They broke the Bank of England together in 1992. Not anymore. 🥛 The '92 Bulls of macro just split 🥊 They broke the Bank of England together in 1992. Not anymore. John Gillen GM. This is Milk Road, the newsletter that knows that when two of the best macro traders of all time get into a public feud about the bond market, it’s time to lock in. Here’s what we’ve got for you today: ✍️ Clash of the titans ✍️ Druckenmiller Druck’s back 🎙️ The Milk Road Show: The One Catalyst Bitcoin Needs to Break All-Time Highs . 🍪 Vlad Tenev: Robinhood's credit card is a dark horse. Every morning, Elite Trade Club provides a detailed briefing before the opening bell. Get the free AI Infrastructure briefing here. Prices as of 2:00 p.m. ET. Powered by CoinGecko. CLASH OF THE TITANS Instead of our usual Milk Road Macro updates, I wanted to break down what’s going on with one of the coolest macro smackdowns in memory. A major feud has erupted in high finance, pitting U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent against his legendary former mentor, billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller. I often call these two guys the ‘92 Bulls of macro investing. That’s because in 1992, the duo worked together under George Soros to famously "break the Bank of England" by betting against government price intervention. Fast forward to today: roles have flipped. Bessent is running the U.S. Treasury, managing a massive $40T national debt, while Druckenmiller is calling out his former protégé for breaking the very economic principles they traded on. Well, well, well, how the turntables. What are they fighting about? Bessent’s Treasury launched an unscheduled, expanded bond buyback program to pull down surging long-term interest rates. Druckenmiller publicly slammed the move as dangerous government price-fixing. What triggered the feud? The bond market has been flashing red as the U.S. national debt has topped $40T and the annual federal deficit hovers around 6% of GDP. With annual net interest costs surging past $1.1T and exceeding the U.S. defense budget, investors demanded higher yields to hold government bonds. In mid-August, 30-year U.S. Treasury yields spiked to 5.33%, their highest level in nearly two decades. Source: Milk Road Bessent’s move: The "Treasury twist" To cap rising borrowing costs, Secretary Bessent executed an off-cycle maneuver: Doubling long-end buybacks: Treasury doubled its buyback cap on 10-to-30-year debt from $2B to at least $4B per operation, signaling it could go even higher. Tapping the cash cushion: Officials hinted at using the Treasury General Account’s (TGA) near-$1T cash pile to fund yield support operations. Bessent's defense: Bessent framed the program as a "Treasury twist.” Swapping long-term debt for short-term T-bills to clean up illiquidity in thin summer trading. He argued that yields were artificially driven up by temporary factors, like Middle East geopolitical headlines and massive corporate bond issuance from tech companies funding AI data centers. Druckenmiller’s clapback: Druckenmiller launched a direct counter-attack in a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled "Let the bond markets speak". Source: WSJ 3 STOCKS POWERING THE AI BUILDOUT The AI boom isn’t just about chips. There are multiple bottlenecks throughout the AI buildout with memory, cooling and connectivity. Today you can get a free briefing on the AI infrastructure play covering: The 3 companies quietly powering the AI boom The real bottlenecks forming across cooling, memory, and connectivity Why AI infrastructure is a bigger opportunity than the models themselves 👉 Get the free AI Infrastructure briefing here. By clicking, you’ll receive this and other Elite Trade Media LLC financial newsletters, which may include advertiser offers. Privacy · Unsubscribe anytime. DRUCKENMILLER DRUCK’S BACK (BTW, if a lot of this looks like it was written by an AI and not Stanley Druckenmiller, that’s because it seems like it was written by an AI, not Stanley Druckenmiller. What a time to be alive, amirite? Imagine being like, “Claude, roast the Secretary of the Treasury, make no mistakes”.) It's price fixing, not liquidity: "This wasn't liquidity management, it was price management — and a mistake far larger than $4B suggests". He noted there were no failed auctions or frozen dealer balance sheets to justify intervention. You cannot buck the market: "Governments defending prices against fundamentals always lose. The only variable is how much they spend before conceding". The bond market is the only disciplinarian left: Rising yields force politicians to confront reckless spending. Artificially lowering yields is a "subsidy to procrastination" that allows lawmakers to ignore structural deficit reform. Fix the deficit, not the yield: Druckenmiller argued that a credible budget-cutting package would do more to lower long-term rates than a buyback program 1,000 times the Treasury's size. The market verdict & macro takeaways The market quickly sided with Druckenmiller. When the buybacks were announced, 30-year yields briefly dropped ~10 basis points. But within 24 hours, sellers flooded the market, pushing yields right back above 5.24%. Unlike the Federal Reserve's Quantitative Easing (QE), the Treasury cannot print money. To buy long-term bonds, it must issue more short-term T-bills or drain cash, simply shifting duration around rather than creating true demand. Do you know what Ferguson’s law is? The bond market does. Historian Niall Ferguson noted that any major power spending more on interest payments than defense enters structural decline . Investors know administrative buybacks can't fix a $2T annual deficit. Bottom line Bessent tried to use debt management tools to quiet down the bond market, but investors proved that state intervention can't override raw supply-and-demand realities for long. The solution? I mean, the way things look right now, it seems like they're going to have to debase the dollar. This means it’s more important than ever to own a

After tonight, PRO is $39/month. Today's price is still yours if you're quick. Tonight at 11:59pm ET, the price of Milk Road PRO goes up. $25/month becomes $39, and $250/year becomes $299. Join before then and you'll keep today's price for as long as you're a member. The short version of why this is a no brainer: Melvin's portfolio is up 45% since he launched it in February. If you'd put $10,000 behind his moves, you'd be sitting on about $4,500 in gains. Five months of PRO cost $125 over that same stretch. Is there a better ROI on any investment right now? And he's one of five analysts running real-time portfolios on the new platform, with every position, trade, and piece of reasoning out in the open, with live notifications to keep you in the know. Here’re some quick answers to make your decision even easier: Can I cancel anytime? Yep. No contracts, no hoops. Is the price really locked? For as long as you stay a member. What's the catch? There isn't one. After tonight, this price just doesn't exist anymore. Lock in $250/year - yours for life Prefer monthly? $25/month locks too . Kyle Reidhead, Co-owner @ Milk Road PS - We’re about to launch a HUGE upgrade to the platform that allows you to connect your brokerage accounts and crypto wallets and track your portfolio all in one place. AND, compare it with the analyst portfolios and get ongoing advice on your portfolio. PRO isn't what it used to be (it's better). Lock in today's prices here . This content is for educational purposes only. Read full disclaimer Interested in reaching smart readers like you? Sponsor Milk Road Update your email preferences or unsubscribe here © 2026 ImpactDM Inc. operating as Milk Road 1257 Dundas St W Toronto, Ontario M6J1X6, Canada

