All's Not So Quiet On Any Front

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

Project Freedom. Cute move! Notice that it’s not Operation Freedom. That would frame it as a military move.

The President is tactically framing this as a humanitarian action. Mr. Trump has advised Congress as of May 1 that hostilities with Iran (Operation Epic Fury) are terminated, at the 60-day limit of the War Powers Resolution. Commercial ships from countries not involved in the Iran / US dispute will now get escorted safely through the Strait of Hormuz by US naval vessels.

(Later amended by CENTCOM, around 9a.m. Monday as being protected by US Navy vessels “in the vicinity.”)

Any attack on these ships by Iran would prompt a forceful response and trigger a re-wind of the clock on the War Powers Resolution (WPR), meaning, another sixty days to conduct military operations, such as the destruction of key bridges and electric power plants promised earlier. Iran’s leadership — whoever that is — thought it could juke Mr. Trump on the 60-day deadline by stalling negotiations while it reorganized its remaining missile launchers. Tactical fail. Incidentally, the Supreme Court has never directly ruled on the WPR’s constitutionality or enforced the 60-day limit.

Also, by the way, the “neutral and innocent bystanders” designation means that oil tankers from Kuwait, the Emirate states, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia will be given safe escorts out of the Persian Gulf. That will have two effects: 1) avert the “shutting-in” of their productive oil wells (and the prospective geological damage to the oil fields); and 2) alleviate the price pressure on oil generally with new supply reentering the global oil market.

You can conclude that this “project” will bring new pressure on the “whoevers” running Iran to stop shucking and jiving about how this thing ends — which is them surrendering the 1000-pounds of 60-percent enriched uranium stashed somewhere on their premises. Of course, coming to terms on the nuclear bomb-making issue would allow Iran the possibility of becoming, once more, a normal advanced industrial modern nation, should it also decide to eschew the rule of the mullahs and their psychotic minions in the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC). But that remains to be seen.

The other major project underway is on the domestic US scene: the much-needed severe beat-down of the so-called Democratic Party that has become captive to seditionists, overt communists, racketeers, and jihadis.

DOJ prosecutions of color revolutionaries accelerate under Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. James Comey finally has to account for his “86 / 47” seashell prank in a Carolina federal court while a long-dormant case was revived in the Eastern District of Virginia of Comey having used Columbia prof Daniel Richman as a cut-out to leak classified information to the press at the inception of RussiaGate, 2017.

Nobody knows exactly what’s going down in the Southern District of Florida these days (no leaks) where a grand Jury was convened in January to hear evidence in the RussiaGate matter including the years’ long train of organized seditions aimed at bum-rushing Mr. Trump out of the Oval Office in his first term, plus the mounting of various other operations (2020 election-rigging, the J-6 “Fedsurrection,” and maliciously fake serial prosecutions) aimed at stuffing him in prison at the end of that term.

All this is being treated as a “grand conspiracy” involving scores of agency officials and lawfare ninjas operating in the penumbra at the edge of government.

Do not be surprised when rafts of indictments come out of the Fort Pierce, Florida, grand jury, probably in bunches, each bunch dedicated to a particular phase or operation.

Characters such as former President Barack Obama, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Senator Adam Schiff (D-CS), CIA-agent Eric Ciaramella, legal tacticians Norm Eisen, Marc Elias, and Mary McCord, Andrew Weissmann, crooked member of the Senate Intel Committee Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), and former CIA Directors Brennan with former DNI James Clapper, were involved in multiple seditions and possible treasons. Supporting actors such as the tag-team of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, former Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, former AG Merrick Garland, former Deputy AG Lisa Monaco, former Sec’y of State Hillary Clinton, “Joe Biden” autopen operators Jake Sullivan, Mike Donlon, Steve Richetti, Anita Dunn, Neera Tanden, former Sec’y of State Antony Blinken, and Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice, are probably in the mix somewhere, too.

The trials that come out of all this action will be mighty interesting shows. What they will show is what an absolutely criminal organization the Democratic Party became sometime during Barack Obama’s second term, and how each criminal act since then has provoked further criminal acts in the attempt to cover-up the train of crime.

On top of that, you see the first glimmers of action against the villains behind the Covid-19 operation, which was used as an additional instrument of sedition to eject President Trump from office with mail-in ballot fraud.

That was the eventual outcome anyway, though it appears that Anthony Fauci’s NIAID agency was subcontracting out the development of this disease at least a decade earlier. And now, Dr. Fauci’s chief advisor, David Morens, is indicted on extremely serious charges including conspiracy against the United States, destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations (multiple counts), and concealment, removal, or mutilation of records (multiple counts).

This is serious business. It is likely to lead to Dr. Fauci, Dr. Deborah Birx, and other public health officials who ran a dastardly number on the citizens of this land. Be advised: the autopen pardons of “Joe Biden” will be tested in court.

While all this goes on in the months ahead, don’t underestimate what is liable to emerge from the ongoing FBI investigations into massive social service and health service fraud by the Democratic Party in its Blue State strongholds.

It is going to get very ugly. A governor or two (or three, or more) could be slammed with indictments for colluding to conceal vast episodes of organized grift.

All that. . . and then the SCOTUS decision striking down Congressional redistricting along racial lines — probably leading to the loss of up to ten Democratic seats in the House later this year.

Ouch! That one is really going to sting.

So, if you happen to believe that the concluding scenes of Operation Epic Fury in Iran will somehow work to advantage the Democratic party to sweep the midterm elections, better rethink your strategery (as George W. Bush liked to style the art of political warfare).

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/04/2026 - 16:20

Welfare Enrollment Drops Sharply Following New Federal Work Requirements

Via American Greatness,

Enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program has declined significantly since new federal work requirements took effect in mid-2025, with millions fewer Americans receiving benefits, according to newly reported federal data.

The number of people enrolled in SNAP has fallen by roughly 3.5 million since July 2025, dropping from an average of 42.1 million participants in the prior fiscal year to about 38.5 million as of January 2026, according to reporting by The Wall Street Journal.

The decline follows the implementation of expanded eligibility rules included in the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” signed into law by Donald Trump on July 4, 2025.

The legislation broadened existing work requirements for able-bodied adults, mandating that individuals between the ages of 18 and 64 without young dependents participate in at least 80 hours per month of work, volunteering, or government-run programs.

Previously, the requirements applied to a narrower age group and included different criteria for dependents, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees SNAP. Officials told The Wall Street Journal that the recent changes represent the most sweeping adjustments to the program in decades.

Under the updated policy, eligibility restrictions have also tightened for some categories of legal immigrants. Federal law has long barred undocumented immigrants from receiving SNAP benefits.

Data compiled by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that nearly every state has experienced a decline since the policy took effect.

Alaska, Hawaii, and Kentucky are exceptions, each reporting modest increases.

Meanwhile, SNAP participation in Guam has risen sharply, while Puerto Rico operates under a separate nutrition assistance program.

Several states, including Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, and Tennessee, have reported double-digit percentage declines. In response, some state officials have begun efforts to connect affected residents with employment and volunteer opportunities to help them meet the new requirements.

Arizona has seen the steepest drop, with participation falling by more than half.

According to state data, more than 424,000 fewer residents are receiving benefits, including approximately 181,000 children. State officials attributed much of the decline to the rapid implementation of the new federal rules.

“The expanded work requirements were primarily responsible for the drop,” Brett Bezio, a spokesman for Arizona’s Department of Economic Security, told The Wall Street Journal.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/04/2026 - 15:00

Trump Renews Call For Israel To Pardon Teflon Bibi, The "Wartime Prime Minister"

President Trump has renewed US pressure on some Israeli government decision-makers to grant a pardon to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he's still battling multiple corruption charges, at a moment he has ordered the armed forces to be engaged in several fronts, including in Lebanon. 

Trump told the Israeli outlet Kan News on Sunday, "Tell your president to pardon Bibi. He's a wartime prime minister. They wouldn’t have Israel if it wasn’t for me and Bibi in that order. You want to have a PM that can focus on the war, not focus on nonsense."

via Reuters

Trump interestingly tried to flip the script with this statement, at a moment some conservative 'influencers' have increasingly attacked the White House for falling too much under Israeli influence. 

But the US President is here saying the White House controls the narrative on Israel and its fate, not the other way around. And yet it also clearly affirms the airtight relationship, at a moment US naval forces are bogged down in trying to open back up the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump is directing his request to pardon Netanyahu to the only top official with the power to make it happen - Israel's President Issac Herzog.

"I like the guy, Herzog," Trump said in the fresh remarks. "He will be a national hero if he gives Bibi a pardon. I will very much appreciate it." Trump has also long charged that this is a "witch hunt" by Bibi's enemies.

Netanyahu has long been accused, even within Israel, of seeking to prolong Israel's 'multi-front' wars in order to permanently delay the corruption trial and ensure his time in power is extended.

The trial focuses on three corruption cases - including charges of fraud and breach of trust, as well as charges of bribery.

The allegations range from illegally receiving expensive gifts based on political favors, to quid pro quo agreements with some Israeli media sources for more favorable coverage, to authorizing telecom-related regulatory decisions to benefit friends and allies.

In the meantime, Herzog says he does not plan to make a decision before ongoing negotiations with Netanyahu's legal team have reached conclusion. An October election loss for Netanyahu's Likud party means he could actually face jail time.

//--> //--> //--> Will Benjamin Netanyahu be the next Prime Minister of Israel?
Yes 47% · No 54%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

However, he's long been called 'Teflon Bibi' for his ability to dodge major political bullets over the years and decades, while staying in power as the country's longest serving prime minister.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/04/2026 - 14:40

Deutsche Bank's Woke ESG Whistleblower Denied Millions By SEC For Tattling To Press

In 2021, Deutsche Bank sustainability chief Desiree Fixler thought she was going to make millions after she blew the whistle with claims that the bank did not adhere to its goal of integrating ESG (environmental, social and governance) into all investment decisions. Fixler - who worked within the bank's DWS Group asset management arm - became a witness for the SEC, which fined the bank's asset-management arm $19 million in 2023.

And had she actually gotten the SEC reward of 10% - 30%, it would have amounted to millions... 

Desiree Fixler, former sustainability chief at DWS, poses for virtuous whistleblower PR in 2021. She's looking off into the distance imagining how she'll spend the reward money. 

...however, because Fixler (who was fired) ran to the Wall Street Journal before the SEC, they denied her a payout. 

The Wall Street Journal previously reported Fixler’s concerns about Deutsche Bank’s ESG business in an August 2021 article.

DWS misled investors about how it integrated ESG criteria into its investing process, Fixler told the Journal. DWS told clients that every investment team used ESG factors to make decisions. But she found a case in which Wirecard AG, a German payments-service provider that went bankrupt in a fraud scandal, ended up in an actively managed ESG fund, which was supposed to promote companies with good governance. 

