Abphillipo

Quis custodiet, ipsos custodes?

[Luke Gromen @LukeGromen]

China CIPS system volumes (in trillions of CNY), annotated for key events in the so-called "Treasury's War" (the weaponization of the USD and USD system.)

Let's watch.

[Dr. Copper🔋🌎⛏️ @CopperBullish]

#Copper - A great read!!!

[Lukas Ekwueme @ekwufinance]

Big Oil is printing cash... despite the oil price manipulation.

- Exxon: +100% vs. last year
- Chevron: +292% vs. last year
- Shell: +129% vs. last year

One notable thing: during the biggest oil crisis in history, they’re focused on returning cash to shareholders...

All of them are spending more on reducing debt and returning cash to shareholders than on increasing production.

Who would blame them...

The oil price is always one tweet away from crashing down.

[Afshin Rattansi @afshinrattansi]

Britain’s🇬🇧 officials make their first, brave steps outside of the cave of idiocy they have been living in:

The Times reports that British Defence Chiefs are under pressure to reboot channels with Russia🇷🇺, amid fears that a misunderstanding at sea could trigger a full-scale war.

British and Russian military chiefs have not spoken in 4 years.

You would think that maintaining basic deconfliction channels with the country with the most nuclear weapons on Earth would be an obvious necessity, but not for Britain, drunk on hubris for the last 4 years.

At the very least, Britain’s Defence Chiefs have finally attained the common sense to understand we are on the brink of a disastrous war with Russia, and at least seem, in principle, to want to avoid it.

However Britain’s involvement in the Ukraine proxy war, providing intelligence and selecting targets for Ukraine to strike inside Russia, remains a real danger which could escalate into the wider war Britain’s Defence Chiefs apparently fear finally.

[Jim Bianco @biancoresearch]

Five ships yesterday, two today (day is not quite over), versus about 120/day pre-war.

(spike to 40 was the immediate days after the MOU was signed)
---
If this is "total control" over the Strait, what would "loss of control" look like? Just asking.

[Glenn Diesen @Glenn_Diesen]

Hawks in Moscow were always deeply unhappy that Putin limited attacks on Odessa and did not impose a blockade on Ukrainian ports. Putin had to balance many considerations and was under pressure from the Global South to keep Ukrainian agricultural exports flowing. However, the Ukraine/NATO 40-day campaign of deep strikes into Russia and attacks on its civilian vessels changed everything. There are no more restraints on Putin, as few in the Global South would expect Russia not to retaliate. Now that Ukraine is, de facto, a landlocked country, why is there zero reflection on that decision? Is it also "pro-Russian propaganda" to point out self-inflicted harm?

[Abphillipo @philipgilham1]

@tidalmacro serious question: are these crack spreads measured against CL1 futures? My guess is yes.
So if the real price of a barrel of oil is $120-$200 then the spreads are totally wrong.

[Abphillipo @philipgilham1]

@GaryBohm5 I have thought tye same for a while.
Given their fcf AI companies could do worse than buy a mine to fund their capex.

[Gary Bohm @GaryBohm5]

The convergence of a massive cash pile at the top of the gold mining industry, a desperate need for new projects, and a macro environment mirroring the setup of 1970 and 2000 points to only one logical outcome: a massive wave of mergers and acquisitions targeting the junior development sector.

The major producers are going to use their $7+ billion dollar and growing by the day war chest to buy the smaller developers and replenish their reserve stockpiles.

[Angelo Giuliano 🇨🇭🇮🇹 @angeloinchina]

I’ve been in China since 1995. I’ve seen countless foreigners come here full of dreams, open businesses, get local support, and then leave years later with a bitter taste in their mouth.

China is tough. Extremely tough for entrepreneurs.
The market is competitive, the standards are high and success is never guaranteed — even if you speak the language and have lived here for two decades.
Not everyone makes it. Most don’t.
So when a foreigner who ran a nice project in a fourth-tier town decides to pack up and write a long, emotional piece in the Financial Times about how “China is not inclusive” and “there’s no path to citizenship,” I don’t see some deep national failure. I see someone who didn’t fully succeed and is now packaging personal disappointment as a grand indictment of the entire country.
Western media loves this script.
They take the individual setback, dress it up as proof that “something is deeply wrong with China,” and push it as sophisticated analysis. It’s still the same old narrative, just more polished.
China doesn’t owe any foreigner success or a passport. Millions of Chinese entrepreneurs face the exact same pressure every day and keep going.
Some make it. Many don’t.
That’s reality — not a geopolitical scandal.
Be informed.
Not entertained.