Plus: Druckenmiller vs. Bessent | Tuesday, August 25, 2026 Axios Macro By Neil Irwin and Courtenay Brown · Aug 25, 2026 The market for U.S. Treasury bonds is in the spotlight this month, and for good reason. Today, we look at why the securities are no longer viewed as the riskless safe haven that policymakers have long taken for granted. Plus, a stunning pushback to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's intervention announcement in the bond market last week from a hedge fund legend (and former colleague). Situational awareness: U.S. consumer confidence edged down for a second consecutive month in August, falling 0.8 point, to 89.4, according to The Conference Board. Consumers were more pessimistic about the future, with mentions of war and conflict rising and inflation expectations ticking higher. Today's newsletter, edited by Jeffrey Cane and copy edited by Katie Lewis, is 876 words, a 3.5-minute read. 1 big thing: Treasury bonds are becoming less special Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios A baseline assumption in asset allocation, regulatory policy and international finance has long been that U.S. Treasury securities are risk-free assets that offer protection against the vagaries of economic fortune. It may no longer be valid. The big picture: That's the cold reality that lurks beneath the rise in longer-term bond yields in recent weeks that triggered a Treasury Department intervention. It implies a world where the U.S. government can't count on favorable borrowing conditions as a matter of course. Rather, the U.S. is competing in global capital markets in which individual investors, financial institutions and foreign nations will finance massive U.S. deficits only to the extent that Treasury securities offer superior risk-adjusted returns to the alternatives. Those are the implications of a new paper by Stanford economist Hanno Lustig published by the Aspen Economic Strategy Group — only further affirmed by developments since the paper was originally drafted. Zoom in: Lustig finds that investors no longer pay the premium they once did to purchase Treasury securities over comparable investments like highly rated corporate debt or less-liquid bonds of other nations. The traditional risk-on/risk-off investing framework — in which Treasury bonds tend to rise in value when stocks fall and vice versa — has fallen apart, with the two asset classes routinely moving in tandem. More foreign institutions are diversifying away from dollar assets. Large banks, meanwhile, have pulled back their role in the Treasury market, and the Federal Reserve is seeking to get away from owning large pools of Treasuries. Zoom out: Add it all up, and more of the financing for America's $2 trillion annual deficits is coming from investors who buy Treasuries because they like the interest rates they pay, not because they are the world's safest investment. What they're saying: "Government debt is safe only when bondholders believe that the Fed will raise rates against inflation and that the fiscal authority will raise taxes against spending shocks," Lustig wrote in "America's Risky Debt: What Markets See That Policymakers Don't." "Post-COVID, investors appear to have lost confidence in the second leg. Taxpayers no longer absorb fiscal risk. Bondholders do, and Treasury valuations respond to fiscal shocks." The intrigue: Lustig warns that U.S. policymakers, with their view of Treasuries as always and forever safe assets, have responded to spikes in yields as "plumbing problems," reflective of technical factors, rather than a market verdict on the government's creditworthiness. This blunts the signal that markets are offering, he argues, and amounts to a form of financial repression. "Market participants and policymakers are using competing models of US government debt," he wrote. "The market has moved to a risky-debt model that is a better fit for the data," while central bankers and regulators "still operate under the safe-debt model embedded in their analytical tools and prudential rules." Of note: While Lustig's paper was published online on Aug. 20, it was prepared weeks ago, before the Treasury's $4 billion buyback of long-term bonds in response to higher rates was announced. Disclosure: Neil is a member of the Aspen Economic Strategy Group. A MESSAGE FROM AXIOS Break through the noise with Axios Reach execs and business leaders with Axios. We'll help you tell your story in the right way: We'll distill your brand's message into its most effective form with Smart Brevity. No clutter, no filler — just clean, smart and effective. Contact us to learn more. 2. Druckenmiller's pushback Stanley Druckenmiller walks with Jane Lauder, wife of Federal Reserve chairman Kevin Warsh, in Sun Valley, Idaho, last month. Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images Hedge fund legend Stanley Druckenmiller has a blunt message for Bessent, his former employee: Knock it off. Driving the news: Druckenmiller has a scathing Wall Street Journal op-ed published late yesterday that assails the Treasury's decision to buy back long-term bonds last week. He argues that there were no signs of the kind of freeze-up in bond market liquidity that might justify a temporary intervention. Druckenmiller, with partner George Soros, famously made a fortune betting against the Bank of England's currency peg in 1992. Bessent was a young trader with the fund at the time. What they're saying: Noting that longer-term yields fell following the Treasury action but then reversed course, Druckenmiller argued in the op-ed that the "market's verdict was swift and correct: This wasn't liquidity management, it was price management — and a mistake far larger than $4 billion suggests." "There were no failed auctions, no dealer balance-sheet seizure, no forced unwinds, nothing resembling Treasurys in March 2020 or U.K. gilts in September 2022, the sort of genuine dysfunctional episodes that justify official action." "Volatility was contained, and trading was ord

