Monday 2026 05 11. Financial news update. Disconnect between stocks hitting highs and geo-politics.

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:02]Good afternoon, dear friends. My name is Clive Thompson.

[00:00:08]Today is Monday, May 11th, 2026, and I'm here with the latest financial news and everything else which is going on in the world uh and relating to the war in the Middle East and so forth and how it's affecting your share prices and your gold and your silver and everything else. So the thing we've seen over the last week has been the huge divergence between the behavior of the stock market going up and the geopolitical uncertainty and disrupted supply chains that we're seeing in the real world. So the the two sides are behaving in the opposite direction. There's trouble in the world. You'd think the stock market should go down, but in fact uh stock markets are rising. Well, mainly the US stock market, shall I say. uh and NASDAQ in particular rising to all-time records.

[00:01:02]Um so the proposal which was put by the United States to Iran um the memorandum which I we understand had uh I think it had for 14 points in it. We haven't seen the memorandum. We don't know what's in it. Um but uh I'm speculating that some of the comments were uh a little bit uh strong and Iran has today responded with what seems to be a counter proposal. But again, we don't know what's in their counter proposal either, but uh President Trump has answered uh in response to their counter proposal. He said that it's totally unacceptable. So, I'll I'll just speculate for a minute or two what might have gone into the American demands and what Iran might have said, but this is pure speculation.

[00:01:54]But there there are there are some reasons to think that some of the things I'm going to say went into the um the request. So, it's uh for starters, I'm quite sure that the US demanded an im immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran shall immediately end all restrictions on commercial transits and allow the straight of Hormuz to reopen fully to international shipping under conditions acceptable to the United States and its partners.

[00:02:22]Um most likely that was one of the clauses. Then of course there would have been a clause about the immediate cessation of all hostilities. Um so it would have been something like this.

[00:02:33]Iran shall immediately cease all hostile actions direct or indirect against United States, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, any Gulf state, any US partner and any other nation affected by hostilities related to the Strait of Hormuz.

[00:02:49]Uh they would have also demanded that Iran end all threats and attacks. Um now there might have been a few more controversial things which might or might not have gone in. Um for example uh the US might have demanded transfer of control uh that's operational control of the street of Humuz including maritime security arrangements necessary to ensure freedom of navigation shall be handed over to the United States or a US-led security mechanism designed by the United States. Now we don't know if that's in there but it wouldn't surprise me that it was. Um perhaps uh almost certainly Iran was uh asked to dismantle all nuclear facilities uh agree to the removal of refined nuclear material um and not engage in any we nuclear weapons development and probably there would be a a demand for something like a 20-year moratorum on uranium enrichment. Uh, and of course there would have been a demand for enhanced inspections such as a clause like this. Um, I'm only speculating. I didn't I don't have a copy of the agreement. Nobody has. Um, but it might have read, Iran shall accept enhanced United Nations and IAEA, International Atomic Energy Agency inspections, including snapid inspections without delay, prior notice, veto, location exclusion, managed access obstruction, or restrictions inconsistent with full verification.

[00:04:23]Uh there would have also been some clauses about uh restriction of conventional weapons manufacturing um in particular offensive weapons. Uh there'd be a demand for immediate halt to offensive weapons production. Um now uh there's a couple of things which I don't think would have gone in there um even though they've been set in the past but it's possible that United States asked for unconditional surrender. Um that's a pot by Enran. It's also possible that uh maybe they demanded that the USA be allowed to install uh military bases on Iranian territory um in in specified Iranian cities, strategic locations, including locations close to the straight of Hormuz for the purpose of monitoring compliance, deterring re deterring renewing hostilities and protecting international shipping. I don't think that went in there, but um you know, it's a possibility. Um what else might have gone in?

[00:05:31]So, well, oh yes, there would have been a clause about the sanctions that the sanctions won't be issued pro or won't be released immediately, but perhaps over time when it's seen that the uh agreement is being adhered to after a reasonable length of time.

[00:05:49]and then of course there will be some consequences for the eventual breach.

[00:05:53]Now we don't know how Iran has responded and which of those clauses were in there. Um but certainly whatever Iran has responded uh President Trump has said it's totally unacceptable.

[00:06:05]Um but I can imagine that uh Iran is asking for some of the same things the USA is asking such as an immediate end to the war on all fronts. um not asking asking that there's no partial ceasefire um you know i.e. if we have a ceasefire please ceasefiring um almost certainly Iran probably would be uh wanting the USA to end its naval blockade. uh they would have written something like the USA or the United States shall immediately terminate any blockade interdiction regime exclusion zone or coercive naval posture that restricts Iran or commercial shipping in or around the straight of Hormuz. That's one area they might be able to find agreement on perhaps. Um obviously they'd want America to recognize Iranian sovereignty. Uh they don't want any foreign control of the strait. Um they want freedom of commercial transit I imagine. uh they would have demanded that there are no further US or Israeli attacks.

[00:07:06]Uh the United States shall provide a binding guarantee that there will be no further US attacks on Iran and shall secure or underwrite a corresponding commitment that Israel will not conduct further attacks on Iranian territory, Iranian officials, Iranian military assets, or Iranian nuclear facilities or Iranian infrastructure.

