Lloyd's Just Stopped Insuring the Ships

Iran-backed Houthis hit two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, the Encelia and the Layla.

After that, Brent crude settled at $100.69 Thursday, up 7% in a day and its first close above $100 in two months.

Friday it gave back 4% to about $96.80 on reports that Pakistan, backed by China, is trying to restart US-Iran talks.

Not a ceasefire. A report that someone might try.

Four dollars a barrel for a maybe. At the pump the fear is already permanent: $4.09 national average, up 15 cents in a week.

A Ship Without Cover Doesn't Sail

Top Lloyd's of London war insurers told brokers they will stop selling war-risk cover for Saudi-linked cargoes in the Red Sea. That's the separate policy a vessel needs to enter a conflict zone, and without it a ship doesn't move.

Some underwriters are preparing to cancel policies mid-voyage.
With ships already at sea, already paid for, already committed.

For the ones still writing, southern Saudi Red Sea ports are quoted as high as 3% of vessel value, against 0.1% further north. Thirty times the price for the same water a few hundred miles apart.

At 3%, one voyage costs more to insure than the crew, the fuel, and the port fees combined.

So the Bab el-Mandeb strait, the chokepoint nobody watched while everyone stared at Hormuz, dropped to 11 commodity vessels in a day. The lowest in months.

You can reopen a strait with a navy, but you can't make an underwriter sign.

Who Collects

Every ship that skips the Red Sea sails around Africa, which is a much longer route, but at least they still have insurance.

Drivers are on the other side of that trade. So is Saudi Arabia, whose tankers are the target and whose cargo nobody will cover.

Underwriters are on neither side. The market that exists to put a number on risk looked at this one and stopped quoting. The 3% still on offer is coming from smaller books writing what the leaders just declined, and charging for the privilege.

Friday took 4% off the barrel on a report that someone might try to talk. The pump kept its 15 cents.

A barrel finds a new price in an afternoon. A policy takes a bit longer.

What happened to these two from the Magnificent Seven is INSANE. Both gave the same answer about AI spending. Neither one landed.

How fast are gas prices moving right now? Most states just crossed a round number nobody wanted to see again.

Can you guess what's the future of gold? This war points into a direction.

A Quantum Infrastructure Company Projects $450M for 2026

Spectral Capital (OTCQB: FCCN) is a Seattle-based company building AI and quantum-enabled digital infrastructure, including its Quantum-Forward™ platform and AI-native compute orchestration.

Its plan is growth by acquisition: the company projects $450 MILLION in 2026 revenue, up from a projected $274 million in 2025, driven by its pending Telvantis deal and an acquisition pipeline

It has engaged Revere Securities for a planned Nasdaq uplisting.

If you want to learn more, you can schedule a 1-on-1 call with one of the advisors for Spectral Capital here:

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Anthropic Wants $1 Trillion and SpaceX Already Made the Round Trip

U.S. IPO proceeds hit $141.2 billion this month, just under 2021's full-year record, with five months left on the calendar.

Anthropic filed a confidential S-1 (the registration document filed before going public) on June 1, targeting October, at a number that clears a trillion.

Filing it confidentially means nobody outside the deal sees the financials until the price is set.

The last company through this door priced on June 12 (SpaceX).
And it's already been back to where it started.

The Profit Has an Asterisk

Anthropic told investors it expects $10.9 billion in Q2 revenue, up 130% from $4.8 billion in Q1, and operating income of $559 million. First profitable quarter in company history, arriving two years ahead of its own guidance.

Then read the footnotes.

The figure includes training costs but excludes stock-based compensation.

The Wall Street Journal noted it isn't clear what accounting methods were used, since Anthropic isn't yet subject to public-company reporting.
These are projections circulated during a fundraise.

Also, SpaceX's own S-1 disclosed that Anthropic pays it $1.25 billion a month for compute, roughly $15 billion a year, at a reduced rate during the ramp-up period. That ramp-up period is Q2.

Anthropic itself says the profitability won't hold.

Thirty-Three Days

SpaceX priced 555.6 million shares at $135 on June 12, the largest IPO ever.

It opened at $150 and touched $168 on day one. Within a month it traded above $225. On July 15 it closed at $135.27, below the offer price for the first time.

Everyone who bought at $135 had an allocation.
Everyone who bought at $225 had an app.

Who Gets Paid at Which Price

Wall Street strategists are now publishing guides on how to play the next trillion-dollar listing.

The banks running these books earn their fee when the shares price, not when they trade. So, their client is the company selling.

The guide is not for people with an allocation. They already have the shares.
It exists for everyone else, and it arrives after the only price that mattered is gone.

SpaceX's chart is thirty-three days long.
And still the most honest document published about Anthropic's IPO.

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