Baltic
Dry Index. 2729 unch. Brent Crude 87.33
Spot
Gold 4239 Spot Silver 67.97
U
S 2 Year Yield 4.09 +0.04
US
Federal Debt. 39.244 trillion
US
GDP 32.208 trillion
In reading The History of Nations, we find that, like
individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities, their seasons of
excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that
whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object and go mad in its
pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one
delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly
more captivating than the first.
Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of
Crowds.
This
weekend, “seasons of excitement and recklessness,”
in SpaceX and other coming IPOs, plus hope that finally Trump’s six day war on
the global economy and the world’s poorest, may finally be coming to an end.
And
for what that couldn’t have been accomplished without war? For what did 168
Iranian primary school girls die at the mistake of the USAF?
Stocks
end higher as SpaceX soars in debut, U.S.-Iran deal nears
Updated
Fri, Jun 12 2026 4:26 PM EDT
Stocks
rose on Friday as SpaceX’s
opening pop bolstered sentiment, with investors hoping for the arrival of a
potential peace deal between the U.S. and Iran.
The S&P 500 closed up 0.5% at
7,431.46, while the Nasdaq
Composite added 0.31% to finish at 25,888.84. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced
353.51 points, or 0.7%, to settle at 51,202.26.
Elon
Musk’s rocket maker debuted
on the Nasdaq at $150 per share, trading under the symbol SPCX. That’s
above its $135 IPO price. The stock soared more
than 20% shortly after it opened and closed up 19% at around $161.
The
run-up in SpaceX boosted investor confidence, leading some on Wall Street to
believe other stocks may be undervalued.
“The
IPO parade, which now looks like it’s turning into a stampede, has been coming
for a while,” said Mark Klein, CEO and president at SuRo Capital. “SpaceX is
going to be the bellwether.”
“As
you look at the IPO market going forward, there are a lot of companies that
want to go public, but you may see some of the more important names wait and
see what happens because so much capital is flowing to a handful of companies,”
he added.
The
tech trade was mixed on the day, but had been ramping up recently on hopes for
a successful debut for SpaceX, which is also an artificial intelligence
appetite proxy because of its xAI unit. AI darling Nvidia finished marginally
higher, while other stocks such as Advanced Micro Devices and Alphabet were higher by 4.7%
and 0.5%, respectively. Broadcom and
AI software stock Palantir
Technologies closed in the red, as did Amazon and Meta Platforms.
“The
AI theme, in my opinion, is just getting stronger,” said Jeff Kilburg, CEO of
KKM Financial. “Nothing moves in a straight line, and we’ve seen a couple
hiccups in the Nasdaq, maybe more to geopolitical tension versus the SpaceX
IPO. But I think the [‘Magnificent Seven’] leadership should persist.”
Stocks
had earlier turned lower, and oil came off it’s lows of the session after
President Donald Trump warned
in a Truth Social post that Iran “better get their act
together” even as a supposed deal between the U.S. and Iran was on the
table. West Texas
Intermediate crude futures closed 3.2% lower at $84.88 a barrel.
Later
Friday, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that a “final,
agreed upon text” of a deal “has been reached.” Major indexes regained some
of their strength after those comments.
Iranian
state media reported that the draft version of the U.S.-Iran memorandum of
understanding includes a commitment from the U.S. to lift oil sanctions, as
well as a commitment from Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
A
peace deal could be signed in Switzerland as soon as Sunday, Bloomberg reported
Friday, citing people familiar with the plans.
Stock
market news for June 12, 2026
SpaceX
IPO takeaways: SPCX closes at $161, jumping 19% after record debut
Updated
Sat, Jun 13 2026
SpaceX jumped 19% on Friday
in its Nasdaq debut after the biggest initial
public offering ever. The stock closed at around $161, valuing the
company at $2.1 trillion, and kept rallying in extended trading adding about
another $100 billion to its market cap.
