Beyond The SPR: Stifel Spots Another Depleted Strategic Stockpile In Urgent Need Of Rebuilding

Yttrium Emerges As Resource War Flashpoint As Beijing Squeezes Western Supply Chains China is using its top supplier position in yttrium, a silvery metal used in heat-resistant ceramic coatings for jet engines and power turbine blades, as well as in electronics and optics, to pressure the Trump administration. Disrupted shipments expose another critical material dependency that gives Beijing leverage over Washington as resource wars continue to play out. Reuters reports that Beijing imposed export controls on yttrium and six other rare earths in early 2025. Deliveries to the U.S. halted for several months...

Hungary Backs Away From Crypto Criminalization In Regulatory U-Turn Authored by Micah Zimmerman via BitcoinMagazine.com, Hungary is dismantling the restrictive digital asset framework introduced under former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a policy overhaul that will decriminalize crypto trading and eliminate the prison sentences that had driven major platforms from the country, government spokesperson Anita Kobol said Thursday, according to Bloomberg.  The rollback marks a full reversal of legislation that took effect July 1, 2025, after parliament passed rules criminalizing the use of unlicensed exchanges and certain unauthorized high-value crypto transactions.  Those transactions — ranging between 50 million...

Did META Just Hint At Cracks In the AI CapEx Boom? If you're wondering why the Nasdaq is suddenly tumbling this morning, wonder no more... Nasdaq moves lower after Meta announces it is to build a cloud business to sell its excess AI compute, weighing on cloud peers like AMZN, ORCL, MSFT and chip and memory names like NVDA, MU, INTO. As Bloomberg reports: Meta, which has been rushing to secure expensive data centers and other infrastructure to fuel its own artificial intelligence ambitions, is forming a business to generate revenue from...