Two Countries Stopped Shooting. Every Price You Own Moved.

Oil fell five percent before breakfast, and everything else followed

Brent dropped 5.2% to $91.73 after the US and Iran paused strikes. Days ago it was threatening a hundred dollars.

West Texas crude sank 5.4% to $84.45. The relief spread instantly: gold rose 1.4% back above $4,100, the 10-year Treasury yield fell to 4.63% from Friday’s highest reading since January 2025, and the dollar weakened against every major currency.

Stocks opened firmly higher. The Dow gained 1%, the S&P 500 added 0.8%, the Nasdaq rose 1%. The one group that fell was energy: Chevron and ExxonMobil each dropped about 2.5% in premarket trade, ConocoPhillips 3.2%.

Here’s why it lands on your desk: a pause is not a settlement. The inflation from three weeks of hundred-dollar oil is already in the pipeline, working its way toward the numbers the Fed reads on Wednesday. Today changed the mood. It did not change the arithmetic.

Source: Reuters / Bloomberg

The Man Who Called the 2020 Crash Has a New Warning

According to Wall Street legend Marc Chaikin, life is about to get strange, and it could have a sizable impact on your wealth.

“A massive and surprising new transition could determine the next group of millionaires,” says Chaikin, who predicted the 2020 market crash. “While leaving 99% of the public worse off than before.”

Chaikin, who has appeared numerous times on CNBC’s Mad Money, says that you absolutely must consider buying one investment right now, before it’s too late.

No, he’s not talking about overhyped AI stocks... and he’s certainly not recommending you wait around for any of this year’s mega IPOs.

Chaikin has agreed to share his Hotlist and Hitlist of stocks to buy and sell, free of charge.

The Fed still has to decide, and cheaper oil cuts both ways

Bond traders price roughly a one-in-three chance of a hike. Warsh chairs his first real decision.

Falling crude eases the inflation case for tightening — but the FOMC reads data that already contains three weeks of expensive energy. Headline PCE is tracking near 3.65% annually, core near 3.33%, both well above target.

The calendar makes it heavier. The Bank of England and Bank of Japan meet the same week, second-quarter GDP arrives, and the core PCE deflator lands Thursday morning — the day after the Fed speaks.

If you hold bonds, a mortgage, or cash earning interest, Wednesday afternoon resets the terms for the next twelve months. Monday’s relief rally does not.

Source: CME FedWatch / Kiplinger

Gold climbed back over four thousand one hundred

Up 1.4% as yields fell — and the metal is now trading on rate expectations more than fear.

That shift matters. For most of this year gold moved on conflict headlines. Now it responds to what the Fed might do, which is why a softer yield picture lifted it this morning even as the geopolitical risk premium came out of oil.

Underneath the price, official demand has not wavered. Central banks have been accumulating through the entire pullback — the behaviour that separates a reserve policy from a trade.

The reason it matters: when the two biggest buyers of an asset are governments and central banks, their timeline is measured in decades, not in mornings like this one.

Source: FX Leaders / World Gold Council

Retail Panicked. Central Banks Bought More.

When gold dropped from $5,400…

Retail investors panicked.

Central banks bought more.

That should tell you everything.

Because these aren’t emotional buyers.

They have access to sovereign intelligence…

Currency stress models…

Private economic forecasts…

And geopolitical data ordinary investors never see.

And after a $700 pullback?

They kept accumulating gold anyway.

Why?

Because they may know this story isn’t ending at $4,700.

In fact…

This may be exactly where the smart money wanted it.

Four straight years.

Record sovereign gold buying.

And now gold’s biggest pullback in months gets treated like a buying opportunity by the most informed institutions on Earth.

That’s not normal.

A newly released briefing explains:

• Why central banks are still aggressively buying gold
• What they may see coming next
• Why the $5,400 spike shocked insiders
• And how ordinary Americans can still position before the next major move

See the exact signal central banks are responding to →

P.S. Retail investors reacted emotionally to the pullback.

Central banks reacted strategically.

That difference could become very expensive.

Four of the five biggest companies report, and the question is capex

Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Amazon and Qualcomm all deliver results this week.

The pattern from the last round was unforgiving. Intel beat expectations on Friday and the stock fell nearly 8% anyway. Broadcom slid 2.7%, AMD 3.3%, Micron 7%, and the VanEck Semiconductor ETF pulled back 3%.

Alphabet had already shown the shape of it: cloud revenue up 82% year over year, and the shares dropped because capital spending grew alongside it. Beating the number is no longer sufficient if the spending line grows faster.

If you own an index fund, these five names carry enough weight to decide your quarter whether you follow them or not.

Source: CNBC / Yahoo Finance

Google, Berkshire and the Pentagon Are Backing One Drilling Site

For decades, the energy beneath it was considered unreachable.

Then one drilling crew finally broke through.

Now Google, Berkshire Hathaway, the Pentagon, and the DOE are helping push the technology forward.