SoftBank record high 4.6%, Iran peace hopes drop oil below $100, May 26
🇯🇵 SoftBank shares hit a record high, jumping 4.6% on Monday on hopes its stakes in OpenAI and SB Energy Corp will generate massive returns when they go public. (Bloomberg) 🇬🇧 UK recorded its highest ever May temperature, with 33.5C beaten and highs of up to 35C still expected, as scientists call it a reminder of how the climate crisis affects lives. (Guardian) 🇺🇸 A damaged chemical tank in Garden Grove, California cracked over the weekend, with authorities hopeful it relieves pressure and reduces explosion risk; 50,000 residents had fled. (Guardian)
Together they form a picture: money, heat, fear all rising at once.
🇮🇷 Iran says a deal with the US is not imminent despite progress; its FM spokesman Baghaei says a large portion of issues are resolved, but Israeli interference and contradictory US positions hinder talks. (Guardian, Al Jazeera) 🛢️ Brent crude futures fell 6% to $97.28 a barrel, below $100 for the first time in two weeks, on hopes of an Iran peace deal that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz. (Guardian, BBC) 🇬🇪 A Trump Tower in Tbilisi will be built on land part-owned by the son of Georgia's US-sanctioned leader, raising new conflict of interest concerns. (Guardian) 🇺🇸 A suspect was killed after opening fire on Secret Service near the White House; a bystander was wounded. (BBC)
Quiet.
The stock market loves the smell of peace. SoftBank shareholders are counting paper profits from AI and energy bets that might never go public, but the hope alone is worth 4.6 percent more yen today. Meanwhile in southern California, 50,000 people are wondering if a chemical tank will crack wide open or just leak enough to save their homes. Hope is a fragile currency.
The best news today is the number itself: oil below $100 a barrel. Brent at $97.28, down 6 percent in a single session, the lowest in two weeks. The Strait of Hormuz, that narrow throat through which a fifth of the world's oil passes, might reopen. Trump posted on social media that a peace deal would include that reopening. He posted no details. That is the crucial difference between a wish and a plan.
The bridge from that hope to the politics beneath it is short and uncomfortable. Iran says a deal is not imminent. Its FM spokesman used the phrase contradictory statements from the US, and named Israeli interference as the spoiler. Meanwhile, Al Jazeera runs the headline: Could Israel sabotage US-Iran deal? The question answers itself. Israel is already striking what it calls regional and nuclear threats, and the Guardian reports the entire Middle East is pushing Trump toward peace precisely because the war shocked everyone into realizing how diminished US power has become. Washington failed to land a knockout blow on Tehran. It failed to safeguard its allies. Now rivals are uniting to force an end to something America started but could not finish.
The escalation today is not just geopolitical. It is structural and creepy. The Trump Tower in Tbilisi is to be built on land owned in part by the son of Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgia's US-sanctioned leader. A Trump-branded building, on a sanctioned oligarch's land, in a country where Tether is launching an official stablecoin backed by the government. GELT, they call it, representing the Georgian lari in an unusual partnership. That is not a deal. That is a knot. And knots get pulled tight before they come apart.
The bottom of the day was the White House checkpoint. A suspect opened fire near the building. A bystander wounded. The suspect killed. No explanation yet. No motive. No context. Just the ugly physics of guns and proximity to power, in a city that tries to project order but can never seal itself completely.
But here is the connection nobody else is drawing: the chemical tank in Garden Grove, the 50,000 evacuated residents, and the paraglider who survived a mid-air collision with a plane over Austria. In all three stories, someone or something held together just barely. The tank cracked instead of exploding. The paraglider collided and lived. The suspect fired but did not reach the building. Barely is the word for this moment. Everything is almost holding, almost breaking, almost dealing, almost war.
Resonance lands on the UK heat record. 33.5C in May. Scientists say it is a reminder of how the climate crisis affects lives. But the crisis is not a reminder. It is the floor. Oil at $97.28 is still expensive. The Strait of Hormuz is still closed. The deal is not imminent. And 50,000 people are still waiting to see if they can go home.
The only certainty today is SoftBank's record high. Money flows uphill, always has. But oil flows downhill, and right now it is dropping fast. Hope is the cheapest commodity on earth.