost territory.

@realstewpeters Has any other US President done anything remotely similar in our 250 years? And the unqualified Cabinet stands behind like this is a special event. Everyone humiliating themselves for a long lost cause.

TRUMP TO SCHOOL KIDS: “Iran was two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon and killing you.” ENOUGH. It’s one thing to watch him lie to the American people but lying to and propagandizing kids on national television is TOO FAR.

@JavierBlas Does Our King seem uncertain of what to do next in his War of Choice? Anyone?

Just 48 hours since its launch, President Trump says that the “Project Freedom” to unilaterally re-open the Strait of Hormuz would be “paused for a short period.”

@BohuslavskaKate Obviously, Trump's relationship with Russia is unlike any American president's since WWII. And NO ONE understands why or how he came to this relationship. Ukraine is part of Europe & we all know that Trump is adverse to European Liberal Democracy - - actually adverse to democracy

Trump hates Zelenskyy and, by extension, Ukraine. He claims they get along, yet he never misses an opportunity to badmouth his counterpart. He becomes irritated whenever anyone praises Ukraine, and he would absolutely never say that Ukraine fights better than Europeans. The widely circulated quote is made up, it was the interviewer who said it, not Trump himself.

@ProfessorPape x.com/JoumannaTV/sta…

Trump making a bet on Iran he can’t afford to lose, as I discuss with Laura Coates on CNN. video.snapstream.net/Play/6gG5aRNfw…

@SariArhoHavren I can't help noticing how well marked Carney is received around the World. Carney, since he his blunt & factual Munich speech about the importance of Middle Countries working together, has lead the way on trade and defense. FACT: Canada created more new jobs than the US in 2025.

Welcome, Canada ❤️ We don't bully or threaten to invade our allies and partners.

@ProfessorPape From Our King on down, this administration has no credibility when it comes to facts. It is loose with the facts from the results of the 2020 election forward.

@ProfessorPape x.com/ForeignAffairs…

Iran War is escalating rapidly If even 1 US naval ship is hit, expect a spiral that will spread to energy infrastructure across the region. The next phase of the Escalation Trap is beginning now nytimes.com/live/2026/05/0…

@ProfessorPape x.com/ForeignAffairs…

@Amena__Bakr Have US ships passed the Strait of Hormuz as WH says?

With this new wave of escalation prices are up

@JavierBlas Iran says not true.

The push to re-open the Strait of Hormuz today, with two US warship crossing it and two US-flagged merchant vessels, signals the White House realises it can not keep waiting for the blockade to force Iran into the negotiation table. Effectively, it's an admission the blockade isn't working (if the blockade is seen as a means to get Iranian concessions, rather than an end in itself). The timeline of what the blockade would do to the Iranian oil industry was completely wrong.

@BarakRavid @AliVaez @axios Wrong Again - Not True!

🇺🇸🇮🇷🚢Two U.S. merchant ships cross Strait of Hormuz under Trump's new operation. My report on @axios axios.com/2026/05/04/str…

@aarondmiller2 @DouthatNYT D'accord !

Having worked and voted for Ds and Rs, @DouthatNYT Slouching Toward Kamala Harris is a must read trenchant analysis. That Harris is leading D candidate in polls is a clear warning sign of what’s wrong with party. nytimes.com/2026/05/02/opi…

@KenRoth BINGO

"No decision is more important than waging war....Yet the United States has done exactly that without even a nod to its own system of checks and balances and reasoned deliberation....Trump remains unchecked by the legislature and surrounded by sycophants." trib.al/HEZdIgN

@ProfessorPape Thank you. Sir.

Trump’s announced “escort” of ships thru Hormuz recalls the famous 1964 Tonkin Gulf incident … A manufactured pretext for the United States to massively escalate its military involvement in the Vietnam War Prepare for major escalation vs Iran google.com/imgres?imgurl=…

@GlobalMktObserv As you have noted, US retail "investors" have been very complacent for months. Since the US has not had a serious & long decline since 2008 - 2011, over the years they have become conditioned to "buying the dip". Now complacency is rampant; retail investors hold 65+% stocks.

🔴Wall Street and Main Street have NEVER been this far apart: The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index fell to a record low of 47.6 in April, while the S&P 500 trades near all-time highs. The gap between the two is the largest EVER👇 globalmarketsinvestor.beehiiv.com/p/the-s-p-500-…

‼️Stagflationary pressures are building in the US manufacturing sector: ISM manufacturing prices paid index spiked to 84.6 points in April, a 4-year high. Over the last 3 months, prices paid have SKYROCKETED over 20 points, marking one of the biggest spikes in history. Meanwhile, the employment index dropped to 46.4 points, the lowest level in 2026. Employment has now been contracting for 15 months STRAIGHT. This is all despite ISM manufacturing PMI sitting above 52 for 4 months (exceeding 50 = expansion). Stagflation remains the biggest risk for the economy.

@GlobalMktObserv Complete the story. So what did they sell & what did they buy?

🚨THIS IS UNPRECEDENTED: Berkshire Hathaway sold $24.1 BILLION worth of stocks and bought $15.9 billion in Q1 2026, bringing net sales to $8.1 billion. This marks the 14th consecutive quarter of net sales, the longest streak in the company's history. This was also the biggest quarterly sales since Q3 2024, when the conglomerate sold a significant stake of Apple stock. Meanwhile, Berkshire resumed stock buybacks in Q1 2026 after a nearly 2-year pause, repurchasing $234 million of its own stock, its first buybacks since May 2024. However, no further repurchases were conducted in the first 2 weeks of April. At current valuations, Berkshire cannot find anything worth buying.