This isn't just Iran positioning. This is the prerequisite for everything else.

Iraq can't complete monetary reform with Iranian destabilization continuing. Regional stability comes FIRST.

Connect the pattern:

- Trump massive fleet (36-hour window, 480+ aircraft, 500+ VLS cells)
- Airlines canceling Middle East routes (risk models flipped from "possible" to "plausible")
- Board of Peace operational (35 nations, Russia $1B pledge, alternative order replacing UN)
- Reza Pahlavi "Global Day of Action" (regime change "closer than ever")
- Trump canceled 837 executions with one threat (regime responded immediately)

Signal #3 (Iran Regime Change) = prerequisite for Signal #2 (Iraq monetary reform).

5 🁄 can't fall while Iranian proxy networks destabilize Iraq. CBI can't launch new rate while Tehran maintains influence over Baghdad.

This force buildup isn't deterrence theater. It's operational infrastructure for regime change that enables the entire Middle East monetary realignment.

Banks preparing Sunday operations. CBI ready to act. But Iran goes first.

The sequence matters. Regional stability → Iraqi sovereignty → monetary reform implementation.

This is the missing piece everyone's watching.

🔥🇺🇸🇲🇽 BREAKING: Mexico may halt oil shipments to Cuba over fears of US backlash.

Currently the island’s main oil supplier, a cut-off from Mexico could bring Cuba to a standstill.

Source: Reuters

Then we move onto Trump limiting credit cards to 10% for 1 year.

Jamie Dimon has been outspoken about the consequences of this, and he's correct. A forced drop to 10% will immediately encorage people to spend but it will cause a massive credit contraction in 2027

After midterms

DoD confirms directed energy weapons programs and plans for future capability growth.

Pentagon acknowledges scaling up directed‑energy weapons as reports emerge of Maduro’s guards left vomiting and paralyzed following a raid.

🚨 THE U.S. JUST CONFIRMED A NEW ERA OF WARFARE

This isn’t science fiction anymore.

The United States has openly acknowledged what many dismissed for years:

Directed-energy weapons are real — and they are being scaled up.

High-energy lasers.
Microwave systems.
Weapons that strike at the speed of light.

Already deployed on U.S. Navy destroyers.
Already mounted on Army vehicles.
Already being used to neutralize drones, missiles, and airborne threats.

No explosions.
No warning.
No interception window.

Just power — delivered instantly.
The Pentagon isn’t hiding it anymore.
Congress has funded it.
The military has fielded it.
And now the expansion is underway.

This is not about tomorrow.
This is happening now.
While the world obsesses over tanks and fighter jets, warfare has quietly shifted into something faster, cleaner — and far more decisive.

Whoever controls energy…
controls the battlefield.

And the United States is making one thing very clear:

The future of warfare will not be heard.
It will be seen — for a split second — before it’s over.

The age of light-speed warfare has begun.

The peacetime science fair is over cto.mil

Saturday, Jan 24 2026, 12:00 UTC time

📋 US Stocks Finish Week Mixed
✅ Markets: Mega-cap tech strength offset by sector rotation; traders cautious ahead of big tech earnings and the Fed meeting. Risk-on mood tempered by mixed economic signals — expect volatility into earnings/Fed week.

✅ Bigger Tax Refunds Are Coming — Winners Among Retailers
🔖 Implication: Larger US tax refunds could boost consumer spending. Retailers with strong value offerings and discretionary exposure likely to benefit. Short-term upside for consumer-focused equities and CAD/USD-sensitive retail imports.

🔖 Taiwan–US Trade Deal Seen “Controllable” for Forex — Taiwan C.Bank
📌 FX impact: Taiwan central bank says trade deal effects on currency are within controllable range. For forex markets, watch TWD, USD, and CNY pairs for knee-jerk moves; potential spillovers to regional risk sentiment and global tech supply chains.

📌 Global Markets Brace for Pivotal Week — Mega-cap Tech Earnings & Fed
📋 Focus: US Fed decision and guidance will drive USD direction and global rates. Tech earnings will determine risk appetite; expect equity and bond repricing across US, Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy) and Asia (Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand).

