Home Blog Page 2

NFL Teams Are Starting to Trade Like a New Asset Class

Sebastian Wolfe
-
0
NFL Teams Are Starting to Trade Like a New Asset Class

Currently the average NFL franchise has a value of $9.5 billion, which represents an increase of 34% over the course of one year. The factors affecting how investors assess professional football are private equity, assured media revenue, and the fact that there are only 32 teams.

The owners of the NFL might have seen one of the biggest increases in their private wealth over the past year, and only a small part of that increase was due just to selling more tickets. According to Forbes’ 2026 valuation of NFL franchises, the average value of an NFL franchise is now $9.5 billion, which represents a 34% increase on the previous year’s figure of $7.1 billion. If you take the average league value and multiply it by the 32 teams in the league, you get an estimate of $76.8 billion in extra franchise value for a single year. The Dallas Cowboys themselves have a value of $17 billion having generated almost $1.28 billion in annual revenue. The Cincinnati Bengals, who finish at the bottom of the league, are still valued at $8 billion.

That brings up a financial issue which is important long beyond the world of football. Although NFL teams are still businesses, it seems that more and more investors are ready to treat them as if they were scarce alternative assets. They produce regular cash flows, have huge barriers to entry, attract institutional buyers, and have a fixed supply which cannot easily adjust when demand increases. The NFL could be turning its 32 franchises into something that is more like an asset class.

NFL 1961 Antitrust Exemption Under Fire →

One reason why NFL franchises are able to command such high valuations is that the economics associated with them are unusually well protected. The Green Bay Packers, because of their publicly owned structure, have one of the few detailed views into the financial affairs of the NFL and for their most recent financial year recorded national revenue of $453.2 million, an increase of 4.8% compared with the previous year. When this amount is applied to all 32 teams, it shows that more than $14.5 billion passes through the NFL’s national revenue system before the individual teams take into account local ticket sales, sponsorships, merchandise, premium seating and other sources of income.

Media rights are a key part of that system. The NFL’s long-term distribution deals with Amazon, CBS, ESPN/ABC, Fox and NBC currently go on until the 2033 season. As Forbes points out, the league has the opportunity to leave those major television agreements and renegotiate them after the 2029 and 2030 seasons, which could result in another reset of the value of NFL content. What this means is that an NFL owner acquires something which an ordinary private company cannot easily copy. Although he is buying a local team, he is in effect also becoming a participant in one thirty-second part of a huge national entertainment system.

This means that the league’s average valuation has now reached about 13.4 times its trailing revenue, as compared to 8.3 times in 2022. In simple terms, investors are currently prepared to grant about $13.40 of enterprise value for every $1 of annual team revenue, whereas four years ago that figure was only about $8.30. Although the businesses have grown, the amount that investors are willing to pay for that growth has increased at an even faster rate.

How Patrick Mahomes Invests His Record-Breaking NFL Contract →

The next one is ownership itself. In 2024 the owners of the NFL decided to allow approved private equity funds to buy passive minority interests in the franchises. These private equity funds as a group can own up to 10 per cent of a team, individual investments usually have to be at least 3 per cent, and approved funds can have interests in as many as six NFL teams. That is important since a highly valuable asset can still face a valuation issue even when very few people are allowed to buy it. Allowing institutional capital access increases the number of potential buyers without significantly increasing the number of franchises.

For example, Arctos Partners agreed in August to buy a 10 per cent share in the Atlanta Falcons as a result of a deal which valued the team at about $10.6 billion. The firm already had investments linked to the Buffalo Bills, the Cleveland Browns and the Los Angeles Chargers. Ronald Diamond, the founder and chairman of Diamond Wealth Strategies, gave a clear statement on the basic investment principle to InvestmentNews: “Scarcity matters. There are only 32 NFL teams and 30 NBA teams. These assets rarely come up for sale.” InvestmentNews

The scarcity has an unusually strong effect. It is possible to have another technology startup, another apartment development, or another private equity fund, but an additional NFL franchise can only exist if the league chooses to set up one. According to Forbes, 23 of the NFL’s 32 teams have been under the control of the same individual or family for at least 20 years, and the league has not yet shown any intention of expanding past 32 teams. Since there are now more buyers, they are all vying for a property where the amount available hardly changes. That is a textbook example of scarcity economics.

UK Stocks Are Getting Bought: What the Intertek Deal Says About London’s Valuation Problem →

There is in fact actual evidence from transactions that supports the increase in NFL valuations. This month the Khosla family completed their purchase of the Seattle Seahawks for $9.612 billion, which is the highest amount ever paid for an NFL franchise; the previous record had been the acquisition of the Washington Commanders for approximately $6.05 billion in 2023. Forbes estimated that Seattle generated $659 million in revenue last season; the transaction therefore took place at about 14.6 times trailing revenue. Four years before that, Rob Walton’s acquisition of the Denver Broncos for $4.65 billion was carried out at approximately 8.8 times revenue.

That is important since private assets depend greatly on comparable transactions; when a real buyer pays almost $10 billion for Seattle, the owners and investors can use that transaction to set the price for the next franchise or minority interest. Thus, higher transactions can lead to a feedback effect in which one deal establishes a new benchmark which in turn affects the next. On the other hand, there is a powerful counterargument. NFL teams are very illiquid assets. The Forbes values are estimates and not the actual daily market prices, and since there aren’t many instances of sales by owners, it is impossible to know with certainty how much each team would bring. If media rights growth slows down, financing becomes more costly or eventually buyers decide not to continue raising the valuation multiples, then investors will be at risk.

The fact that NFL franchises can be regarded as an asset class does not mean that their prices are limited to rising. Their economic situation might well be the reason for the unusually high valuations. The league has revenue sharing, a salary cap, national media contracts, loyal consumers and limited competition. It is because of these features that an NFL team is fundamentally different from a typical privately owned company. The importance of the Seahawks’ transaction lies in the fact that at least one buyer was willing to commit nearly $10 billion to that argument.

The Most Important Number in Football May Be 32

That next test doesn’t have to take place on a football field. Investors ought to keep an eye on any future private equity transactions, the sale of minority stakes and any deal involving a controlling franchise that exceeds the $10 billion mark. Moreover, the league’s possible media renegotiations in 2029 and 2030 might also have a significant effect on future cash-flow expectations. Expansion might matter even more.