The
shares opened at $150 under the ticker SPCX after SpaceX raised $75 billion in
the IPO. The high price for the day was $176.52. More than 500 million shares
traded hands, a number that approached Facebook’s first day, which saw trading
of about 580 million shares in 2012.
Elon Musk and SpaceX President
and COO Gwynne
Shotwell rang the opening
bell on Friday, with Musk in Texas and Shotwell at the Nasdaq in New
York City.
Musk
said on a JPMorgan Chase livestream
before the IPO that SpaceX had been cash-flow positive since around 2015. He
said he wanted to take SpaceX public now to raise capital for “a significant
growth phase,” with plans to put over 100,000 satellites in orbit for
communications, and to build artificial intelligence data
centers in space,
among other initiatives.
Musk,
who became the world’s
first trillionaire based on his combined stakes in SpaceX and Tesla,
started the company as a reusable rocket maker, but the only profitable part of
the business today is the Starlink satellite
internet division.
SpaceX
acquired Musk’s startup, xAI, in February 2026. That brought with it the
company’s data centers, Grok AI models and an embattled AI chatbot and image
generator of the same name, as well as the social network X, formerly known as
Twitter.
According
to its prospectus,
SpaceX has accumulated a total loss of $41.3 billion since it was founded in
2002.
Tesla
shares rose 1.8% to $406.43 on Friday. The electric vehicle maker’s market cap
now stands at around $1.5 trillion.
SpaceX
(SPCX) IPO: Live updates
US,
Iran Seen Inching Toward Hormuz Deal
June
12, 2026 at 5:00 PM GMT+1
Iran
and the US continue moving toward an understanding that would open the Strait
of Hormuz and could pave the way for a lasting peace. Senior officials
suggested a deal could be at hand by the time Group of Seven world leaders
convene next week in the French Alps. The accord may
be signed in Geneva.
Bond markets
surged and oil
prices fell on rising confidence that an interim deal may really be at
hand this
time. Credit investors gave
up wartime hedges on European companies. That reversal points to
marked improvement in expectations for a return to business in the Middle East.
The
apparent momentum toward an MOU gained pace as the latest economic data shows
both sides starting to buckle under the strain of the Hormuz blockade. Iranian
oil shipments to China have plunged. In the US, plastic prices are
skyrocketing and fueling
inflation on consumer goods.
To
be sure, the path to a lasting nuclear accord remains long,
fraught and vulnerable to breakdown. There’s also still plenty of room for
failure, with President Donald Trump
chiding Iran over leaking their terms to end the war. But with the end
of the trading week in sight, and lasting economic damage on the horizon,
investors continued to hold out hope that peace is possible. —Jonathan
Tirone
US,
Iran Seen Inching Toward Hormuz Deal - Bloomberg
Global
oil prices end at 3-month low after Pakistan says a U.S.-Iran peace deal has
been reached
WTI
prices have been range-bound since the April 7 cease-fire, with further
declines likely requiring a meaningful pickup in Strait of Hormuz traffic
Last
Updated: June 12, 2026 at 3:39 p.m. ET First Published: June 12,
2026 at 7:10 a.m. ET
Oil
prices finished lower on Friday, with international benchmark Brent crude
settling at its lowest level since the early days of the Iran conflict, after
Pakistan said a peace deal between the U.S. and Iran had been reached.
The
Brent crude contract for August was off by 3.4% to end at $87.33 a
barrel, its lowest settlement value since March 5. For the week, the
international benchmark was off 6.2% and has fallen in three of the past four
weeks, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
More,
subscription required.
Oil
executives warn White House that gas prices will get worse
Grim
predictions add to the problems of a president already facing a sharp rise in
inflation.
June
11, 2026
Oil
and gas executives have warned the White House that gasoline prices could surge
in coming months as fuel inventories fall to critical lows, complicating the
Trump administration’s efforts to contain inflation that has already rattled
American consumers.