She filed a complaint with the SEC three days after The Journal’s article appeared. She later spent over 100 hours walking the commission’s staff through Deutsche Bank’s ESG program and how investment firms screen for ESG risks in public companies, she said in an interview. 

The SEC acknowledged in an order denying Fixler’s award request that it opened its investigation based on her statements to the Journal. But it didn’t consider her cooperation to be “voluntary” because she didn’t approach the SEC first. -WSJ

"Where a claimant provides information to a media outlet, and commission staff learn of the allegations from the media outlet, a claimant has not provided the commission with information," the SEC wrote. 

Fixler and her lawyer, Stephen Kohn, say the SEC's definition of "voluntary" does not comport with a plain-English meaning of the term, and discourages whistleblowers from using traditional methods of spreading concerns about wrongdoing - the media. 

"This is a warning shot to every whistleblower who thinks about going to the press," said Fixler. 

Maybe she can escort kids to the Hunger Games to make ends meet when ESG finishes destroying the global economy?

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/04/2026 - 14:00

Largest Viking Age Coin Hoard Ever Found In Norway Shocks Archaeologists

Authored by Maria Mocerino,

Hailed as a “historic discovery,” metal detectorists led archaeologists to the largest Viking Age hoard of silver coins ever to be found in Norway, reflecting the Vikings’ extensive network and a pivotal turning point in Norway’s history.

The largest coin hoard in Norwegian history.Innlandet County Council

On April 10, metal detectorists Vegard Sørlie and Rune Sætre uncovered 19 silver coins that quickly turned into an astonishing treasure when archaeologists rushed to the site. The number of coins grew exponentially—initially to 70, then to 500, and eventually to over 1,000.

Archaeologist May-Tove Smiseth described the find, named the “Mørstad Hoard,” as “a once-in-a-lifetime” discovery that surpassed all expectations. Currently, the hoard contains between 2,970 and 3,150 pieces, and archaeologists are still on-site, expecting to unearth even more coins.

Beyond their value as currency and historical artifacts, these coins tell the story of a country transitioning between the 980s and the 1040s, a time when foreign currency dominated and Norway would establish its own mint.

On the brink of a national Norwegian mint

Described as “a national and international event,” the discovery has stunned archaeologists, who call it “absolutely fantastic.”

“Few things are as exciting as the Viking Age in Norway.”

A coin from the Mørstad hoard near Rena showing a kings head in profile. The inscription includes the king’s name: EDELRED. Credit: May-Tove Smiseth, Innlandet County Council

The hoard has inspired archaeologists. “This is a truly unique discovery that you may only expect once in your career.” This is it. For archaeologists, this is the Oscar Award of coin hoards.

This coin hoard, “without parallel,” was located in a field near Rena, in Innlandet County. Boasting an “unbelievable” assortment of coins, they provide an exciting snapshot of the country’s economy at a time of deep political shift.

Experts from the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo have examined the coins and found that most are of English and German origin, with some Danish and Norwegian coins among them.

The presence of English and German coins in a Viking hoard raises intriguing questions: why were these foreign coins found in Norway? Principally.

The hoard dates between the 980s and the 1040s. It reflects a peak in Viking power; the “Second Viking Age” encompasses the late 10th and the early 11th centuries. This silver captures this era.

Most of these were minted under Cnut the Great (the height of Viking power), Æthelred II, Otto III, and others. But Harald Hardrada, also represented in this stash, presumably tossed aside as just too much cash, would replace the foreign entities with one currency. He established a national mint.

So the find is exceptional, as a living, breathing, moving history.

How many coins will they find?

Archaeologists continue to beam with excitement, “truly.”

“Being present when something like this comes to light is simply a great experience, both professionally and personally,” says archaeologist and senior advisor at Innlandet County Council, May-Tove Smiseth, in a press release.

They are still conducting investigations onsite, expecting to find more of these “capital stashes,” as iron was minted in this region and then exported to Europe, so they were found in an industrial center.

This hoard doesn’t appear to belong to an individual, also distinguishing it from the hoards that tend to surface. It does not reflect the wealth of an affluent individual but rather the state, government, or ruling body. Iron production was booming.

Archaeologists from the Innlandet County Authority and detectorists have collaborated on the find and have been in close dialogue with the Museum of Cultural History and the Directorate for Cultural Heritage.
Innlandet County Authority

Speechless and overjoyed, archaeologists are officially guarding the area, having blocked all access until they complete their investigations. They are even singing the praises of the two metal detectorists.

“What makes this even more gratifying is the way the find has been handled.”

These two pioneering enthusiasts had taken the courses that the county offers to detectorists. They followed the necessary protocol to ensure that this priceless history would fall into the right hands.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/04/2026 - 13:40

A Property Tax Rebellion Is Emerging In America

Authored by Aaron Gifford via The Epoch Times,

At a petition table inside a Cleveland area gun show on a drizzly Saturday afternoon, citizens talk of an American Dream derailed.

There’s the elderly couple who paid off their mortgage decades ago but can’t afford the property taxes on their home. Their local government, theoretically, can seize the property and auction it off to someone else if the annual bills remain unpaid.

Then there’s the recent retiree who took a part-time job at Lowe’s to pay property taxes on his rental property and avoid raising his tenants’ rent.  

Add empty nesters who can’t downsize to smaller houses because interest rates are too high,  farmers describing an impossible situation, and recent college graduates groaning about moving further away from home to an affordable place.

Show goers, guns and ammo in hand, pause at Beth Blackmarr’s table on their way out and share with her those concerns.

If 413,000 residents throughout the Buckeye State sign a petition before July 1, a public vote to eliminate local property taxes will appear on the November ballot.

If the signature count falls short, whatever is collected can be applied the following year, or however long it takes, said Blackmarr, media coordinator and a main volunteer for the 3,000-plus member Citizens for Property Tax Reform group.

“We are really hurting in Ohio,” she told The Epoch Times. “People never thought they’d be in this situation.”

Beth Blackmarr, a volunteer with Ohio-based Citizens for Property Tax Reform, organizes forms during a petition drive at a gun show near Cleveland on April 25, 2026. The group is seeking enough signatures to place a measure eliminating local property taxes on the November ballot. Aaron Gifford/The Epoch Times

Ohio isn’t alone. Forty-six states and the District of Columbia already have limits on annual local property tax levy increases, and leaders in Florida and Texas are pursuing additional legislation to limit government “flexibility” in how it raises revenues, according to a September report from McKinsey and Co., a global management consulting firm whose clients include state and local governments.

Schools, already strapped for cash, hang in the balance. School districts struggle with declining student enrollment, unfunded mandates, state and federal aid loss largely due to skyrocketing Medicaid costs, and spiking employee health insurance costs.

On the local level, mayors and town boards face similar challenges as they try to continue providing public safety, utilities, and infrastructure services.

Fed-up homeowners say it’s high time to try another way to pay their community’s civil servants, perhaps through higher sales tax or state income tax rates, along with slashing administrative bloat in schools and city halls.

“Let the state find a way where 100 percent of the population pays for education,” Ron Shumate, one of Blackmarr’s volunteers from suburban Cincinnati, told The Epoch Times. “They give profit-making businesses a break, but not us.”

Ron Shumate, 83, a resident and homeowner of Springfield Township in Hamilton County, Ohio, on April 21, 2026. Shumate, a volunteer with Blackmarr’s group, helps to collect signatures to place a measure abolishing property taxes on the ballot. Glenn Hartong for The Epoch Times

Across States and Communities

In Massachusetts, a citizens group in Great Barrington, near Springfield, wants to shift more of the costs for schools and local infrastructure to part-time residents who own vacation homes. If All Band Together gets its way, the current annual property tax on a full-time residence assessed at $200,000, for example, would decrease by $1,293, while the amount for a seasonal home with the same assessment would increase by $356, according to the group’s website.

In Minnesota and North Dakota, Republican lawmakers have proposed a cap on property tax increases based on the rate of inflation and population growth. If the rate of inflation is 3 percent and the population of a community grows by 1 percent, for example, then the increase cap for the taxing entity would be 3.5 percent. Overriding the cap would require voter approval.

John Phelan, an economist for Minnesota-based Center of the American Experiment, which wrote the model legislation for both states, said the proposal was prompted by property tax hikes last year of between 8 percent and 9.5 percent in some counties. School boards decide on annual district operating budgets and subsequent tax levies; voters only have a say on major expenditures beyond personnel and fixed costs, such as the creation of a multimillion-dollar technology fund.

“The burden shouldn’t be driven by asset values,” Phelan told The Epoch Times. “If [school districts] want to spend more money, they should get permission from the population.”

In Montana, Republican state lawmakers are pursuing a 2 percent cap on property tax hikes for local government funding, but not for schools, which consume about 55 percent of property tax revenues.

Kendall Cotton, president and CEO of the Frontier Institute research and policy center, called the legislation a good start, but said more relief is needed, as home appraisals in growing communities increased by 60 percent this year, resulting in double-digit property tax hikes.

“These big jumps put a lot of pressure on the system, but governments have not been responding in kind,” Cotton told The Epoch Times.

He cited an example of a school district near the state capital, where taxpayers were asked on short notice to cover expensive boiler replacements ahead of Montana’s frigid winter. That project should have been paid in full with the federal COVID-19 relief aid years earlier, considering the heating equipment was approaching the end of its life cycle. Instead, school leaders used the grants to hire more administrators and mental health counselors.

“Misplaced priorities,” he said. “People are really being taxed out of their homes. We are just renting from the government.”

Members of Nebraska’s Epic Option citizen group, like their peers in Ohio, are collecting signatures for a ballot initiative to eliminate property taxes. They paused their efforts to obtain the required 160,000 signatures this year and instead will focus on 2028, according to the group’s website.

A pen and petition at Ron Shumate’s home in Springfield Township, Ohio, on April 21, 2026. Shumate said the state should find alternative revenue sources to fund schools and local government. Glenn Hartong for The Epoch Times

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott suggested eliminating school property taxes, and Florida state lawmakers have proposed ending local government property taxes but not school taxes.

A bill in the Georgia state legislature calls for phasing out property taxes and increasing the sales tax. A similar bill was introduced in Pennsylvania. Various property tax reform measures have been proposed in Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wyoming, according to their respective state legislature websites.

School Budget Woes

More than one-third of U.S. public school funding comes from local property taxes, while the remainder is provided by state and federal aid, as well as municipal and state sales taxes, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Some states also apply lottery and gambling revenues.

All told, K–12 spending across the country now exceeds $1 trillion, the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University reported on April 23.

