TRACK OIL

“Based on current market trends, Bitcoin cycle lows are projected for late 2026.”

“Hyperliquid's advantage is vertical integration within the decentralized finance space.”

“The traditional seat-based SaaS model is facing a crisis as AI efficiency reduces headcount.”

“The deepening Iran conflict creates extreme oil price volatility across global energy markets.”

“New protocols like STRC fixes the yield gap with price-stable returns for risk-averse investors.”

“Bitcoin keeps running into a wall of selling above $70K — roughly $20M/hour in profit-taking — and now that wall has geopolitical weight behind it after the Islamabad peace talks collapsed, Iran's Strait of Hormuz stays effectively closed, and Trump ordered a naval blockade of Iranian ports starting this morning. That's pushing oil toward $100/barrel and forcing tanker traffic into a full reroute away from the Gulf.”

“If those December contracts move over 100, the world is a very different place than it is right now. And that will cause revaluation of various assets. And that will cause, certainly in our administration, doing everything they can to print money. The truth is with AI and with everything going on in the economy and with oil prices going up, it actually cuts economic growth. It cuts the aggregate demand.”

“Our political system in the United States is broken. I mean, it's not just that people think Congress are a bunch of parasitic jackals, which is true, by the way... But it's actually worse than that. It's just completely dysfunctional. That is a large part of this. I mean, if we knew we were going to have a new Federal Reserve Chair in May, which you would think would be known, I think markets would be very different.”

“The dollar's long-term slide continues — now just 46% of global FX and gold reserves, a 26-year low — even as M2 keeps expanding at 4.8% YoY, and central bank gold holdings have officially eclipsed US Treasury holdings for the first time since '96. That's pushing oil toward $100/barrel and forcing tanker traffic into a full reroute away from the Gulf, which benefits US energy exports but hammers Japan, South Korea, and India hardest.”

“The WLFI vs. Justin Sun feud is turning into a full legal brawl over a $75M loan dispute, backdoor token blacklisting, and accusations flying both ways — exactly the kind of circus that undermines crypto's push for institutional credibility. This adds to the geopolitical weight already slowing markets after the Islamabad peace talks collapsed, and Iran's Strait of Hormuz stays effectively closed following the new naval blockade.”

“In a post on x Sunday, Swalwell said he was suspending a campaign that has been imploding since multiple women alleged that the San Francisco Bay Area Democrat had sexually forced himself on them. Swalwell had been gaining momentum in the race, winning key endorsements and leading other Democrats in pre election polls.”

“President Trump says the US Navy will block the Strait Of Hormuz from all ships, and the US military says that starts tomorrow. This after peace talks between The US and Iran and Pakistan yesterday failed to produce a deal.”

“For nearly a week, slow moving convoys of tractors and trucks have blocked major highways and roads across the country, including some of the busiest streets in Ireland's capital, Dublin. Protestors are demanding more support from the government as fuel prices continue to rise because of The US and Israel's war against Iran.”

“Rory McIlroy is donning a green jacket once again after winning the Masters Golf Tournament in Augusta, Georgia, his second in a row. He held off challenges from several players in the final round, including Scottie Scheffler. McElroy now has won six majors.”

“First, Northwest blooms were teased open by a mild winter and warm spring temperatures. Then, whack, freezing temps hit, killing the blooms before they get pollinated. Matthew Whiting is a professor who specializes in cherry trees at Washington State University Research Station in Prosser.”

“In addition to the naval blockade, president Trump on Sunday said that The US would begin destroying mines laid by Iranians in the Strait Of Hormuz and added that Iranians would be, quote, blown to hell if they fired at The US. Over the past two weeks, president Trump has threatened to destroy Iran's infrastructure, bomb the country, quote, back to the stone age, and to wipe out its entire civilization in one night.”

“And it is asymmetric. It affects different countries differently. If you are in the vicinities of the conflict, it's a big hit on you. If you are an oil importer, it is a big hit on you. If you have no reserves to protect yourself, you're in a very tough, situation.”

“Democratic representative Eric Swalwell announced this evening that he's suspending his campaign for California governor. He made the announcement in a post on social media. Swawa was recently accused of sexual assault against several former staff members.”

