Late Wednesday saw President Trump receive a rare and much belated rebuke from the House of Representatives as it voted to pass a war powers resolution related to Iran. The passed resolution directs the withdrawal of US troops from armed hostilities with Iran, in a closely divided 215–208 vote, aided by four Republicans.

But this wasn’t the only Trump-defying vote that took place Wednesday, as The Hill reports: “Six Republicans joined Democrats on Wednesday to push through a vote on military aid for Ukraine, a blow to President Trump’s handling of Russia’s war against the country and his withdrawal of U.S. support for Kyiv.”

“The House voted 218-204 in a procedural motion that clears the way for a vote on the Ukraine Support Act, authored by Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee,” the report adds.

So interestingly, and in a bit of a blaring contradiction, the House has shown itself to be dovish on the Iran war but hawkish on Russia-Ukraine.

Or rather, they are ‘pro’ Ukraine war but ‘anti’ Iran war, strangely enough.

“This vote is not a process vote, it’s a statement on whether this Congress and all of its members stand with and support Ukraine and the people of Ukraine, and its fight for freedom, its fight for democracy, and its fight for liberty,” Meeks said on the floor after the vote.

There was no mention of using this massive funding for diplomacy, and to get Ukrainian and Russian negotiators back to the table:

It provides $8 billion in military financing loans to Ukraine, extends the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) through 2027, which allows for the U.S. to send Ukraine weapons directly from Pentagon stockpiles, additional sanctions against Russia, among other provisions.

Instead, there was the usual simplistic black-and-white moral posturing in a Bush-style “with us or against us” kind of way. “It’s between Ukraine or Putin, I choose Ukraine,” Republican Rep. Joe Wilson stated.

Late last month Ukraine and Russia moved on from a brief ceasefire and resumed blasting each other. Russia has continued to make gradual progress in taking control of both the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts which together comprise the Donbas region. Moscow is insisting that Ukraine’s ceding of the last parts of the Donbas is a precondition to resumed peace talks.  

Not accounting for more billions in taxpayer dollars thrown into the Ukraine war — to say nothing of the money pit that is the US-Israeli war on Iran — the US government was in February projected to post a fiscal-year 2026 deficit of $1.9 trillion. Not that anyone in Washington cares. 

Authored by Naga Avan-Nomayo via TheBlock.co,

After a brutal week for bitcoin (down over 20% in the last 9 days), Standard Chartered said the worst may soon be over for the largest cryptocurrency and the broader digital asset market.

The bank’s Global Head of Digital Assets Research, Geoffrey Kendrick, said in a note entitled “The Low Is Almost In”, the bitcoin market is close to a bottom, arguing that structurally resilient spot exchange-traded fund holdings and an anticipated large buyback by Strategy make a compelling case that the worst of the current sell-off is over.

“This week has been painful in crypto. There is really no other way of putting it,” Kendrick wrote in a client note on Thursday.

“But I think when we look back at the end of 2026 with BTC at $100,000 and ETH at $4,000, we will say this was the buying zone we all wanted.”

Bitcoin was trading around $64,000 at the time of writing, down roughly 2% on the day (after bouncing back from deeper losses), 14% on the week, 22% over the past month, and more than 40% over the past year.

Ether was flat on the day (also bouncing back from 6%-plus losses earlier, and 26% over the past month, trading around $1,780.

What changed since February

The note is a direct bookend to a February 12 call in which Kendrick warned of “pain and final capitulation” for digital assets, cutting his near-term bitcoin target to $50,000 and ether to $1,400. The Block reported on that note at the time.

The key variable that has shifted, Kendrick argued, is the holdings of spot bitcoin ETFs.

In February, he flagged ETF capitulation as a real downside risk.

It has not materialized, in his view.

ETF holdings went from 682,000 bitcoin to a peak, then settled back to around 674,000 – broadly flat over the period.

“This tells me that ETF holdings are more structurally strong than I had feared in February,” he wrote.

The Strategy factor

The proximate cause of this week’s pain, Kendrick said, was Strategy’s sale of 32 BTC — a move he described as unfortunate timing that “fit the DAT naysayer thesis perfectly.”

