#VNZWatch🇻🇪: Today, I measure Venezuela's inflation AS THE WORLD'S HIGHEST at a CRUSHING 593.2%/yr.
That's down from a peak of 828.6%/yr on February 4th.
YOU WON’T FIND THIS IMPORTANT STORY IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA SPIN.
🇺🇸 Every top investor on earth would have bet oil above $150 with Hormuz closed, and it's sitting at $90 for a reason.
Santiago Capital CEO Brent Johnson says the calm in the markets is the setup, because a world in crisis is a world that signs whatever you put in front of it.
"You put the world in crisis and then you go to help them. You can extract better terms if they're under pressure than if they're not under pressure."
The Strait closes, food prices spike, the dollar surges, and America shows up offering 20-year energy contracts to desperate buyers.
That's the play.
@SantiagoAuFund
🇺🇦🇸🇦A Ukrainian Antonov-26 was spotted flying from the UAE into Saudi Arabia late last night, reportedly dropping off drone specialists before heading back out.
That's a pretty unusual late-night delivery.
Writer: Daniyal
🎯One smart way to kill two birds with one stone, @SecScottBessent:
For every ship that pays a toll to the Iranian regime to exit the Strait of Hormuz, reimburse the ship owner using Iran’s frozen assets once it clears the U.S. blockade.
Venezuela has replaced Iraqi oil in the US and Indian markets.
I was wrong! When he gained control of 50 million barrels of Venezuelan oil and redirected most of it to the Gulf of Mexico, I thought he did so because he was not able to sell it.
A few weeks later, the Strait of Hormuz was effectively closed, and the US seamlessly replaced Iraqi crude with Venezuelan barrels. From a refiner’s perspective, the two grades are interchangeable despite their differences in quality.
🇺🇸🇮🇷 The U.S. bombed Iran's nuclear sites. Now it wants Iran to account for what was inside them.
Washington is lobbying the IAEA's 35-nation board to pass a resolution demanding Iran disclose nuclear material stored at the facilities that were just destroyed.
The same party that struck the sites is now demanding transparency about the rubble.
Iran has never responded well to IAEA board resolutions against it. Every one has historically been treated as a hostile act.
If this passes, it could blow up whatever remains of the nuclear talks before they even get anywhere.
Source: Reuters / Writer: Daniyal
🇺🇸🇮🇱🇱🇧 Trump calls for more ‘surgical’ strikes on Lebanon:
“I would like to see Lebanon experience a better life.
I would like to see a more surgical attack against Hezbollah. I think it should be more surgical.”
Source: NBC / Writer: Samuel
🇮🇷🇲🇽 Iran's World Cup team has arrived in Tijuana, Mexico.
They can only enter the U.S. to play their matches and have to leave the same day.
Writer: Daniyal
OPEC+ is about to raise its oil output targets for the fourth month in a row.
The problem is they can't actually ship it all.
Actual production has collapsed from 42.77 million bpd in February to 33.19 million bpd in April. That's a 22% drop in two months.
The U.S-Iran war has choked flows through the Strait of Hormuz, triggering the biggest supply crisis the world has ever seen. Raising targets on paper doesn't move a single barrel if the ships can't leave.
The market doesn't care what OPEC+ wants to produce; it cares what actually arrives.
Source: Reuters
Writers: Daniyal, Ian
♻️No! Big Oil didn’t suddenly change its mind about Venezuela.
♻️Venezuela changed to what Big Oil wants — and it will keep doing so… until the next military coup.
Bloomberg: Big Oil Is Changing Its Mind About Venezuela
@anasalhajji What do you think sir? Betting markets like Kalshi have bets on if Hormuz will return to "normal", normal being weekly average of above 60 vessels.
I spoke with @MarioNawfal on why the UAE wanted to get out from under OPEC quotas:
When I served on the UAE's Financial Advisory Council (2008-2014), I advised the UAE to "pump faster. Take the money and run.”
🇺🇸 New York City recorded 102 murders in the first 5 months of 2026, the lowest figure ever recorded for that period in NYPD history, beating the previous record of 113 set in 2014 and 2017.
This isn't a one-month anomaly. Record lows were also recorded for the first 3 and 4 months of the year.
The city is running a sustained historic low across the entire year so far, in a city of 8 million people that was processing 2,000+ murders annually in the early 1990s.
102 murders is 102 too many. It's also the safest start to a year New York has ever had on record.
Source: Official NYPD announcement, CBS New York, NY1
🇷🇴 A naval drone has reportedly exploded in Romania's Constanța Port
It was discovered in the vicinity of the Romanian Agency for Human Life Saving at Sea
It's not known at present whose drone it was