US strikes just hit Iranian military sites on Qeshm Island, Iran's largest island in the Persian Gulf and the anchor for its coastal defense, radar, and naval assets near Hormuz.

Earlier strikes looked restrained.
These look methodical.

Deliberate targeting of coastal defense infrastructure is preparation for something bigger.

$SPCX $RDW $ASTS $RKLB $PL | SpaceX requests FCC permission to deploy 100,000 next generation Gen3 Starlink satellites in very low Earth orbit.

The massive orbital expansion relies completely on heavy lift Starship launches to construct an AI data architecture.

China holds the 5th most gold on Earth.
It's still just 8.8% of its reserves.

Tonnes held vs share of total reserves:
🇺🇸 US: 8,133.5t, 83.1% of reserves
🇩🇪 Germany: 3,349.5t, 82.8%
🇮🇹 Italy: 2,451.8t, 79.1%
🇫🇷 France: 2,437.0t, 80.5%
🇨🇳 China: 2,346.4t, just 8.8%
🇷🇺 Russia: 2,292.3t, 44.4%

Tonnage and dependence aren't the same thing.

China owns more gold than Russia, but leans on it at a fraction of the rate.

US airstrike reportedly landed near Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant, its only operational reactor.

Iranian authorities say operations were not disrupted.

This is a different category of risk than anything the market has priced this week.

Strikes on refineries and tankers move barrels.

A strike near an active reactor moves survival calculus. Oil is not the number to watch right now.

Just when you think the market can't get any crazier

Bandar Abbas is under fire.

Iran's main port and the naval headquarters that controls the Strait of Hormuz.

Multiple explosions reported at the same facility struck at the start of this week's escalation.

The IRGC is not getting a pause. The pressure campaign is continuing, not de-escalating.

Humanoid robotics is no longer a race between Tesla and Boston Dynamics.

At least 32 major humanoid platforms from 29 organizations across 11 countries are targeting factories, warehouses, labs, homes and service environments.

China accounts for 16 robots and the United States 7. Europe, Canada, Israel, Japan, Singapore and South Korea make up the rest.

Some target repetitive work. Others prioritize locomotion, dexterity, research, teleoperation or human interaction. A polished demo still does not prove an autonomous eight-hour shift.

INDUSTRIAL HUMANOIDS

‣ Boston Dynamics 🇺🇸 United States
➤ Atlas
• 1.90 m | 90 kg | 56 DoF
• 50 kg peak lifting capacity | up to 4 hours

‣ Agility Robotics 🇺🇸 United States
➤ Digit
• 15.9 kg carrying capacity
• Up to 4 hours of battery operation

‣ Figure AI 🇺🇸 United States
➤ Figure 03
• 1.73 m | 61 kg
• 20 kg payload | up to 8 hours

‣ Tesla 🇺🇸 United States
➤ Optimus
• General-purpose bipedal humanoid under development
• Built for repetitive, dangerous and demanding tasks

‣ Apptronik 🇺🇸 United States
➤ Apollo 2
• Bipedal legs or wheeled base
• Swappable battery architecture

‣ UBTECH 🇨🇳 China
➤ Walker S2
• 15 kg payload
• Autonomous battery swap in under 3 minutes

‣ Humanoid 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
➤ HMND 01 Alpha Bipedal
• 1.79 m | 90 kg | 29 body DoF
• 15 kg payload | up to 3 hours

‣ LimX Dynamics 🇨🇳 China
➤ Oli
• 1.65 m | 31 DoF
• Isaac Sim, MuJoCo and Gazebo support

GENERAL-PURPOSE HUMANOIDS

‣ Sanctuary AI 🇨🇦 Canada
➤ Phoenix Gen 8
• Hydraulic dexterous hands
• Tactile sensing for touch-based manipulation

‣ 1X Technologies 🇳🇴 Norway
➤ NEO
• $200 reservation deposit
• 1.68 m | 30 kg | up to 4 hours

‣ Unitree Robotics 🇨🇳 China
➤ G1
• From $13,500
• 1.32 m | about 35 kg | 23 body DoF

‣ Unitree Robotics 🇨🇳 China
➤ H2
• $29,900
• 1.82 m | about 70 kg | 31 DoF

‣ Fourier Intelligence 🇸🇬 Singapore
➤ GR-2
• 1.75 m | 63 kg | 53 joints
• 380 N·m peak torque

‣ AgiBot 🇨🇳 China
➤ A2 Ultra
• 1.69 m | about 69 kg | 40 DoF
• LiDAR, RGB-D cameras and hot-swappable batteries

‣ XPENG 🇨🇳 China
➤ IRON
• 82 total degrees of freedom
• Three Turing AI chips | 3,000 TOPS