The question now, he argued, is what Strategy does next.

Kendrick’s reading on historical precedent here is instructive.

When Strategy last sold bitcoin on December 22, 2022 – 704 BTC sold for tax optimization – it bought back 810 BTC just two days later.

The analyst said he expects this week’s response to be materially more aggressive.

In his view, Strategy could execute either a 10x repurchase of roughly 320 BTC or a 100x repurchase of around 3,200 BTC.

A confirmation of that buying, Kendrick argued, would be a tentative signal that the low has printed.

Liquidations and the residual risk

Kendrick also contextualized this week’s futures liquidations, which ran to around $1.5 billion – comparable in scale to each of the January 29-31 and February 3-6 events, which he treats as separate liquidation episodes.

He acknowledged residual downside risk below $60,000 but argued the pool of vulnerable longs has been reduced given how poorly bitcoin has tracked equities year-to-date.

“There are a lot of ifs in the above, so accumulation is a better strategy than trying to outright declare the low has been printed,” Kendrick wrote.

The view aligns with the bank’s broader constructive stance on digital assets.

Kendrick has maintained a $100,000 year-end bitcoin target and a $4,000 ether target throughout the recent drawdown, and, in late May, he drew parallels between current ether price action and Amazon stock during the dot-com bust.

At the time, Standard Chartered’s analysts opined that onchain metrics would eventually drive a price catch-up.

The apparel company behind Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger was hammered in early U.S. cash trading, falling as much as 30%, its steepest intraday crash since 1987. Analysts were spooked by sustained pressure across the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region, where the prolonged U.S.-Iran conflict and softer consumer demand are now weighing on its revenue outlook.

PVH reaffirmed its full-year adjusted EPS guidance, which fell short of the Bloomberg Consensus estimate, and cut its revenue outlook amid a deteriorating macroeconomic environment in EMEA.

*CALVIN KLEIN OWNER PVH SINKS 28%, MOST INTRADAY SINCE OCT. 1987

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 4, 2026

“Upon first glance, this is a disappointing update from PVH. On one hand, we were encouraged by the healthy sales delivery, particularly in APAC. That said, investor expectations were elevated into the print. This is a surprising update to PVH’s FY outlook, where management significantly lowered operational guidance as a result of Middle East and EMEA consumer macro pressures alongside higher promotions,” Goldman analyst Brooke Roach wrote in a first-take note to clients on Wednesday evening.

PVH posted a better-than-expected first quarter, with adjusted EPS of $2.01 versus estimates of $1.79, revenue of $2.03 billion ahead of expectations, and adjusted EBIT slightly above consensus. Tommy Hilfiger revenue rose 2.8%, while Calvin Klein sales gained 1%, though Calvin Klein missed estimates.

“Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger momentum is improving, but we are concerned that sustained weakness in EMEA could continue to weigh on PVH’s results if the Iran war and softer consumer demand persist,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Mary Ross Gilbert noted.

However, the main issue analysts focused on was guidance: PVH still sees adjusted EPS of $11.80 to $12.10 for the year, below the $12.24 consensus estimate, and now expects full-year revenue to be about flat compared to its previous forecast of marginal growth.

Guggenheim analyst Simeon Siegel wrote in a note that while PVH reiterated full-year earnings, it “suggested that pressures from the prolonged conflict in the Middle East and related macroeconomic pressures were negatively impacting the full-year revenue outlook.”

The weaker outlook sent shares crashing 25% in the early U.S. cash session, the largest intraday decline since 1987.

Growth strategy stalled. 

Shares have traded mostly sideways since peaking at around $165 in 2018.