Should the NFL one day decide to increase the number of franchises, it would result in the creation of new assets and thereby slightly undermine the scarcity argument; but if it stays at 32 while billionaires, family offices and private equity firms continue to bid for ownership, the reverse situation could occur. The NFL teams would still be considered businesses, but the value of these teams would become increasingly based on a principle which finance is very familiar with: that is, a large amount of capital competing for an asset which is almost never made available. That could well be the most important financial figure in professional football.

What’s Really in Your Beer? The Glyphosate Divide Between America and Europe

Daniel Whitaker
-
0
What’s Really in Your Beer? The Glyphosate Divide Between America and Europe

Europe is now drawing a more firm line regarding glyphosate. The situation concerning the supply of beer in America is more complicated.

Europe still allows the use of glyphosate, but it bans the use of the herbicide as a desiccant in order to control harvesting times. In the United States, glyphosate is permitted for use before harvesting on certain grains, and tests have on numerous occasions detected residues in beer on both sides of the Atlantic. Glyphosate does not appear on the labels of Budweiser, Coors Light or Heineken. However, laboratory tests have on numerous occasions detected tiny amounts of the most widely used herbicide in the world in beer.

The complexity of the story lies in the fact that the United States and Europe regulate glyphosate in a manner which is not exactly the same. The European Union has extended the authorisation of glyphosate until 15 December 2033, which means that Europe is not glyphosate-free. Yet the European Commission does prohibit its use as a desiccant in order to control the timing of harvest or to optimise threshing. The rules in the United States are different.

At the moment, the agricultural advice issued in the U.S. permits the use of glyphosate before harvest on some grains; for instance, with wheat glyphosate may be applied after the hard-dough stage when the moisture content of the grain is low enough, on the condition that seven days have elapsed before harvest. The difference matters because a study published in Food Additives & Contaminants showed that glyphosate acts in an unusual way during the brewing process; over 80 per cent of the glyphosate recovered from the treated grain ended up in the sweet wort and then reached the beer rather than staying mainly in the spent grain as do many other pesticides that are less water-soluble.

Syngenta Settles Paraquat Lawsuits Tied to Parkinson’s Risk →

The American beer story requires one important qualification. It is illegal for glyphosate to be applied after the heading stage to U.S. malting barley, and the American Malting Barley Association states that its members will not knowingly buy malting barley which has been treated in this way. The Brewers Association also advises that brewers should enter into contracts that prescribe a zero tolerance for grain treated with glyphosate after heading and check compliance by means of testing. It would not be accurate to say that American breweries regularly produce beer using barley that has been sprayed with glyphosate right before harvesting.

However, the wider American grain system is different since glyphosate is still available for use as a pre-harvest treatment of crops such as wheat, and beer may contain wheat, corn, rice and other agricultural ingredients in addition to malted barley. Glyphosate may also get into ingredients via earlier weed control measures, crop rotations and environmental contamination. The most interesting one is the comparison made by a 2019 investigation carried out by the U.S. PIRG, since beers from America and Europe were tested as part of the same testing project.

BeerOrigin listed by studyGlyphosate
Coors LightUnited States31.1 ppb
Miller LiteUnited States29.8 ppb
BudweiserUnited States27.0 ppb
HeinekenNetherlands20.9 ppb
Guinness DraughtIreland20.3 ppb
Stella ArtoisBelgium18.7 ppb

Source: A report on the testing of beer and wine carried out by the U.S. PIRG Education Fund, published in 2019.

In the case of the three large American beers, the figure was about 29.3 ppb, as against roughly 20.0 ppb for the three conventional European beers mentioned above. That might be an interesting point, but it doesn’t prove that American beer as a whole contains 47 per cent more glyphosate. Six brands cannot establish national averages, and PIRG itself said that its testing did not amount to a comprehensive scientific study of the beverage industry. The more recent findings make the situation even less clear.

In 2026 Green America had laboratory tests carried out on five of the major beers available in the United States. Glyphosate was found at 0.63 ppb in Budweiser, 0.31 ppb in Bud Light and 0.25 ppb in Michelob Ultra. Heineken contained 2.93 ppb, which was the highest level of glyphosate of all the five beers tested. The huge gap between those figures and the 2019 results proves that the country of origin of a beer is not enough to tell consumers how much glyphosate it contains.

European beer has not been free from the problem either. In 2017 the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment found that samples of 14 popular German beers contained between 0.3 and 5.1 micrograms per litre, a sharp decrease from the levels which had reached about 30 micrograms per litre in 2016. A peer-reviewed study carried out separately and published in 2020 found glyphosate in six of the 14 German beers, the amount ranging from 3.4 to 35.1 micrograms per litre, whereas eight of the samples were below the detection limit of the method. A concentration of one microgram per litre is roughly equivalent to one part per billion, even though the methods of analysis vary between the different studies.

Ultra-Processed Foods Lawsuit: Big Food on Trial for Kids’ Health Crisis →

It is on the question of cancer that the debate about glyphosate becomes highly contentious. In 2015 the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer stated that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans”, finding limited evidence of the effect in humans, sufficient evidence in experimental animals and strong evidence of genotoxicity. A meta-analysis published in 2019 and conducted by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Washington found that individuals who were in the group with the highest level of exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides had a relative risk 41 per cent higher than others for non-Hodgkin lymphoma, the meta-analysis showing a relative risk of 1.41 and a 95 per cent confidence interval ranging from 1.13 to 1.75.

It is a significant finding, but one that doesn’t mean that having beer with 20 or 30 ppb of glyphosate in it increases an individual’s risk of lymphoma by 41 per cent. The epidemiological studies in question mainly concerned people who had much heavier occupational or agricultural exposures. Further animal evidence has intensified the debate. A two-year study carried out in 2025 and published in Environmental Health found increased cases or dose-related trends for a number of tumours in rats given glyphosate or glyphosate-based herbicides. The authors stated that their findings supported the IARC’s conclusion that there is sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals.

Zyn Is Banking →

There is also a major scientific objection. The large U.S. Agricultural Health Study, which covered more than 54,000 licensed pesticide applicators, found no statistically significant overall association between glyphosate and solid tumours or lymphoid cancers, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma. A similar meta-analysis in 2021 also found an overall relative risk for NHL of 1.05, a result which was not statistically significant, although an association with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma could not be excluded.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s current assessment is that glyphosate is not likely to cause cancer in humans at the relevant exposure levels, and the European Chemicals Agency has likewise concluded that the evidence does not support classifying glyphosate as a carcinogen. The debate is not over. On August 25, 2026, the EPA published a new extensive review of the literature as it works on an updated glyphosate human-health risk assessment which is expected later in 2026. That could eventually turn out to be the most important development to watch.