It also said public per-student spending ranges from about $11,000 in Idaho to more than $31,887 in the District of Columbia. Staffing and school tax rates continue to increase in most districts, while student enrollment decreases.

Typical state and federal aid formulas are based on enrollment, so districts must either cut costs or raise local taxes to offset the decreasing amount of per-student aid. The dependence on $189 billion in federal COVID-19 pandemic relief money, which prompted massive hiring sprees but is now exhausted, has exacerbated the financial crisis in many districts that serve low-income communities with large populations of special needs students.

Morse High School students in Bath, Maine, on Dec. 4, 2025. More than a third of U.S. public school funding comes from local property taxes, while the remainder is provided by state and federal aid, as well as municipal and state sales taxes, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

The Buffalo, New York, city school district, for example, added 900 workers between 2018 and 2025—including a 569 percent increase in administrative and central office employees—even though enrollment decreased by 11 percent, or 3,679 students, according to the Edunomics Lab.

Buffalo City School District officials previously told The Epoch Times that they implemented a four-year plan to eliminate more than 400 positions, mostly through attrition, and close two school buildings after 2026.

Nationally, public K–12 enrollment decreased by about 900,500 students in the past decade, while staffing during the same time period increased by about 700,000, or 11.9 percent, according to the Edunomics Lab. The organization also reported planned school layoffs or staff reductions this year in Boston; Cleveland; Milwaukee; Las Vegas; Los Angeles; San Diego; San Francisco; Fresno, California; Richmond, Virginia; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Toledo, Ohio; Anchorage, Alaska; Cedar Rapids, Iowa;  Fort Lauderdale, Florida;  and “countless small and mid-sized districts.”

“This isn’t temporary,” the Edunomics Lab said in an email to The Epoch Times. “It’s a reset.”

Rising Property Values, Higher Taxes

Local property taxes for funding schools and municipal governments are typically based on a $1,000 rate of a home’s assessed value. It’s expected that assessed values in most places are below what a property would sell for, though town, city, and county assessors are tasked with revaluing homes on a regular basis based on changing market values. Higher assessments equal more money for taxing entities.

In addition to school tax increase caps and percentage limits on the taxable values levied on a property, many states, including Ohio, offer slight discounts to low-income households, particularly those owned by seniors who rely on Social Security.

Still, opponents say, stagnant wage growth isn’t keeping up with inflation plus annual property tax increases.

Blackmarr said the monthly property taxes on her home in Lakewood, Ohio, total $383, or $31 more than the principal and interest payments on her mortgage. In 2007, her property taxes on the same house accounted for only 15 percent of the monthly payment, compared to nearly 50 percent today.

She knows of a 58-year-old property owner who extended his mortgage for at least another 30 years because increased property tax and home insurance rates recently pushed his monthly payments, which he began in 2001, out of reach.

Shumate, 83, is bracing for a big bill: A neighbor just sold a much smaller home for $348,000— more than twice as much as Shumate paid for his house seven years ago; the last municipal appraisal in the neighborhood took place in 2021. He believes he can afford higher taxes but worries about his neighbors. The system also discourages homeowners from improving their properties with additions, renovations, or swimming pools.

“The American dream is to own a home, work for at least 30 years, pay it off, retire 10 years later, and be comfortable,” he said. “If you’re relying on Social Security, that won’t happen.”

Taxpayers Want Their Say

The process for authorizing school district budgets varies across the country, with many states requiring voter approval for tax increases related to operational costs and major purchases, but not labor contracts.

Some allow residents to decide on local school board candidates, but not district spending plans, unless the proposal exceeds the state cap for property tax increases.

Either way, massive expenditures for things such as bus fleets, new athletic facilities, technology investments, or the creation of a new dedicated fund often require a public referendum.

In Western Massachusetts, voters in the South Hadley school district on April 14 rejected an override proposition that would raise property taxes by up to 50 percent to maintain all current staffing and programs. Now, school leaders there are poised to cut several administrator and teaching jobs, Advanced Placement courses, music classes, and all sports and extracurricular activities, according to documents on the district website.

Members of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance citizens’ group celebrated the outcome.

“People are tired of being taxed to death and seeing the money stolen,” a supporter posted on the group’s Facebook page.

In Minnesota, lawmakers approved enhanced summer unemployment benefits for school bus drivers and then eliminated them a year later because of the growing state budget deficit. Voters in most districts, Phelan said, probably wouldn’t have approved it in the first place; nor would they approve the progressive curricula mandates or taxpayer contributions to the teacher retirement fund.

In Ohio, the passage rate in public votes to override property tax hikes above the state cap reached a low of 19 percent in 2024, compared to a historical passing rate of 37 percent, according to the McKinsey report.

Ohioan Gene Wodzisz purchased his home, a bungalow in the town of Parma, 53 years ago for $42,000. The improvements and additions made to the property have significantly increased its taxable value in recent years.

Wodzisz told The Epoch Times that he can cover the taxes but disagrees in principle: He paid for his own children’s private school tuition while also contributing to local public schools for more than half a century now.

“I understand when it’s for families that don’t have much money, but if you’re making $100,000?  Let’s be reasonable. Parents need to pay closer attention to their school boards,” he said.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/04/2026 - 13:10

Cigna To Exit Obamacare In 2027 Amid Rising Costs

Authored by Mary Prenon via The Epoch Times,

The Cigna Group, one of the country’s largest health services and insurance firms, is joining others, including Aetna and UnitedHealthcare, in divesting its individual health exchange business.

By the end of 2026, Cigna Group will no longer offer insurance through the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as “Obamacare,” the company said during its April 30 earnings call.

According to its first-quarter earnings report, as of March 31, the company’s individual exchange business had 369,000 members in individual and family plans.

“We did not make this decision lightly, and appreciate the importance of ensuring patients have continuity through the transition,” Brian Evanko, Cigna Group’s president, chief operating officer, and incoming CEO, said during the earnings call.

“Looking to the future, there’s no question that the status quo in healthcare is unsustainable. Costs continue to rise, as does demand for healthcare services, an untenable equation,” he said.

“We will support members through their open enrollment transitions into 2027.”

Cigna’s decision comes after other health insurance companies, such as CVS Health and UnitedHealthcare, divested insurance business under the ACA.

In its first-quarter 2025 earnings report, released on Feb. 10, CVS Health announced that it was exiting its individual exchange business, where its health insurance arm, Aetna, independently operates ACA plans, beginning in 2026.

Years earlier, UnitedHealthcare said in a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission in December 2016 that its Employer and Individual program would participate in individual public exchanges in only three states in 2017, a sharp reduction from 34 states in 2016.

At the beginning of this year, the Alliance of Safety-net Hospitals predicted that expiring tax credits for buying health insurance under ACA exchanges could affect nearly 4.8 million people in 2026, as the cost of such plans continues to escalate.

Evanko said Cigna’s decision to vacate the individual healthcare business now is necessary in order to support the firm’s strategic direction for the future. This will allow the insurer to focus its efforts on enhancing customer service with streamlined pharmacy services and additional system improvements.

Evanko noted that over the years, Cigna has continued to add or subtract from its portfolio as needed to position its core healthcare business for sustainable growth.

Last year, Cigna divested its group life and disability business, touting the recent sale of its Medicare businesses.

“Divesting each of these assets enabled greater focus and investment in the remaining businesses within our portfolio, supporting our forward-looking growth path,” he noted.

However, in 2025, Cigna acquired CarepathRx, a pharmacy service dealing with more than 40 health systems and 1,000 hospitals. Last year, Cigna also invested in Shields Health Solutions, which allows it to partner with hospitals and health systems serving patients with complex needs or requiring specialty medications.

Cigna’s first-quarter earnings of $68.52 billion outpaced market expectations of $66.2 billion. Its earnings per share of $7.79 also exceeded the forecasted $7.61.

However, the company’s shares declined by 2.64 percent on May 1, closing at $282.90.

Going forward, Evanko said the insurer plans to continue embracing data and modern technology to improve customer satisfaction and offer more personalized services.

Evanko noted that Cigna has also introduced Signature, its new rebate-free pharmacy benefits model.

According to Evanko, high-cost branded prescriptions represent about 10 percent of all prescriptions nationwide, but nearly 90 percent of total drug spending. The new Signature model is designed with the patient at the center, and its Price Assure capacity guarantees consumers the lowest possible out-of-pocket costs when filling their prescriptions.

Cigna expects the Signature model to become standard in 2028 and for at least 50 percent of its Evernorth Pharmacy Benefit Services members to be enrolled in Signature by the end of 2028.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/04/2026 - 12:40

3 Dead, 149 Trapped Onboard: Track Cruise Ship With Suspected Deadly Virus Outbreak

A luxury cruise ship carrying 149 passengers and crew is facing a suspected hantavirus outbreak that has already left three people dead. The vessel is currently anchored offshore near Cape Verde, the island nation in the central Atlantic off the west coast of Africa, as health officials rush to assess the scale of the outbreak.

The MV Hondius is currently anchored offshore near Praia, the capital and largest city of Cape Verde. Ship-tracking data show the vessel anchored just off the coast on Sunday after transiting from Argentina, with its prior voyage originating near the Antarctic Peninsula.

Track the virus-plagued ship.

Hondius's operator, Oceanwide Expeditions, told BBC News that a Dutch husband and wife, as well as a German national, had died but did not reveal the cause of death. However, the Dutch company said hantavirus was confirmed in a 69-year-old UK national who is in intensive care in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The main transmission risk of the deadly virus to humans is through infected rodent urine, droppings, saliva, or contaminated dust, especially in poorly ventilated areas. People can inhale contaminated particles when rodent waste is disturbed.

Oceanwide Expeditions confirmed two other crew members on board "with acute respiratory symptoms, one mild and one severe."

"It is not entirely uncommon for rodents to hitch a ride on a ship, which would be one possibility," Charlotte Hammer, assistant professor and infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Cambridge, told the UK Science Media Center.

Hammer noted, "People having been infected when the ship last made port in Argentina is another possibility. The last possibility would be human-to- human transmission, which, particularly at scale, would be very unlikely."

Bloomberg quoted the World Health Organization, which is "facilitating coordination between member states and the ship's operators for medical evacuation of two symptomatic passengers, as well as a full public health risk assessment and support to the remaining passengers on board."

This is yet another reminder of why cruises are a terrible way to spend a holiday.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/04/2026 - 12:20

Colorblind Constitution: The Roberts Court Ends A 'Sordid Business'

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais, barring racial gerrymandering, has many on the left feigning vapors, despite the predictions of many of us that this result was likely.

While figures such as Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) declared that the court itself has been “gerrymandered” to rig the upcoming elections, this decision is actually the culmination of decades of jurisprudence by various justices — particularly Chief Justice John Roberts.