By Molly Schwartz, cross-asset macro strategist at Rabobank

Earlier in the week, on Monday, Axios reported that “Iran threatened to abandon the negotiations with the US over Israel’s actions in Lebanon,” with inside sources suggesting that Trump called Netanyahu “crazy.” While Trump did not comment on the exact language, he did confirm the use of “expletives” in an interview with the New York Post on Wednesday that he and Netanyahu haven’t exactly been seeing eye-to-eye: “I was a little perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon. You know, at some point, I said, ‘Bibi, we gotta stop this. You gotta stop it.’” Since then, the US has announced a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, “contingent on a complete cessation of fire by Hezbollah and evacuation of operatives from Lebanese territory south of the Litani River.” However, if one looks at the state of the current ceasefire between the US and Iran, one may be tempted to manage their expectations with regards to how long the ceasefire will last, and if this will set a foundation for meaningful negotiations between Washington and Tehran. More importantly, Hezbollah, who operates independently from (and often against the interests of) the Lebanese Government, has not yet indicated that they agree to the terms of the ceasefire. After the announcement, brent crude oil 1-month futures dropped a little more than $1 to $96.7/bbl.

According to Bloomberg, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has published a “restricted” document which reveals that the nuclear risk posed by Iran is now higher today than it was before the war began. Specifically, prior to the war, the IAEA was allowed to inspect Iranian enriched uranium, but such inspections have since largely halted. However, it should be noted that the IAEA was always only inspected where the IRGC told them they were allowed to, and many suspected that nuclear proliferation was happening behind the scenes, in facilities that were not accessible to the IAEA.

Tariff headlines are once again entering the news circuit. Trump has lowered the benchmark of US-content necessary for a copper product to be considered “US-made” and therefore exempt from the 50% Section 232 tariffs. However, there was also bad news for some US trading partners, as the USTR has announced proposed tariffs of 10-12.5% under Section 301. There is also the proposal of 25% tariffs on Brazil, which President Lula responded to by saying “he could not accept the treatment” his country had received.

Kevin Warsh appointed Paul Winfree and Daniel Heil to support him as Fed Chair. Winfree was working at the Heritage Foundation when Project 2025 was published in 2022, and contributed the chapter dedicated to the Federal Reserve. While Warsh has criticized the Fed himself, citing an article he wrote, published in the Wall Street Journal in November of 2025 called “The Federal Reserve’s Broken Leadership,” Warsh’s criticism is aimed at the how the Fed was being run. Some of Winfree’s comments echo those of Warsh (or perhaps Warsh echoed Winfree, given the chronology), such as critiques of mission creep, like how “political pressure has led the Federal Reserve to use its power to regulate banks as a way to promote politically favorable initiatives including those aligned with ESG objectives.” However, the bulk of Winfree’s manifesto takes aim at the Fed as an institution, arguing that it “lacks both operational effectiveness and political independence.” Winfree offers several recommendations, including the following:

• Eliminate the dual mandate: Winfree argues that expansive monetary policy (the labor mandate) may “inadvertently contribute to recessions” as it provides “easy money” which “causes the clustering of failures that can lead to a recession.” He advocates instead of a focus on dollar protection and managing low and stable inflation.
• Eliminate the Federal Reserve’s lender-of-last-resort function: Winfree believes that the lender of last resort function acts as a conduit for moral hazard. This is an especially interesting point as it lies in partial opposition to a strategy laid out by Stephen Miran (and friends) in his article, “A User’s Guide to Reducing the Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet.” While their respective arguments do not lie in total opposition, Miran’s argument is that there should be more communication to lessen the stigma often associated with using the Fed as a lender-of-last-resort, as it “makes banks reluctant to access the [discount] window even when genuinely needed, leading them to hold larger precautionary reserve buffers than rely on the discount window as intended” and “has played a meaningful role in driving up demand for reserves.” See more in Winfree, next recommendation below:
• Wind down the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet: Winfree, Miran, and Kevin Warsh are aligned on the goal of shrinking the Fed’s balance sheet. However, the methods for doing so are clearly controversial (see above). Miran’s report highlights many (many) strategies for reducing the balance sheet, so further discussion on one component is likely not a dealbreaker.

However, the aforementioned recommendations are overshadowed by his “monetary rule reform options,” the first of which, is free banking. Straight out of the Austrian School, Winfree advocates for the functional abolition of the Federal Reserve altogether, claiming that “potential downsides of free banking stem from its greatest benefit: It has massive political hurdles to clear,” saying that “transitioning to free banking would require political authorities, including Congress and the President, to coordinate on multiple reforms simultaneously.” Recall that this was published in 2022—before the GOP got Trump in the White House, Bessent in the Treasury, and a majority in both Congressional Houses. Naming a self-proclaimed free banker, who supports the dissolution of the Fed, as an advisor to the Chair of the Fed sets the stage for a potential dramatic restructuring of how monetary policy is conducted in the US. Winfree also argues in favor of either restoring the gold standard, or enforcing Milton Friedman’s “K-percent rule,” where the Federal Reserve creates money at a fixed rate.