‣ PUDU Robotics 🇨🇳 China
➤ D9
• 1.70 m | 65 kg | 42 DoF
• 20 kg total payload | 2 m/s

DYNAMIC AND RESEARCH HUMANOIDS

‣ NASA 🇺🇸 United States
➤ Valkyrie
• 1.88 m | about 136 kg
• 44 DoF | 1.8 kWh battery

‣ IHMC Robotics 🇺🇸 United States
➤ Nadia
• 29 actuated joints
• Electric and hydraulic actuation

‣ EngineAI 🇨🇳 China
➤ T800
• From ¥180,000
• 1.73 m | up to 450 N·m joint torque

‣ EngineAI 🇨🇳 China
➤ PM01
• ¥188,000
• 1.38 m | 24 DoF

‣ Kepler Robotics 🇨🇳 China
➤ Forerunner K2
• 1.78 m
• Rotary actuators up to 200 N·m

‣ Booster Robotics 🇨🇳 China
➤ T1
• About 1.20 m | 30 kg
• Up to 130 N·m joint torque

‣ PAL Robotics 🇪🇸 Spain
➤ TALOS
• 1.75 m | 95 kg
• 6 kg per arm at full extension

‣ ROBOTIS 🇰🇷 South Korea
➤ THORMANG3
• 1.375 m | 42 kg | 29 DoF
• ROS, open-source SDK and 3D CAD files

SERVICE AND EMBODIED AI

‣ AgiBot 🇨🇳 China
➤ X2
• 1.31 m | 35 kg | 25 DoF
• Up to 1.8 m/s movement speed

‣ Galbot 🇨🇳 China
➤ G1
• Up to 1.9 m horizontal reach
• Up to 10 kg payload | up to 8 hours of runtime

‣ RobotEra 🇨🇳 China
➤ STAR1
• 55 DoF
• 20 kg combined dual-arm payload

‣ MagicLab 🇨🇳 China
➤ MagicBot Gen1
• 1.74 m | about 70 kg | 42 DoF
• Up to 350 N·m joint torque

‣ Astribot 🇨🇳 China
➤ S1
• Two seven-degree-of-freedom arms
• Omnidirectional base and articulated torso

‣ NEURA Robotics 🇩🇪 Germany
➤ 4NE1 Gen 3.5
• Estimated €98,000 for 1–19 units
• ROS 2, Python and C++ interfaces

‣ Mentee Robotics 🇮🇱 Israel
➤ MenteeBot V3
• 1.75 m | 70 kg | 40 DoF
• Up to 25 kg carrying capacity

‣ Toyota 🇯🇵 Japan
➤ T-HR3
• 1.54 m | 75 kg
• 32 body axes and 10 articulated fingers

Which robot would you trust to complete an eight-hour shift with the fewest interventions?

SK Hynix are seeing selling pressure accelerate as shares fall 10% in South Korea

This comes one trading day after being listed on the U.S. market.

The South Korean KOSPI Index composed of 54% SK Hynix and Samsung, has now fallen to a critical support level.

If broken, there's nothing stopping the market to continue gapping down.

This comes after analysts warned of possible forced-selling to cover $19B in KOSPI margin debt

Japan's 10 year yield is ready to explode higher from 2.75% to 4% in the next 45 days.

Beyond September, the parabolic trendline begins going backward in time.

Interesting to see #JayMartinBC predicting a global Dollar shortage as well.

The key here is understanding why this would happen and how current world events are shaping it.

A global energy & fertilizer shortage raises the cost to produce goods outside of the United States. If these countries produce less goods at higher prices then their inflow of Dollars drops significantly.

Less Dollars = more foreign currency printing to acquire Dollars 👇

By introducing swap lines for friendly nations, the U.S. effectively chooses which nations will survive the Dollar shortage while also forcing hostile foreign nations to sell their U.S. Treasuries below face value, before maturity.

There is no winning solution here. These nations print, causing hyper-inflation or they liquidate foreign currency reserves & assets.

Either way, all of the Dollars get sucked into the U.S. either through investment or fear as #SantiagoAuFund predicted.

2008 QE marked the beginning of where leaders stopped caring about the real economy because they knew they could print money and bail out their buddies.

Now they can't QE anymore because the interest payments on the debt has surpassed the ability of the economy to pay for it.

So it shouldn't come as a shock that suddenly they've flipped back to caring about the economy. Problem is, you can't rebuild anything when you're already maxed out on debt.

So what's the solution?
They're going to steal from everyone's future by resetting the system to eliminate the debt.

The week leading up to the flash crash of 1987

I'm sorry Goose

BlackRock's Aladdin is performing magic on Nasdaq futures.