Annmarie Hordern

Early mornings with @bsurveillance, Chief Political Correspondent @BloombergTV, term member @CFR_org, LDN-DC-NY, friends call me AMH.

[Annmarie Hordern @annmarie]

“We will not hesitate to participate in further joint intervention.”

[Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent @SecScottBessent]

The Trump Administration delivers for America's trusted partners. Economic security is national security. And the U.S.-Japan alliance is built on both.

Friday's coordinated foreign exchange actions countered disorderly yen movements.

Treasury remains attentive and in close communication with our counterparts at MOF and BOJ. We will not hesitate to participate in further joint intervention.

The FIMA Repo Facility is an important backstop. We would encourage it to be upsized in the coming months.

We strongly support Japan's decisive market and monetary steps to correct the substantial undervaluation of the yen.

The Takaichi government is moving into an exciting new phase of Abenomics, as nearly 15 years of powerful stimulus have created durable, robust underlying economic dynamics.

[Annmarie Hordern @annmarie]

Trump says the US joined a currency-market intervention that lifted the yen last week as a “signal of friendship.”

ALSO: “Japan's been very good to us with the exception, of course, of Pearl Harbor."

[Annmarie Hordern @annmarie]

Fresh Iran talks announced just before futures open

[Annmarie Hordern @annmarie]

Trump tells reporters on Air Force One he called off a massive attack on Iran after allies in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, asked him to pursue a deal instead, and that new talks would begin Monday.

[Annmarie Hordern @annmarie]

Expensive to do list…

“Buy Japanese Yen (JPY) $5-10 bil.”
https://t.co/uxnQUeJPHA

[Annmarie Hordern @annmarie]

Reuters: Chinese military researchers have used outputs from leading U.S. artificial intelligence models developed by OpenAI and Anthropic to train domestic AI systems to advance China's defence capabilities, according ​to a Reuters review of more than 80 Chinese academic papers and patents.
https://t.co/VA2IkMpbK5

[Annmarie Hordern @annmarie]

Statements out from two Fed officials who dissented against this week’s decision to hold interest rates steady.

Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack: “The longer that high inflation persists, the more challenging and costly it can be to bring it back down.”

Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari: “To manage against the risk that high inflation could become entrenched, I would rather tighten policy incrementally as we gather more data on the path of inflation and employment.”

[Annmarie Hordern @annmarie]

FT: Trump has said he has not decided whether he will allow Ukraine to produce Patriot surface-to-air interceptor missiles, casting doubt on whether Washington will agree to one of Kyiv’s top priorities. The US president said in a phone interview with the FT on Thursday that he was “not sure” whether Washington would grant Ukraine a licence to produce Patriot missiles, adding that “we’re looking at it”.

[Javier Blas @JavierBlas]

BIG OIL 2Q EARNINGS: Exxon Mobil slightly missed expectations, but still reports strong earnings (>$14.5 billion) on the back of high oil prices and skyhigh refining margin. The miss comes from Middle East production losses (Exxon is huge in Qatar).

[Javier Blas @JavierBlas]

BIG OIL 2Q EARNINGS: @Chevron comfortably beats expectations, with net income of >$12 billion in part thanks to what CEO Mike Wirth described as "exceptional reliability across key assets" (the company run its refineries very, very strongly). Good progress in cost cutting.

[Annmarie Hordern @annmarie]

WSJ: Companies have traded notes about what Wall Street analyst Blair Levin calls “The Trump Transaction Tax,” or a payment outside of the cost of normal business. “Another way of saying it,” Levin said, “is simply that we’re replacing the free market with the market for Trump’s affections.” 
https://t.co/CmAL6Jv53M

[Annmarie Hordern @annmarie]

Anthropic: In a review of our cybersecurity evaluation transcripts, we found three incidents in which a Claude model reached the internet from within or while interacting with a third-party evaluation environment, and then gained unauthorized access to the real systems of three different organizations.
https://t.co/2Fqbyva99Z

[The New York Times @nytimes]

Breaking News: Thousands of migrants attempted to enter Ceuta, Spain’s coastal enclave in North Africa, prompting a mobilization of the Spanish military. At least 18 people died trying to enter the territory, a spokesman for the Spanish government said. https://t.co/ADe52tFbHi

[Annmarie Hordern @annmarie]

Bessent to Fox Business: “The Japanese yen seems very undervalued to me. The currency is very cheap. The economy is doing well. The Prime Minister is very popular and enacting very strong policies.”

[Annmarie Hordern @annmarie]

“The map showed Nigeria, where the U.S. currently has several hundred troops deployed, as landlocked in the Sahara Desert. Mozambique, which is in southeastern Africa, was relocated to the Horn of Africa, while Ivory ​Coast in West Africa was placed on the other side of the continent.”

[Hümeyra Pamuk @humeyra_pamuk]

Quite the story —

July 30 (Reuters) - A U.S. government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a State Department presentation at ‌a global conference taking place in Brazil this week, causing a stir among attendees who took screenshots and posted them online.

[Annmarie Hordern @annmarie]

Bloomberg: The 30-year fixed mortgage rate for week ending July 30 rose to 6.66% from 6.58%, Freddie Mac data show.

[Annmarie Hordern @annmarie]

i love it

[Rob Brumfield @RobbyRillo]

@annmarie Might run into some IP issues but…who doesn’t need this, I feel like the world would be a better place. Just let me know…

[Annmarie Hordern @annmarie]

Pakistan has negotiated with Iran to secure safe passage for at least one Qatari liquefied natural gas shipment, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
https://t.co/Hhr5xE4E6k

[Annmarie Hordern @annmarie]

FT: Several people familiar with the matter said that Situational Awareness had used borrowing to magnify its returns, a popular hedge fund strategy that can also amplify losses in a downturn… The firm was up 439 per cent on a net basis for the year as of the end of June, according to the letter (sent to investors on July 24)…

[Financial Times @FT]

Situational Awareness, the $20bn hedge fund founded by former OpenAI employee Leopold Aschenbrenner, has sought to raise fresh capital from investors after suffering heavy losses during the recent rout in AI stocks https://t.co/V4m0HnUoEG