Ceased Ceasefire?
By Bas van Geffen, Senior Market Strategist at Rabobank
There has been little progress in the US-Iran peace negotiations over the past weekend. In fact, it feels like the two sides have been walking backwards as the ceasefire is faltering.
The US and Iran are still at odds over the frozen Iranian assets, which Iran wants released as part of any deal. But, yesterday, President Trump said that he will not unfreeze any amount of Iranian assets, nor lift sanctions, immediately after a deal is closed: “If they behave, if they do a good job, we start talking” about unfreezing these assets, he said.
And, if it is up to the US Treasury, there may be few assets left by the time Trump is willing to talk. The Financial Times reports that Treasury Secretary Bessent is considering using the Iranian assets to pay for the rebuilding of Gulf countries that were hit by Iranian attacks. So, we’ve now moved from “the US and Gulf countries help with the reconstruction of Iran” to “Iran pays to rebuild the Gulf countries.”
On top of that, new attacks put further pressure on the negotiations, and on the fragile ceasefire that was tacitly extended while negotiations are ongoing. US Central Command reported it took down two Iranian drones that threatened marine traffic near Hormuz, after Iran also fired missiles at Kuwait on Wednesday and at Bahrain on Friday. The US, meanwhile, has struck Iranian radar and surveillance sites.
Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is also still ongoing. Defence Minister Katz said the country’s air force had launched a strike on a command center in one of Beirut’s suburbs, in response to Hezbollah’s continuing
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Intel Jumps On Report Google Placed 3 Million TPU Foundry Order
After last week's sharp sell-off in chip stocks, the latest attempt to keep the AI bubble inflated comes from a report by The Information, which says Google has placed an order with Intel to manufacture more than 3 million Tensor Processing Units in 2028.
Google's TPU order with Intel is a big win for the struggling chip foundry as it tries to rebuild its empire in advanced chip production and compete with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).
The Information's Qianer Liu writes that TSMC's capacity constraints are turning into a boon for Intel as a backup manufacturer.
She noted that several major AI chip designers, including Nvidia, are turning to Intel as a potential backup manufacturer, but no orders from CEO Jensen Huang have been placed yet, as there is a testing phase to determine whether Intel's technolog
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