Author: AI Editor

Morning Intelligence – The Gist China’s 2025 GDP print landed at 5.0 %, squeaking past Beijing’s own target and soothing markets rattled by Trump-era tariff hikes. Yet the victory is pyrrhic: exports propped up half the expansion while retail sales rose a meagre 0.9 % and new construction starts plunged 20 %, exposing a recovery…

Evening Analysis – The Gist Moscow and Kyiv have reluctantly carved out a one-mile cease-fire corridor around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant after repeated Russian strikes severed its last backup line, forcing Europe’s largest reactor onto diesel generators for 23 days and leaving 40 % of Ukraine’s grid offline in –20 °C conditions. (ft.com) The deal—brokered…

Morning Intelligence – The Gist Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s televised confession that “thousands” died in the two-week uprising finally aligns official rhetoric with the grim tallies of rights groups—3,000-plus dead, 22,000 arrested—and validates protesters’ claims of state-engineered carnage. citeturn0search1turn1news12 The calculus is brutally rational. Tehran coupled live ammunition with an eight-day, near-total internet blackout—now…

Evening Analysis – The Gist Europe and South America today finally clasped hands on the EU-Mercosur accord, birthing a free-trade zone of 700 million people and roughly a quarter of world GDP, scrapping more than 90 % of tariffs over the next decade. Brussels projects a 0.1 % lift to EU GDP by 2031 while…

Morning Intelligence – The Gist Washington’s 15 % tariff truce with Taipei in exchange for at least $250 billion of Taiwanese tech investment marks the most muscular re-shoring gambit since the 1980s U-S-Japan chip wars. TSMC alone plans to lift 2026 cap-ex by 40 % to about $56 billion and fast-track its Arizona fabs, signalling…

Evening Analysis – The Gist China and Canada used Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first Beijing visit to swap pain points for possibilities: Ottawa cuts its tariff on Chinese EVs from 100 % to 6.1 % (initial quota 49 000 cars), while Beijing slashes canola-seed duties from 84 % to 15 %. The quid-pro-quo unlocks an estimated…

Morning Intelligence – The Gist Oil’s 4.2 % slide to $63.55 / bbl after Washington dialed back threats against Iran is more than a knee-jerk market retrace; it reveals how geopolitical signalling still trumps OPEC+ cuts and tepid demand in setting price floors. Brent has now erased the entire $3 risk-premium accumulated since protests flared…

Evening Analysis – The Gist Greenland has become the sharpest edge of today’s widening Arctic contest. France, Germany, Norway and Sweden flew company-sized units into Nuuk overnight, answering Denmark’s appeal after Washington revived talk of “taking” the island for U.S. security. Moscow calls NATO’s build-up “myth-driven hysteria,” yet Russia itself has re-opened 50 plus Arctic…

Morning Intelligence – The Gist The Senate’s new crypto-market bill has cracked open a rift between two pillars of American finance. Traditional banks warn that 3.5 % “rewards” on dollar-pegged stablecoins could siphon as much as $6.6 trn in deposits, eclipsing their sub-0.1 % average checking yield and starving local lenders of loanable funds. Crypto…

Evening Analysis – The Gist Washington’s quiet pull-back from Al Udeid and other Gulf hubs signals more than force-protection; it exposes how economic and military deterrence are converging. Tehran’s warning that host states “will be targets” if the U.S. strikes, coupled with a death toll surpassing 2,600 in Iran’s protests, shows a regime betting its…