Industry
officials say they are doing everything they can to sound an alarm that prices
are about to soar as the commercial and government inventories that have
mitigated price rises so far are rapidly depleting, according to
multiple people familiar with the conversations, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity for fear of retaliation from the administration. Some inventories
could be wiped out within weeks, the executives have warned, coinciding with
the peak summer travel season.
“I
have absolutely no doubt the White House — from the president on down — is
fully aware of the nearly universal alarm among oil companies and analysts
about the direction of travel for oil prices this summer,” said Bob McNally,
who was an energy adviser in the George W. Bush administration and founded the
research firm Rapidan Energy Group.
The
warnings underscore the rising political and economic risks confronting
President Donald Trump as the conflict with Iran drags into its fourth month,
with little indication that a diplomatic breakthrough is imminent, despite
periodic White House predictions of progress.
Already
Trump’s administration is confronting the highest rate of inflation in three
years, which has led to a significant drop in his standing among voters and
deepened concern among Republicans about widespread losses in the midterm
elections, which could cause them to lose control of one or both houses of
Congress.
The
Labor Department’s consumer price
index rose at a 4.2 percent annual pace in the year ending in May, driven by
surging gas prices.
Trump
has publicly brushed off concerns about the rising prices. “I love it. I love
the inflation,” Trump told reporters Wednesday when asked about the new
figures. Oil prices will drop “like a rock” once the war concludes, he said.
Industry
executives suggest otherwise.
The
war with Iran has snarled the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway that transported
about one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas supplies before the war.
Trump has repeatedly sought to assure the public that he is close to a deal to
reopen the strait, but that has not happened.
Senior
oil executives who typically avoid making alarming projections in public have
been doing exactly that.
“We’re
sounding the alarm on these inventories going to record lows,” said American
Petroleum Institute CEO Mike Sommers on “Mornings with Maria,” a Fox Business
program that Trump frequently watches. “We should be concerned about what
prices we’re going to see over the next few weeks. We have to solve this
problem in the Strait of Hormuz.”
Industry
officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid antagonizing the
White House, said the administration’s reception to their worries has been
mixed. Some officials, they say, are taking the posture that the warnings are
hollow. Prices have not shot up toward $200 a barrel, despite warnings since
the war against Iran started in late February that they would quickly head
there.
The
U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve has dropped to 349.2 million barrels,
approaching a multi-decade low last seen in 1983.
More
Oil executives
warn White House that gas prices will get worse - The Washington Post
The war 'nobody is talking about' - why tungsten
has entered a permanent shortage
June 10, 2026
The battle for one of the
world’s most important strategic metals is unfolding in scrapyards, warehouses,
and even parking lots across the U.S.
Domestic tungsten
recyclers say Chinese buyers are courting domestic suppliers with extraordinary
offers. They’re paying as much as five times prevailing market prices to secure
worn-out drill bits, mining equipment, and industrial cutting tools containing
the critical mineral. Long-standing relationships between American recyclers
and suppliers are being tested as cash-rich competitors outbid them on the
spot.
“They’ll say, ‘meet in
this Home Depot parking lot’ to buy over $20,000 worth of this stuff,” Nick
Stevens, owner of the recycling firm JC Metals, told the Financial Times.
The sector executives see
it as anything but ordinary commodity trading. It’s a struggle over control of
a strategic resource that drives both military readiness and industrial
competitiveness.
“We’ve got to stop the
export back to China,” said Ryan McAdams, chief executive of
Texas-based recycler Amermin. “This is a secret war that nobody’s
talking about.”
Structural Shortages and Loopholes
According to Argus Media,
U.S. tungsten scrap prices have surged 350% since May 2025, Mining.com reported.
Tungsten went parabolic
from September 2025 to March 2026, before giving back much of its gains,
CTIA data shows. Yet, the bullish trend has
reaccelerated over the past few weeks.
Tungsten has the highest
melting point of any metal, alongside exceptional hardness. Those properties
make it indispensable for munitions, missiles, aerospace components, mining
drills, and other modern manufacturing tools. With such properties, its substitution
is nearly impossible.
