Most people will scroll past this because they have no idea why it matters. Tomorrow India will decide whether to keep its sugar export ban. The reason this matters is because the biggest El Nino ever measured is occuring right now, and it doesn't affect food prices all at once. It hits them on a seasonal calendar. The first one to break is India's cane. Then Malaysia's palm stocks in two weeks. After that it's Cocoa's grinding numbers in mid October. Then it's Australia's wheat in December. And finally a South American soybean harvest in February. Each date is an outcome for a differnt crop, and the market usually only looks at the headline in front of it. But if you know the order they arrive in, you'll know which crop is cheap today and which is a trap. If you want the full calendar our El Nino research is published: tscsw.substack.com/p/the-oce…

Wow. China's grib on critical minerals is "a single-source dominant position that China is weaponizing against the world right now." - Ambassador Perdue. Looking at the same report, Beijing has expanded its rules so that helping a customer diversify away from Chinese supply can expose people to arrest, prosecution and asset seizure. So what did Washington do? The next two months are a "compliance period" to assess whether China keeps its commitments, and the administration recommended $30 billion of non-sensitive goods for friendlier tariffs. If you look at how it's progressing you see that Beijing now criminalises diversification and Washington responds with a 2 month grace period + tariff cut. This is what negotiating against a single-source position looks like from the other side. So for anyone mining or processing critical minerals, Western supply should be imposing a political price floor, even though similar happened last year... Real question is how long it takes. From my own experience, the US really can't compete using conventional ways. The Chinese offer cash and speed. The West will ask for months of compliance and assessment checks. Do real business and stop trying to find the safest bet possible and maybe you'll get somewhere.

The cycle continues. Trump said on Truth Social overnight that the Axios and CNN reports of sanction reliefe and frozen funds for nuclear steps is "untrue." and he "offered them NOTHING." On the same day Treasury was set to grant a one-month waiver for Iraqi Airways flights between Iran and Najaf, carrying Shia pilgrims to the Imam Ali shrine, a longer one possibly to follow (Reuters). Iraqi halted all Iran flights on Friday under the 23 September airline sanctions. So then Baghdad asked for medical, education and pilgrimage exemptions and offered screening in return. Washington's leverage only runs as far as its allies' voters let it...

Incredible. US and Iranian teams hold separate talks with Qatari mediators in New York on Monday/Tuesday. Araqchi meets the Qataris two days after Trump's "I reject their proposal"... Well not sure if you noticed through this noise but Netanyahu was in Abu Dhabi today (Reuters)... Neither government has commented. Things are getting a little strange here. The Saudi foreign minister landed in Washingon on Sunday for Rubio. The Emiratis had grounded every Iranian carrier on Thursday. Bessent spent Friday claiming credit for Oman and Turkey grounding Mahan Air. I'm not sure what bs you've seen in the last few hours, but this whole setup doesn't bode anything positive regarding a deal or progressive talks. Act accordingly.

If you hadn't noticed, raw sugar rallied 40% from mid june to the start of September. Funds went from net shorrt 111,557 contracts in May to net long 225,430, the biggest long in 3 years. Then, as most things do, it stopped: October settled 17.61 on 21 August and 17.50 on Friday, through the worst crop month in a decade. So why? Well, Brazil has the answers. Its mills crushed 2.2% more cane through August than last year and made 10.7% LESS sugar. The sugar share of the cane was 42.5% through June against 51% a year ealier. The rest went to ethanol, and the petrol blend rose to 32% on 1 August. So there's really no shortage of Brazilian cane, there's a shortage on Brazilian sugar (2 million tonnes+ in three months). The mills will only fix this the moment sugar pays better than ethanol. Let's watch.

Bloomberg says Saudi Arabia has restored around half the flows through the EW pipeline, at least 3.5 mb/d to the Red Sea... Hmm... For 2 weeks the EW's capacity has been quoted three ways, 4, 4.5 and 7 million. Using Sparta's model, runing the EW pipeline at 25% gets Yanbu no net exports after domestic refiners and crude burn, and 40% gets around 1 mb/d out. So extrapolating its around 1.67 mb/d but it really depends on quite a few factors. Anyways, the point is that restart flow is a pipeline number - but really you need to see whether laden VLCC's are leaving Yanbu or not, and until that happens, it's just noise. Let's watch.