[00:07:28]uh and then counteracting the possible demand for bases of America, they' say no bases or occupation of foreign deployment inside Iran. Iran shall not accept the installation of US military bases, monitoring post, naval installations, air facilities, intelligence facilities or foreign troops in Iranian territory or on Iranian territory.

[00:07:48]Uh there would have been clauses about non-inference and verification of non-attack commitments. Um they demand Iran would be demanding that it's allowed to trade oil again. I the United States shall end restrictions, bans, and secondary sanctions that prevent Iran from selling oil, blah blah blah. Um yes, Iran's probably demanding compensation for war damages and expecting an independent assessment of that to see how much they think USA should pay. Obviously, USA isn't going to agree to that.

[00:08:24]um they might have agreed and this is something which would is going in the right direction for the United States.

[00:08:30]They might have agreed to a temporary enrichment moratorum but uh temporary without maybe specifying a period. Um perhaps they might agree to it for 5 years not the not the 20 years that perhaps American would demand.

[00:08:45]Um they would require that no removal of nuclear material is taken out uh or to the United States.

[00:08:55]Um what else might they have asked? Yes, of course they'd want um the all the sanctioned assets to be released immediately.

[00:09:07]Um that's the kind of things that might have been. So here's the bad news. The bad news is the two uh requirements are most likely 100 miles apart. But here's the good news. They are at last negotiating. And and you know, if you've ever been to one of these countries where they sell the carpets, you walk down the street, the man says, "Come and look at my carpets." You start looking, they say, he says, "Buy this carpet.

[00:09:32]It's only 5,000." You say, "No, I don't want it." He says, "Okay, how about 4,000?" You say, "Still not interested.

[00:09:37]Don't don't want it." Okay, I like your face. You say, "I'll give it to you for 2,000." And you say, "No, I don't want it. I I really don't want it." Okay, how much? So you say zero.

[00:09:50]The man has a big smile on his face because you have started negotiation.

[00:09:55]He's at 2,000, you're at zero, and he hopes to meet somewhere in the middle.

[00:10:00]Um, and that's kind of how I see it. Um, between the USA and Iran, you know, one side is at uh, let's say 2,000 and the other side is at zero and there's a long long way to go before they reach any sort of agreement. Which one will get the agreement, I don't know. Um but uh I think we're in there for the long haul.

[00:10:21]Also going on in the world in the UK, we've had uh the Labour parties uh huge defeat in the um UK local elections um where the reform party Nigel Farage's reform party um won so many seats and it's quite interesting that um Britain's now see that the man who uh effectively took Great Britain out of the EU and is giving it a lot of the mess that it's got today um is now potentially seen as the man who will put Britain back on its feet again one day. Of course, this is not the uh election for parliament. Um it's local elections, but it does tell us how it might work out if they have a parliamentary election. Um it does imply that the reform party led by Naju Farage might even get a majority.

[00:11:19]Um now today Sakia Starmmer is the leader of the Labour party the ruling party in the UK is under a lot of pressure because voters have expressed their dissatisfaction or that's the way it's perceived. They've expressed dissatisfaction with the way the country is run and he's the head of the country in a certain sense. So he's going to have to give the speech of his life to survive politically. um you know, we've had obviously these terrible results in the local elections for Labor and uh he needs to convince the rest of the Labour party that he's going to do something about these poor results and he can turn them around for the future. Um so today he will be giving a speech. Um it may be happening as I speak. Um but in that speech he'll definitely be concentrating on things like growth, defense, uh Europe or ties with Europe, uh energy. Um and we'll see whether the Labor Party thinks it's enough to keep him as their prime minister. Um now a former minister, Katherine West, is threatening to seek nomination as a in a leadership challenge.

[00:12:33]Now whether that will go through or not, I don't know. But if she does seek nomination uh and get gets it to be a leader of the Labor Labor Party, it opens the door for any other minister to put their name down as a potential prime minister. So it would open the door to a leadership challenge.

[00:12:53]Um so politically UK isn't uh looking that brilliant this week. uh cuz there's some uncertainty as what as to what's going to happen next.

[00:13:05]Um Larry Frink uh who's the chief chairman and chief executive officer of BlackRock has warned that the world United States in particular rather is facing shortages of power, computing power, microchips, memory, GPUs, data centers, those sort of things. Um and this is true. The the the the demand for artificial intelligence is exploding so terribly fast and the amount that that people are using it for is is going up very very rapidly that it's a wonder that the computing power can be made available at all. So we're seeing we're starting to see uh rationing of computing power prices changing on people. Um it's it's difficult to say where it goes, but it perhaps means that the problem with the AI industry won't so much be um that the sh the that that the there's no growth there. The growth is there. The problem is there's too much growth there and it can't may not be able to deliver.

[00:14:11]Uh and in an interesting development in uh South Korea, uh the the workers in Samsung's uh I think it's the the chip division are threatening to go on strike for 18 days.

