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A CBS poll from mid-June showed 78% of U.S. adults want the Iran situation to end without more fighting. 69% said the costs so far weren’t worth it, and nearly 60% think it created more problems for the U.S. than it solved.

Public fatigue like this can influence how long any administration is willing to stay engaged or escalate. For markets, the main near-term read is still on oil. Renewed tensions or supply disruption risks tend to lift crude and support names like XOM and CVX. Defense contractors (LMT, RTX, NOC) can also see flows when headlines heat up. On the flip side, broader equities and sectors sensitive to higher energy prices or risk-off moves usually feel pressure.

The poll doesn’t change today’s price action by itself, but it adds to the backdrop. If oil keeps grinding higher on any fresh headlines, these are the areas that usually move first. How are people positioning around energy and defense right now versus the broader market?

Its fake

Classic Trump... We are so winning!

The European Commission is preparing a "Tech Sovereignty Package" that would stop US cloud providers from processing certain sensitive government data in areas like health, finance and legal work. The goal is to push public organizations toward European cloud options instead.

Private companies would still be free to use whoever they want. This fits with other recent EU moves to reduce reliance on American tech for critical stuff.

It could trim some government contract revenue for the big US names over time, though the private sector side stays open. Not sure how big the hit would actually be.

What do you make of this? Worth watching for $MSFT, $AMZN and $GOOGL or mostly noise?

Link: https://www.techspot.com/news/112362-europe-may-restrict-microsoft-amazon-google-handling-sensitive.html

The number of bans being enacted against data centers is increasing across the U.S., with one tracker listing 14 new bans from March to April. According to the U.S. Data Center Moratorium Tracker, there are currently 50 active bans across different jurisdictions, with an addition of four local governments enacting a permanent ban in their area of responsibility. There are also three proposed bans, plus several more in various stages, including those in the process of creating a new ban, exploring the possibility of a ban, and some with expired bans.

New reporting shows Iran damaged or destroyed kit at 16+ US sites across eight countries, radars, THAAD components, even a $500M E-3 Sentry that’s out of production. Replacement timelines run 10-15 years for some of that hardware.

This is the kind of attrition that actually moves the needle for primes. LMT, RTX, NOC, GD, and HII all stand to book multi-year work on new radars, comms, and aircraft. The E-3 gap alone is going to force accelerated spending the Pentagon can’t ignore.

The market has been oddly calm... defense names are up but not euphoric. Probably because the narrative is still “war terminated.” Once the classified damage assessments leak and the supplemental requests hit, we should see a cleaner re-rate.

I’ve been scaling into the group on any ceasefire dips. The math is simple: damaged irreplaceable assets + political pressure to restore posture = sustained orders. Not a one-quarter story.

Nvidia VP Bryan Catanzaro told Axios that for his team, the cost of compute is far beyond employee costs. Right now AI is more expensive than just paying human workers, mainly from hardware and power use.

This matches Meta cutting 10% of staff and Microsoft offering buyouts while both spend heavily on AI data centers. Uber’s CTO also overspent his full AI budget on tools this year. Big tech capex reached $740 billion, up 69% from last year.

A 2024 MIT study found AI only makes economic sense in 23% of vision-heavy jobs. Humans are cheaper for the rest.

For stocks, this could slow broad rollout and raise questions for big spenders like MSFT, AMZN, GOOGL, and META on when returns show up. NVDA still moves GPUs either way. The power demand from data centers may support natural gas (UNG) and energy commodities through futures or CFDs.

Anyone shifting views on the AI names or energy side after this?

Source: https://fortune.com/2026/04/28/nvidia-executive-cost-of-ai-is-greater-than-cost-of-employees/

Tim Cook hands the CEO job to hardware lead John Ternus on September 1. Under Cook, Apple’s market cap went from roughly 350 billion to 4 trillion. Revenue more than quadrupled past 400 billion. Services hit 109 billion last year, 26% of sales, and lifted gross margins to 48%. Wearables revenue dropped 4% as competition grew.

He shifted production to India and Vietnam to handle tariffs and put hundreds of billions into US manufacturing. The latest expansion adds partners for components made domestically, with 400 million committed through 2030.

AAPL shares fell about 2.5% right after the announcement but recovered the next day. Earnings land April 30.

For AAPL holders or those trading CFDs on it, the ops record and services mix give some stability. Suppliers tied to the US push like CRUS and TDK (6762.T) stand to gain from the new work. META has taken share in wearables.

No big commodity moves tied directly to this, though supply chain changes can still affect component material costs.

How are you positioned into earnings, or watching the transition for any shifts?