Indeed, the decision will cement the legacy of the Roberts Court in moving the country toward a colorblind system of laws.

Like most Americans, Roberts abhors racial discrimination in any form. He holds the quaint idea that when the drafters of the 14th Amendment barred discrimination on the basis of race, they meant it. This is why, in 2006, Roberts famously wrote, “It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.”

Roberts sees no difference between such discrimination when it disfavors one or another race. It is all a sordid business, and he has spent decades writing eloquent arguments for the court to abandon its conflicted and hypocritical approach to racial discrimination.

The court has struggled to rationalize using race to discriminate when it serves a higher purpose, such as greater equity or affirmative action. Some of those opinions were constitutionally incomprehensible.

For example, in 2003, in Grutter v. Bollinger, the court divided five to four on whether to uphold racial admissions criteria used to achieve “diversity” in a class at the University of Michigan Law School. However, in her opinion with the majority, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor stated that she “expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.”

Few of us could understand how O’Connor found a type of expiration date on permissible racial criteria in the Constitution.

Throughout that period, however, certain justices held firm that there is a bright-line rule against such racial criteria. That includes the author of the court’s Callais decision, Justice Samuel Alito, but also Roberts, who in 2007, put it succinctly: “The way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

One can certainly disagree with this interpretation and the low tolerance for racial criteria. However, this had nothing to do with the midterm elections. It is the result of dozens of opinions building up to this point.

From college admissions to gerrymandering, the court has created the bright line that figures like Roberts have long sought. In doing so, they have moved this country closer to a colorblind jurisprudence than at any time in our history.

The Biden administration was found repeatedly to have violated the Constitution through racial discrimination in federal programs. Democratic leaders have fought this trend and have pledged to reverse these decisions. Some even demand that Democrats pack the Court with a liberal majority as soon as they retake power.

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services that whites cannot be placed under additional burdens when bringing discrimination lawsuits.

Much of the coverage of the Callais decision is long on rhetoric and short on substance. The court did not “gut” the Voting Rights Act. It also did not strike down Section 2 of the act. Rather, the court held that neither the act nor the Constitution gives legislators authority to manipulate districts so as to effectively guarantee the race of the elected representatives — any race.

For decades, the courts have faced endless litigation over district configurations designed to elect minority representatives. It is a system that gave candidates an advantage based solely on their race. The court held that such racial gerrymandering is unlawful. The Voting Rights Act will now be read to prevent intentional racial discrimination. Courts will still bar any districts designed “to afford minority voters less opportunity because of their race.”

That does not mean that racial discrimination has been eliminated in our nation, or that we do not need to commit ourselves wholly to its eradication. The stain of slavery and segregation remains with us, as does the lingering scourge of racial prejudice. African Americans and other minorities still face invidious discrimination that cannot be tolerated in our system. We still have much work to be done.

In the area of voting rights, the courts have and will continue to strike down any rules designed to suppress or block minority voters.

Despite this ongoing struggle with racism, there are reasons to be hopeful.

As the Rev. Martin Luther King put it, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Non-whites are now powerful players in American politics. White voters are expected to be a minority in this country within two decades.

We have now elected a black president and a black vice president. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (who declared the Court “illegitimate” after the Callais opinion) expects to be the next Speaker of the House of Representatives.

This progress was hard-fought, and both the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act played important roles in achieving greater racial diversity in our society.

And the Callais decision is also part of that progress. We are moving into a new era where racial criteria and discrimination are neither rationalized nor tolerated. There is now reason to hope that we will indeed end “this sordid business, this divvying us up by race.”

Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.“

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/04/2026 - 11:45

Pirates Of The Arabian

By Stefan Koopman, senior macro strategist at Rabobank

“We landed on top of it. We took over the ship, the cargo, the oil. It’s a very profitable business… We’re like pirates.” President Trump’s remarks were, once again, strikingly blunt and unfiltered, to the point of sounding almost satirical. Yet the irony is real. The US president was openly acknowledging that American naval power in the Arabian Sea is now being used in ways that mirror the practices it was once built to suppress.

Negotiating with pirates is difficult. While this weekend’s headlines finally hint at diplomacy between the US and Iran, the gap between their positions appears wider than the Strait itself. Iran continues to cling to maximalist demands, while the US rejects them as unacceptable. For now, no credible outlines of a deal have emerged.

In the meantime, Washington is trying a different tactic. The US is encouraging neutral commercial vessels to run the blockade, putting Iran’s threats to the test. It has offered to help guide stranded ships through the Strait by sharing information on safer transit routes (e.g. no mines) and, potentially, insurance support. Although US navy vessels may operate nearby, this falls short of formal military escorts, which would likely violate the ceasefire. Even so, the approach carries obvious risks, as it could still result in exchanges of fire with Iranian ships, which might then lead to further escalation.

From Washington’s perspective, that risk is not entirely unwelcome. Any Iranian attack on neutral shipping would strengthen the US public‑relations case and might make it a bit easier to assemble the international coalition that has so far proven elusive.

This is a savvy legal move by Trump.

May 1: War Powers letter formally ends hostilities, preserves force posture, asserts Article II constitutional authority.

May 3: "Project Freedom" announced as a humanitarian operation, not military.

Monday: US Navy escorts neutral… https://t.co/jEJTdw5C7C

— Chris Rollins (@ThePowerAudit) May 3, 2026

If some energy does flow out of Hormuz, it will kick the can down further down the road. The deeper problem remains that both sides believe they have won. Washington points to the destruction of much of Iran’s navy and air force, its missile‑launching capacity, and large parts of its military and industrial base. Tehran draws a different conclusion. It has survived a campaign widely seen as aiming at regime collapse, it has demonstrated its ability to strike across the Gulf and into Israel, and it has shown it can place the global economy in a chokehold.

Even as its own economy suffers from the US blockade, Tehran appears convinced it can outlast the US economically and politically, especially as Trump moves closer to the midterm elections. At present neither side holds a strong card, yet both believe time is on its side. That might look like a manageable situation were it not for oil markets losing roughly 10 million barrels a day, with inventories now running uncomfortably low.

This leaves Trump facing a binary choice. He can pursue genuine diplomacy, concede parts of Iran’s demands, and secure outcomes he wants. That path would provoke resistance from Israel and hawks in Washington, but it would also be the fastest way to restore flows through Hormuz. Or he can resume the war, whether being provoked or not, betting that another bombing campaign will achieve what the first 40 days did not.

The problem is that coercion does not stop at Iran. Its oil may be seized, but buyers are punished too. The US Treasury has escalated sanctions by targeting major Chinese oil importers, most notably Hengli, a 400,000‑barrel‑a‑day refinery accused of purchasing billions of dollars of Iranian crude. Beijing pushed back. Its commerce ministry invoked the Blocking Statute, instructing firms not to comply with what it described as unjustified and improper US sanctions. This puts large companies between a rock and a hard place, because they either have to decide to comply with US sanctions or with the Chinese rules. That points at decoupling.

Pirates also have a habit of breaking deals. Over the past year European policymakers persuaded themselves that a durable bargain with this White House was possible. That belief produced the Turnberry deal, a one‑sided concession presented as a truce to stabilize Transatlantic trade. The logic was always questionable. And this weekend president Trump said he will raise its Section 232 tariffs on European car imports back to 25% from Turnberry’s 15%, underlining how little its own deals constrain it.

The Commission’s instinct may be to reopen talks, seeking a return to the lower rate through technical adjustments or promises of rapid implementation. That reaction is understandable, but it may also miss the point. The lesson of the Greenland episode is that this administration responds more to firmness than to appeasement. On paper, Europe has options too. It still holds a list of €93bn in retaliatory tariffs, suspended after Turnberry. It also has the Anti‑Coercion Instrument, the so‑called trade bazooka, which allows restrictions on US investment or the withdrawal of intellectual property protection. The tools exist, but the question ahead is whether Europe is willing to follow China’s lead?

US pressure on Europe, and Germany in particular, is not limited to trade. Days after a call between Trump and Putin, Washington said it would withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany, part of the 37,000 still stationed there. Russia would clearly welcome such a move, as would Iran. Trump appears to see these forces as deployed mainly to protect Germany. In reality, the bases exist to allow the US to project power into Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Their removal would weaken America’s own strategic reach.

Berlin now faces the same choice as Brussels. One option is deference, flattering a protector in the hope of restraint despite mounting evidence that protection has become transactional and unreliable. The other is acceptance and acceleration, by folding this shock into Europe’s broader defense awakening and pushing faster towards genuine strategic autonomy.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/04/2026 - 11:20

GameStop CEO's CNBC Interview Raises More Questions Than Answers On eBay Bid

Summary:

• GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen Can't Explain Basic Deal Math To CNBC Host 

• eBay Confirms Receipt of Unsolicited Proposal from GameStop

• GameStop CEO Tells CNBC: We Haven't Heard Anything Yet From eBay

• Wall Street analysts "skeptical" about the GameStop Takeover of eBay

• GameStop CEO Reveals Unsolicited Offer to Buy eBay

GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen Joins CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin For Interview

CNBC's Andrew Sorkin interviewed GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen earlier this morning about GameStop's bid for eBay.

Sorkin asked Cohen about "how does the math work for you? Given the price tag $56 billion, given the market cap of GameStop which is a fraction of that. I know you have this $20 billion dollar financing letter from TD but sort of walk us through how you could get to that price and how it would work."

Sorkin responded to Cohen's answer with disbelief, noting that he had not provided the basic math for how the deal would work. Cohen pointed to a press release that stated the deal is "half cash, half stock."

Sorkin pressed Cohen on the basic math, yet Cohen still couldn't provide a straight answer.

Sorkin emphasized, "I hear you. You understand that. And just trying to understand where the rest of the money would come from."

Cohen responded by repeating what he had said before: "Half cash, half stock."

Sorkin: "I'm just saying that math doesn't get to the price of your offering. So that is a pretty straightforward question. I don't get it. Where is the rest of the money coming from?"

Cohen: "Andrew, I laid it out clearly. I don't understand your question. We're offering half cash, half stock and we have the ability to issue stock in order to get the deal done. But the full details... that's on our website."

Here's the most contentious part of Ryan Cohen's CNBC Squawk Box interview about the GameStop-EBAY acquisition.

This is a HEATED back and forth, uncommon for financial news. $GME

Sorkin, at one point is in disbelief at RC's repetitive answering to his question. pic.twitter.com/MWAbYWStlp

— Reese Politics (@ReesePolitics) May 4, 2026

Why Cohen couldn't explain the basic math to CNBC viewers is a major red flag.

X users pointed out that GameStop's new 13D shows derivatives, or option calls, represent 99.89% (22,176,000 shares) of its $EBAY position.