Europe has established a more strict regulatory limit on the use of glyphosate for the purpose of adjusting harvest times, while in America such pre-harvest applications are still permitted on some crops. However, actual tests of beer reveal that neither continent has managed to get rid of glyphosate residues and that the concentrations can vary greatly from product to product, year to year and along the supply chain. The question that remains open is not merely whether American or European beer is “cleaner.” The question is whether modern agriculture should allow a chemical to get into the supply chains of food and drink when scientists and regulators are still in disagreement about what the decades of repeated exposure could mean.

Wall Street Is Watching AI Capex. The Real Bill Is Still Coming

Tim Gocklin, MBA, MSF
-
2
Wall Street Is Watching AI Capex. The Real Bill Is Still Coming

Investors are observing the amount that Big Tech spends on artificial intelligence each quarter, the more significant figure being the amount that has already been locked in by contract for years to come.

For much of the artificial intelligence boom, Wall Street has kept a close eye on the capital expenditures of Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Alphabet. Although these figures are huge, they do not now convey the full picture. By June 30, the four Magnificent Seven companies had made public around $830.5 billion in future payments relating to leases which had not yet started. Meta then revealed an additional approximately $68 billion from data-centre leases entered into in July, bringing the total known amount to about $898.5 billion. Amazon’s figure is not quite comparable since its lease portfolio also covers warehouses, offices, aircraft and vehicles, but the scale is still hard to ignore.

These commitments are not concealed debt; they are stated in the companies’ official filings, usually involve undiscounted payments spread over a number of years, and should not be treated as simply another form of borrowing. It is precisely this distinction that gives them their importance. A large part of the infrastructure being ordered in connection with the AI boom has already been economically committed before it shows up as a conventional lease liability on the balance sheet. For investors who assess the Magnificent Seven based on earnings growth, free cash flow, and return on invested capital, the amount of capital expenditure reported might be only the starting point of the calculation.

AI Is Quietly Moving Wall Street’s Buyback Machine Downstream →

Microsoft is perhaps the best example of why reported capital expenditure can become misleading. As stated in Microsoft’s fiscal 2026 fourth-quarter earnings call, Microsoft is increasing the estimated useful lives of its data centres and office buildings from 15 years to 25 years starting in fiscal 2027. This accounting change will result in a greater number of future data-centre leases being categorised as operating leases rather than finance leases, since finance leases are part of Microsoft’s capex figure while operating leases are not. What is the result? Microsoft has reduced its expected capital expenditure for calendar year 2026 to about $175 billion, even though it has made it clear that its original investment expectations have not changed.

The physical AI build-up wasn’t necessarily reduced in any way; instead, the way in which part of that investment was presented changed. That is important since the information in Microsoft’s latest Form 10-K shows that there are $329.1 billion worth of further leases, mostly relating to data centres, which had not yet started as of June 30. The leases are expected to start between fiscal year 2027 and fiscal year 2033 and may last as long as 20 years.

There is an even greater difference in Meta’s cash flow. In the second quarter the company spent $31.08 billion on capital expenditures, comprising the finance-lease principal payments, and managed to generate only $784 million of free cash flow. Meta now expects its capital expenditures to amount to approximately $130 billion to $145 billion in 2026. At the same time, its June filing revealed that there were approximately $278.99 billion of leases that had not yet commenced, together with another $68 billion of data-centre leases signed in July. The problem isn’t that investors are unable to see the spending; it’s that a well-known capex figure can make a considerably larger future fixed-cost structure appear more manageable than it actually is.

Bank of England Scrutinizes the Debt Behind Britain’s AI Investment Boom →

The more significant change could be taking place in the way the business is structured. In the past, large technology companies have enjoyed high valuation ratings to some extent since huge revenues could be generated without needing a corresponding increase in physical assets. This situation is now being changed by AI. Shay Boloor, who is the chief market strategist at Futurum Equities, has recently said to Reuters, “Investors are underestimating how fundamentally AI is changing the Big Tech business model.”

The figures support that argument. Alphabet revealed that it had $85.2 billion worth of leases, mostly concerning data centres, which had not yet commenced by June 30. In the first six months of 2026 the company spent $80.6 billion on capital expenditures. Amazon stated that it had about $137.2 billion of leases that had not yet started and spent $96.3 billion on cash capital expenditures during the first six months of the year. Alphabet’s latest filing details the scale of its own infrastructure commitments.

Even Nvidia, although it is receiving a large part of this spending, is becoming more committed in terms of capital. The most recent document it filed shows $366 billion in future commitments, comprising $279 billion in commitments relating to supply and capacity, $29 billion in agreements for cloud services, $25 billion in data-centre leases which have not yet started, $25 billion in planned equity investments and $8 billion in capital expenditure commitments. The various categories are distinct and should not be treated as debt, yet they show how deeply future AI growth is already being incorporated throughout the supply chain.

The question changes for finance investors. The right metric might now go beyond just capex. Investors are becoming more inclined to take into account ‘capex plus future contractual infrastructure exposure’ and then compare that commitment to the future incremental operating cash flow. An analysis by Reuters of estimates from LSEG shows that Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Oracle are on course to spend more on combined capital expenditure than the amount of free cash flow they generate by 2027. During the period from 2025 to 2027, expected annual growth in operating cash flow of about $340 billion will be matched by approximately $534 billion in extra capital expenditure, which amounts to roughly $1.57 of additional investment for each $1 of extra operating cash flow. It is at this point that AI ceases to be just a growth story and turns into a capital-efficiency story.

Five Beaten-Down Stocks Still Riding the AI Boom →

One strong counterargument exists. The companies known as the Magnificent Seven are not ones that are worried about whether customers will turn up and so sign lease agreements. Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet and Meta run some of the most profitable technology platforms in history and there is still a great deal of demand for cloud and AI computing. If the rate at which AI is consumed continues to rise, it might turn out to be the correct approach to secure land, electricity, chips and data-centre capacity many years in advance. The limited capacity obtained today could then support huge revenue streams in the future.

The hundreds of billions of dollars involved should not be regarded as something that will have to be paid right away; these commitments extend over years or decades, many of the facilities have not yet opened, and the way they are accounted for is very different from that of ordinary corporate debt. Even before they formally appear as lease liabilities, Reuters has pointed out that the rating agencies can include these obligations in their adjusted leverage calculations. That is the reason why the bearish argument shouldn’t be that Big Tech has secretly accumulated nearly $900 billion in debt since it has not.