China controls more than
half of global mined and refined tungsten production while accounting for
roughly half of worldwide demand. Early in 2025, Beijing tightened domestic
mining quotas and imposed export restrictions on metals, including tungsten. Furthermore,
Chinese mines have aged and dropped in productivity.
Put together, the current
shortage appears structural, rather than temporary.
Although Beijing has
historically restricted tungsten scrap imports on environmental grounds, the
material still moves through a third-country recycling hub.
Data from the research
group Project Blue shows increased exports of U.S. tungsten
scrap to the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, and South Korea, where it can be
processed before potentially re-entering Chinese supply chains.
More
The war 'nobody is talking about' - why
tungsten has entered a permanent shortage
In
other news.
Why
U.S. AI giants like Anthropic, OpenAI are launching major expansions in London
Published
Thu, Jun 11 2026 6:19 AM EDT
A
slew of U.S. Big Tech and AI companies are racing to expand in London as they
look to take advantage of the city’s deep talent pools amid a push to develop
and commercialize frontier tech.
Anthropic
and OpenAI both announced they’d taken up larger office spaces in the U.K.
capital in recent months. Vibe coding platform Cursor unveiled plans this week
to open a London headquarters this summer and Google said it will begin moving
teams into a new 11-storey building in Kings Cross in the coming months.
Other
key U.S. software players, such as Databricks and Salesforce, are also upping
headcount or expanding their campuses in the city. Elsewhere, electric vehicle
company Rivian and Palantir said in the second half of
2025 they’d also be growing in London.
“It’s
all about talent,” Mike Wiseman, head of campuses at British Land, told CNBC.
“London has built a deep and mature technology ecosystem over many years, and
if you’re looking to scale a business internationally, it’s one of the few
markets globally that can support that level of growth.”
Deep
talent pools
After
a quiet post-pandemic period, demand from tech companies has returned in
London, Wiseman said. That’s being driven by a “new generation” of companies
that weren’t on the radar a few years ago.
Growth
in the global AI sector has been fuelled by record funding figures over the
past couple of years, as investors have rushed to back companies developing the
tech. Startups globally have raised $392.1 billion so far this year, according
to Dealroom, already dwarfing the previous record year of 2025, when companies
secured $215.9 billion.
London
has emerged as one of the “deepest” pools of frontier AI talent outside of the
U.S., Frederic Groussolles, partner at executive search firm Heidrick &
Struggles, told CNBC.
“A
decade of investment anchored by DeepMind, major research labs and leading
universities has created a mature talent base spanning AI research, engineering
and commercial leadership.”
Founded
in 2010 in London, DeepMind was acquired by Google in
2014, but maintained a large team in the U.K. capital. Google DeepMind has
since been behind the tech giant’s Gemini models alongside a number of AI
breakthroughs.
When
announcing Anthropic’s London
expansion in
April, which saw it secure office space for 800 people — roughly four times its
headcount in the city — head of EMEA north Pip White specifically flagged the
“exceptional pool of AI talent” as a key driver of the move.
Anthropic’s
new office space will be located in the Knowledge Quarter area of London, home
to a slew of AI companies including OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta, Synthesia and Wayve.
More
Why U.S. AI giants
like Anthropic, OpenAI are expanding in London
Global Inflation/Stagflation/Recession
Watch.
Given
our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians,
inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
UK
economy shrank 0.1% in April as Iran conflict weighed on growth
Published
Fri, Jun 12 20262:06 AM EDT
The
U.K. economy shrank by 0.1% in the month to April, figures published on Friday
showed, as the impacts of the Iran war continue to hamper growth.
A
0.2% contraction in services activity was cited as the main driver of the
negative growth, with officials saying it had been partly offset by a 0.1% rise
in construction output. Production output showed zero growth for the month.
Economists
polled by Reuters had been expecting the British economy to contract by 0.1%
month-on-month.
April’s
print followed growth of 0.3% in March, 0.4% in February and no growth in
January.
