Good morning! Yesterday was full of Iran news and the markets reflected that with massive volatility spikes across strike markets.
Maybe the mood will cool a bit after today's Board of Peace meeting. But while we wait for that, see what else happened across politics, finance, technology and sports - and there were plenty of volatile markets.
Stay ahead of the game with out forward-looking morning brief!
Top Movers
#1 Strikes, But Where...
While everyone is watching and discussing Iran, the US is striking somewhere else.
Close by, there is a market on US strikes on Somalia; and now traders see between 14 and 17 strikes, more than every other dah this month. The US is conducting an operation there against ISIS, but with tensions elsewhere, it flies a bit under the radar. Especially now, when the rumors on Iran strikes are mounting:
#2 So It Happens
The market is increasingly bullish on the prospects of charges for at least one person related to Jeffrey Epstein.
The move is most likely fueled by Congressional hearings, most recently the one of Les Wexner. Between us, there must be enough incriminating material to charge several people, but if we were to guess, the DoJ might be waiting till it's closer to midterms to flush out some of the most prominent names among the perpetrators.
#3 A Relationship Turned Sour?
The market knew that Elon Musk has a long-standing relationship with Morgan Stanley when it comes to high finance, but they might have missed the bigger picture here.
SpaceX is a massive IPO - we are talking trillions in enterprise value. Whatever size is the raise, it is surely in the tens of billions; an amount no single bank is willing to underwrite. Thus it hit the news that Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan (so the big 3) are expected to lead jointly. The market is then supposed to resolve on the order of the banks presented in the prospectus, which prompted Goldman Sachs to rise rapidly.
#4 AI Wars Continue
Rumors are we will see the new Gemini model today and so the AI wars on the markets continue.
We've been reporting on the model's imminent release for quite some time now so it is hardly shocking to see it. What is more shocking is that it is still Google, now joined by Anthropic, who fight for the top spot. OpenAI may be close, but benchmarks are simply worse, while Grok 4.20 has been a disappointment thus far.
#5 Olympics Update
Winter Olympic Games are slowly coming to an end and the leaders on each market start to clarify.
While Italy is still in the second place, the last days of the Olympics are looking good for team USA. Are you a fan of any winter sports besides hockey? Let us know!
Wrap up
That’s all for today - did you catch any of the moves? See you tomorrow for another Morning Brief!
This is not official investment or life advice. Do your own research. This are only my opinions and I encourage anyone to do their own research before putting any money anywhere.