[00:14:32]And the reason they want to go on strike is because they are ne trying to do some negotiations about pay and uh bonuses and things. Now the staff have been offered a bonus not to go on strike. Um and I think Bloomberg reported it at something like 400,000 on average per worker. And that's dollars by the way. And I see other sources quoting it at around $340,000 US per worker as a one-off payment for not going on strike. Now, it turns out the union, which represents the workers, has refused that offer, saying they want a permanent arrangement where this bonus will be paid and guaranteed every year based on the turn turnover of the company.

[00:15:22]Um, so interesting. If you're in the data uh chip field, you probably hold all the aces at the moment when it comes to pay rises.

[00:15:35]$340,000 one one-off bonus for not going on strike. Amazing.

[00:15:41]Um what else is going on? Yes. So, so we've got later uh on Tuesday, we've got the CPI in the USA coming out. It was 0.1% for the month last month. um should be a little bit higher this month due to the oil prices. The expectation is currently for 0.3% for the month. Um and annually it should come in at about 3.6% according to the forecasts.

[00:16:06]Um what else have we got? We've got Wednesday we'll have the PPI, the purchase of uh purchasing power the PPI, the producer price index. PPI producer price index. Um today gold price is down slightly. It's down $49 at 4665.

[00:16:28]Um but silver isn't really suffering at all. Um it's $8022. That's a very um positive sign for me. It kind of means that I think the bull most likely silver is going to go higher in the day because it's not following gold down. Uh it's $8022 staying above $80, just over $80.

[00:16:48]Um that's technically down five cents, but you know, 5 cents is nothing compared with gold's fall of $49. Um so yeah, it looks like silver could go higher today. Oil Brent um well, West Texas Intermediate at $97.91, up $3. And um Brent crude is up at $11.92.

[00:17:13]Bitcoin is moving ahead. It's gone above $80,000 this morning. Um well, it has been trading quite a lot below above 80,000. Um probably it'll go above 81,000 in the afternoon. Uh it's hard to say who is buying it or why they're buying it. Um so that's basically all I've got to say about the Oh yes, what's going to happen on US markets? Oh, stock markets. Let's do the stock markets. Um the screen's just gone off on me. Uh but what I saw was the European markets were all flat earlier today. A little bit up, a little bit down. Um nothing to get excited. I've got them in front of me now. Um so just running through the the US stock market's not yet open. It'll be open uh by the time you watch this, but just opening at the as you watch this.

[00:18:07]Um so looking at the indices, yeah, the French index is down 1.4. The German index is down 0.4%. 4%.

[00:18:15]Uh the Footsie 100 is down 0.26%.

[00:18:18]So broad Hen was flat not up well it was 0.0% to all purposes. Um so markets are kind of flat at the moment but USA might open higher. Um in particular I think we'll see yesterday is or not Friday's winners um continue to see find buyers behind them. That's what people do. They buy the winners. Um, so what what are we talking about? We're talking about uh which stocks I'm just going to bring them up. Yes. So probably we'll see rises in stocks like Micron Technology.

[00:19:00]Intel C was a good performer on Friday.

[00:19:02]So Micron was up 15. Intel was up 13 on Friday. So they should go higher this morning. Um Quan Qualcomm up 8% on Friday. Uh should go higher. It's could could be uh the price now is 219.09.

[00:19:15]That's Friday's close. Uh advanced micro devices might be another one which is benefiting from the chip demand.

[00:19:25]Uh interest rates or yield. Let's take a quick look at the uh yield in the USA and the UK. Uh the UK 30-year yield is quite high now. It's at 5.674%.

[00:19:37]It's not at the peak of five. The peak was onetenth of a percent. um earlier this month, but uh it's heading higher the yield on the 30-year. So 5.681 uh we could get into a crisis situation if we go above six and the 10-year yield is 5.001.

[00:19:56]So five exactly 5% on the UK 10ear.

[00:20:00]Looking at the US 10ear we're at 4.39.

[00:20:03]The yield is up again it's up 0.69% 69% and the uh US 30-year is at 4.966.

[00:20:12]So it's just brushing with that 5% level. Um it has been slightly above 5% earlier. I went to 504 or 505 or something like that. Um so that would be about 1% um above where it was. So the yield is on the 10 on the on the 30 sorry the four the yield on the 10 year is now 4.966.

[00:20:35]it it's up slightly uh since yesterday.

[00:20:40]And the US 30-year yield, sorry, 496 is a big one. That's the 30 year. The 30-year yield is 4.966 and the 10-year yield is 4.39.

[00:20:56]Um what else is moving? Not much. The DXY is steady at 108 at a fraction. Uh platinum uh is 4668 uh down 47 and palladium is 4479 down 6.74.

[00:21:15]Uh ladies and gentlemen, my name is Clive Thompson. Um if you're interested in uh my little trop books, please uh don't hesitate to get them. There's some pictures of one of the stories there behind me. Um they're on Amazon.

[00:21:29]Wonderful books for children, really colorful. Your kids are really going to love it. And there's a free copy of book one at least on my website clivetoson.com if you go to little trot.

[00:21:38]Thank you very much. Bye-bye now.