How
the Iran war affected U.K. growth
One
of the biggest contributors to the decline in services came from a fall of 9.1%
in sports, amusement and recreation activities. The Office for National
Statistics (ONS) said that this was the largest negative contribution from a
single industry to both services output and real GDP growth.
Some
of the sector’s decline was attributed to the war, with the ONS noting that the
cancellation of various sporting events in the Middle East had affected the
output of U.K.-based companies.
Companies
operating in the manufacturing, wholesale, transportation support, and travel
agencies said that the conflict in the Middle East had contributed to reduced
turnover in April.
“A
common theme of the comments received was the increase in prices because of the
Middle East conflict,” the ONS said. “These comments were mainly for energy and
fuel costs, with some suggesting an impact seen in April 2026 and also
suggesting an impact for future months.”
Suren
Thiru, chief economist at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and
Wales, said the data made a rate cut from the Bank of England next week
unlikely, with the GDP decline signaling a “damaging descent into stagflation.”
“This decline
is the first economic blow landed by the Iran conflict as falling fuel
sales and slowing services output meant the U.K.’s
early-year growth momentum stalled in April,” he said.
“Skyrocketing
fuel costs have noticeably altered the U.K.’s growth trajectory
having flipped from a tailwind to growth in March to a headwind in April as
motorists cut consumption in the face of surging pump
prices, after frontloading purchases in March.”
The
U.S.-Iran war, which recently crossed the 100-day mark, has sparked
supply constraints in global energy markets, prompting a resurgence of
inflation.
The
International Monetary Fund warned in April that the
U.K. could see the biggest hit to growth from the war of any major economy.
As
a net energy importer, the U.K. is particularly vulnerable to energy shocks
that impact the global supply chain.
The
IMF is now forecasting U.K. growth of just 0.8% in 2026, down from a previous
forecast of 1.3% made at the beginning of the year.
In
the U.K., headline inflation eased to 2.8% in
April, which was largely attributed to a national energy price cap by Britain’s
energy regulator.
From
July, the price cap will rise by 13%,
allowing energy providers to pass on some of the elevated costs of oil and gas.
U.K. GDP April
2026: Economy shrinks 0.1%
Residential
Building Material Prices Rise at Highest Rate In Over Three Years
June
11, 2026
Wholesale
prices of goods used in residential construction rose in May as energy prices
continued to climb. In May, residential building material prices, excluding
energy, rose at their highest yearly rate since January 2023, as prices were up
4.4% from a year ago and up 0.7% over the month. Meanwhile, prices for services
rose 4.7% over the year, but were unchanged from the previous month.
The Producer Price Index for final
demand increased 1.1% in May, after rising 1.1% in April. Compared to a year
ago, final demand prices were up 6.5%. The index for final demand services rose
0.3% in May, while the index for final demand goods rose 2.8% over the month.
The
price index for inputs to new residential construction rose 1.3% in May and was
up 6.9% from last year. The price of goods used in new residential construction
(including energy) was up 2.1% over the month and up 8.3% from last year, while
the price of services was unchanged over the month and up 4.7% from last year.
Input
Goods
The
goods component has a larger importance to the inputs to residential
construction price index, representing around 60% of the total. On a monthly
basis, the price of input goods to new residential construction was up 2.1% in
May. This monthly increase was the largest since it rose 3.3% back in March of
2022.
The
input goods to residential construction index can be further broken down into
two separate components, one measuring energy inputs with the other measuring
remaining goods. The latter of these two components simply represents building
materials used in residential construction, which makes up around 93% of the
goods index.
Energy
input prices rose 17.2% in May and were 62.8% higher than a year ago. Building
material prices were up 0.7% in May and up 4.4% compared to one year ago.
Among
input goods, the largest year-over-year increase was for No. 2 diesel fuel as
prices were 105.9% higher than a year ago. Metal molding and trim prices
remained higher, with prices up 42.9% from a year ago. Softwood lumber prices
were up 5.6% from a year ago in May while ready-mix concrete prices were up
1.7% from a year ago. Gypsum building materials prices were down 1.1% from a
year ago.
