science

Futures Drop As Momentum Massacre Crushes Bitcoin

US equity futures, and Asian markets are lower as the recent tech-led selloff on Wall Street accelerated, sparking further risk-off behavior and momentum liquidations, and spilling over into bitcoin which plunged to a 3 month low breaking below its post election support. As of 7:00am, S&P futures are down 0.3% and are outperforming Nasdaq futs which are down 0.5%; sentiment was dented after Trump said that Canada/Mexico tariffs would be implemented on-time. Mag7 names and semis are lower with NVDA down 1.6%; Europe’s ASML and STMicroelectronics also Bloomberg reported that the Trump admin is planning to expand efforts to limit China’s technological advancements, including tougher semiconductor curbs and pressuring allies to escalate restrictions on China’s chip industry. The ongoing stock rout sparked a rally in Treasuries that has pushed US 10-year yields down 6 bps to 4.34%. Traders also added to their Federal Reserve interest-rate cut bets with ~53 bps of easing now priced in by year end; the USD is flat. Commodities are mostly lower with crude/gasoline higher. Today’s macro data focus is on Housing, regional Fed activity indicators, and Consumer Confidence. 

Meanwhile Bitcoin tumbled 7%, dropping below $90,000 and sliding to a 3 month low of $88,000 breaking post-election support levels, as the recent momentum massacre sparked a brutal crypto selloff; meanwhile DeepSeek reopened access to its core programming interface after nearly a three-week suspension.

In premarket trading, Nvidia led premarket losses among the Mag 7 stocks after Bloomberg News reported that Donald Trump’s administration is pressuring US allies to escalate their chip restrictions on China (Nvidia -1.3%, Alphabet -0.7%, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta and Apple were falling less than 1%, Tesla was little changed). US-listed Chinese stocks broadly rebound, with Alibaba rising 3.8% following its biggest drop since 2022; JD.com is up 1.8%, PDD +1.4%, Baidu +0.8%, Bilibili +2.8%. here are some other notable premarket movers:

Chegg shares tumble 22%, after the education technology company’s first-quarter projections for revenue and adjusted Ebitda trailed Wall Street expectations.
Hims & Hers Health shares slide 18% in premarket trading after the telehealth company reported fourth-quarter results and said it will soon stop selling some compound weight-loss drugs. While the results were solid, Piper Sandler noted that there was a high level of uncertainty for 2025.
Cryptocurrency-exposed stocks slide as Bitcoin tumbles below $90,000 to hit the lowest level since mid-November, paring the gains seen since Donald Trump’s election to the White House. MicroStrategy -5.9%, Coinbase -5.6%, Riot Platforms -4.4%, MARA Holdings -6%, Bit Digital -6.6%, CleanSpark -5.8%, Hut 8 Mining -6.7%
Zoom Communications shares fall 5%, after the communications software company gave a forecast that is modestly weaker than expected.
As broad-based selling swept markets, the VIX Index touched its highest level this year at just below 20. There didn’t appear to be a single catalyst for the selling – the suddenly pervasive pessimism was correctly described here two days ago in “Goldman Traders Hit The Panic Button: Perfect Sell Storm Of Positioning, Valuation, Breadth, Concentration And Policy”- although concerns are mounting that President Trump’s policies will hurt global economic growth. Uncertainty on trade policies has prompted investors to pare risk…

Born American? A Look At ‘Birthright Citizenship’

Authored by Richard Samuelson via RealClearPolitics,

Our political class is aflame, and our lawyer-ocracy is up in arms over President Trump’s executive order limiting the scope of “birthright” (or “soil-based”) citizenship to children of permanent legal residents. Children born to tourists, students from other countries, and others here on a short-term basis, plus people here illegally, are no longer to be regarded as citizens of the United States merely because their mothers happened to be on American soil when they were born.

Is that constitutional? Does the U.S. Constitution demand that virtually everyone born on our soil (basically everyone except for the children of diplomats who, by convention, are under their home country’s laws) be considered a citizen by birth?