Actual common stock owned by GameStop is about 25,000 shares, or .11% of the total position.

Wow $GME's new 13D shows derivatives (calls) represent 99.89% (22,176,000 shares) of its $EBAY position.

Compared to direct common stock of 25,000 shares, which is only 0.11% of the position. pic.twitter.com/G9EAMiJF96

— Reese Politics (@ReesePolitics) May 4, 2026

"If the deal falls through, hopefully they just sell their calls for a 50% return," one X user said, which appears to be read.

That's my read

— Reese Politics (@ReesePolitics) May 4, 2026

Polymarket odds of "Will GameStop acquire eBay" stand at 27%.

//--> //--> //--> Will GameStop acquire eBay?
Yes 29% · No 71%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

*GAMESTOP EXTENDS DROP TO SESSION-LOW 7.3% https://t.co/RGCnJjc0C0

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 4, 2026

Cohen is best known as the co-founder of Chewy and as an activist investor in GameStop.

Meanwhile .... "Big Short" investor Michael Burry: 

GameStop Makes Its Play
$56 Billion for eBay, Makes Perfect Sensehttps://t.co/Wk6q9MqqCn $GME $EBAY pic.twitter.com/sCs7XLsNJJ

— Cassandra Unchained (@michaeljburry) May 4, 2026

And GameStop's 'momo' traders are getting hammered by late morning, down about 7%. 

eBay Confirms Receipt of Unsolicited Proposal from GameStop

eBay confirmed that it received an unsolicited, non-binding acquisition proposal from GameStop.

eBay's Board of Directors will review the proposal to determine whether it is in eBay's and shareholders' best interests.

Wall Street Analysts Respond

eBay shares jumped as much as 13% in New York premarket trading after GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen told The Wall Street Journal that he had submitted a $56 billion takeover bid for the online marketplace.

Cohen's deal appears to be part of his strategy to transform eBay into a direct competitor to Amazon, leveraging GameStop's retail footprint and logistics infrastructure to create a larger e-commerce platform.

Wall Street analysts were broadly "skeptical" of Cohen's ability to finance the deal because eBay's market capitalization is nearly four times that of GameStop's, and Truist estimates that GameStop would need nearly $20 billion in debt financing.

Here's the latest comments from analysts, courtesy of Bloomberg:

Morgan Stanley (overweight)

• Analyst Nathan Feather notes the key question in any hypothetical acquisition scenario would be financing, as eBay's market cap is roughly four times larger than Gamestop

• "We are also initially skeptical on potential synergies. Regardless of outcome, confirmation of an offer would demonstrate eBay's increased potential strategic value"

• Notes that regardless of whether Gamestop's bid is successful, an offer would demonstrate how eBay "has been able to increase its strategic value as it has focused on its key strengths (focus categories, C2C, and recommerce) which could also be of interest to other potential acquirers"

Truist (hold)

• Analyst Youssef Squali is "skeptical of the ultimate success of this pursuit" at first glance; calls the bid "stunning"

• "GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen, who has accumulated a ~5% stake in the marketplace (through stock and options), indicated he is prepared to initiate a proxy fight to take the offer directly to shareholders if eBay's board remains unreceptive"

• Notes that Gamestop ended 2025 with a "significantly bolstered balance sheet," but deal would still require nearly $20 billion of debt financing to bridge valuation gap.

Trigon Brokerage (no rating)

• Analyst Dominik Niszcz says deal valuation is seen to be "justified by potential synergies, including significant cost savings, the combination of asset-light eBay (a weakness versus Amazon) with GameStop's physical stores and logistics, as well as a revenue 'flywheel' in collectibles and gaming products."

Meanwhile, GME shares fell 6% in premarket trading as retail traders received a real-time lesson in merger arbitrage, with the momentum stock running into a brick wall of a proposed $56 billion eBay takeover. 

GameStop CEO Reveals Unsolicited Offer to Buy eBay

Update: GameStop - the meme stonk that also happens to sell video games, is making an unsolicited offer to buy Ebay for around $56 billion, and already has a commitment letter from TD Bank to provide $20 billion in debt financing to help make it happen, the Wall Street Journal reports. 

Late last month, eBay reported strong first-quarter results. Anna Webber/Getty Images for Teen Vogue

According to Cohen, GameStop has built up a 5% stake in Ebay and is offering $125/share in cash and stock - which makes for a roughly 20% premium to Friday's closing price.

"EBay should be worth—and will be worth—a lot more money," said Cohen in an interview. "I'm thinking about turning eBay into something worth hundreds of billions of dollars."

Ryan Cohen in Miami in 2022. Anastasia Samoylova for WSJ

If eBay resists Cohen's advances, he's ready to run a proxy fight and take it directly to shareholders. 

"There is nobody who is more qualified, based on my experience, to run the eBay business," Cohen said - noting his time at GameStop, and previously Chewy - the online pet-products marketplace he co-founded. 

* * *

Three months ago, billionaire Ryan Cohen, the CEO of GameStop, told The Wall Street Journal he was eyeing a major acquisition. Fast forward to late last week, and in what appears to be an intentional leak to the same outlet, Cohen's next move may now be coming into focus: preparing an offer to buy eBay.

The WSJ cites sources who say that Cohen's GameStop has built a $12 billion position in eBay ahead of a potential offer. Notably, eBay has a market capitalization 3.8 times larger than that of the video game retailer.

Sources said Cohen could announce the offer as early as this month, and if eBay rejects it, he may take the bid directly to shareholders.

In late January, Cohen told WSJ that he was eyeing a major transaction and searching for deals in the consumer and retail space, as part of a plan to expand the business far beyond video games and collectibles. 

WSJ's Lauren Thomas noted, "GameStop had around $9 billion in cash on hand at the end of March, up from $4.8 billion a year earlier. Cohen would likely enlist his legions of online followers to rally behind a deal, too."

The report comes as GameStop shares are up about 32% this year on hopes for dealmaking, while eBay shares are up nearly 20% this year.

However, one week ago, we penned a note covering AI startup Anthropic, which quietly released a report titled "Project Deal" suggesting the company may be preparing to take on eBay.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/04/2026 - 11:09

"This Is Unacceptable": Duffy Sounds Off After United Jet Clips Light Pole, Truck In New Jersey

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy joined Fox Business on Monday morning, where he described Sunday's midair incident, in which a commercial jumbo jet's landing gear clipped a light pole and truck on a New Jersey highway, as "unacceptable," despite the aircraft being flown by "really well-trained pilots."

"So I don't want to get ahead of the investigation. Again, it seems pretty clear a light pole at least was hit. Was the truck hit? That will be ascertained as the NTSB arrives today. The FAA is going to arrive today. They're in contact with United," Duffy said.

United Airlines Boeing 767 aircraft (N77066) struck a light pole on the New Jersey Turnpike on approach at Newark Liberty International Airport on Sunday afternoon.

The Flight UA169, operated by a Boeing 767-424 from Venice, Italy, with 221 passengers and 10 crew members on… pic.twitter.com/Stpzf7hJ1Z

— FL360aero (@fl360aero) May 3, 2026

Local news outlet Fox Baltimore confirmed that a delivery truck owned and operated by the Baltimore-based Schmidt Bakery was struck by the United Airlines jet.

Chuck Paterakis of H&S Family of Bakeries said the driver had departed from the Baltimore metro area and was headed to a company depot in New Jersey when the incident happened near Newark Liberty International Airport. He said the driver suffered minor injuries from broken glass.

Duffy continued, "This is unacceptable. We have really well-trained pilots. This should never happen in America."

A photo has been posted on social media showing the moment United Airlines flight 169 struck a semi-truck on final approach to Newark Liberty International Airport yesterday.

The truck driver has since been released from hospital the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey… pic.twitter.com/wvMMWeb7pl

— Breaking Aviation News & Videos (@aviationbrk) May 4, 2026

He added, "The big and small incidents we study, we look at and we learn from and we take action on, and that's why America is the safest place to fly. We have the safest guys, the busiest guys, bar none, and we're the best because we look at every incident and learn from it."

Sec. Duffy on the United Airlines collision at Newark: This is unacceptable. We have really well-trained pilots. This should never happen in America. An incident like this, we study and we learn from, and we take action on. That’s why America is the safest place to fly. pic.twitter.com/SzshEpfZ7I

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) May 4, 2026

Why the United Airlines flight had a low angle of attack during final approach will be determined and released in a future FAA report on the incident.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/04/2026 - 11:00

CLARITY Act Stablecoin Yield Rules Finalized: 'Go Time' For Crypto Bill

Authored by Ciaran Lyons via CoinTelegraph.com,

The US CLARITY Act, which aims to provide the US crypto industry with more regulatory clarity, could now move closer to becoming law after new stablecoin yield provisions were published, according to Coinbase chief legal officer Faryar Shirzad.

“It’s time to get CLARITY done,” Shirzad said in an X post on Friday, after US Senator Thom Tillis and US Senator Angela Alsobrooks published the final text aimed at settling the stablecoin yield dispute between the banking and crypto industries, which has centered on whether such yields would harm the banking system’s competitiveness.

“In the end, the banks were able to get more restrictions on rewards, but we protected what matters – the ability for Americans to earn rewards, based on real usage of crypto platforms and networks,” Shirzad said.

Extract of the “SEC 404. Prohibiting interest and yield on payment stablecoins” document. Source: Alex Thorn

The text titled “SEC 404. Prohibiting interest and yield on payment stablecoins” states that no crypto firm may pay “any form of interest or yield” to customers solely for holding stablecoins, akin to a bank deposit or any similar interest-bearing product. 

Source: Patrick Witt

However, it allows firms to offer rewards tied to “bona fide activities.” Some industry executives voiced frustration with the ruling. Helius Labs CEO Mert Mumtaz said, "The clarity of not getting risk-free yield on your dollars without using a bank."

Polymarket traders anticipate 55% odds of CLARITY passing in 2026

It marks a significant step forward for both the legislation and the broader crypto industry, as the stablecoin yield debate had been one of the main roadblocks delaying its passage, despite expectations earlier this year that it would move through Congress.

Source: Toly Yakovenko

“Now that this issue is behind us, it’s time to focus on the broader bill,” Shirzad said.

Traders on the Polymarket crypto prediction market now see a 55% chance of the CLARITY Act being signed into law in 2026, up 9% over the past 24 hours.

Many in the industry are now calling for the bill to be marked up. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said shortly after the announcement, “Mark it up.”

Senate Banking Committee could schedule markup “imminently”

Galaxy Digital head of firmwide research Alex Thorn said the “release of text suggests that Senate Banking will schedule markup imminently, as soon as the week of May 11.”

However, Thorn warned that he expects “the banks to increase their opposition efforts.”