Plus: Northern exposure 🇨🇦 | Monday, August 24, 2026 Axios Closer By Nathan Bomey · Aug 24, 2026 Monday ✅. Today's newsletter is 719 words, a 2½-minute read. 📉 The dashboard: The S&P 500 closed down 0.3%. 🥶 Today's stock spotlight: Nvidia (-2.9%) fell for a seventh straight session, its longest streak of red since September 2022. The AI chip giant reports earnings Wednesday afternoon. 1 big thing: Deere in union headlights UAW president Shawn Fain. Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images The UAW and Deere are barreling toward a contract clash as Big Labor seeks to capture some of the immense wealth being created by the AI boom . 👎 Last night, the union announced that its members rejected a Deere contract offer, which would've extended its current collective bargaining agreement for two years, through 2029. The extension would've included a 4% annual wage increase and $3,000 bonuses each year, plus no changes to pensions and health care. The intrigue: Old-school equipment makers like Deere and Caterpillar suddenly find themselves swept up in a sales-and-stock boom tied to AI, as data center developers gobble up bulldozers, excavators and other construction machines. 📈 By the numbers: Deere's stock price has soared 40% in 2026. 🚜 Sales jumped 18% to $3.62 billion in Deere's construction and forestry segment in Q2, in large part due to data center buildouts. Operating profit in the segment soared 84%, while operating margin spiked to 12.1% from 7.7%. 🥊 Friction point: UAW president Shawn Fain blasted Deere for laying off workers and signaled that the union wants a more lucrative deal now that the company's fortunes have improved. Deere said today that overall "demand remains well below 2021 levels" and that "competition continues to intensify," while "the outlook for a significant recovery remains uncertain." 💭 Nathan's thought bubble: Big Labor is scrambling to present a counterforce to the powerful AI giants — and since none of the Big Tech companies are broadly unionized, the labor movement's most realistic chance might come in the equipment production sector. Go deeper 2. Northern exposure 🇨🇦 A car hauler heads to cross the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor, Canada, and Detroit, Mich. Photo: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images President Trump stoked trade tensions with Canada even further today, saying the U.S. will double car and truck tariffs on our northern neighbor to 50% starting in 2027. Zoom out: The U.S.-Canada trade fight is shaping up to become an all-out trade war, Axios Macro authors Courtenay Brown and Neil Irwin write . Catch up quick: U.S.-Canada trade talks had already collapsed Friday night , triggering 50% tariffs on roughly $20 billion of Canadian goods, including wine, cement and dairy products. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney responded Saturday by saying the country would retaliate "dollar for dollar." What we're watching: U.S. and Canadian auto industry supply chains are deeply intertwined, with parts and vehicles crisscrossing the border — making a 50% tariff potentially costly for U.S. automakers and car buyers alike, Reuters notes . State of play: Neither side is backing down, with the trade fight threatening economic and political fallout on both sides of the border. Go deeper 3. Other happenings Photo: Michael Yanow/NurPhoto via Getty Images ⚖️ California AG Rob Bonta reportedly canceled a planned meeting today with Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison about a possible settlement in the multistate antitrust lawsuit over the WBD deal, accusing Paramount of leaking details of a prior meeting. ( Axios ) 🛒 Temu owner PDD reported a smaller-than-expected drop in profit in Q2 amid rising competition from livestreaming and social e-commerce. ( WSJ ) A MESSAGE FROM AXIOS Why Media Is Betting Big on Live Experiences Media companies and brands are pouring money into live experiences as digital attention gets harder to capture. In the latest Media Trends Executive deep dive, Sara Fischer and Kerry Flynn examine what's driving the boom – and where risks are emerging: Why consumers keep paying more for premium experiences, even as prices rise. How brands are chasing audiences IRL through experiential marketing and out-of-home advertising. How new event technology is changing the trade-off between security and privacy. 🔒 Get the full analysis – and exclusive intelligence on the forces reshaping media – by becoming a Media Trends Executive member. 4. Quoted: "Cognitive atrophy" "When we challenged it hard, at least it was honest. It was like, 'Look, in the end, I'm better at sounding thorough than being thorough.'" — Goldman Sachs partner Chris Churchman in a new podcast on how the firm's AI platform admitted its own shortcomings, underscoring concerns that AI will lead to "cognitive atrophy" among the company's bankers. A MESSAGE FROM AXIOS Why Media Is Betting Big on Live Experiences Media companies and brands are pouring money into live experiences as digital attention gets harder to capture. In the latest Media Trends Executive deep dive, Sara Fischer and Kerry Flynn examine what's driving the boom – and where risks are emerging: Why consumers keep paying more for premium experiences, even as prices rise. How brands are chasing audiences IRL through experiential marketing and out-of-home advertising. How new event technology is changing the trade-off between security and privacy. 🔒 Get the full analysis – and exclusive intelligence on the forces reshaping media – by becoming a Media Trends Executive member. 🗓️ On this day in 1909, workers started pouring concrete for the locks in the Panama Canal — with the average day doubling the amount ever poured in a single day anywhere in the world up to that point. By the time they finished, workers had poured 4.5 million cubic yards of concrete. For the DIYers out there, that's over 200 million 80-pound bags from Home Depot. 🤖 AI is transforming industries across Florida, with Miami emerging as

Why the world is better with bitcoin Byron Gilliam “To reject a world with bitcoin is to remove a possible lifeline for billions of people, any one of which might be you.” — Re sistance Money This “best-of” edition comes as Byron wraps up a long weekend. Today’s newsletter was first run in October 2024, when bitcoin was trading at an all-time-high of about $66,000. Nearly two years later, it’s trading at about $75,000. This supports the below assertion that the price of bitcoin is the least interesting thing about it. Book review: Resistance Money The current crypto bull market has felt distinctly joyless and I think that’s because it has lacked purpose. Unlike previous cycles inspired by the hope and novelty of internet-native money, ICOs, DeFi or NFTs, the 2024 cycle was kickstarted by the distinctly uninspiring spot bitcoin ETF. The simple purpose of an ETF is that it goes up, and if you listen to this cycle’s loudest evangelist, Michael Saylor, you’ll think that’s the purpose of bitcoin too — Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention, by their telling, is simply something that goes up. It has gone up, which is nice. But the narrative around bitcoin — increasingly removed from its