“Virginians are voting on a measure that could result in a four seat gain in Virginia's congressional delegation for Democrats. That could make house minority leader Hakeem Jeffries speaker of the house. Virginia could be one of the last states to act in the national redistricting frenzy kicked off by Trump.”

“Voters in Hungary turned out in numbers not seen since the fall of communism Sunday and resoundingly rejected a reelection bid by long serving prime minister Viktor Orban. During his sixteen years in office, Orban often challenged the governance of the European Union. Incoming pre prime minister, Peter Magyar, says he will repair Hungary's relations with the EU.”

“If they wanna have nuclear weapons, they're not gonna have nuclear weapons. I've been saying that for thirty years. I would never allow that to happen before I was in politics, and that country will not have nuclear weapons.”

“People are hurting. They're hurting because of sheer lack of quantities. If you are in The Philippines, you're queuing the same way people were queuing here in the seventies to fill your tank. They are hurting because, they may be in need of helium for semiconductors.”

“Magdi's victory was hard won in an electoral system that over the past sixteen years, Orban had stacked in his favor from gerrymandering to controlling the media. As Brussels now looks forward to working with a more pro European Hungarian leader, Moscow and the current White House administration have lost in Orban, a key ally in Europe.”

“Representative Eric Swalwell says he's suspending his campaign for California governor. He made the announcement Sunday in a social media post saying that he's deeply sorry for mistakes and judgment that he's made in the past. Allegations of sexual misconduct with a former staffer were made public on Friday.”

“The San Francisco Chronicle first reported that all six trustees were terminated last week. Lisa Petri is a spokesperson for the trust. She says the park will continue to operate normally. Trump signed an executive order last year cutting any federal funding to the trust, but Petri says it has been self sufficient since 2013.”

“The US Central Command says it will begin a blockade of all Iranian ports and coastal areas starting in six hours. President Trump ordered the blockade after peace talks collapsed this weekend in Pakistan.”

“Iran effectively closed down the Strait Of Hormuz, this, 21 mile wide waterway, and very few ships have been going in or out of the Gulf in recent weeks. It was more than a 100 ships a day before the war. Now it's just a handful.”

“Israeli air strikes hit the Mediterranean resort city of Tyre and border villages Israel says it's seizing from Lebanon to create what it calls a buffer zone where Hezbollah can't fire rockets. The Lebanese Red Cross says one of its ambulance teams was directly targeted by an Israeli drone, killing one paramedic and wounding another.”

“Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and other big banks will report results from the last three months, giving investors a window into the economic fallout from the war in Iran and the resulting energy crisis. Surging oil prices have pushed up costs for both companies and consumers, and banks like JPMorgan do business with both.”

“Once a month or once every other month, we're encountering something that we we've never seen before, and we haven't seen indications of it being seen in The United States before either.”

“And now the Straits of Hormuz have been closed for a couple of days, and that's putting pressure on China.”

“Up six bucks today.”

“30 percent AI is sentient like it's a living mechanism, like it has a certain things for itself. And that's concerning.”

“House kills effort to release all congressional sexual misconduct and harassment reports.”

“This week, Spain categorically denies White House claim it will cooperate on Iran war.”

“Congressman Eric Swalwell says he is suspending his campaign for California governor as he faces allegations of sexual assault, which he says are false. He had already decided not to run for reelection to the house. President Trump says The US will blockade the Strait Of Hormuz.”

“Iran is believed to have placed mines in the strait, and a US official who's not authorized to speak publicly told NPR's Tom Bowman that minesweepers will also be used as part of the blockade. There are a lot of unknowns. You know, will any ships try to break a US blockade? And and if so, how will the US military respond? And what will Iran do?”

“Israeli and Lebanese diplomats are now preparing to hold their first direct meeting between government officials in decades on Tuesday. Israel and Lebanon's ambassadors to The US are set to meet in Washington to discuss a ceasefire. But at a Hezbollah rally in downtown Beirut, Saturday, supporters filled the streets for blocks, waving flags and chanting against negotiations.”

“Magdia's victory was hard won in an electoral system that over the past sixteen years, Orban had stacked in his favor from gerrymandering to controlling the media. As Brussels now looks forward to working with a more pro European Hungarian leader, Moscow and the current White House administration have lost in Orban, a key ally in Europe.”

