The Appearance Of 'Action': Britain's Navy Docked At Gateway To Mediterranean For Hormuz Mission

Japan's Landmark Vote Reclassifies Bitcoin And Crypto As Financial Assets Authored by Micah Zimmerman via The Epoch Times, Japan’s parliament passed an amendment on Wednesday that reclassifies cryptocurrency as a “financial asset,” a shift that pulls bitcoin and other digital assets out of the country’s payments regime and into the framework that governs stocks, bonds, and investment trusts, according to a report from public broadcaster NHK. The change strips crypto of its prior status under the Payment Services Act, where regulators treated it as a means of settlement, and folds it into the Financial...

The Market's Biggest Buyer May Be Disappearing Submitted by QTR's Fringe Finance Yesterday, as part of laying out the two paths I can see the economy taking, I wrote that beneath the surface, the American consumer is tapped out. The average consumer - AKA the "retail investor" - has been a key in driving the stock market higher the past half decade. This morning, I noticed two reports that came out yesterday that add to the conclusion that this "retail investor" looks increasingly broke.  Yesterday The Wall Street Journal highlighted how rising prices and the highest...

US Existing Home Sales Bounced In February As Mortgage Rates Tumbled Despite tumbling mortgage rates, existing home sales plunged (the most since COVID) in January, with some blaming 'below-normal temperatures' despite The West suffering the biggest declines (and unaffected by the winter storms). Consensus was for a modest 0.8% MoM decline in February (again despite an ongoing drop in mortgage rates) but sales actually surprised to the upside, rising 1.7% MoM. Perhaps even more notably, January's 8.4% MoM plunge was revised up to a slightly less crazy 5.9% MoM drop... Source: Bloomberg With...