Most lawyers and law professors think that the answer is yes. But is it quite so clear? The 14th Amendment reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Most of the discussion of this question thus far has focused on the meaning of the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” and the prevailing view is that it was meant to include everyone who was, generally speaking, subject to American law. Although the Supreme Court has never ruled on the case of a child born to foreigners who are only here briefly, it has suggested that it would include them in the set of people who are citizens at birth.

Critics of this position hold that the amendment applies to cases in which the U.S. has complete jurisdiction over the person and note that there are ways that the scope of American jurisdiction over citizens and permanent residents is different than for people who are merely passing through – in being subject to the draft (and there had been a draft shortly before the amendment was ratified), to jury duty, and to many taxes (particularly since the people increased American jurisdiction by adding an income tax to the constitution in 1913), among other ways.

These discussions often turn to the debates in the Senate when they were drafting the amendment before sending it to the states so that the people, via their state legislatures, could decide if they wanted to add it to the Constitution. That’s a useful exercise, and it also would be helpful to see more discussion of what the people understood the amendment to mean when they had their state legislatures ratify it. Constitutional law is not legislation. The Constitution, including the amendments to it are the supreme law of the land because we, the people, made them so; so what we understood ourselves to be doing when we approved a text carries more weight than what senators understood themselves to be recommending to the people for approval. Our lawyers tend to think that’s too complicated. But it is not our job to make life easy for lawyers.

As a logical and grammatical matter, the full sentence…

Crime-Battered NYC McDonald’s Starts Carding People At The Door

A notorious, crime-battered McDonald’s in Brooklyn is going to extreme lengths to defend itself and its patrons — prohibiting anyone who’s under age 20 from entering without a parent and proper identification. 

The outlet at Nostrand and Flatbush avenues has long been the site of violence and bloodshed, but an incident last week seems to have been the last straw that prompted the age-and-ID requirement. Nineteen-year-old manager Amber Hussain tells the New York Post that a group of juveniles that swarmed into the restaurant after school assaulted a security guard and shattered a glass door. 
Excluded teenagers raise their fists at the McDonald’s that’s been the focus of juvenile mayhem for years (Halayne Seidman/ New York Post)

The location has prompted a staggering 324 calls to 911 in the last three years alone, but the location has been a crime hot-spot for more than a dozen years. In a notable 2011 incident captured on video, two thugs ambushed an 18-year-old as he entered, shooting him multiple times. The victim himself had five robbery arrests to his credit before narrowly dodging death at Ronald’s crib: 

According to Hussain’s observations over her year of working at this mayhem-hammered location, here’s what you’d be in for if you visited during after-school afternoon hours: Upwards of 20 teens who come in and “trash the store,” hurl ice at patrons, rob Uber drivers of their bags of food, and fill the restaurant with marijuana smoke. 
The 24-hour restaurant is using security guards to enforce the new policy (Halayne Seidman/ New York Post)

“If you’re from that area, you know that McDonald’s is horrible,” New Yorker Sania Bolasingh told the Post. “People fight in there – it’s not just kids being kids. People get stabbed, a delivery worker got jumped, he passed out.” 

To restore some semblance of order and dignity, the McDonald’s outlet is now barring entry to children and teenagers through age 19 who aren’t accompanied by a parent with proper ID. The Post observed a group of excluded teens standing outside the restaurant and shaking their fists in anger. “What do you expect a business owner to do?” Clyde Smith, a 48-year-old law clerk asked the Post. “This was always a place where kids would cause trouble.”
A peaceful scene, via the no-teen regime (Halayne Seidman/ New York Post)

The downward spiral of America’s cities first brought us merchandise locked behind plexiglass, and now McDonald’s outlets staffed with two security guards at a time barring unsupervised teenagers. TikTokker Sania Kaila toured the Brooklyn restaurant, asking her followers via video, “You see how peaceful this McDonald’s is? You see how there’s no kids, you see how there’s no turmoil, how there’s nobody fighting?” After showing the security guard posted at the door and the sign explaining the new policy, she said, “This is crazy [that it’s come to this]. Stop messing up other people’s place!” 