cypherpunk roots — has become a bit soulless in the process. Fortunately, I’m here to report that I’ve found an antidote for that: Resistance Money — a book-length explainer on what bitcoin is and why it matters. Across a brisk 322 pages, the price of bitcoin gets nary a mention. Instead, the book’s mission is to make the reader think hard about whether bitcoin is a net positive for the world, irrespective of its fluctuating purchasing power. The authors make a compelling case that it is. I'm not usually enough of a bitcoin guy to want to read a whole book on it — how much can there be to say about digital gold? — but I’m glad I did and I’d have happily read more. Without looking at the cover, you’d never know that Resistance Money was written by academics, let alone a committee of them. Co-authored by three professors of philosophy, Resistance Money is, among other things, a highly readable reference book for responding to bitcoin’s many critics. The book methodically (but engagingly!) dismantles every critique of bitcoin — usually with the simple force of logic. On bitcoin being used to evade sanctions, for example, the authors argue that “if you wouldn’t accept payment from sanctioned entities on a bank’s private ledger for fear of reprisal, you also wouldn’t take this hot potato on a fully public ledger.” They do the same for bitcoin’s carbon emissions (“environmentalists can embrace bitcoin without betraying their values”), bitcoin as the criminal money-of-choice (“bitcoin’s existence does not substantially increase things like money laundering”), bitcoin as ransomware currency (“effective countermeasures already exist for the ransomware that it enables”), and bitcoin as censorship-resistant money (“the world would be better off with perfectly uncensorable money”) — as well as roughly 20 other common critiques of bitcoin. All of the authors’ rejoinders are offered thoughtfully and respectfully: Resistance Money is completely devoid of the counterproductive dismissiveness that’s so pervasive among bitcoin’s usual defenders. The book also offers the best and most easily comprehensible explanation I’ve found on how bitcoin is created, recorded and sent around. I usually skim over technical crypto explainers and I didn’t make much more of an effort here. But the authors explain bitcoin’s inner workings so cleanly that — with only minimal re-reading of the most technical parts — I learned how bitcoin works almost in spite of myself. Resistance Money is just technical enough to make me feel like I (finally, for the first time) understand how bitcoin works. It’s also just not technical enough that I could easily follow along. I did not know, for example, that miners win blocks by finding a low-enough number, rather than an exact one: "This aptly named hash function spits out a number, and if it’s ‘low enough,’ the miner wins.” And I now have an intuitive sense of how bitcoin’s unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs) works: “UTXOs are like checks that pile up and never get cashed but do get bundled into larger checks when part of a larger transaction. ” I also enjoyed learning the fun fact that “all possible private keys [for bitcoin] already exist…there are close to 10^77 private keys — within striking distance of atoms in the visible universe.” This is useful stuff and well worth the $25 cost of admission. But the even greater value in Resistance Money is the positive case the authors make for bitcoin — and the memorable way in which they choose to make it. Behind the veil My measure of a great book is how long I retain even a single idea or mental image from it. Resistance Money already qualifies because its image of reasoning about bitcoin from “behind the veil” is an unforgettable one. The authors make the positive case for bitcoin by asking you to forget who you are and imagine that, before your identity is revealed to you, you’re invited to choose whether bitcoin should exist. Would you prefer to re-enter a world with or without bitcoin? Recalling that you might be revealed as a citizen of a country suffering chronic hyperinflation, a persecuted Russian dissident, or a woman in Afghanistan, the authors will likely convince you that, without knowing who you are, you would undoubtedly prefer to live in a world with bitcoin. (In my money-centric imagination, I imagined myself returning as someone who bought bitcoin at $1. But that’s not really what they meant.) Yes, you also risk finding out you were someone caught in a bitcoin scam. Or that you’re the jailed purveyor of some such a scam, like SBF. But the odds of those unfortunate outcomes are vanishingly small relative to the one-in-four odds of being born into a country with a less-than-reliable monetary regime. “Behind the veil, you know eight billion lives from the ins

The US threatened a crackdown on Iran's trading partners... August 25, 2026 Presented By Hello there. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is facing criticism for seldom leaving her official residence on weekends or holidays. She has responded that it’s actually efficient and reduces the burden on her staff, since she has a WFH setup there. She also mentioned that although she isn’t interacting with the public on those days, she is sharing her space with cockroaches. Or she was, until her staff spread poison—at which point she was “relieved, but somehow also felt a little lonely.” Ok, we have no comment on the politics here, but if she’s befriending the roaches, she probably should get out more. —Sam Klebanov, Molly Liebergall, Dave Lozo, Matty Merritt, Neal Freyman, Abby Rubenstein In today’s newsletter, we’ll get into: A US plan to economically isolate Iran Bitcoin’s big rally Viral carrier pigeons Markets Nasdaq 25,980.19 -0.77% S&P 7,652.86 -0.28% Dow 53,417.16 +0.26% 10-Year 4.704% -3.0 bps Bitcoin $78,930.33 +1.41% Micron $910.43 -5.83% Data is provided by *Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 6:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean. Markets: Stocks closed mixed yesterday as chip stocks…dipped following reports that Nvidia is raising some of its prices. Sandisk and Micron were among the companies that fell. Markets Sponsored by Frontieras Nasdaq ticker “$FASF” reserved: Even though Frontieras isn’t public, you can invest privately as they scale across $2.1 trillion in markets. Claim your stake before Thursday’s close date . Embargomaxxing US unveils supersized Iran sanctions Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images The Trump administration announced trade measures aimed at economically isolating Iran yesterday that it had previously teased as “economic D-Day”…but Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said it was more of a “warning shot” than a full-scale assault. Dubbing the plan “Operation Economic Outcast,” Bessent said the US will impose devastating sanctions against countries that enable Iran to illicitly trade in oil, crypto, aviation, gold, technology, and shipping in order to cause the “economic asphyxiation” of the regime: But Bessent said the US is giving countries time to “remedy their bad behavior” and that it wouldn’t want to “blow up the global financial system” with immediate action. He also announced immediate sanctions against 60 entities, individuals, and vessels the US says are enabling the Iranian regime’s “recklessness.” Bessent noted that the UAE, Iran’s biggest import partner, already cut off all trade ties with Iran last week and said President Trump was asking other countries to do the same. China-shaped elephant in the room When a reporter asked Bessent about enforcement against China—which purchased 80% of Iran’s oil before the war—Bessent said no one would be exempt. But analysts say it’s unclear if the Trump administration will risk antagonizing the country with sanctions amid a tenuous trade truce and before its leader Xi Jinping’s visit to the US next month. However, Iran’s oil exports to China have already reportedly fallen since the US began blockading the Strait of Hormuz. Will it work? The Trump administration is banking that economic punches will force Iran to lift its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, which has pushed up energy prices ahead of the US’ midterm election. But while Iran’s currency fell to a record low against the dollar ahead of Bessent’s announcement, worldwide markets reacted with a shrug. Some experts say that while additional sanctions might deepen economic pain for ordinary Iranians, after years of sanctions, the US doesn’t have much economic ammo left in its arsenal that would force Iran’s leadership to acquiesce. Iran has vowed to retaliate, possibly militarily. Diplomacy is also ongoing: Oman is continuing negotiations with Iran about easing navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, and Pakistan’s army chief arrived in Tehran yesterday to urge renewed peace talks with the US. —SK Sponsored By Frontieras America’s sitting on a “black” gold mine Black gold used to refer to oil. Frontieras uses an updated interpretation. The US has over 20% of the world’s recoverable coal reserves, but burning it requires significant costs to mitigate emissions. So when Frontieras North America found a way to cleanly harness coal without burning it —turning it into outputs like diesel, jet fuel, fertilizer, and more—investors noticed. Their patented process emits zero carbon, helping maximize the value of this abundant resource. They’ve broken ground on an $850m facility. Every fuel it will produce has been sold for the next decade. They even reserved the Nasdaq ticker $FASF . One institutional investor committed $150m. 17,000+ everyday people totaled $48m+ more. Invest before the opportunity closes Thursday night . World Tour de headlines Bill Pugliano/Getty Images 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 Trump threatens 50% tariffs on Canadian autos as trade war escalates. With the US and Canada at odds after failing to reach a deal to avert new US tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods last week, President Trump upped the ante yesterday by threatening to raise tariffs on Canadian autos. He said on Truth Social that the tariff would be increased to 50% on “all Cars, Trucks, both large and small, Automotive Parts, and Steel” as of January 1. Canada has already vowed to retaliate dollar for dollar on Trump’s recent tariffs. Yesterday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford told the AP that if the trade dispute gets worse he would cut off US access to his province’s electricity and critical minerals. 🗞️ Washington Post ordered to rehire opinion writer fired over Charlie Kirk posts. An arbitrator ordered the newspaper to reinstate Karen Attiah, who was terminated over Bluesky posts she made in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder that the paper considered “gross misconduct.” Attiah challenged her dismissal, and the arbitrator ultimately determined that firing her was “absolutely d

Plus: Duck, duck, Goose! | Tuesday, August 25, 2026 Axios Markets By Emily Peck and Matt Phillips · Aug 25, 2026 🍂 Hi, and happy Pumpkin Spice Latte release day to those who observe what is, for some, the first unofficial day of autumn . We await data on consumer confidence and home prices. 📈📉 This morning, U.S. stock futures are up slightly as investors look ahead to Nvidia earnings tomorrow. And oil prices are falling, a sign that markets aren't yet concerned with Iran sanctions threats announced yesterday by the U.S. 🗓️ Today, we turn again to the U.S. bond market — the hot summer story that your normie friends probably don't want to hear about while sipping their coffee. Thankfully, this is a safe space to talk about yield curve control. Plus, in keeping with our autumnal vibes, we have news on the parka front. Let's do this! All in 1,049 words, a 4-minute read. 1 big thing: How the U.S. competes with Big Tech for money By Emily Peck Data: Yardeni Research analysis of LSEG and U.S. Treasury data; Chart: Emily Peck/Axios Investors are increasingly lending to AI-focused companies — and favoring them over the U.S. government . Why it matters: The AI borrowing binge is one of many pressures raising borrowing costs for the government and, in turn, everyday Americans. The big picture: Treasury yields are rising for many reasons, including inflation concerns, worries over the Federal Reserve's credibility and — especially — the mounting U.S. debt load . It's also a global phenomenon: Government borrowing costs are rising across most of the other G7 nations. The latest: The Treasury Department is reportedly considering a larger intervention in the bond market. The administration's initial attempt at this was criticized last night in a widely shared Wall Street Journal op-ed by famed investor Stanley Druckenmiller, a former Soros hedge fund colleague of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who criticized the administration for interfering in the healthy workings of the market. So it's perhaps not surprising that the AI piece of the story can get overlooked amid all the drama. How it works: For years, tech companies were cash-rich players that didn't need to borrow much money. Now, hyperscalers like Google, Meta and Microsoft need a cash mountain to build out AI infrastructure. And they're not alone. Energy companies and chip manufacturers are also borrowing. They're all turning to the bond market to make it happen. At least one of these companies — Microsoft — has a higher credit rating than the U.S. government. By the numbers: U.S. investment-grade corporate bond issuance reached roughly $1.36 trillion through July, up about 27% from the same period last year, per data from SIFMA . The pace of borrowing could eclipse the previous record — $1.85 trillion during the turmoil of 2020. The intrigue: Private foreign investors spent $390 billion, on net, on U.S. corporate bonds over the past 12 months, slightly more than the net $329 billion they shelled out for U.S. Treasury notes and