The Sy Hersh effect: killing the messenger, ignoring the message

Whirlpool Crashes After Iran Shock Sparks "Recession-Level" Appliance Slump Whirlpool shares crashed as much as 20% in premarket trading after the appliance maker slashed its full-year outlook and posted weaker-than-expected first-quarter results. Management directly blamed the three-month war in the Middle East for triggering a collapse in U.S. appliance demand. Whirlpool began the earnings release with this statement: "War in Iran resulted in a recession-level industry decline in the U.S. as consumer confidence collapsed in late February and March." For the first quarter, the maker of refrigerators, freezers, dishwashers, ovens, ranges, cooktops,...

AirGas Declares Force Majeure On Helium Shipments As Qatar Production Collapses Earlier this week we reported that global chip production was in peril as "Qatar Warns Helium Exports Set To Collapse." Best known as the gas that makes party balloons float, helium is far more important as a key input in chipmaking, space rockets and medical imaging. The problem is that Qatar supplies a third of the world’s helium, and the Gulf nation had to halt production after Iranian strikes against the region’s energy producing infrastructure crippled its LNG production which is...

Futures Tumble On AI Spending Fears As Brent Hits 2 Week High US equity futures are lower, dragged by tech, following a report that OpenAI missed revenue and user targets and there growing internal pushback against Sam Altman's notorious aggressive spending (the company has $1.5 trillion in commitment it won't be able to meet), which is hitting semiconductors and the broader supply chain. AS of 8:15am ET, S&P futures are down 0.7% and Nasdaq futures dropped 1.2% as concerns resurfaced over whether the vast amounts of investment in artificial intelligence will...