What is more interesting is that the businesses of the Magnificent Seven which have been most exposed to AI are at the same time becoming more capital intensive while investors expect artificial intelligence to make them more productive. The tension will ultimately have to be settled in the cash-flow statement. Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Alphabet need their AI-related revenue and operating cash flow to grow quickly enough so that the infrastructure investments made today yield attractive returns instead of merely resulting in higher depreciation, lease payments and financing needs.

Investors ought therefore to pay more attention to lease commencements, operating lease expenses, depreciation growth, free-cash-flow conversion, cloud revenue, incremental margins and return on invested capital since these factors may show more clearly whether the AI buildout is in fact creating economic value. The problem with the Magnificent Seven does not require AI to fail in order to arise. Even if AI is revolutionary it can give rise to unsatisfactory investment returns if a large amount of capital is committed too early.

Wall Street is already aware of how much money these companies are spending today. The next question regarding valuation is what will occur when the bills which they have already signed start to arrive.

Why 500,000 Bags of Brazilian Coffee Shipped to Belgium Could Move Global Markets

Madeline Harper
-
0
Why 500,000 Bags of Brazilian Coffee Shipped to Belgium Could Move Global Markets

Hundreds of thousands of bags of Brazilian coffee are heading for Belgium at a time when exchange stocks are near multi-decade lows. A physical shift in the coffee inventory in Antwerp could suddenly turn into a financial-market event if a sufficient number of the beans end up in ICE-certified warehouses.

Strange things are taking place in Belgium, and this has very little to do with the amount of coffee that Belgians are drinking.

In August Brazilian coffee exports to Belgium increased, with global traders at that time having ready hundreds of thousands of arabica bags for possible certification in warehouses linked to the ICE futures market. Belgium is important since Antwerp has quietly become one of the most significant physical locations underlying the global benchmark price for arabica coffee.

As Reuters reports, about 70% of the existing ICE-certified arabica stocks are now stored in Antwerp. The amount of these stocks has dropped below 220,000 bags, which is the lowest level it has been in about 26 years. Yet the coffee futures are still around $3 per pound while traders expect much larger global supplies for the 2026/27 crop year.

That lack of connection is actually the key point.

Even though the world as a whole may be producing more coffee, the quantity of coffee that is immediately available for delivery under futures contracts is still very limited. It now seems that Brazil is shipping sufficient physical coffee to Belgium in order to start narrowing that gap.

Why Everything Feels Expensive Again: Inflation, Gas Prices and the Fed’s Next Move →

The most recent export figures from Brazil illustrate how fast the physical aspect of this market is evolving.

The Council of Coffee Exporters of Brazil, or Cecafé stated that Brazil exported 4.155 million 60-kilogram bags of coffee in August, which represents the highest August export figure in the country’s history and is 31% greater than the amount exported the previous year. Arabica shipments rose by 25.7% to 2.866 million bags.

Belgium has now become a particularly important destination.

Between January and August Belgium imported 2.115 million bags of Brazilian coffee, which was a 39.2% increase compared to the corresponding period in 2025, so that by that time Brazil’s fourth-largest coffee export market was Belgium, according to Cecafé.

The demonstrations in August were even more dramatic.

Analysis of Brazilian trade figures by the Brazilian broker Terra Investimentos revealed that exports of Brazilian coffee to Belgium had increased by 245.3% on a year-on-year basis in August, amounting to about 31,500 metric tons, or more than 525,000 standard bags of 60 kilograms each.

It doesn’t follow that all 525,000 bags are going to the futures exchange since Belgium is a major logistics centre for coffee in Europe and caters to normal commercial buyers as well.

There is a reason why traders keep a close eye on large shipments to Belgium.

Antwerp has coffee storage facilities that are licensed by ICE, so any surplus physical coffee can be graded, certified and then be used to fulfil futures contracts. If the amount of coffee shipped far exceeds normal roasting demand, part of it can move from the commercial supply chain into the exchange inventories.

Reuters states that over 62,000 Brazilian bags have already been delivered to exchange depots and are now waiting for grading or other quality controls.

It is in this way that a story about a Belgian warehouse turns into a Wall Street story.

Corporate Consolidation Is Making Inflation Worse and Consumer Choice Smaller →

Being involved in coffee futures is not just a wager on whether people will consume more cappuccinos next year.

The ICE Coffee “C” contract is one that involves the actual delivery of the commodity. According to ICE, the Coffee “C” contract is the global benchmark for arabica coffee, the beans in question being held in approved warehouses and required to meet grading and quality standards.

This establishes a significant connection between the inventory levels in warehouses and financial prices.

Futures traders realise that there will be less coffee available to meet delivery obligations when certified stocks become very scarce. Such scarcity can still support high prices even if the overall crop forecasts are positive.

The other possibility is that inventories increase suddenly.

Reuters has stated that the big trading companies are trying to obtain certification for large amounts of Brazilian arabica. According to sources, Olam is aiming to get certification for about 150,000 to 200,000 bags, whereas the Louis Dreyfus Company is also going through a similar procedure. The companies have refused to comment on the alleged plans.

Current stocks could more than double if about 300,000 bags eventually end up in certified inventories.

Inventories are still not at anything close to historical levels. Between the mid-2000s and early 2022, ICE-certified arabica stocks varied from about 1 million to 5 million bags, as reported by Reuters. The current level, which is below 220,000, is still extremely tight.

Markets, however, operate based on marginal changes.

Moving from 220,000 bags to maybe 500,000 is quite a different situation from just staying around the 26-year low.

There’s one other reason that is important.

Certain algorithmic commodity funds make use of changes in exchange inventory as a basis for trading. According to Reuters, some funds operated by algorithms are set to sell when the number of certified stocks rises and to buy when it falls.

A physical coffee shipment entering a warehouse in Belgium could therefore cause an electronic response thousands of miles away.

Beans arrive.

Inventories rise.

The trading models pick up the increase.

Selling pressure builds.

Futures prices potentially weaken.

It is a rather clear instance of the way the underlying mechanisms of commodity markets can affect the headline price that consumers eventually see.

Inflation, Debt and China Are Testing America’s Economic Strategy →

There is an important counterargument.

Coffee which arrives in Belgium is not automatically certified exchange coffee.

The beans have to comply with ICE’s requirements, including undergoing quality testing and grading; Reuters pointed out that it is still unclear what proportion of the Brazilian coffee currently under review will pass those tests.