US Senator Bernie Moreno recently said that he anticipates the CLARITY Act to “get done” by the end of May. On April 11, US Senator Cynthia Lummis said, “It’s now or never.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/04/2026 - 10:40

Key Events This Week: Payrolls, Quarterly Refunding, Confidence, And More Earnings

Key data releases this week will be the US April jobs report and the University of Michigan’s consumer survey. Other economic events feature the US Treasury quarterly refunding announcement and rate decisions in Australia, Norway and Sweden. Corporate earnings include AMD, Palantir and Rheinmetall.

The focus this week will be on the US April jobs report due Friday. Economists see payrolls up +65k in April, down from +178k in March, with a
slightly faster earnings growth rate (+0.3% vs +0.2% in March) and a stable unemployment rate (4.3%). Other labor market indicators due will include the JOLTS report on Tuesday and the ADP report on Wednesday.

Elsewhere, US indicators will include the University of Michigan’s consumer survey for May on Friday (our US economists forecast some rebound in sentiment from 47.6 in April to 52.2), the ISM services index on Tuesday and Q1 non-farm productivity data on Thursday. Rounding out US events, there will also be the quarterly US Treasury refunding announcement on Wednesday.

From central banks, policy rate decisions will be due from the Reserve Bank of Australia on Tuesday (expect a hike) and Sweden’s Riksbank and
Norway’s Norges on Thursday. There will also be plenty of speakers from the Fed and the ECB.

European indicators next week will include the April CPI reports in Switzerland (Tuesday) and Sweden (Wednesday), as well as March industrial production, factory orders and trade in Germany. In politics, the focus will be on the local elections in the UK on Thursday.

Elsewhere, there will be an OPEC+ meeting this Sunday. Finally, the busy corporate earnings schedule continues with highlights including tech names Palantir, AMD and CoreWeave and big consumer stocks Walt Disney and McDonald’s, amongst others. Defence firms Rheinmetall and Leonardo will also be in focus. Other notable European firms releasing results feature Shell, Ferrari and AB InBev. In Japan, the list includes Toyota, Sony and Nintendo.

Source

Courtesy of DB, here is a day-by-day calendar of events

Monday May 4

• Data: US March factory orders, Italy April manufacturing PMI, budget balance, new car registrations
• Central banks: Fed's Williams speaks, ECB's Simkus, Dolenc, Villeroy, Kocher, Guindos and Nagel speak
• Earnings: Palantir, ON Semiconductor, Paramount Skydance, Pinterest, Norwegian Cruise Line

Tuesday May 5

• Data: US April ISM services, March JOLTS report, trade balance, new home sales, UK April new car registrations, France March budget balance, Canada April services PMI, March international merchandise trade, New Zealand Q1 labor force survey, Switzerland April CPI
• Central banks: RBA decision, Fed's Barr and Bowman speak, ECB's Panetta and Lane speak
• Earnings: AMD, HSBC, Arista Networks, Eaton, Shopify, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Pfizer, UniCredit, KKR, TransDigm, Ferrari, Occidental Petroleum, Electronic Arts, PayPal, Coupang, Live Nation Entertainment, Leonardo, Prudential Financial, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Fiserv, Astera Labs, Devon Energy, IQVIA, Super Micro Computer

Wednesday May 6

• Data: US April ADP report, UK April official reserves changes, China RatingDog April PMIs, France March industrial production, Italy April services PMI, March retail sales, Eurozone March PPI, Sweden April CPI
• Central banks: Fed's Musalem and Goolsbee speak, ECB's Lane and Cipollone speak
• Earnings: ARM Holdings, Novo Nordisk, Walt Disney, AppLovin, Uber, CVS Health, Equinor, Marriott, Johnson Controls International, Infineon, DoorDash, Apollo, Warner Bros Discovery, Medline, BMW, Coherent, Orsted, NRG Energy, Axon Enterprise, Veolia Environnement, Vestas, Fresenius, Kraft Heinz, Albemarle, Flutter Entertainment, Verisure, Deutsche Lufthansa, Blue Owl Auctions: US Treasury quarterly refunding announcement

Thursday May 7

• Data: US Q1 nonfarm productivity, unit labor costs, March construction spending, consumer credit, April NY Fed 1-yr inflation expectations, initial jobless claims, China April foreign reserves, UK April construction PMI, Japan April monetary base, Germany April construction PMI, March factory orders, France March trade balance, current account balance, Q1 wages, Eurozone March retail sales
• Central banks: Riksbank decision, Norges Bank decision, BoJ minutes of the March meeting, Fed's Hammack and Williams speak, ECB's Kocher, Villeroy, Guindos, Lane and Schnabel speak
• Earnings: Shell, McDonald's, Gilead, Enel, McKesson, Howmet Aerospace, Engie, Airbnb, Cloudflare, Rheinmetall, CoreWeave, Cheniere Energy, Vistra, Coinbase Global, Rocket Lab, Datadog, Siemens Healthineers, Legrand, Rocket Cos, Block, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Expedia, Vonovia, Affirm, DraftKings, Unity Software
• Other: UK local elections

Friday May 8

• Data: US April jobs report, May University of Michigan survey, March wholesale trade sales, Japan March labor cash earnings, Germany March trade balance, industrial production, Canada April labour force survey
• Central banks: Fed’s Cook speaks, ECB's Guindos speaks 
• Earnings: Toyota, Sony, Intesa Sanpaolo, Nintendo, Commerzbank, Amadeus IT

* * * 

Finally, looking at just the US, the key economic data release this week is the employment report on Friday. There are several speaking  engagements by Fed officials this week, including events with Vice Chair for Supervision Bowman and Governor Barr on Tuesday and Governor Cook on Friday. 

Monday, May 4 

• 10:00 AM Factory orders, March (GS +2.3%, consensus -0.1%, last flat)
• 12:50 PM New York Fed President Williams (FOMC voter) speaks: New York Fed President John Williams will deliver keynote remarks during the Cynosure Group Spring Symposium at the Yale Club. Speech text and Q&A are expected. On April 16, Williams said, “The current stance of monetary policy is well positioned to balance the risks to our maximum employment and price stability goals." He also said, "Lately, the labor market has been displaying conflicting signs. In recent months, much of the hard data point to a stabilization in the balance between supply and demand, while some of the soft data suggest a labor market that continues to gradually soften."

Tuesday, May 5 

• 08:30 AM Trade balance, March (GS -$61.2bn, consensus -$59.7bn, last -$57.3bn) 
• 09:45 AM [note deletion of manufacturing] S&P Global US services PMI, April final (last 51.3)
• 10:00 AM ISM services index, April (GS 54.0, consensus 53.7, last 54.0): We estimate that the ISM services index was unchanged at 54.0 in April. Our non-manufacturing survey tracker increased slightly in April but remained below the latest ISM services reading (+0.8pt to 52.4).
• 10:00 AM New home sales, March (GS 680k, consensus 668k, last 587k [January]): Census will jointly release new home sales data for the months of February and March. We forecast that new home sales increased to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 680k in March after falling sharply in January, potentially reflecting the impact of poor weather in late January.
• 10:00 AM JOLTS job openings, March (GS 6,750k, consensus 6,850k, last 6,882k): We estimate that JOLTS job openings edged down to 6.75mn in March based on the signal from online measures of job postings from Indeed and LinkUp.
• 10:00 AM Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Bowman speaks: Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman will speak at the 2026 Women in Housing and Finance Symposium. Q&A is expected. 
• 12:30 PM Fed Governor Barr speaks: Fed Governor Michael Barr will participate in a moderated conversation about his career path and international financial regulation. On March 26, Barr said, "Given the considerable uncertainty about the potential effects of developments in the Middle East on our economy, as well as the other factors I mentioned, it makes sense to take some time to assess conditions. Our current policy stance puts us in a good place to hold steady while we evaluate incoming data, the evolving forecast, and the balance of risks."

Wednesday, May 6 

• 08:15 AM ADP employment change, April (GS +170k, consensus +120k, last +62k)
• 09:30 AM St. Louis Fed President Musalem (FOMC non-voter) speaks: St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem will participate in a moderated discussion at the Mississippi Bankers Association 2026 Annual Convention. On April 1, Musalem said, "I believe the current policy rate… will likely remain appropriate for some time," but "I could support additional easing if a greater risk of a weakening labor market becomes apparent, … [or] to prevent the real rate from rising if actual or expected inflation falls," or "I could support raising the policy rate to avoid an inadvertent real easing that would result from holding the policy rate constant if core inflation or medium- to long-term inflation expectations moved persistently higher and away from 2%."
• 01:00 PM Chicago Fed President Goolsbee (FOMC non-voter) speaks: Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee will participate in a panel on the financial mechanics and real-economy implications of the AI investment surge at the 2026 Milken Institute Global Conference. On April 14, Goolsbee said, "The longer this inflation disruption goes, the more likely it is that rate cuts would be put off." He added, "I have some concern about piling the energy shock on inflation before the tariff shock went away. That’s a dangerous spot to be in."

Thursday, May 7 

• 08:30 AM Nonfarm productivity, Q1 preliminary (GS +1.0%, consensus +1.2%, last +1.8%); Unit labor costs, Q1 preliminary (GS +2.8%, consensus +2.5%, last +4.4%)
• 08:30 AM Initial jobless claims, week ended May 2 (GS 190k, consensus 205k, last 189k): Continuing jobless claims, week ended April 25 (consensus 1,791k, last 1,785k)
• 10:00 AM Construction spending, March (GS +0.5%, consensus +0.3%, last -0.3% [January]): Construction spending, February (GS +0.4%); Census will jointly release construction spending data for the months of February and March. We forecast that construction spending increased by 0.4% in February and 0.5% in March after falling 0.3% in January, potentially reflecting the impact of poor weather.
• 01:00 PM Minneapolis Fed President Kashkari (FOMC voter) speaks: Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari will participate in a fireside chat at Northern Michigan University. In his essay explaining his dissent at the April FOMC meeting, Kashkari said, "I supported the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) decision to hold the federal funds rate at this week’s meeting, but I dissented against the FOMC’s action because I did not think it was appropriate to continue to include the following phrase in the policy statement: ‘In considering the extent and timing of additional adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate.’” He added, "Given recent economic and geopolitical developments and the high level of uncertainty about the outlook, I do not believe [an easing bias in the statement] is appropriate at this time. Instead, the FOMC should offer a policy outlook that signals that the next rate change could be either a cut or a hike, depending on how the economy evolves."
• 02:05 PM Cleveland Fed President Hammack (FOMC voter) speaks: Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack will participate in a fireside chat at the 2026 Ohio CEO Summit. In her essay explaining her dissent at the April FOMC meeting, Hammack said "I dissented from the post-meeting statement because I did not believe it was appropriate to include an easing bias around the future path for monetary policy... I see this clear easing bias as no longer appropriate given the outlook." 
• 03:30 PM New York Fed President Williams (FOMC voter) speaks: New York Fed President John Williams will participate in a moderated discussion on the regional economy at the Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress event. 