bonds, per an analysis from Yardeni Research of LSEG and Treasury data. Meanwhile, official foreign entities like central banks and finance ministries have become less willing to buy Treasury bonds, as Matt wrote last week — leaving more of the market to hedge funds. Zoom in: Typically, all this corporate debt would mean higher interest rates to attract buyers. Yet corporate borrowing costs haven't risen much relative to Treasury yields — instead, Treasury yields have done the moving. "The market has adjusted not through higher corporate borrowing costs relative to Treasurys, but through higher Treasury yields themselves," per Yardeni. "In short, the AI revolution is producing a classic crowding-out effect, causing Treasury yields to rise." What they're saying: "Crowding out" has become the shorthand for all this — even though it was historically used to describe when government borrowing pushes out private investment . "The flood of corporate supply is competing directly with long-dated Treasurys for investor demand, adding upward pressure to long-term yields," says Yulia Alekseeva, head of fixed income at MissionSquare Investments. "There's crowding out," says Tony Rodriguez, head of fixed income strategy at Nuveen. "Greater demand for capital is pushing up rates for everybody globally." Yes, but: Don't expect a "full rotation" away from Treasury bonds into corporate bonds. "The corporate market simply isn't deep enough to absorb that kind of shift," Alekseeva says. Institutional investors typically face limits "on how far they can move down the credit spectrum." Flashback: The AI investment boom often gets compared to the rush of money that went into funding the railroads in the late 1800s. Then, as now, investors went bananas for bonds to get in on the action. Back then, however, the U.S. was pulling back on borrowing in the aftermath of the Civil War. Now, both the government and the private sector are borrowing more . The bottom line: This time, the U.S. has to share. A MESSAGE FROM AXIOS Break through the noise with Axios Reach execs and business leaders with Axios. We'll help you tell your story in the right way: We'll distill your brand's message into its most effective form with Smart Brevity. No clutter, no filler — just clean, smart and effective. Contact us to learn more. 2. Canadian down By Emily Peck Data: Financial Modeling Prep ; Chart: Emily Peck/Axios What's good for this Goose, you ask? Not tariffs. Luxury apparel maker Canada Goose saw its stock price drift lower yesterday as tensions between the U.S. and longtime ally Canada worsened. The company, whose ticker symbol is GOOS, is known for selling pricey down-filled parkas with a distinctive logo worn by various A-listers. The big picture: Its stock has been falling all year on higher tariffs from its southern neighbor. Plus, the prospect of a warmer winter — courtesy of El Niño — isn't great for the outerwear business, Wells Fargo analysts noted y

Plus: Goldman Sachs consolidates its alts investment platform. August 25, 2026 PRESENTED BY Good morning. A silver spoon just ain’t worth what it used to be. Because of entry-level job scarcity, stiff competition and the advent of artificial intelligence, plenty of Gen Zers aren’t having much luck in the job market. The youth unemployment rate (ages 16-24) sat at 9.1% in July, more than double the national average across age groups, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It’s gotten so bad that even folks with 10-figure net worths are scared for their children’s futures. However, that concern is a bit more existential than economic. “They’re not usually worried about the financial security of their children; rather they worry that the job market will impact their child’s sense of purpose, identity and confidence,” one advisor told Fortune. Well, we do know one industry — financial advice — that’s on the brink of a massive labor shortage these youngsters might want to consider. INDUSTRY NEWS Why Schwab Hiked Minimum Assets to $5M for Client Referral Program Photo by Getty Images via Unsplash They’ve gone and done it again. Starting next year, Charles Schwab, the largest custodian for independent advisors in the US, intends to raise the minimum asset level for clients eligible for referral to its Schwab Advisor Network to $5 million, up from the current threshold of just $2 million. The network, which connects investors seeking independent financial advice with pre-screened providers, “has evolved significantly since its launch more than 20 years ago, and this change reflects where the program is already headed,” a company representative said. More than half of SAN’s net flows come from clients with at least $10 million, the representative added. It’s the second hike this year. In January, Schwab raised the minimum from $500,000 to $2 million, following more than two decades without a change. Schwab appears to be making SAN more exclusive, frustrating advisors who rely on it to build their client bases. “Many firms have built their entire growth engines on top of those referrals, and Schwab looks to be actively shrinking the program,” said Tim Welsh, founder of wealth management consultant Nexus Strategy. Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes Schwab maintains it’s still committed to independent advisors. But that message gets murkier alongside Schwab’s push to expand its own workforce. The firm took out a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal this month stating that it intends to hire thousands of new financial consultants. “They haven’t said it in so many words, but the implication is: ‘Anything under $5 million is ours,’” Welsh said. Still, Schwab remains a custodian advisors want to work with. “Their scope and scale are just staggering,” he said. Other recent SAN changes include: Schwab doubled the minimum assets for firms participating in the program from $250 million to $500 million earlier this year. In 2025, Schwab raised the ongoing asset-based fee by 5%, to rates ranging from about 26 basis points on the first $2 million to 10.5 basis points above $10 million. You Know Where You Are? The changes are unlikely to prompt advisors to change custodians, Welsh said. “It’s such a hard and disruptive process, particularly if you’re a $1 billion firm with a lot of clients,” he said. But RIAs could begin looking elsewhere for new-client referrals. “Everyone else is going to step into the business to offer referrals and it won’t just be custodians,” Welsh said. “They’ll create this whole new category for referrals, and that’s a good thing.” Others believe Schwab’s moves were inevitable and that advisors should have developed their own brands and prospect pipelines. “RIAs who have been spoon-fed referrals over the years may now be forced to spend more on marketing,” said Edward Mahaffy, founder of ClientFirst Wealth, Legacy & Estate Planning. “Welcome to the jungle.” Written by Griffin Kelly PRESENTED BY ALLSPRING GLOBAL INVESTMENTS Share the Fund, Shed the