There is also a distinction to be made between a bearish inventory signal and one that reflects a truly abundant supply.

Even if 300,000 certified bags were added, the amount of stock available for exchange would still be well short of the one-million-bag level which traders in the past have regarded as more satisfactory. The market could once again become tight quickly because of weather difficulties, disruptions to the harvest, changes in the currency or unexpectedly strong demand.

Brazil’s bigger numbers also need more explanation.

Although August’s exports reached a record level, Brazil exported 25.073 million bags in the first eight months of 2026, this representing 1.2 per cent less than had been exported in the corresponding period of the previous year. Export revenue dropped by 9.3 per cent to $8.787 billion, according to Cecafé.

That is to say, a single strong month doesn’t automatically indicate that the world is drowning in coffee.

August’s performance, according to Cecafé President Márcio Ferreira, was in part due to the greater availability of the new arabica crop resulting from harvest delays caused by rain; this implies that part of the current surge might be coffee arriving later than expected rather than indicating a permanent structural glut.

In fact, Belgium is the place to see now.

The most important signal in the coffee market over the coming several months might not be derived from a coffee plantation in Brazil, a Starbucks sales report, or even a weather forecast.

It could be contained in warehouse receipts in Antwerp.

If the Brazilian beans currently passing through Belgium manage to obtain ICE certification, the coffee market could shift from pricing the extreme scarcity of available deliveries to pricing replenishment. This change does not need the warehouses to be filled; it only requires traders to believe that the shortage is starting to fade.

That risk is one that is often neglected by investors.

Coffee prices do not necessarily need a collapse in demand to fall.

At times all they need is having more bags available at the correct warehouse.

Russia’s 17-Year Oil Production Low Hides a Bigger Budget Trap

Sebastian Wolfe
-
1
Russia’s 17-Year Oil Production Low Hides a Bigger Budget Trap

Russia is now producing less oil, but the more significant aspect might be what occurs to the value of each barrel after it has been removed from the ground.

What is now becoming clear is that Russia’s oil problem is not just a problem of production.

A draft of a Russian government forecast obtained by Reuters states that production of oil and gas condensate in 2026 will be around 494.2 million metric tons, which is equivalent to about 9.88 million barrels per day, a decrease of 17.2 million tons on 2025 levels and the smallest annual figure since 2009. Moscow has also lowered its production forecasts for 2027 to 2029, indicating that the authorities do not expect a quick recovery to the earlier levels.

There was yet another warning on September 11. The International Energy Agency brought its forecast for Russian crude production in 2026 down to 8.7 million barrels per day, having first estimated August crude output at 8.36 million barrels per day. Although the Russian government and the IEA figure the industry in slightly different ways, they cannot be directly compared, yet both indicate that Russian production capacity is under increasing pressure.

Focusing merely on the number of barrels that Russia pumps might cause one to overlook the more important financial aspect.

The real issue now is the amount of economic and fiscal value that Russia can obtain from each barrel it continues to produce.

Russia Is Losing Part of the Refining Multiplier

Crude oil has value; it becomes much more valuable when it is turned into products such as gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and others.

The importance of that difference is enormous at the present time.

European gasoline refining margins have recently risen above $62 per barrel, almost reaching the level recorded in 2022. Meanwhile, diesel margins have too increased since global refining capacity has been reduced due to disruptions in Russia and the Middle East.

Russia ought in theory to be one of the main beneficiaries of that situation.

On the contrary, the repeated strikes on Russian refineries have produced an unusual turn of events. Although Moscow is still able to produce crude oil, it now has less capacity for converting that crude into more valuable fuels.

The Russian government’s projections, as reported by Reuters, indicate that crude oil exports are likely to increase temporarily in 2026 since less oil will be processed domestically, whereas exports of finished petroleum products are expected to amount to only about 98.5 million tons.

It is not just an operational problem; it alters the economics of the barrel.

The cost and risk of extracting the crude oil remain with Russia, while another country is able to take greater advantage of the refining margin.

This situation is part of the wider imbalance that TerreneGlobe looked at in its article Russia Wants a Railway to India. Should New Delhi Say Yes? since Russia’s relationship with India has now become largely based on the export of Russian raw materials, especially crude oil.

The Same Russian Barrel Can Now Make a Round Trip

India might well be the best example of this.

The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air stated that India had imported a record quantity of Russian crude oil for two months running in July. Meanwhile, the amount of Russian oil products exported dropped to 4.7 million tons, which is less than half the 9.6 million tons that were exported in July 2025.

The trade then started to go in the opposite direction.

The Financial Express states that India exported about 1.66 million barrels of gasoline to Russia in June and July. Part of that gasoline was produced at the Vadinar refinery run by Nayara Energy, a refinery that is 49% owned by Russia’s Rosneft and which depends heavily on Russian crude.

The sizes of these volumes are still far smaller than those of Russia’s massive crude oil exports, a point which is important. Russia has not suddenly become dependent on India for the majority of its gasoline.

Yet in terms of economics the direction of the trade is remarkable.

Russia could extract the crude oil, transport it thousands of miles to an overseas refinery, have someone else process it, and then possibly pay to have the finished product transported back into Russia.

Yuliia Pavytska, who heads the sanctions department at the KSE Institute, pointed out part of the economic aspect of these shipments by stating that the “largest share of the profit is typically captured by traders and shipping service providers.” (Ukrainska Pravda)

What might be described as a round-trip tax on the Russian barrel is thus formed.

It isn’t a real government tax; rather, it is the economic leakage that has built up due to the extra refining, trading, shipping and logistical stages which would not have been necessary if Russia had been able to process more of the oil at home.

The Hidden Budget Cost Is Even More Interesting

There’s another aspect of this story which is mentioned less often.

Russia does not merely let its domestic gasoline prices rise freely when international fuel prices go up; instead the government has a fuel-price stabilisation mechanism called the damper, through which it makes compensation to the oil companies when it would be more profitable to export fuel than to sell it within Russia.

It then becomes an expensive situation when global fuel prices surge.

According to Finance Ministry data reported by Interfax, Russian oil companies received damper payments amounting to 197.3 billion rubles in August, relating to the calculations for July. During the first seven months of 2026, the total payments linked to the mechanism had reached approximately 898.9 billion rubles.

To put it in perspective, the Russian federal budget for 2026 was expected to generate about 8.9 trillion rubles from oil and gas.

The two figures cannot be compared as a measure of net oil profitability since they relate to different sections of the fiscal system. However, the scale shows that the damper payments for the first seven months were equivalent to about 10 per cent of the government’s projected total oil and gas revenue for the year.