Tyler Durden
Mon, 02/24/2025 – 18:00…

Store Closures Outpace Openings Amid “Historic Shift” To Service-Based Tenants

By Nate Selesline of RetailDive

As closures accelerate, service-based tenants are expected to lease more retail space in the coming year than goods-based tenants, a trend that JLL called “a historic shift in the retail property sector.”

Coresight Research also forecast that store closings may reach 15,000 this year, while openings will hold steady at about 5,800.

JLL said this shift has been underway for a decade, but is now accelerating. 

Service-based tenants interested in retail spaces include quick-service and fast-casual restaurants, fitness clubs, and healthcare, financial and personal care services.

“While the momentum of this growth was short-circuited by COVID, the last three years have seen a recalibration of this trend,” JLL said.

On the retail side, grocery stores, discount and dollar stores are seeing positive opening trends. The closing retailers are typically big-box or junior anchors. JLL cited Party City, Walgreens and Rite Aid as examples. These stores typically occupy 10,000- to 20,000-square-foot spaces. Nearly 2,700 stores in this category are closing or will close.

About 1,528 big-box stores, with 20,000 to 50,000 square feet of space, will close. These locations are favored by retailers like now-shuttered 99 Cents Only Stores and Big Lots, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September. 

However, JLL said there’s an upside to the industry’s real estate crunch, as the movement may free up nearly 140 million square feet of retail space. Space availability is currently at 4.7%, which makes finding desirable locations challenging. In addition, nearly 30% of available space is located in Class C retail properties and less than 25% was built this century, which leaves fewer options for expanding retailers. At the same time, construction activity remains minimal and annual construction starts are the lowest in 15 years.

Macy’s ongoing plans to drastically shrink its footprint may also present a quandary for malls. The company said it plans to close 66 of its namesake department stores this year, which would equate to about 12 million square feet of anchor space opening up in malls. 

In response to this move, mall owners “will have to decide between redeveloping the space and possibly adding a mixed-use component or backfilling the anchor with one or more retailers.” JLL said entertainment businesses, fitness centers, grocery stores, home improvement, furniture and other department store chains are filling these vacant spaces.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 02/24/2025 – 06:30…

FBI Freak Out As Dan Bongino Named Deputy Director

On Sunday evening, President Donald Trump announced that former Secret Service agent and conservative talk show host Dan Bongino will become the new deputy director of the FBI – the agency that helped Obama and Hillary Clinton set Donald Trump us with the Russia Collusion hoax – which included leaks to the press, fabricating evidence, and die-hard deep state servants who vowed to destroy our president.

And now – Bongino and newly minted FBI Director Kash Patel are in charge…

Thank you Mr. President, Attorney General Bondi, and Director Patel. pic.twitter.com/bJqIDbWLEE
— Dan Bongino (@dbongino) February 24, 2025
…which is not sitting well with current and former agency officials – or deep state journalists like NBC’s Ken Dilanian, who reports that the FBI Agents Association struck out against Bongino’s selection. 

Without naming Bongino directly, the Association lashed out over the fact that the Deputy Director has typically been an active Special Agent.

“The FBI Deputy Director should continue to be an on-board, active Special Agent—as has been the case for 117 years for many compelling reasons, including operational expertise and experience, as well as the trust of our Special Agent population,” reads a memo obtained by WNBC’s Jonathan Dienst.

As the WSJ notes,

The announcement sent shock waves through the FBI, whose new director Kash Patel had offered Republican senators private assurances that he would name a special agent with bureau experience to be his deputy, rather than a political outsider. Patel was sworn in at the White House on Friday.

Leaders of the FBI Agents Association, who met with Patel in January, said the new director had agreed that the deputy should be a current special agent…

Ken Dilanian echoed this sentiment, complaining on X that Bongino “has never spent a day working at the FBI, but he has spent many hours spouting baseless falsehoods about the bureau.”