Friday, May 8 

• 05:45 AM Fed Governor Cook speaks: Fed Governor Lisa Cook will speak on tokenization and the financial system at a Central Bank of West African States conference. Speech text is expected. 
• 08:30 AM Nonfarm payroll employment, April (GS +75k, consensus +62k, last +178k); Private payroll employment, April (GS +80k, consensus +75k, last +186k); Average hourly earnings (MoM), April (GS +0.3%, consensus +0.3%, last +0.2%); Unemployment rate, April (GS 4.3%, consensus 4.3%, last 4.3%): We estimate nonfarm payrolls increased 75k in April. On the positive side, the big data indicators of job growth we track were solid and higher frequency measures of layoffs remained low. On the negative side, we expect a 5k decline in government payrolls—reflecting a 10k decline in federal government payrolls that is partly offset by a 5k increase in state and local government payrolls. We estimate that the unemployment rate was unchanged on a rounded basis at 4.3% in April. That said, the bar for rounding down to 4.2% is not high from an unrounded 4.26% in March. We estimate average hourly earnings rose 0.3% month-over-month in April, reflecting neutral calendar effects.
• 10:00 AM University of Michigan consumer sentiment, May preliminary (GS 50.0, consensus 49.4, last 49.8); University of Michigan 5-10-year inflation expectations, May preliminary (GS 3.5%, last 3.5%)
• 07:30 PM Fed Governors Waller and Bowman, San Francisco Fed President Daly (FOMC non-voter), and Chicago Fed President Goolsbee (FOMC voter) speak: Fed Governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly, and Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee will speak on a panel at the Hoover Institution Monetary Policy Conference 2026.

Source: DB, Goldman

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/04/2026 - 10:30

Anthropic Enters $1.5 Billion Joint Venture That Includes Goldman, Blackstone

AI startup Anthropic on Monday announced the creation of a joint venture which includes Goldman Sachs, Blackstone and several other Wall Street firms, with the goal of selling artificial-intelligence tools to companies, the Wall Street Journal reports. 

The new venture will act as a consulting arm for Anthropic, and will educate businesses - including companies in the private-equity firms' portfolios, how to integrate AI across their operations. 

The deal is being anchored by Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman - each of which are expected to invest roughly $300 million, while Goldman is putting in around $150 million. General Atlantic, Leonard Green, Apollo Global Management, GIC, and Sequoia Capital are also investing in the deal, which is expected to reach $1.5 billion all told, according to the report.

On Friday, Bloomberg separately reported that Anthropic is entertaining offers at a $900 billion valuation from investors.

Anthropic had previously resisted several inbound proposals from investors for a new round at a valuation of $800 billion or more, Bloomberg News has reported.

The new discussions, which have not been reported, coincide with a push by Anthropic to ramp up fundraising amid the breakout success of its AI software. Anthropic, which Bloomberg has reported is considering an initial public offering as soon as October, has been on the hunt for more infrastructure to meet growing demand for its products. -Bloomberg

Meanwhile, rival OpenAI has also been in talks to form a joint venture with PE firms to encourage the adoption of its own AI tools, as both companies turn their attention to industry adoption by companies seeking to improve efficiency and cut costs. Anthropic is already seen as the enterprise king, as OpenAI scrambles to catch up. 

Anthropic is looking at a public listing as soon as this year, as revenues have skyrocketed in recent months due to the success of its Claude Code coding tool, which should strike fear into the heart of budding software engineers taking on loads of student loan debt. 

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/04/2026 - 10:15

Core US Factory Orders Surged In March To Best YoY Growth Since Nov 2022

Headline Factory Orders rose 1.5% MoM in March (dramatically better than the 0.6% MoM expected) - the best since November. February's data was also revised higher. However, overall, orders were only up 2.1% YoY - the lowest since JUly 2025

Source: Bloomberg

Core Factory Orders surge 1.6% MoM (also better than the 1.3% MoM expected) and up for the 5th straight month. That dragged the YoY growth in core orders up 4.09% YoY - the best since Nov 2022...

Source: Bloomberg

Given the surge in ISM Manufacturing's New Orders sub-component...

Source: Bloomberg

...there is a notable divergence between the 'soft' survey data and the 'hard' data.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/04/2026 - 10:05

FedEx, UPS Slide After Amazon Opens Freight Network To All Businesses

Shares of transportation and logistics giants FedEx and UPS dropped in premarket trading after Amazon debuted Amazon Supply Chain Services, opening its freight network to sellers far beyond the Amazon marketplace.

Amazon said ASCS is a move to "open its freight, distribution, fulfillment, and parcel shipping capabilities to businesses of all types and sizes." It gives companies outside the Amazon marketplace access to a global delivery network with two- to five-day delivery and 24/7 service.

"With this launch, Amazon is expanding its third-party logistics capacity to support businesses in industries such as healthcare, automotive, manufacturing, and retail," Amazon noted.

Amazon said the move mirrors its AWS playbook: build infrastructure for its own operations, prove it internally, then sell it externally.

This story may sound familiar. Amazon built another major offering—cloud infrastructure—for the same reason: to run its own business better. And then Amazon started selling it. That's how Amazon Web Services (AWS) was born, and it's transformed how the world builds and runs software. Now, Amazon is ready to do that for the supply chain. -AMZN

Following the ASCS news, FedEx and UPS dropped in premarket trading, both down around 4%.

"Amazon is bringing the infrastructure, intelligence, and scale of its supply chain services—proven over decades—to businesses everywhere, much like Amazon Web Services did for cloud computing," said Peter Larsen, vice president of ASCS. 

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/04/2026 - 09:50

Market Correction Risk: Why Summer 2026 Looks Risky

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

The S&P 500 hit a fresh record high last week. The median stock in the index is sitting 13% below its 52-week peak. That divergence is not a footnote or a curiosity. It’s the loudest warning the market has flashed since the dot-com era, and it’s arriving at the worst possible moment on the calendar. Market correction risk is climbing, and this summer it’s stacked on top of three other forces that almost never converge at the same time.

After three decades of watching market cycles play out, I’ve learned that the dangerous moments are those in which everything looks fine on the surface and rotten underneath. That’s exactly where we are right now. The market correction risk we’re staring at into the summer isn’t driven by a single bearish data point. It’s driven by four of them showing up together, and ignoring any of them would be a costly mistake.

The Breadth Divergence Is As Bad As It Gets

The narrowness of the current rally is not opinion. It is arithmetic.

The S&P 500 has rallied roughly 14% off its late-March washout to a new high near 7,125. Look under the hood, and you find a market hollowed out. The equal-weight S&P 500 has declined about 1% over the same period. The Magnificent Seven is up roughly 10%. The semiconductor index is up 30%. Everything else is sitting on the curb.

That kind of dispersion has only happened a handful of times since 1980. Goldman Sachs’ equity strategy team flagged it directly in a note this week, warning that this level of breadth has historically preceded larger-than-average drawdowns over the following six to twelve months. They’re not the only ones flagging it. Hedge fund net tilt to momentum is sitting near a multi-year high, and gross leverage remains at the upper end of the five-year range. When everyone is positioned the same way and the leadership is two names deep, the unwind is never gentle.

While breadth is the headline. The supporting cast of technical signals is just as ugly.

The 14-day relative strength index on the S&P 500 has spent most of the past three weeks above 70, the threshold that has historically marked overbought conditions. We’ve seen a textbook negative divergence: price made a new high last week while RSI made a lower high. That same pattern showed up at the January 2018 top, the February 2020 top, and the late 2021 peak. None of those were resolved kindly.

The advance-decline line for the broader NYSE has rolled over even as the index pushes higher. The percentage of S&P 500 stocks above their 200-day moving average has dropped to roughly 56%, while the index itself is printing new highs. We saw a similar decline in breadth as the market was advancing, just before the “Liberation Day” selloff in 2025.

The Volatility Index is sitting in the mid-teens, which sounds reassuring until you remember that the VIX was at 12 in January 2020 and 15 the week before the bottom dropped out. Low realized volatility breeds complacency, complacency breeds leverage, and leverage breeds unwinds. We have all three. None of these signals, individually, predicts market correction risk with precision. Together, they identify a market that has used up its margin of safety.

As we have noted before:

“Markets do not crash from euphoric tops. They crash from complacent ones, and right now we have a complacent market with collapsing breadth, deteriorating technicals, and the worst seasonal window of the year staring it in the face.“

Summer Seasonality Is Real, And This Year Is Worse

The “sell in May and go away” cliche gets dismissed every spring by someone who hasn’t bothered to look at the data. The data is unambiguous.

Going back to 1950, the May-through-October window has produced an average S&P 500 return of roughly 1.7%, while the November-through-April window has produced an average return of over 7%. The summer months, specifically June through September, account for the bulk of that weakness, and the historical pattern in years where the market entered May at or near all-time highs is materially worse than the long-run average.

Mathematical statistics support this: $10,000 invested in the market from November to April vastly outperformed the same amount invested from May through October. Interestingly, the max drawdowns are significantly larger during the “Sell In May” periods. Previous major market declines occurred in October 1929, 1987, and 2008.

However, not every summer works out poorly. Historically, there are many periods where “Sell In May” did not work and markets rose. 2020 and 2021 were examples of periods when massive Federal Reserve interventions pushed prices higher in April and the subsequent summer months. However, in April 2022, the decline in prices was sharp as the Fed began an aggressive campaign of interest rate hikes the previous month.

I want to be clear about something. Seasonality alone is not a reason to sell. It’s a backdrop, not a trigger. But when you stack a weak seasonal window on top of collapsing breadth and stretched positioning, you’ve removed the natural support that usually shows up to absorb selling. Buyers thin out in the summer. Volume dries up. Volatility spikes on increasingly small catalysts. That’s the setup we’re walking straight into.

Midterm Election Years Are The Most Volatile Of The Cycle

Here’s a fact that almost no one talks about until it’s too late. Midterm election years are, on average, the worst of the four-year presidential cycle for equity returns and the most volatile by a wide margin. From May through October, the S&P 500 historically delivers its weakest returns of the four-year cycle, with deeper average drawdowns and more frequent corrections than non-election years.

Going back to 1962, the average maximum intra-year drawdown in a midterm election year has been around 17%, materially worse than the roughly 13% average for non-midterm years. The summer and fall of midterm years are particularly rough. The S&P 500 has averaged a peak-to-trough decline of nearly 19% between April and October of midterm election years. Then, almost without exception, the market bottomed in late October and rallied hard into year-end and through the following twelve months.