Tax Photo via Allspring Global Investments Your client didn’t sell their mutual fund shares. So why did they get a tax bill? Since mutual funds pool assets, if another shareholder panics at the first hint of a downturn and sells, your client could still owe tax on a capital gain distribution. A new structure could help prevent this risk for clients; adding an ETF Share class to the mutual fund. Molly Landes, Allspring’s head of ETF Capital Markets , shares how this process can allow mutual funds to pay redemptions out in securities instead of cash, leaving the tax bill with the one who triggered it, instead of the entire fund. Read Allspring’s article and see how your clients could avoid that tax bill. * INVESTING STRATEGIES Money Markets Are Still Having a Moment Just like ABBA said, “Money, money, money, must be funny,” but it’s still where risk-averse retail investors are parking their wealth. Retail investors have accumulated more than $3 trillion in money market funds, according to the Investment Company Institute . Money market funds, while not yielding the 5% that they were a few years ago, are still keeping pace with inflation, with a rate hovering around 3.5%. Concerns about equity volatility and geopolitical uncertainty are rife, and bonds aren’t looking too hot, with the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index in the negative so far this year. That makes money market funds an obvious choice for conservative investors, said Eric Diton, president of The Wealth Alliance. “There’s a lot of people out there who are scared … cash is not a bad place to be if you’re that person,” said Diton. “That’s a natural response to rising rates and falling bond prices.” Cash In Your Chips Diton pointed to the uncertainty around the artificial intelligence buildout as a reason for clients wanting to hold more cash. AI “is a game-changer, but there are three letters that I don’t think anyone could answer, and those three letters are ‘ROI,’” he said. No one truly knows wheth

Plus: The US and Canada steel themselves in preparation for 'war.' August 25, 2026 PRESENTED BY ALUMNI VENTURES Good morning. This is your brain on AI. The head of Goldman Sachs’ digital institutional investor platform Marquee warned Monday that the widespread adoption of AI on Wall Street threatens to diminish the ability of bankers to think critically. Chris Churchman told the investment bank’s Exchanges podcast that the financial sector risks a “huge danger” if workers “outsource our reasoning to [AI] models,” which he said could lead to “cognitive atrophy that stops us being able to reason.” Even in a world that lacks knowledge scarcity, Churchman said, “you still need to reason about and structure [knowledge] into an argument. And now we’re delegating reasoning.” To offset the danger, he pointed to Wall Street’s traditional apprenticeship culture, where junior bankers learn through manual tasks like handling clients’ price requests. “You learn by doing, and a lot of knowledge is tacit,” he said, adding that it is crucial future bankers “don’t lose that tacit and intuitive knowledge.” MARKETS S&P 500 7,652.86 ▼ -0.28% DJI 53,417.16 ▲ +0.26% NVDA $208.48 ▼ -2.91% Stock data as of market close on August 24, 2026. INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS O, Canada: Trade Faceoff With US Snarls Automobile, Steel Markets In 1999’s South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut , the United States declares war on Canada over an obscenity-laced cartoon deemed a threat to children south of the border. In 1995’s Canadian Bacon , a US administration launches a Cold War on Canada that includes a propaganda campaign blasting Canadians’ love of mayonnaise. Truth is stranger than fiction. Three days after trade talks between the two countries collapsed, President Donald Trump declared in a Monday social media post, “We don’t need Canada, they need us!” Doug Ford, the leader of Canada’s largest province, responded : “He can kiss my a—.” Both sides said they intend to ratchet up a trade clash that Canadian Prime Minister Carney said has put the two nations “at war.” While officials hunker down for a fight, investors are hesitant to put much stock in near-term tailwinds for potential beneficiaries. I’m Steel Standing In the middle of last week, things were practically chummy. Trump paused tariffs set to take effect on Wednesday, telling reporters the US and Canada reached a trade deal in which both sides made concessions. Then, late on Friday, Carney directed his negotiators to stop bargaining and leave the US immediately, alleging the Trump administration made unacceptable last-minute demands. Without a pact in hand, Trump on Saturday placed 50% tariffs on roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian imports including wine, cement and hockey equipment. Carney vowed “dollar-for-dollar” retaliation. On Monday, Trump escalated. Starting in 2027, he said, car and truck imports from Canada will face a 50% tariff, up from 25%. Auto parts will face a new 50% tariff. Of particular note, steel imports face a sustained 50% levy. Last week, when a deal seemed almost certain, shares in US producers Nucor, Cleveland-Cliffs, and Steel Dynamics fell, as it looked like they would soon face more Canadian competition. Even though that prospect now seems farther away than Yellowknife, investors are playing it cautious: Nucor, Cleveland-Cliffs, and Steel Dynamics all rose multiple percentage points in early trading on Monday, but eventually gave up most of the gains. Trump’s tariffs have pushed supply onto international markets, where steel is now cheaper, while American buyers are stuck paying more. According to SteelBenchmarker, US hot-rolled band prices reached $1,264 per metric ton on August 12, the highest since 2022. That compares with $825 in Western Europe and a global benchmark of $500, continuing a run of record price spreads. Three Companies: Detroit’s Big Three automakers had a tougher Monday: Shares in Ford fell 3.3%, General Motors 1% and Stellantis 3.5%. At present, the US industry has a trade surplus with Canada, which bought $30.4 billion in vehicles from the US in the first half of the year, while $24.5 billion in Canadian-made vehicles went the other way. If Carney is serious about “dollar-for-dollar” retaliation, that could be one target. Written by Sean Craig PRESENTED BY ALUMNI VENTURES Venture Is No Longer Just a Spectator Sport Photo via Alumni Ventures You used to only be able to claim a stake in the next big company after it made someone else rich. For example, Airbnb’s shares jumped 113% on IPO day in 2020, 1 and by the time you even saw that ticker, the early backers had been in for over a decade. But as private market access continues to open up to individual investors , so does the opportunity to get in before the opening bell rings. On September 17, join Alumni Ventures ’ Managing Partner Laura Rippy and The Daily Upside’s Patrick Trousdale live as they break down where durable opportunities are forming across private markets for individual accredited investors and how venture investments can fit alongside public equities and alternatives in a modern portfolio. Save your seat for the live session. Thursday, September 17, 3pm ET. ENERGY Exxon to Boost Crude Output by Automating Permian Basin Rigs As volatility becomes the status quo for global oil markets, Exxon is embracing a new slogan: auto-drill, baby, auto-drill. On Monday, as markets digested the potential impacts of an “Economic D-Day” waged by the US against Iran and its oil industry, Exxon revealed to Reuters that it has perfected automated drilling in the Permian Basin and, of course, plans to rapidly retrofit its more than 30 rigs across the region in the coming years. Rigged Game Two of the company’s rigs in the Permian Basin are now fully automated, one executive told Reuters, requiring just a single worker controlling the robotic machinery in a small office to do the exhausting work typically done by multiple humans on the rig floor. That dramatically reduces t