A few minutes before Trump made his announcement, my colleague @jonathan4ny obtained a memo from the FBI agents association which said in part:
“The FBI Deputy Director should continue to be an on-board, active Special Agent—as has been the case for 117 years for many compelling… https://t.co/vnc80obNYs
— Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) February 24, 2025
In other words, the right people are freaking out right now.

Ken is still furious that Kash looks different than every other FBI Director.
The “traditionally” argument is a call for the elites to stay in charge. https://t.co/f7QlLDHyHq
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) February 24, 2025

Bongino is part of the Russiagate corner—he knows this stuff from our side of the fence. No classified briefings, no peeking under redactions—just the hard grind of piecing it all together. Now he’s a co-keeper of the holy grail and we’re about to see it all. It’s all coming out.
— Hans Mahncke (@HansMahncke) February 24, 2025

Oh man they are so f’d https://t.co/QXKqQL7QZQ pic.twitter.com/L01po49seI
— David Steinberg (@realDSteinberg) February 24, 2025
*  *  *

You can support ZeroHedge and longtime reader and patriot John O. by purchasing one of these amazing wooden flags that look great on any wall. Shipping included in the price to the lower…

More USAID Fraud? Billions Of US Tax Dollars Are Missing From Haiti Relief Projects

There are those that say all government aid is a scam in one way or another, and so far the revelations surrounding USAID are proving those people right daily.  Democrats and the establishment media, in a bid to muddy the waters and save face, continue to claim that there was never any fraud at USAID and that the Trump Administration is simply labeling projects they “disagree with” as suspect. 

Of course, spending American tax dollars on projects the public never asked for and were never told about is the epitome of fraud, and waste is never a good thing.  Beyond that, the question of billions in missing funds certainly falls into the category of criminality. 

Trump has taken a lot of heat from the media with the shut down of USAID and much of the criticism suggests that without US funds people in third world countries will fall back into desperation.  The Washington Post recently claimed that Trump’s cuts to USAID are a “gift to Haitian gangs” terrorizing the locals; a typical leftist appeal to emotion that assumes most of the funds were getting to the Haitians in the first place. 

Yet another example of this problem has been revealed in a New York Post expose on the audit of USAID which shows a disturbing shortfall in funds surrounding ongoing relief projects in Haiti.  The Post notes:

“Since the 2010 earthquake in Haiti killed as many as 300,000 people, the US government has disbursed around $4.4 billion in foreign assistance to the small island nation.

At least $1.5 billion was disbursed for immediate humanitarian aid, while another $3 billion went to recovery, reconstruction and development.

Of the at least $2.13 billion in contracts and grants for Haiti-related work, less than $50 million, or 2% went to Haitian organizations or firms. By comparison, $1.3 billion, or 56%, has gone to firms located in or near the US capitol. Little wonder USAID is so threatened by the sudden scrutiny.

It remains unclear how exactly the billions have been spent and whether US tax dollars have had a sustainable impact. USAID and its vendors have generally failed to make such data public…”

The exposure of USAID by DOGE actually confirms long running suspicions of mishandled aid.  Some Haitian reporters warned about this disappearing money years ago under the Obama Administration.  USAID funds to Haiti were dispersed in part through the Clinton Foundation. 

Elon Musk just shared details on the USAID Haiti Scam exposing “$4.4B SPENT, SIX HOMES BUILT”
Of all the contracts, “Haitian companies got just 2%”
2016 Haitian Reporter, “The whole world has given billions.” They say Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton stole it
“Where is the… pic.twitter.com/q6v6vKIgb1
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) February 22, 2025
The lack of funding transparency was also noted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in 2023.  Though, not surprisingly, the impotent agency did nothing about it.  The GOA stated in their analysis of USAID activities in Haiti: 

“The USAID mission in Haiti does not fully track data…