Zero Hedge

The new government in Damascus has tried to press Moscow to return to Syria the former longtime President Bashar al-Assad. He's reportedly lived in a posh area of the Russian capital, under heavy security, since he was ousted in December 2024 and forced to flee.

The growing angst about hyperscaler CapEx (and more notably debt issuance), attention among the always-bullish equity talking-heads has shifted - rightfully so - to the bond markets as signals flare.

Something unprecedented happened in the second quarter: aggregate household debt balances declined by $13 billion, a 0.1% decline from Q1. Balances stood at $18.8 trillion, up $4.6 trillion since the end of 2019, just before the pandemic recession. But the reason why we say it was unprecedented, is that the Q2 drop was the first quarterly decline in total household debt since the second quarter of 2020, when the US economy was gripped by the covid lockdown shock leading to a historic deleveraging.

This summer has seen one of the strongest market performances in recent years, with investors pricing in a very benign set of conditions: First, equities and risk assets are buoyant, based on the premise of resilient and even accelerating growth. Second, rates markets are pricing that central banks are nearly done with hikes, with only one or two more priced from the likes of the Fed and ECB.

Authored by Jason Nelson via Decrypt.co, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin says quantum resistance, privacy, and AI-assisted security have become greater priorities for Ethereum since he published his 2023 roadmap. In a post on X on Monday, Buterin said he updated his 2023 roadmap to compare its original goals with Ethereum’s current “Strawmap”—a working outline of the network’s long-term technical priorities.

Semis Reloaded Semis have taken the harder hit, but the setup is starting to get interesting again. SOX is back above its 50-day, positioning has been aggressively cleaned up and Taiwan is already back near its highs, leaving US semis with plenty of catching up to do. With key resistance just overhead and SMH optionality relatively attractive, a breakout could quickly bring the AI/semi chasers back into the game. SOX

By Bas van Geffen, senior macro strategist at Rabobank Yesterday, my road cycling took me along the Lek River, which branches off from the Rhine. I frequently ride the path along this river, but the Lek was almost unrecognisable in the distance and what is normally part of the riverbed has now run dry. It’s a very tangible reminder of numbers we’ve recently been watching on our screens: Upstream, at Kaub, the water level in the Rhine has fallen to historical lows.

Ukraine's President Zelensky has in fresh remarks warned North Korea against its deepening involvement with Russian in executing the war against Ukraine. Zelensky's late Monday words alleged that Russia recently received additional ballistic missiles from Pyongyang and is preparing to deploy more North Korean troops, after already sending thousands to fight on the Russian side.

Chicago wheat futures are coiling for a breakout (one way or another) as ongoing Russia-Ukraine attacks on Black Sea grain infrastructure and bulk carriers threaten exports from one of the world's most important breadbaskets. Most-active Chicago wheat has been choppy in the last few days... Hard red winter wheat gained as much as 2.7% to $7.505 a bushel. Soft Red Winter wheat futures are poised for a much larger breakout if prices sustain a move above $7 a bushel.

Dealers are now running more than $600 billion of US stock and Treasury futures basis, a record high. This increases the nexus of risk between equities and bonds, with simultaneous falls in both assets more likely as a result.