More
Residential
Building Material Prices Rise at Highest Rate In Over Three Years – Eye On
Housing
Technology
Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
Cornell’s electrochemical ‘bath’ restores spent lithium EV
batteries to 95% power
Cornell
team uses Direct Electrode-to-Electrode Regeneration (DEER) to recycle critical
minerals in batteries.
By Mrigakshi Dixit Energy Jun 10, 2026 08:25 AM EST
The life cycle of an electric vehicle
battery has been a violent, one-way street. When a battery dies, the industry
routinely tears it apart to access the parts that matter. High-tech recyclers
either blast the dead cells in extreme-heat furnaces or grind them into a
powdery substance known as “black mass” before drenching them in harsh,
corrosive acids.
It is an expensive, carbon-intensive,
and messy way to extract scarce minerals like nickel and cobalt. But what if
you didn’t have to destroy a dead battery just to rebuild it?
Researchers at Cornell University have
developed a way to overcome the destruction altogether. Rather than smashing
the battery, the method turns to chemical washing.
In this, intact components were immersed
in a specialized electrochemical bath to restore 95 percent of the dead
batteries. Plus, this method could cut recycling manufacturing costs by 56
percent.
“We repair them, as is, without
shredding or powdering them, and then put them back into a new battery,” said
Vibha Kalra, the Fred H. Rhodes Professor of Chemical Engineering in the
Cornell Duffield College of Engineering.
“The dissolution is basically what helps
the battery recover its capacity. It shows 95 percent recovery. So we are
shortening the circularity loop immensely,” added Kalra.
Cost-saving battery fix
To understand how it works, look at what
actually happens when a battery dies.
Batteries don’t usually run out of
minerals. But, as electricity flows back and forth between the positive and
negative sides, a thick, crusty layer of gunk gradually builds up inside the
cell.
Engineers call this the solid electrolyte interphase. The materials are all still there, but the energy
can no longer flow. Standard recycling destroys the whole part just to clean
it.
Cornell’s method, called Direct
Electrode-to-Electrode Regeneration (DEER), is far gentler.
Workers open the casing and pull out
the battery’s
core parts — the electrodes — while these are still completely intact. Then the
parts are submerged into a chemical solution called 1,3-dimethyl-2-imidazolidinone.
The liquid targets the gunk. It dissolves the insulating buildup, leaving the
delicate internal structures perfectly preserved.
The process cuts down air pollution and
slashes industrial water consumption.
-----The research team’s next step is to
test the DEER method on larger, industrial-scale batteries and adapt the
process to combat other forms of wear, such as permanent lithium loss.
Currently, the technique successfully
treats batteries at a 70-80 percent state of health — the typical retirement
threshold for electric vehicles. But researchers believe they can widen this recovery window by
targeting these additional degradation mechanisms.
The study findings were published in the
journal Energy and Environmental Science on June 9.
Spent lithium EV batteries get 95% power back with new chemical bath
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks
(usdebtclock.org)
Exponent
Calculator
Enter
values into any two of the input fields to solve for the third.
This
weekend’ s music diversion. The genius of J. S again. Skip to the third movement
about 5.45 minutes in. Approx. 4 minutes from 5.45.
Bach:
Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 | Claudio Abbado & the Orchestra Mozart
Bach: Brandenburg
Concerto No. 3 | Claudio Abbado & the Orchestra Mozart - YouTube
Next,
yet another bad modern building story, this is the Porsche Design Tower Miami. Approx. 15 minutes.
Florida's
$840M Porsche Skyscraper Is SINKING — The Ground Beneath It Is Crumbling
Florida's $840M Porsche Skyscraper Is SINKING — The Ground Beneath It Is Crumbling
Finally, how justice finally caught up to John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil. Approx. 2 minutes.
Who Is Ida Tarbell?
Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.
Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of
Crowds.