“It's not impossible that while we, have seen a slight dip over the last week that we certainly could see gas prices reaccelerating, and it's not impossible that new records, with prices eventually rising above $5 a gallon remain possible.”

“From Iran's perspective, they feel emboldened... It discovered the Strait Of Hormuz and what havoc it can wreak, not only on The Gulf, but on the entire globe. Brent crude oil, the international standard, is above $96 a barrel in Asia ahead of talks in Pakistan Saturday on a potential permanent ceasefire.”

“Zeldin celebrated the EPA's decision to stop regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant. He says that policy was government overreach and focused too much on the worst case scenarios. Zeldin spoke at a conference of the Heartland Institute, a free market group that denies that humans are contributing to climate change.”

“Maryland attorney general Anthony Brown says the states reached a settlement with Grace Ocean Private and Synergy Marine Group, the owner and manager of the Dali. The insurance company paid out $350,000,000 to the state of Maryland after the incident. There are still more than 50 parties, including the city of Baltimore, suing Grace Ocean and Synergy over the crash.”

“Riverside County sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican, obtained them to investigate an alleged vote count discrepancy in a statewide election last year. Most disturbingly, there doesn't seem to be any indication of criminal wrongdoing. The California Supreme Court has halted Bianco's investigation while it reviews the case.”

“According to a study by the Associated Press, Major League Baseball's average salary has climbed 3.4% to a record of more than $5,300,000. The AP says the New York Mets topped spending at the season start for the fourth straight year with Mets' outfielder, Juan Soto, the highest paid player for the second consecutive season.”

“The first two days of the ceasefire have been shaky with strikes of varying severity happening in Lebanon, Iran, Israel, and the Gulf Arab states. The Iranians I spoke to at the border didn't wanna be named fearing reprisal upon their return, and none of them believed that the temporary truce would hold.”

“Zeldin celebrated the EPA's decision to stop regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant. He says that policy was government overreach and focused too much on the worst case scenarios, despite scientific research showing that burning fossil fuels has increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to the highest level in human history.”

“The emperor penguin is now listed as endangered. The International Union for Conservation of Nature made the declaration because emperor penguins in Antarctica rely on sea ice for many purposes, but it is melting rapidly. The Antarctic fur seal was also moved to the endangered category.”

“This is just the beginning, and there's nothing that we can accomplish when we pull all of our differences together, not in spite of them, but when we pull them together and we work on something big for the good of everyone.”

“The scientists found that the same neurons that fire when someone looks at an object also fire when a person imagines that object. The finding supports earlier evidence from brain scans suggesting that seeing and imagining activate the same circuits.”

“Ticker HTZ is Hertz Global... It emerged from bankruptcy in June of 2021 and it's still carrying some pretty hefty leverage, $15.8 billion in long-term debt, negative free cashflow that is projected to be positive next year. In spite of that, it's still projected to lose money. It has not made money since December of 2023. Bottom line is they are executing a genuine operating turnaround, but at the same time, there are still some structural weaknesses in this company that could lead you to say, okay, high risk, high reward. It's certainly not for the faint of heart.”

“Wholesale prices rose sharply in the latest report, pointing to persistent inflation that could complicate Federal Reserve policy decisions. This unexpected uptick in producer prices suggests that inflation, well, the fight is far from over, despite the earlier optimism about cooling pricing pressures. The bond market is trying to balance safe-haven demand against persistent inflation concerns from energy price spikes.”

“The oil story intensified dramatically. Crude oil surged over 12%, its best session since 2020 and closed above $90 a barrel, up 36% on the week. Cutter warned that all Gulf producers may have to shut down production within days, a scenario that could drive oil to $150. Kuwait has reportedly already started cutting production.”

“February non-farm payrolls came in at negative $92,000, an outright decline, completely upending the labor market stabilization theme and better growth sentiment from the ISM prints that we saw earlier this week. Prior months, in fact, were revised down another $69,000. With that, the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.4% and the participation rate dropped half a point to 62%.”

“Ball Corporation is the world's largest aluminum beverage can manufacturer. It also produces aluminum containers for personal care and household products. It is more than anything a pure play aluminum packaging name after a history of also being in the aerospace defense industry. But that sold off in February of 2024. What you're seeing is, well, big volume catalysts, sporting events, historically drive meaningful can volume.”