From Defensive to Offensive Market Positioning 🚨5 Key Levels To Watch As Market Calls for Bulls From Defensive to Offensive Market Positioning Aug 25 READ IN APP None of this is financial advice. Do your own research. By reading this newsletter, you acknowledge and accept the terms and conditions outlined in our disclaimer . Hey Traders, Bitcoin is still extending its clean advance and has now pushed through the $80,000 level. The same low-leverage character that defined the move remains in place, with spot demand doing most of the work instead of crowded derivatives. The rotation into Ethereum and selected higher-quality names is holding up, but the real tension has moved elsewhere. Treasury’s larger long-end buybacks only produced temporary relief before yields gave most of it back. Stanley Druckenmiller has publicly pushed back on the approach, calling the long bond the market’s main check on fiscal policy. Crypto is treating the liquidity attempt as supportive while the bond market keeps demanding higher term premiums. Our desk still sees the near-term setup as constructive for risk assets, though the next move from the Treasury will matter more than the last one. Here’s what we are watching. Poll of the Day ( Presented by Rain Trade ) 🎯 POLL Is Bitcoin's surge past $78k a genuine bear-market exit or a bull trap? 🚀 Real macro regime shift 🧱 Rejection at $81.8k 🪤 Short-squeeze bull trap Today’s Charts: Chart #1 – AAVE (AAVEUSDT) 4-Hour Chart #2 – Ethena(ENAUSDT) 4-Hour Chart #3 – Bitway(BTWUSDT) 4-Hour Chart #4 – Nexo (NEXOUSDT) 4-Hour Chart #5 – Amazon(AMZN) 4-Hour Stop Trading Headlines. Start Trading Alpha. The desk that moves before the market does • Live community of traders who actually execute, not just talk • Real-time calls dropped while the candle is forming, not after it closes • 4.9/5 rating by 1000+ traders because signal beats noise, every single time Join 247 Research. Get the 24/7 terminal free. 50% off your first month, USE CODE: terminal ($100 off) Chart #1 – AAVE (AAVEUSDT) 4-Hour( Powered by Rain Trade 📊) Chartist: Kapoor (For the chart screenshot, ) Aave has faced a sharp rejection following its aggressive rally toward the $145.00–$147.00 zone, forming lower highs and turning downward to trade near $130.42 on the 4-hour timeframe. Functioning as a premier decentralized, non-custodial liquidity protocol enabling multi-chain crypto lending, borrowing, and GHO stablecoin minting, this short trade setup targets a deeper mean-reversion drop toward the $108.00–$112.00 support pocket as long as overhead resistance holds below $138.00–$146.00. Trade Levels: Entry: $137 Stop Loss: $147 Take Profit Levels (TP): TP1: $123 TP2: $108 Powerful narratives create powerful moves. With 247 Research , you get the insights to be early to the biggest trends in crypto. Chart #2 – Ethena(ENAUSDT) 4-Hour( Powered by Rain Trade ) Chartist: Kapoor (For the chart screenshot, ) Ethena has rejected sharply from its blow-off highs near $0.1800–$0.1850, printing lower highs and breaking down toward the $0.1507 level on the 4-hour timeframe. Functioning as a synthetic dollar protocol providing a crypto-native yield solution through delta-neutral cash-and-carry hedging and the USDe stablecoin, this short trade setup targets a deeper mean-reversion move toward the $0.1150–$0.1200 demand pocket as long as overhead resistance holds below $0.1580–$0.1700. Trade Levels: Entry: $ 0.158 Stop Loss: $0.174 Take Profit Levels (TP): TP1: $0.135 TP2: $0.114 Chart #3 – Bitway(BTWUSDT) 4-Hour( Powered by Rain Trade 📊) Chartist: Kapoor (For the chart screenshot, ) Bitway (BTW) has stabilized and printed a strong bullish recovery off its recent local swing low, pushing back above the $0.4334 support shelf to trade near $0.4638 on the 4-hour timeframe. Functioning as a high-throughput decentralized infrastructure and Web3 utility token, this long trade setup targets an upward expansion toward the $0.6942 overhead resistance target as long as the $0.3466–$0.4334 support base holds. Trade Levels: Entry: $0.433 Stop Loss: 0.346 Take Profit Levels (TP): TP1: $0.554 TP2: $0.694 Chart #4 – Nexo (NEXOUSDT) 4-Hour( Powered by Rain Trade 📊) Chartist: Kapoor (For the chart screenshot, ) Nexo has faced an upper wick rejection following a sharp expansion toward the $0.950–$0.960 area, forming a lower high and turning downward to trade around $0.824 on the 4-hour timeframe. Functioning as a centralized digital asset wealth and lending platform providing interest-bearing crypto accounts, instant crypto-backed credit lines, and institutional prime brokerage services, this short trade setup targets a deeper mean-reversion drop toward the $0.760–$0.770 liquidity pocket as long as overhead resistance holds below $0.850–$0.890. Trade Levels: Entry: $0.853 Stop Loss: $0.887 Take Profit Levels (TP): TP1: $0.805 TP2: $0.760 Markets go both ways. Get premium short setups delivered every day with 247 Research . Chart #5 – Amazon(AMZN) 4-Hour( Powered by Rain Trade 📊) Chartist: Kapoor (For the chart screenshot, ) ( AMZN refers to the stock of Amazon.com, Inc. and not a cryptocurrency.) Amazon.com, Inc. has established a support shelf near $259.96–$262.04 following a pullback from its recent highs, holding higher lows and trading around $262.04 on the 4-hour timeframe. Driven by market leadership across global e-commerce, expanding enterprise cloud infrastructure and generative AI adoption through AWS, alongside high-margin digital advertising revenue, this long trade setup targets an upward expansion toward the $279.54 resistance target as long as the $253.57 support base holds. Trade Levels: Entry: $260 Stop Loss: $250 Take Profit Levels (TP): TP1: $269 TP2: $279 Banter’s Take Our research confirms that the current market structure is shifting from defensive positioning to an offensive bull-market setup, driven by clean spot accumulation rather than leveraged speculation. With Bitcoin extending its advance through the $80,000 level and