As discussed by Rabobank’s Jane Foley in yesterday’s FX Strategy report, USD/JPY pulled back sharply as PM Takaichi spoke, hinting at potentially another round of MoF intervention. JPY dipped 0.37% to yesterday’s low, but that move retraced through to the NY close, ending the day 0.09% higher, and breaking the 160 level at 160.08. Meanwhile, Bank of Japan Governor Ueda suggested that an interest rate hike at the June 16 meeting is likely, though not officially set in stone, and the Japanese OIS curve is pricing in close to 90% of a hike.

John Bolton, former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, has reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors and is expected to plead guilty to one count of illegal retention of sensitive national security documents, according to CNN, citing three sources familiar with the matter.

Under the agreement, Bolton will pay a fine of more than $2 million. A single count of illegal retention carries a possible sentence of up to 60 months in prison.

A court hearing is currently scheduled for June 26.

Bolton was originally charged in Maryland with eight counts of transmission of national defense information and ten counts of retention of national defense information. The charges centered on diary-like entries from his time in the Trump White House that were allegedly kept at his residence.

Prosecutors accused him of sharing more than 1,000 pages of information through his personal email with two unauthorized individuals – reportedly his wife and daughter – though these transmission allegations are not part of the plea deal.

Related: Eyebrow-Raising Details Emerge From FBI Raid On John Bolton’s Home

According to the indictment, Bolton used personal email and messaging accounts to transmit Top Secret intelligence about foreign adversaries, future attacks, and U.S. foreign-policy relations. He also kept classified files at his home, including sensitive intelligence about foreign leaders and U.S. intelligence sources.

The FBI Baltimore Field Office led the investigation, with oversight from the Justice Department’s National Security Division. The indictment outlines two core allegations:

1. Eight counts of transmission of NDI under the Espionage Act (18 U.S.C. §793(d)),

2. and Ten counts of unlawful retention of NDI under §793(e).

The investigation intensified after Bolton’s email was breached by suspected Iranian hackers, during which investigators discovered the classified “diary-like entries.”

Bolton served as Trump’s National Security Adviser for one year before becoming a prominent critic of the president. Trump has repeatedly called for Bolton’s arrest, particularly over his 2020 memoir that was highly critical of the administration and allegedly contained classified information.

While the first Trump Justice Department opened investigations into the book in 2020, those probes were closed within a year. A new investigation was launched the following year after the email breach.

Developing…

Concerns over the New World screwworm (NWS) have been building for the last 12 months as the deadly cattle parasite spread through Mexico and the Trump administration attempted to prevent its spread into the U.S. Those concerns have now turned into red alerts after the USDA confirmed a single case in Texas, marking the first U.S. detection in years.

“A case of NWS may have been detected in South Texas. The sample is now at USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) in Ames, lowa for confirmatory testing. We will provide updates the moment results are available,” USDA wrote on X.

A case of NWS may have been detected in South Texas. The sample is now at USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) in Ames, lowa for confirmatory testing. We will provide updates the moment results are available.

We have already activated personnel on the ground…

— Dept. of Agriculture (@USDA) June 3, 2026

USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins wrote on X that the “confirmed the detection of a New World Screwworm (NWS) fly in a 3-week-old bovine in Zavala County, Texas.”

As expected, @USDA_APHIS confirmed the detection of a New World Screwworm (NWS) fly in a 3 week old bovine in Zavala County, Texas. @USDA and Texas Animal Health @TAHC officials are taking immediate action to contain and eradicate NWS from the area.

For more… https://t.co/GJkUJl0XEI

— Secretary Brooke Rollins (@SecRollins) June 4, 2026

USDA states that there is currently no evidence that NWS has become established in the U.S., but the agency is moving quickly with quarantines, movement controls, surveillance within a 12-mile zone of the detection area, and the release of sterile flies to contain any spread.