“I think prices are permanently higher. I mean, when I say permanent, nothing's permanent, but at least in the foreseeable future, this year, next year, the year after. You know, we're not there's no going back to the $60, $65 bucks a barrel we were paying before all this mess. You're still left with a fee that's not inconsequential, and then, of course, insurance companies are gonna demand a higher insurance premium for insuring the traffic that moves through this strait because, you know, who knows what will happen in the future.”

“Feels pretty close to script, more or less. You know, the president has gone down this path in other ways. And when push comes to shove, when markets start to react, when stock prices are down, when interest rates are up, and in this case, when oil prices are up, he figures out a way to pivot, to stand down, and to declare victory and hopefully move on.”

“Iran is charging $2,000,000 for every ship that passes through the Strait Of Hormuz. And they have said in the agreement that they have full sovereignty over the Strait, and now they're gonna charge people for moving goods through it. So I guess the question is, one, do you think that that holds? And two, how significant is it from an inflation perspective? Because it seems like that is, yes, ships can pass through, but now there's a toll.”

“I view this as a part of a broader, a very corrosive trend, and that that's the deglobalization of the economy that The US is pulling away from the rest of the world very quickly. I mean, you know, tariffs, immigration policy, what we're doing geopolitically. And then, of course, now the rest of the world is pulling away from us very quickly. If we are deglobalizing and this is just one more thing that will cause that process to continue and potentially even accelerate, it has all kinds of corrosive effects.”

“The US is a big economy—it's the largest on the planet—so, you know, it's still gonna play a very central role, but increasingly less of one as we move forward. We have benefited enormously from the globalization process and the fact that The US is central and the US dollar is central to everything that goes on in the world. And that is now gonna be under pressure; it was under pressure before all this, and it will be under even more pressure going forward.”

“Shaky is probably the best way to describe it, is it seems like there's so much posturing from both sides that it's very hard to tell what the reality is and what the real contingencies in. Things have stabilized, and it seems like it's in everyone's interest for things to stabilize. But the markets are not fully buying it, and you see it in the oil prices as well.”

“The Anthropic release of the world's most powerful model, a model so powerful that they're keeping it behind closed doors, and, only select companies get private access to it to harden their security before the rest of the world gets it. Q Day is dividing the crypto industry while some are preparing, others are saying don't look up.”

“The IRGC, Iran, is demanding payment roughly 2 to $3,000,000 per transit payable in Bitcoin. And then after this ceasefire, Iran immediately sent a volley of rockets into Israel. Because of this, Iran is saying that they are threatening to end this ceasefire and close the Strait Of Hormuz, and this is why everyone kinda just feels shaky about the state of things.”

“The depth of bearishness that we saw in the first couple months of the year feels like it's stabilising a little bit. People are kind of saying, okay, we're probably gonna be okay. People are more forward looking now, talking about things like quantum, I feel like, okay, how do we solve this problem as opposed to, oh my god, the sky is falling.”

“The White House weighs in on the stablecoin debate. Which side did they choose? We have the White House weighing in on the stablecoin yield debate regarding the effects of stablecoin yield prohibition on bank lending. This is a massive topic as the market feels stable on the surface while bigger risks continue to build.”

“If Iran does not fully open without threat, the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various power plants, starting with the biggest one first. So he wrote that on Saturday night, which means that 48 hour clock expires tonight.”

“Oil prices at the $100 mark now for a while. There's concern that could go up to $150, $170 a barrel. Over the weekend, United Airlines CEO says they're preparing for that scenario and you see a lot of companies adapting to a scenario where we could have high oil prices for a while.”

“Now to those massive, sometimes 6-hour TSA lines at some US airports over the weekend. As this partial DHS shutdown nears its 40-day mark, ICE agents are set to arrive to help speed things up at some airports today.”

“To the AI economy, where real estate developers are now spending more on data centers than office space. And is it time to call a boomer? Public phones in Boston and Nevada are connecting generations. We'll explain.”

“Helium plays a very important role in a number of industrial processes. Also, fertilizer, that's raising prices for farmers around the world, including here in the US. The fertilizer price goes up because there's a lack of fertilizer. Well, the prices for farmers go up and then food prices go up for consumers.”