That is the financial pressure that is often neglected.

On the one hand, higher global oil prices can bring Moscow more revenue, while on the other hand they raise the cost of maintaining affordable fuel for its domestic population.

TerreneGlobe has already looked at the wider fragility of this model in Is Russia’s Wartime Economy Teetering on the Brink? The difficulties faced by the refinery now provide this fiscal pressure with a new mechanism.

Fuel Shortages Can Also Become an Interest-Rate Problem

The damage is not always limited to the oil industry.

On September 11 the Russian central bank maintained its key interest rate at 14 per cent since inflation is still a major barrier to the adoption of easier monetary policy. According to Reuters, disruptions to refineries and fuel shortages have led to increased prices via rising transportation and energy costs.

This sets up another feedback loop.

An attack on a refinery can lead to a decrease in fuel production. If the supply is reduced, domestic fuel prices and transport costs will rise. These costs can be passed on to the areas of food, manufacturing and distribution. With inflation remaining high, the central bank will find it more difficult to lower interest rates.

The fact that it is already borrowing heavily is significant for a wartime economy.

The economic impact of losing refinery capacity is therefore not confined to the cost of replacing the damaged equipment; it might also be seen in export revenue, government subsidies, consumer prices, inflation and the cost of capital.

The Strongest Counterargument: Russia Still Has Enormous Oil Leverage

This situation does not indicate that Russia’s petroleum industry is collapsing.

Russia is still one of the world’s top oil producers, with China and India still buying huge amounts of Russian crude, and the current global shortage of supply gives Moscow a good deal of influence.

There as well evidence that the pricing situation has become better. As the Financial Express has recently pointed out, some Urals crude was being traded at a premium of about $1 per barrel to Brent, rather than the deep discounts that had been seen in the earlier stages of the sanctions.

Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak has also referred to the fall in production as temporary and has connected it in part with refinery maintenance, stating that output will recover as capacity is restored.

Those arguments are important; high oil prices can make up for a surprising degree of operational inefficiency.

That is exactly the reason why the present situation merits attention.

As was previously examined by TerreneGlobe in The Oil Market’s Worst Nightmare Is the Strait of Hormuz, the world is now facing a supply situation in which a major petroleum exporter should possess enormous pricing power.

Russia has that opportunity, but some sections of its refining system are stopping it from taking full advantage of it.

What Happens Next Matters More Than the 17-Year Low

The figure worth watching is not merely Russia’s daily oil output.

Look at the composition of what Russia sells.

The present disruption could be temporary if the exports of crude oil stay strong while those of refined products begin to recover. However, if crude oil is increasingly being exported from Russia while the production of higher-value fuels continues to be limited, the financial structure of the country’s oil trade will keep shifting downstream towards refiners, traders and logistics companies outside the country.

Keep an eye on the damper payments as well.

The government’s oil windfall will seem less significant if global refining margins stay high and Moscow carries on spending hundreds of billions of rubles to stop domestic fuel prices from rising in line with international market prices.

Russia’s strength in the field of petroleum has generally been measured in barrels.

The next stage of the war might involve assessing a different factor: how much fiscal value Moscow is still able to obtain from each barrel it produces.

That number could deteriorate long before Russia actually runs out of oil.

AI Is Quietly Moving Wall Street’s Buyback Machine Downstream

Tim Gocklin, MBA, MSF
-
1
AI Is Quietly Moving Wall Street’s Buyback Machine Downstream

Big Tech is putting an unprecedented amount of capital into artificial intelligence, but there is a change that is being overlooked on the other side of those transactions: the companies that are receiving the money are becoming the new investors for corporations on Wall Street.

Perhaps one of the most important figures in the current artificial intelligence boom has nothing whatsoever to do with the number of GPUs shipped, the capacity of data centres, or Nvidia’s market valuation.

It is $100 billion.

As stated in Neuberger Berman’s most recent analysis of S&P 500 share buybacks, the companies that it categorises as AI capital-expenditure receivers carried out stock buybacks amounting to roughly $100 billion over the 12-month period ending June 2026, which represents an increase of 12% compared with the previous period. In contrast, those companies classified as AI-capex spenders cut their buyback programmes by 32% to reach about $85 billion.

This results in a rather odd flow of capital within the equity market since the hyperscalers are investing greater amounts in chips, servers, networking equipment, cooling systems and data centres, which means they have relatively less cash left over for their usual share buyback schemes. At the same time, the companies receiving those payments are seeing their cash flows increase rapidly and a number of them are giving the money back to their own shareholders.

The AI boom might therefore be achieving something even greater than boosting technology earnings: it is causing Wall Street’s corporate demand for equities to shift from the companies that are buying AI infrastructure to those that are selling it.

Five Beaten-Down Stocks Still Riding the AI Boom

Nvidia is the best example of how rapidly such capital can move through the system. As stated in Nvidia’s fiscal second-quarter 2027 results, revenue for the quarter ended July 26 amounted to $96.2 billion, a rise of 106% on the previous year. Revenue from the data centre sector alone was $89 billion, GAAP net income rose to $59.7 billion and free cash flow reached about $21.3 billion.

The capital return followed. In that quarter Nvidia sent back about $26 billion to its shareholders by means of dividends and share repurchases. According to its SEC filing, the company spent $19.7 billion on the purchase of 94 million shares during the quarter and $39.8 billion on the acquisition of 203 million shares in the first six months of the fiscal year. At the end of July Nvidia still had around $99.3 billion left under its share repurchase authorization.

The economic chain is something worth looking into. When companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and the other AI developers spend money on computing infrastructure, Nvidia receives part of that expenditure as revenue. This revenue turns into operating income and free cash flow. Nvidia then takes part of that cash and buys up its own shares. Capital which had originally been spent by another company eventually flows back into the equity market as corporate demand.

Broadcom has shown that Nvidia is by no means an isolated example. The figures from Broadcom’s most recent quarter can be found here, with the company recording $29.6 billion in revenue and $13.7 billion in free cash flow during its third fiscal quarter. Free cash flow amounted to an exceptional 46% of revenue. Additionally, earlier this year Broadcom’s board approved a new share-repurchase programme of $10 billion which will run until December 2026.

That is the reason why the AI-capex cycle is important beyond just driving revenue growth. Suppliers who are able to turn hyperscaler spending into large amounts of free cash flow have another option: they can reinvest it, acquire other businesses, pay dividends, reduce their debt or buy back their own equity.