[Abphillipo @philipgilham1]

@KobeissiLetter Maybe it’s because none ofit can get out. That going through their pipeline will be to meet existing obligations.
US need oil for diesel refiners.
Including Saudi oil. This isnt a choice.
Its a car crash in skow motion.

[Abphillipo @philipgilham1]

@kurtsaltrichter Errr. Diesel, Sulphuric acid , fertilizers etc etc?????
Nothjng to see here!

[Kurt S. Altrichter, CRPS® @kurtsaltrichter]

In 2000, the average stock stopped climbing months before the Nasdaq rolled over. Breadth cracked first, then the index followed.

Today the opposite holds. The equal-weight average stock is making new highs right alongside the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, even after tech whipsawed last month. Broad participation like that is what a healthy bull looks like.

Money is still flowing into the whole market, not a handful of names. Tops do not form while the average stock is still rising.

Watch the average stock more than the headline index. The day it rolls over while the S&P 500 grinds higher on the M7 alone is the day to get defensive.

[JustDario @DarioCpx]

Do you know why Saudi crude oil exports to the US fell to zero for the first time since 1985? Because someone else is paying more to Saudi to buy that crude oil - This is how the real world takes over fake paper futures market prices

[Invisible Fist @matrbk]

The United States sold euros to buy yen without telling the ECB until after the trade was done. Senior ECB officials called it “an unprecedented breach of longstanding conventions.” One said: “This has never happened before.”

Selling dollars to defend the yen would have contradicted Bessent’s strong-dollar policy. Selling euros avoided that problem. But selling a European asset to defend an Asian currency to protect an American bond market, without consulting the institution whose asset was sold, is not a currency intervention. It is the reserve architecture consuming the alliance architecture.

The reason Washington intervened at all is the part nobody wants to say plainly. Japan is the largest foreign holder of US Treasuries. The yen was at its weakest since 1986. If the yen falls far enough, Japanese institutions sell their most liquid foreign asset to raise cash. That asset is Treasuries. The selling pushes American yields higher at the exact moment the thirty-year just touched 5.28 percent. Washington did not intervene to help Japan. Washington intervened to prevent the Treasury market from absorbing a forced seller at a nineteen-year high in yields.

The convention that was broken to execute this trade is the same kind of convention the reserve confiscation broke in 2022. That one taught central banks their dollar reserves were not safe from seizure. This one taught the ECB that dollar-system cooperation is not safe from unilateral action by its architect. Both lessons point the same direction: build the alternatives faster.

The fix is eating the architecture it was built to preserve.

[JustDario @DarioCpx]

Bookmark this

[Joseph Wang @josephwang]

Bessent's promotion of the FIMA Repo Facility is just theatre to boost the effect of his FX intervention - similar to his leaking of the his 'to do list.' FIMA Repo makes no sense for Japan.

The open secret is Japan already has hundreds of billions of dollars parked at the Fed's foreign repo pool, basically a checking account for foreign central banks. This can be inferred from public data after the facility was uncapped.

Also note private sector repo is abundant, trading at notably lower rates than the FIMA facility offering rate, and would not be publicly disclosed weekly.

Of course, Japan has access to standing Fed swap lines too. So it never has to sell Treasuries to get dollars.

[Lukas Ekwueme @ekwufinance]

America's biggest export this year isn't oil or semiconductors... it's gold.

- Gold: $64B
- Oil: $62B
- Pharmaceuticals: $45B

But where is it going?

Biggest export destinations and where much of it goes from there:

1. Switzerland -> China/India
2. UK -> China/India
3. Canada
4. Hong Kong -> Mainland China

This trend emerged in the months leading up to the Iran war.

Physical gold is moving from West to East

[Lukas Ekwueme @ekwufinance]

Bessent is in panic mode... he intervened to support the yen.

To prevent Japan from selling even more US assets, he joined Japan in a massive coordinated intervention.

But instead of selling USD, the US sold EUR.

To keep this war going, the US has to bail out major holders of US assets to prevent them from selling... especially Treasuries.

The US simply can't afford this war, which is why it only escalates when markets are closed.

[Gary Bohm @GaryBohm5]

The precious metals sector is currently presenting one of the most asymmetric setups in recent memory. Gold miners are trading at their cheapest valuation relative to the broader equity market on record, despite generating unprecedented levels of free cash flow.

While the broader market still chases momentum in technology and artificial intelligence, the companies pulling real money out of the ground have been entirely left behind for dead.

This divergence has created a historic opportunity for those willing to look where others refuse to tread.