Bear Traps Report Turning Point Final IV Sep 13 2026

01 Global Macro: PPI and CPI solidify a rate hike next

Sunday, week, and the curve flattened in response. The Fed has ZERO room for sustained hikes! That’s all that matters for hard assets: bullish.

September 13, 2026 02 Rates/forex: Trump's trade war with Canada risks losing some key Senate races in states like Alaska and Ohio. Could a deal after the early October Quebec elections force short covering in the CAD?

With Larry McDonald 03 Credit: Why is the spread between high yield and

& CCC credit at extreme levels? Investment Grade Spreads are blowing out with CCCs – this is bearish

“The Dr” Robbert van U.S. Equities.

Batenburg, CFA 04 Equities: Interview with veteran investor about the election and his positioning in this market. The US housing market is on the ropes, with a record mismatch between sellers and buyers. “This is a 1980s-style slowdown coming: a hot “supernova” economy, with rates and inflation hammering the middle class, and 05 Technicals: S&P 52-week High/Lows, GS vs. JEF, large-scale demand destruction happening right now. Looking back Visa/MA, Biotechs, stocks crossing below and forty years, McDonald’s and Home Depot have never been in 25% above their 200-day MA. drawdowns while U.S. equities sat at all-time highs. That is happening as we speak. The last time we saw anything close was Crypto: A bullish catalyst for Ethereum in October October 2007. It’s a consumer recession, supported by essential 06 when DTCC goes live with tokenized stocks. AI-driven economic support. If Dario’s weekend warning holds, they will be slowing the one leg of the stool holding up the Trade Alert: Buy 1/3 Lululemon Athletica entire show — and that comes with high impact; we have an Inc. (LULU) near $99 eye on duration.” Our Larry McDonald Commodities: Trump is second-guessing his copper *Here come the socialists - Bernie Sanders has proposed a 07 tariffs to address affordability issues. This risks an 20-year prison sentence for AI developers who move forward unwind of the bloated onshore copper inventories. with Artificial Superintelligence plans, a penalty comparable to illegally developing rogue nuclear weapons. Trade Alert: Sell ALL Global X Copper Miners ETF (COPX) Near $95 **We KNOW this bill will NEVER become law, but this is the Energy: Refiner utilization rates about to turn mindset of the extreme left. ** 08 lower, WTI Demark sell signal, freight rates and the BWET, Bab El Mandeb ship traffic, EU natural gas dependency continues to shrink,

Into the Trump meeting, “China is ramping up crude buying aggressively to raise runs and replenish domestic product stocks and further production curtailment in the Middle East due to Red Sea shutdowns,” Goldman Sachs.

In major league baseball, one might call this a little “chin-music.” A high-and-tight fastball that you can still feel three hours later. With global oil supplies this low, China has a dangerous weapon here, one that could fuel global inflation, and they know it.

Talk about leverage - Xi walks into the China-U.S. Summit on September 24th holding the one remaining demand lever that can break a rising U.S. inflation print -- an estimated 1.4 billion barrels of government- plus-state commercial crude, the largest stockpile on earth. At the same time, from the Kingdom, Saudi output just printed 6.2 million barrels a day, the lowest since 1990, and global observed stocks have been drawn at roughly 3 million barrels a day. China knows this; for the Saudis, 2026 is running roughly 2.7 million b/d below the five-year average at this point in the calendar. China spent the Iran war cutting seaborne imports roughly in half from the February peak, drawing commercial tanks and holding the official reserve, which is why crude never went to the $200 that so many commentators and experts foresaw.

Those tanks are now being refilled, and arrivals are climbing back toward 7-9 million barrels a day – and we are already seeing the expected impact on world oil prices. Beijing can flip the other way: keep buying, stop buying, or -- if it ever chooses -- release. The U.S. SPR cannot make a meaningful difference. It sits at 285 million barrels, about forty percent of capacity, the lowest since 1983…