Bank of England Scrutinizes the Debt Behind Britain’s AI Investment Boom

The opposite side of the transaction is becoming more and more dependent on capital.

Previously, the technology giants funding the AI expansion had appeared to be considerably less asset-intensive when compared to traditional industrial companies. Software could be scaled at a low cost. Digital advertising also needed only a small amount of physical capital. Cloud computing altered this situation, but generative AI is taking it much further.

Vanguard has estimated that between 2020 and 2024 Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle together issued on average about $35 billion in debt each year. This figure rose to around $93 billion in 2025, and by July 31, 2026, the group had already issued roughly $132 billion. (Neuberger Berman)

This alters the equation concerning the allocation of capital.

A dollar spent on a new data centre cannot at the same time be used to buy back shares unless the company obtains that capital by borrowing or from some other source of financing. When the scale reaches a sufficient level, AI thus ceases to be merely an earnings story and becomes a balance sheet story covering leverage, interest expenses, free cash flow and finally return on invested capital.

The change is already apparent in the overall data on share buybacks. Neuberger Berman states that S&P 500 companies carried out a record $1.10 trillion worth of stock repurchases over the 12-month period ending in June. However, behind that record figure, the kinds of companies carrying out the repurchases have changed: those who spend on AI have reduced their buying while those who receive AI and financial companies have become the main sources of repurchase activity.

For investors who have a background in finance, this difference is important since buybacks have an impact that goes beyond merely affecting investor sentiment. In the case where repurchases lead to a lower number of diluted shares, the same level of net income is spread over a smaller number of shares, which in turn increases earnings per share. As a result, per-share figures can be improved even if there is no corresponding growth in total profits.

It doesn’t follow that each dollar spent on share repurchases results in value for shareholders. If the company buys back stock that is overpriced, this can lead to a loss of value; the impact of stock-based compensation may counter the decrease in the number of shares, and by returning too much capital the business might give up worthwhile opportunities for reinvestment. The quality of a share buyback is determined by the price, the source of the funds, and the other options that management could have taken with the money.

Why Bond Yields May Matter More Than Stock Earnings Right Now

There is also a powerful opposing argument to the view that AI suppliers are mainly motivated by financial engineering.

Nvidia is an excellent example.

The diluted weighted-average number of shares fell from about 24.532 billion for the previous year’s quarter to 24.285 billion in the most recent quarter, a decrease of only around 1%. Nevertheless, GAAP diluted earnings per share rose by 128% from the previous year.

The main reason for the increase in EPS was therefore higher profits, not a reduction in the number of shares.

Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, described the company’s view of the cycle by stating, “AI has reached its inflection point. It’s doing useful work.” According to Nvidia’s fiscal second-quarter 2027 results, clearly Huang’s attitude is based on the fact that his company is benefiting in the most obvious way from the upswing, but the actual financial results make it hard to ignore the optimistic counterpoint.

There is also a significant misconception concerning passive investing. Just because the value of a stock has increased does not mean that an existing S&P 500 index fund will continuously buy more shares simply since its index weight has gone up; the shares already owned will instead increase in value.

Yet the make-up of the index is important. When new money joins capitalization-weighted funds it is distributed in accordance with the current index weights, while new companies that are admitted result in real portfolio rebalancing needs. This year, S&P Dow Jones Indices added Vertiv, Lumentum and Coherent to the S&P 500, with Marvell Technology and Flex being added later. A number of these companies are situated right within the infrastructure chain and benefit from AI investment.

This creates a more subtle feedback effect than just stating that passive funds are driving up the prices of AI stocks. When there is strong demand for artificial intelligence, the fundamentals of the companies that supply it improve. Improved fundamentals can lead to higher profits, greater free cash flow, and a higher market capitalization. In some cases, companies return part of that cash in the form of share repurchases. As a result, successful companies may end up being included as constituents in larger index funds or may even enter major indexes altogether, which in turn increases their exposure to future passive investments.

The most important question is what occurs when the first link in that chain slows down.

If the hyperscalers later manage to slow down the rate at which they are spending on AI, suppliers might then see a decrease in the growth of their revenues, narrower incremental margins and less free cash flow; at the same time, their capacity to carry out share repurchases could decline since investors are also reducing the valuation multiples they are willing to pay.

Which is why the following stage of the AI trade should be evaluated based on more than just revenue growth.

Investors ought to keep an eye on hyperscaler capex growth, supplier free-cash-flow conversion, the actual number of diluted shares, corporate borrowing costs and evidence of return on invested AI capital since these figures will show if the current cycle is becoming self-sustaining or is merely growing more reliant on ever-larger investment commitments.

At present, the corporate bid for the shares has not vanished.

It has dropped down the AI supply chain.

The question that Wall Street will eventually have to face is whether the profits reaching the bottom of that chain can on continue to grow at a faster rate than the capital being invested at the top.

“Possessed” on Flight 618? Attacked Passenger Jonathan Cahn Breaks His Silence

Tim Gocklin, MBA, MSF
-
0
“Possessed” on Flight 618? Attacked Passenger Jonathan Cahn Breaks His Silence

The man who was involved in the incident on the viral American Airlines Flight 618 has told people that his name is Jonathan Cahn, who is both an author and a minister. The flight, which was flying from Dallas-Fort Worth to Newark on Sept. 3, was diverted to Baltimore after passenger Arthur Lundeen, aged 67, is said to have become violent. According to a report from CBS News New York, the retired law enforcement officer Juan Mejia saw Lundeen having his hands round the neck of the man sitting next to him. Mejia stated that the attack happened “just like a light switch.” NBC New York also reported that the passenger sitting next to Lundeen was attacked while the passenger was making racist and anti-gay comments.

The seatmate was not given a public name in the initial reports; Cahn has now stated that it was he. “I was the unidentified passenger,” Cahn says in his recently released statement. “And I was actually attacked 30,000 feet in the sky.” Charisma reported Cahn’s identification on September 7, and the description he provides is similar to that of the earlier eyewitness accounts, including the neck attack and the incident involving his laptop.

You Cannot Be Catholic and Anti-Semitic: Antisemitism in America, Zionism and the Catholic Church

According to Cahn, the encounter did not start in a violent way; in fact, he and Lundeen talked for several hours. Cahn states that Lundeen spoke to him about his family and his work, while Cahn finally told him that he was Jewish, that he was a minister and that he believed in Jesus. The conversation then turned to the subject of salvation, prophecy and the stories which Cahn says convinced him of the reality of God.

