First Iranian Oil Moves Past US Blockade Ahead Of Deal Signing

ECB Hikes Rates For First Time Since 2023 (As Expected); Cuts Growth, Hikes Inflation Outlook As fully expected, The ECB hiked its key rate by 25bps (for the first time since 2023) as the policymakers battle with the dilemma of economic weakness combined with rising inflation. Obviously, raising rates to dampen inflation could further slow the economy, while easing rates to support growth increases the risk that higher inflation becomes persistent. Clearly, Lagarde et al went with the former with its well-jawboned baseline having long been a hike in June with risks skewed toward...

Whose-muz? By Michael Every of Rabobank Whose-muz? Oil leaped 9%, the largest move since 2020. Today, it’s up another 2.5% to $85 at time of writing. It’s a good job we also have the Cleveland Fed’s trimmed-mean inflation measure out as well, right? Obviously, oil was driven by developments in Hormuz - or rather Whose-muz? There, besides reimposing the naval blockade of Iran, President Trump stated those using the waterway will now pay 20% of the value of cargo as compensation to the US, the strait’s new guardian. While the proposed Iranian toll the...

Houston, We Have Shareholders Submitted by QTR's Fringe Finance SpaceX’s highly anticipated Starship test flight never made it off the pad Thursday evening. Instead, the launch was scrubbed after what appeared to be an automatic abort during engine startup, marking the first major operational disappointment since the company became publicly traded just weeks ago. As of this writing, the company has not released a detailed explanation for what happened. SpaceX has only said there will be no launch today, that engineers will review the issue, determine the cause, and announce the next...