A lot of people in ag say super El Nino like its bullish grains. Not too many understand crop cycles and weather patterns. To name two, corn and soybeans are priced off Iowa, Mato Grosso and Rosario. Basically, a warm Pacific takes rain from Indonesia, India, West Africa and Australia and puts it on southern Brazil and the Pampas. Two of the three are on the wet side, and Iowa will get rain next summer as the event decays. If you look at who owns what, things start to look interesting. On September 22 managed money was net long 265,159 soybean contracts, the largest since the CFTC's disaggregated data began in 2006, net long 191,087 soybean meal, a record back to 1986, and net long 404,097 corn, the 98th percentile of two years. Chicago wheat (the grain El Nino damages), they're net short. In fact, Argentina is favoured for a good season, and crop lands in February for them. We created a full map in our El Nino research. Out soon.

China is the master of manipulation. Trump told Xi that direct or indirect support for Iran was "totally unacceptable," and "they assured us yesterday they're not doing that." The same Friday, a senior Iranian official told Reuters that Beijing had assured Tehran it would not limit "economic, political or military ties" under US pressure. Reuters reported in July that Iran was due up to 400 Chinese shoulder-fired launchers. I'm guessing 'support' means launchers and 'ties' means crude flowing to Chinese refiners? Beijing is just telling each side what they want to hear and playing chess. Oh, the visit also closed with friendlier tariffs on around $30 billion of goods each way. So Xi flew home with a tariff deal, an American ambassador vouching for him, and Tehran convinced Beijing has its back. Hubris gets you a hell of a long way.

Christ, looks like IRGC could have hit 19 "violating" ships in the Strait in the last 2 days (per Osint). For now, no western wire has confirmed. Its crazy how in the same 48 hours we had a seven-day offer to reopen the Strait as well. Act accordingly.

Dude. "If Iran cannot trade, if Iran cannot live, no one will be able to trade or live." - Hatami, army chief. What?

Everyone is watching the BOJ drain reserves. No one is watching what's happening to the other side of their balance sheet. It gets concerning. Household cash and deposits in Japan grew to 0.6% yoy to March 2026. Household holdings of investment trusts grew 25.7% over the same period. Outside of some of it being market value, this is a clear behaviour change. Then, retail JGB inssuance went from around ¥4.5 trillion in FY2024 to ¥46.2 trillion in FY2025, and August 2026 alone did roughly ¥1 TRILLION (the biggest month since 2008). Grandma is buying bonds direct from the Ministry of Finance and cutting her bank out the loop. A bank's reserves at the BOJ are funded by its deposits. Basically, when the deposit base stalls while the central bank shrinks the reserve pile, the 'excess' a bank thought it had gets squeezed from both ends at once. @AlexanderKim120 wrote a masterpiece on this deconstructing all of this and way more. I would read it before the next hike, seriously. tscsw.substack.com/p/what-th…

Wow. Four refineries gone in one week. Today 12 mt in Moscows units were halted (Bloomberg). On Monday we had Kuibyshev, 7mt and Ufa, 7.5 mt - both burning per Ukraine's General Staff (Kyiv independent). On Thursday night we had Novoshakhtinsk, 5 mt (100 kb/d) at about 7.33 barrels a tonne. If you compare it to last week's news, we had 6 plants already making half of Russia's diesel cut back, exports under 1 mt a month from 2.5 mt. Trump said Monday Russia had lost control of its diesel industry. Looks like he was early lol. Russia's missing barrel is diesel. Europe's shortage is diesel. Wtf.

You should probably start looking at the BOJ. 15% of what sits in BOJ current accounts belongs to foreign banks, ¥65 trillion in July (99.8% of it is excess). The boj says it's yen they got by swapping USD and parking it at the BOJ for the rate. That changes what this means. Since January 2024 total balances are down 21.9%. If you take the foreign banks out it goes to 26.8%. Their share went from 8.8% to 14.5%. Alexander Kim has domestic banks at 19 TIMES required reserves around September 2027. And the Fed just hiked. If the dollar premium in the swap market widens, a foreign bank gets paid more to park yen in Tokyo, the headline pile looks healthier. But don't be fooled. The domestic banks thin faster than the total shows. The BOJ is getting more foreign as it shrinks. Look at the domestics. Act accordingly.

The people not buying houses because they want to wait for lower rates run the risk of never getting a house the rest of their lifespan. I am so bullish on long term rates long terms. We will see 10% mortgage rates by 2032 #interestrate #RealEstate

The S&P 500 actually stands for the Super Passive 500

Got rare earths?