Cahn then states that the atmosphere changed almost immediately; the man suddenly rejected everything he had been told, described it as “bull,” cursed Jesus and became hostile. Cahn describes the change as so sudden that it seemed as if “something had taken him over”; he later adds that Lundeen cursed both God and Jesus, alternated between being friendly and angry, and threatened to punch Cahn’s “Jewish face.”

The situation developed physically. Cahn states that Lundeen put his hands round his neck in what at first looked like a playful chokehold and that the man then hit him in the chest, moved towards his face as if intending to start a fight and made crude comments which caused the flight attendants to react. Independent witnesses had previously told CBS that Lundeen had grabbed his neighbour by the neck and that the cabin had suddenly changed from a state of quiet to one of chaos.

Record Breaking Christianity in Iran and the Consequences That Follow


Jonathan Cahn, the previously unidentified passenger attacked aboard Flight 618, explains what happened in the moments before the confrontation.

A rather strange aspect of Cahn’s story is the situation with his laptop and his recently published book, The Altar of Pergamon. He states that a dark, rectangular spot suddenly appeared on his computer screen that week. While on the flight, Lundeen is said to have knocked the computer twice, after which Cahn claims that the dark area expanded to cover a large part of the screen. Cahn saw the occurrence as having a spiritual meaning since the laptop held his writings and research.

Cahn states that the situation became more disturbing when Lundeen looked at the cover of The Altar of Pergamon, a book which he describes as one that looks at spiritual evil and the biblical “throne of Satan.” Cahn says that Lundeen then grew annoyed and kept asking, “What did you do?”, before once more cursing Jesus; later, when Cahn tried to get up from his seat with the computer, Lundeen rushed for it and tried violently to take it away.

According to Cahn, Lundeen then grabbed his already injured left arm, which caused him great pain. Other passengers got involved. Cahn recalls Lundeen screaming while men held him down using zip ties and duct tape as the plane was descending. The police arrested Lundeen once the plane had landed, and the FBI then became involved.

Cahn relates this incident to the events that occurred around the time of his books. He states that earlier releases coincided with a flood at his ministry, a mysterious illness that temporarily stopped him from walking properly and, on another occasion, a ruptured appendix. Regarding this most recent flight, he says that his phone kept on shutting down, his laptop failed to function properly and some of the copies of his new book were unexpectedly postponed.

Cahn sees those events, together with the incident on Flight 618, as being part of spiritual warfare; however, this conclusion is based on faith and has not been established by the police, the airline or by independent witnesses. Some of the other passengers thought that Lundeen might have suffered a mental breakdown and alcohol was considered as a possible explanation. The fundamental account that Cahn gives of the physical attack agrees with the details previously reported before he revealed his identity.

“There’s more to this story than the media will ever tell you or know,” Cahn says. Whether readers accept his spiritual explanation or not, the previously unnamed victim who was at the heart of the disturbing events on Flight 618 has now stepped forward with a strange account of what he says happened before the duct tape appeared.

Data Shows AI Is Boosting Workers More Than Replacing Them

Tim Gocklin, MBA, MSF
-
0
Data Shows AI Is Boosting Workers More Than Replacing Them

Six months’ worth of labor data together with new research into the workplace indicate that artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly effective at making employees work faster and more productively, even though there are still valid risks for new workers.

For many years one of the most frequently given warnings regarding artificial intelligence has been that companies will eventually find that machines are capable of carrying out the work, employees will therefore become unnecessary, and millions of jobs will vanish. However, a six-month look at U.S. employment figures tells a more complex story.

Continue reading with TerreneGlobe Premium

Unlock unlimited access to every TerreneGlobe article for just $5.99/month.

Get independent, MBA-led coverage of finance, markets, business and the global economy, with reporting that goes beyond the headline to explain what happened, why it matters and what could come next.

Subscribe today for full access to TerreneGlobe. Cancel anytime.

Already a subscriber? Log in with email to continue reading.

Related Reading

Nvidia and Palantir Could Still Be the “Amazon Stocks” of the AI Era

Q2 Economic Growth Revised Upward to 3.3% Signals a Stronger, Happier U.S. Economy

BREAKING: Iran Accused of Killing 33 Christian Ministers 

Sebastian Wolfe
-
0
BREAKING: Iran Accused of Killing 33 Christian Ministers 

A ministry from Texas states that dozens of underground Christian leaders have been killed and over 130 believers have been arrested. Meanwhile, evidence indicates that Iranian state-connected media is providing Western influencers with free trips in order to influence what their audiences see.

Continue reading with TerreneGlobe Premium

Unlock unlimited access to every TerreneGlobe article for just $5.99/month.

Get independent, MBA-led coverage of finance, markets, business and the global economy, with reporting that goes beyond the headline to explain what happened, why it matters and what could come next.

Subscribe today for full access to TerreneGlobe. Cancel anytime.

Already a subscriber? Log in with email to continue reading.

Related Readings

Pastor Arrested for Criticizing Islam While Mosque Prayers Blast Freely
You Cannot Be Catholic and Anti-Semitic: Antisemitism in America, Zionism and the Catholic Church

India Rejects Hague Ruling as Water Fight With Pakistan Escalates

Tim Gocklin, MBA, MSF
-
0
India Rejects Hague Ruling as Water Fight With Pakistan Escalates

The court states that India is still obliged by the treaty, while India argues that the court has no right to tell it so.

India and Pakistan are not merely disputing the way in which water should be divided between them anymore; they are now arguing about whether or not the legal system that oversees one of the world’s most politically sensitive networks of rivers still has any authority.

On 31st August the Court of Arbitration in The Hague decided that the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty is still in full force, even though India had last year placed the agreement in “abeyance”. The court also put in place temporary limitations on construction at India’s Ratle Hydroelectric Plant on the Chenab River.

Continue reading with TerreneGlobe Premium

Unlock unlimited access to every TerreneGlobe article for just $5.99/month.

Get independent, MBA-led coverage of finance, markets, business and the global economy, with reporting that goes beyond the headline to explain what happened, why it matters and what could come next.

Subscribe today for full access to TerreneGlobe. Cancel anytime.

Already a subscriber? Log in with email to continue reading.

Related Reading

Global Markets on Edge Amid India-Pakistan Conflict

Bridges Over Borders: India and Pakistan Choose Peace in 2025

Why U.S. Ethanol Is Being Excluded From India’s E20 Fuel by 2026

123...42Page 2 of 42