🔖 WEF Takeaways: Geopolitics & Policy Signals
📌 Highlights: High-profile voices (including US/UK figures) debated the end of old economic playbooks — implications for trade, regulation, and central bank coordination. Markets to price potential policy shifts affecting US, Europe, China, and major EMs.

Trading Checklist
📋 - Watch USD reaction to Fed statements
✅ - Monitor mega-cap earnings for risk-on/risk-off flips
🔖 - Track US consumer flows from tax refunds (retail names)
📌 - Note TWD/CNY moves after Taiwan–US trade commentary

🚨 At the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Donald Trump confirmed that the US military used previously unseen technological weapons that disarmed Venezuela's defense systems.

"Two weeks ago, we used weapons that nobody had ever heard of. They couldn't fire a single shot."

LUXE 🔱 #ForSure

🚨 🇻🇪 Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López:

"As Trump stated in Davos, Switzerland, they used weapons against us that had never been used on a battlefield, weapons that no one else in the world possessed.

This made Venezuela the laboratory for these weapons."

QUALITY OVER QUANTITY 📉📈

In trading, it’s not about how many trades you take, it’s about how good the setup is.

One clean, well-planned trade is better than multiple rushed entries.

Learn to wait for confirmation, respect your rules, and trade only when the market gives you a clear opportunity.

Patience protects your capital, and discipline builds consistency.

🇺🇸🇨🇺 US considers deploying naval blockade to stop Cuban oil imports.

⚡️This is about establishing the template for energy chokepoints as a tool of global compliance.

A naval blockade is a wartime act. It asserts dominion over trade routes and supply chains. When the U.S. signals it may blockade oil to Cuba, it is reactivating the Cold War logic of hemispheric control but this time under the framing of energy sovereignty, not ideology.

This is about preparing the ground for wider use of kinetic sanctions. Not just on adversaries. On any actor that tries to transact outside U.S.-approved channels.

The Cuba move is a calibration signal. A limited theater where the cost of assertion is low, but the precedent is massive. If this normalizes, the same doctrine can be applied to Red Sea shipping, Gulf flows, or even Arctic energy lanes.

Trump is writing the playbook for full-spectrum energy warfare.

It begins at the weakest link.

It scales through silence.

And it culminates in rerouting the entire planetary trust architecture around whoever controls oil, blockades, and permissioned liquidity.

🇺🇸🇨🇦 President Trump threatens to impose 100% tariffs on Canada if they make a deal with China.

Russia has sold over 71% of its #gold reserves inside the National Wealth Fund to finance its war spending.

The National Wealth Fund is Russia’s emergency cash reserve. It is the pool used to cover budget gaps when oil revenues fall or spending explodes. Before the war, this fund held more than $113 billion in liquid assets. Today, it is close to $50 billion. More than half of Russia’s financial buffer is already gone.

At the same time, Russia’s military budget is now larger than its total oil and gas revenue.

For decades, oil paid for everything. Now war costs more than energy earns.

#Oil and gas revenue is collapsing:

- Down 22% year-over-year in 2025
- November alone was down 34%
- Discounts on Russian crude keep increasing
- Sanctions are tightening logistics and payments

Meanwhile, the budget deficit has exploded:

Planned: 1.2 trillion rubles

Revised: 5.7 trillion rubles
That is a 5x jump in one year.

This is why Russia is selling its gold inside the NWF.

At current burn rates, economists estimate the liquid part of the fund runs out around mid 2026. That is the real timeline the market should be watching.

When that happens, Russia faces only four choices:

1. Cut war spending
2. Print money → higher inflation
3. Raise taxes → recession risk
4. Increase domestic debt → rising interest costs

None of these are painless. Russia is already isolated. But it is a global commodity risk.

Because Russia still controls:

- 40% of #uranium enrichment
- 24% of global wheat exports
- 18% of fertilizers
- 40% of #palladium supply

So the danger is not financial contagion. The danger is supply shocks. Russia is running out of money. But it still controls critical resources.