The pattern is not a coincidence. Policy uncertainty rises into November. Corporate guidance turns conservative, and fiscal posturing in Washington dominates the headlines. Capital markets dislike uncertainty, and there’s no time on the four-year calendar with more of it than the summer leading into midterms. We are now six months from the November vote, and the polling, the policy backdrop, and the geopolitical overhang make this midterm cycle more contentious than most. The historical record is clear: market correction risk runs hottest during this specific window of the four-year cycle.

Iran, Oil, And The Inflation Pipeline

The market has been remarkably good at compartmentalizing the conflict in the Persian Gulf. That works until it doesn’t.

Brent crude is sitting above $109 a barrel, roughlyl 40% above its level on the eve of the conflict. WTI has tracked closely behind and currently sits at ~$102 a barrel. The Strait of Hormuz remains a chokepoint for roughly 20% of global oil flows. Any escalation that genuinely threatens that transit lane is a step-function risk for energy prices. As discussed in “Hormuz,“ so far the market has been able to stave off the impacts of higher oil prices. However, there is a clock on that capability. The longer oil prices remain elevated, the greater the risk becomes for the market.

“The duration of the conflict, specifically when the Strait of Hormuz returns to normal shipping traffic, is the single most important variable for every downstream economic and market forecast. Here is how we frame the three scenarios:” – Bull Bear Report

The reason the math gets worse with time is that energy is the cleanest pass-through to inflation. Every $10 sustained increase in oil adds roughly 0.2 to 0.3 percentage points to headline CPI within three months. A similar amount flows into core inflation a quarter later as transportation costs feed through to goods. The Fed has been holding the line on rate cuts for exactly this reason. If the Iran situation worsens, oil pushes through $130 or $140. At that point, the case for any easing this year evaporates entirely, and the case for an actual rate hike re-enters the conversation.

That is not a market that has been priced in. Equity multiples right now are sustained on the assumption that disinflation continues and the Fed eases later this year. Take both of those legs out from under valuations, and the math gets ugly fast.

Managing Market Correction Risk

The honest counterargument is straightforward. AI capital expenditure is the single largest spending cycle the corporate sector has seen in a generation. The latest GDP for Q1 2026 showed that 75% of the growth came from capital expenditures which offset weakness in Personal Consumption which comprises 70% of the calculation.

Furthermore, the hyperscaler earnings continue to come in ahead of expectations, and while the breadth problem is an issue, it can be resolved as easily through a “catch-up” of laggards as a “catch-down” of leaders. That’s a real argument, and we should consider it seriously.

However, there’s a problem with that last argument. A “catch-up” requires a catalyst, and the catalysts on the table right now are not friendly to the laggards. Consumer stocks are the largest weight outside of tech, and oil at these levels is a direct tax on consumer disposable income. Industrials and materials need an improving global growth picture, and the war is doing the opposite. Financials need a steepening yield curve and falling credit spreads, and we have neither. The path to a benign rotation runs through an improvement in the macro backdrop that I do not see arriving in the next sixty days.

The narrow leadership can extend. Goldman’s own work shows the median narrow-breadth episode lasts about three months, with the late-1990s outlier stretching to over two years.

Let me be clear that I am not calling for an imminent crash. I am saying that the conditions for a sharp, violent drawdown are as fully assembled as I have seen them in a long time, and the seasonal calendar is the worst possible place to find out. As

The actionable takeaways are not exotic. They are the basics, applied with discipline.

None of these moves requires timing the top, and none of them requires a bearish call. They require recognizing that the risk-reward at this level is asymmetric in the wrong direction, and behaving accordingly.

As noted above, it is crucial to remember that markets do not crash from euphoric tops, but rather from complacent ones. Currently, that complacency in the market is becoming more obvious, given collapsing breadth, deteriorating technicals, the worst seasonal and political cycles of the year, and an active geopolitical conflict driving energy prices to multi-year highs. Every one of those forces, taken alone, is something I’d flag for clients. Together, they make market correction risk between now and the November election the highest I have seen since early 2022.

I’m not telling you to get out of the market, but I am suggesting that you take some action today to mitigate the risk of tomorrow. Rebalance your portfolio, take profits, and raise cash levels while you can, on your terms.

Let me be clear about what I’m saying and what I’m not. The risks are elevated, but elevated risks are not certainty. Markets can, and often do, exactly the opposite of what every reasonable signal suggests they should, and nothing in this analysis guarantees a correction will arrive this summer. The narrow rally could extend. Iran could de-escalate overnight. The seasonal pattern could break. However, what is dangerous is doing nothing while the risk stack looks like this one.

If the market defies the odds and grinds higher into year-end, yes, you’ll underperform for a stretch. That is a recoverable outcome. Underperformance can be made up through disciplined participation over the next 12 to 24 months. Lost capital cannot. A 30% drawdown requires a 43% rally just to break even, and the math gets uglier the deeper the hole. That is the asymmetry that should drive every decision right now. The investors who survive long market cycles are not the ones who catch every uptick. They are the ones who refuse to be wiped out when the setup turns against them.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/04/2026 - 09:30

Tens Of Millions Of Taxpayers May Be Owed IRS Refunds From Pandemic Era: Watchdog

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The IRS’s internal watchdog has stated that tens of millions of U.S. taxpayers may be owed refunds or abatements of penalties or interest during the COVID-19 federal disaster period.

A 1040 Internal Revenue Service tax form, in this file photo. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

“The bottom line: You may be entitled to a refund or reduction of assessed penalties and interest,” the National Taxpayer Advocate (NTA) stated in a notice published on April 30 and updated on May 1. “For taxpayers dealing with financial pressures, these amounts can make a real difference. But most taxpayers must act by July 10, 2026, to request their potential refunds.”

The NTA stated that the refunds or payments had arisen from multiple court decisions, including one handed down in November 2025 that “provides for the automatic postponement of filing and payment deadlines during the period a federal disaster declaration is in effect, plus 60 days” during the COVID-19 federal disaster period, which lasted more than three years.

The declaration for COVID-19 was in effect from Jan. 20, 2020, through May 11, 2023, it noted. Another 60 days extended that period to July 10, 2023, for tax-related purposes.

“Based on the court’s reasoning ... filing and payment deadlines were postponed during that entire period, and as a result, tax returns and payments due anytime within that window were not late until after July 10, 2023,” the NTA stated. “By the court’s logic, the IRS should not have assessed penalties for late filing or payment during that 3.5-year period, nor charged interest on those amounts.”

Taxpayers may be able to receive an abatement or refund for certain amounts during that federal disaster period, the NTA stated, such as for failure to pay taxes, failure to make estimated tax payments, or penalties that were incurred for not filing timely tax returns.

Taxpayers may also be able to receive refunds on interest that started accruing earlier than it should have or that should not have accrued at all or overpayment for interest in the 2020–2023 COVID-19 disaster period, it stated.

“This issue is widespread and not limited to a small or specialized group of taxpayers,” the NTA stated. “As noted, tens of millions of taxpayers have been assessed penalties or interest for late filings or payments during these years.”

The IRS, in most cases, will not issue refunds or abatements unless a taxpayer files a claim, it warned, noting that a taxpayer likely will have to file a claim within three years of the date they filed a tax return or two years from the date when they paid their tax.

As a result, most taxpayers who are affected would need to file claims by July 10 and will have to use Form 843, titled, “Claim for Refund and Request for Abatement.” Some taxpayers may “consider filing protective claims to preserve their rights,” the watchdog stated, citing the fact that the cases are still being litigated.

The NTA, which warned that Form 843 must be completed on paper and cannot be done electronically, also suggested that taxpayers contact a tax professional to claim the refund or abatement. It further suggested that members of Congress should highlight the coming deadline and that tax professionals keep their clients informed about the rebate.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/04/2026 - 08:05

Trump Disapproval Rate Hits Career-High - War And Rising Costs Take Toll

Though tempered by the prospect of additional GOP gerrymandering of House districts in the wake of a pivotal Supreme Court decision, Democrats' hopes for a rout of Republicans in the approaching midterm elections are rising after a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll found that President Trump's disapproval rating is now the highest of either of his two terms in office. Trump's decision to launch a war on Iran is taking a toll -- voters are not only dismayed by his handling of Iran, but also dissatisfied with his work on the economy, which is itself being harmed by the war. 

In a survey of US adults taken in the last week of April, 62% said they disapprove of his general performance in the Oval Office.  A whopping 76% disapprove of his handling of the cost of living and 66% disapprove of what he's done with Iran. A majority of Americans surveyed expressed disapproval of his handling of every issue covered by the survey.   

via ABC News

While 85% of Republicans approve of his performance, the share who strongly approve fell to 45% -- that's down 8% since September and is a new Trump low. Perhaps more importantly, his approval among Republican-leaning independents is also at a new low of 56%. Overall, just 25% of independents approve of his performance.

Trump also scored terribly on some personal attributes. For example, 71% said the descriptors "honest and trustworthy" are not applicable to Trump, while 67% said Trump does not "carefully consider important decisions." Meanwhile, 59% said he lacks the "mental sharpness" required of his position.  

The poll provides a little insight into the upcoming midterm races. Today, Republicans have a slim, 3-seat margin of control of the House of Representatives. Asked if they would vote for a Democrat or Republican candidate if the House election were held today, 49% said they would for a Democrat, compared to 44% who would choose a Republican. At the same point in the 2022 midterms, that question yielded a 42-42 tie, with the GOP proceeding to win the House when votes were cast six months later, securing a 222 - 213 margin in seats (a 9-seat pickup for the Republicans).  As for intended turnout, 79% of registered Democrats say they are "absolutely certain" they'll vote, compared to 72% of Republicans -- a 7-point improvement on the GOP turnout expectation recorded in a February survey.  

Vance had higher approval and disapproval ratings than Rubio -- as more survey participants shrugged at the Rubio performance question

Looking at the big picture, 67% of Americans said the country is moving in the wrong direction. Here, there's a vast difference among parties: 94% of Democrats felt that way, compared to 25% of Republicans. As a general caveat, we'll note that -- since more and more Americans identify as independent -- party results are growing less meaningful. A hefty 78% of independents say the country is heading south.  

Finally, the poll had some incidental insights for those looking ahead to the 2028 presidential race. While participants weren't asked about that contest, they were asked to rate the job performance of various Trump administration officials, including two potential GOP contenders: Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. They came out with similar approval ratings -- 35% for Vance and 33% for Rubio -- but Vance had a 48% disapproval rating, compared to 40% for Rubio. The remainder of respondents had no opinion. 

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/04/2026 - 07:45