The detection of NWS in the U.S. would be a direct biological and economic shock to the cattle herd if the spread were rampant, given that the nation’s herd is already at a 75-year low, beef prices are at record highs, and meatpackers are under pressure from fewer and more expensive animals.

If NWS were established in the U.S., this could delay herd rebuilding at the worst possible time. Reuters notes that a spreading outbreak could further hit the herd and expose Texas livestock alone to roughly $1.8 billion in estimated economic losses.

A spread of NWS would be bullish for live cattle futures and beef prices, bearish for meatpackers, such as Tyson Foods, that need cattle heads, and supportive of animal-health names tied to treatments and parasite control.

Perhaps the U.S. importing 60% of its live cattle from third-world Mexico is not the best idea.

The private credit gates are shutting all over again.

After virtually every marquee private credit fund limited withdrawals after being flooded with redemptions requests in Q1, we are seeing more of the same as the second quarter rolls out.

And two days after Cliffwater LLC capped redemptions at 5% after investors requested 17% to be returned, a jump from the 14.0% in Q1 (which was also gated at the 5%) limit, this morning Bloomberg reports that Blackstone has also limited redemptions from its flagship private credit fund for the first time after investors sought to pull 10% of the shares, the latest such fund to cap withdrawals amid a continued investor exodus.

The $79 billion Blackstone Private Credit Fund told shareholders that it would return 5% of its shareholders’ money, according to a filing

Thursday. During the previous quarter, the fund allowed investors to redeem a record 7.9% after tapping senior executives to help finance the withdrawals with hundreds of millions of their own cash.

This time – realizing that the avalanche of redemptions requests will not ease for a long time – the company did not bother with coming up with a creative solution to avoid gating… and gated investors, joining all of its other peers in doing so. 

Of course, Blackstone told shareholders that repurchases began to decelerate during the back end of its tender offer period, although as the chart below shows, we will have to wait until Q3 to see if that is true. 

Across the $1.8 trillion private credit market, redemption requests are expected to increase this quarter as investors redouble efforts to claw back money after being restricted. What is concerning, is that despite the recent surge in software stocks – driven entirely by positioning and not fundamentals – private credit continues to feel the pain of investor revulsion to BDC’s overreliance on sottware cash flows, suggesting that the recently meltup in software stocks is due to a major pullback as soon as the marketwide gamma squeeze fizzles. 

SpaceX is reportedly targeting a valuation of about $1.8 trillion as it prepares to go public next Friday, trading on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker symbol SPCX.

Last month, Goldman Sachs was selected as the lead bank for the SpaceX listing, alongside Morgan Stanley. JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Citigroup are also among the 23 banks working on what will be the largest-ever listing, expected to raise a staggering $75 billion by selling about 555.6 million shares. The planned IPO price is about $135 per share.

Retail investors will be able to participate at the same prices as the big institutions. Expected SPCX price of $135 per share → https://t.co/eKBA0tzXbH

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 4, 2026

On Wednesday, we told readers that SpaceX’s roadshow for institutional investors was set to begin on Thursday.

A new Bloomberg report states that JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon is set to hold a “live interactive discussion” later today. He will be joined by Mary Callahan Erdoes, CEO of the bank’s asset and wealth management division, and two SpaceX executives: President Gwynne Shotwell and Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen.

The event will be streamed to 90 JPM locations across 26 states, according to Bloomberg sources, with more than 2,500 of the bank’s clients expected to watch.

JPMorgan’s nationwide roadshow for SpaceX shows that demand is extending deep into the private-wealth client base for this once-in-a-generation listing.

With the SpaceX roadshow underway, Morningstar equity analyst Nicolas Owens attempted earlier this week to temper the hype around the listing by publishing a note saying, “We think the company has been significantly overvalued and investors will have opportunities to buy the stock at more attractive levels after the IPO.”

Meanwhile, Polymarket odds for “SpaceX IPO closing market cap above ___?” currently stand at 89% for a market cap above $1.8 trillion.

SpaceX’s listing next week will pave the way for other mega IPOs, such as those of chatbot makers OpenAI and Anthropic.