For six months markets priced this war on a single premise: that it would end soon. Equities reached a record 105 trillion dollars in August, energy funds saw outflows, and Fidelity’s analysts described investors taking a relaxed view because they still expected resolution this year.

On Wednesday, speaking at a Republican convention in Texas, the President said he did not think the fighting would end until after November’s midterm elections. The repricing since has been the most violent of the conflict. Brent hit a four-month high of 109.97 dollars on Friday after jumping 6 percent the previous day, before selling pressure pushed it back nearly 2 percent to 105.90, still leaving a weekly gain of roughly 10 percent.

The oil market is no longer dealing only with a supply disruption in the Strait of Hormuz. It is dealing with a measurement problem. Since tankers began crossing the strait without transponder signals to avoid Iranian attacks, estimates of Middle Eastern crude flows have diverged sharply. That uncertainty has become a market force in its own right, helping to keep a risk premium in oil prices even as clandestine shipments have prevented a deeper supply collapse.

The basic contradiction is clear. More oil is moving out of the Gulf than visible tracking data would suggest, but no one can say with precision how much. Tankers sailing without Automatic Identification System signals have created a shadow logistics network that allows crude from Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to continue reaching global markets.

Taiwan’s exports surged to a record in August, underscoring how deeply the island has become tied to the global artificial intelligence investment cycle. Total goods exports reached $82.4 billion, up 41% from a year earlier and well above expectations. The trade surplus also widened to a record $22.3 billion.

These figures show that global demand for advanced technology hardware remains exceptionally strong, even as investors and policymakers question whether the pace of AI infrastructure spending can be sustained. The main driver was electronic components, especially shipments linked to U.S. demand. Exports of electronic components to the United States jumped by an unprecedented 145%, showing how much the AI buildout is reshaping trade flows.

The European Union’s proposed Public Procurement Act marks a major shift in how Brussels wants public money to be used. The bloc is no longer treating government contracts only as a matter of price, openness and administrative efficiency. It now wants procurement to become an instrument of industrial policy, economic security and strategic autonomy.

With EU governments spending around €2.6 trillion a year on public contracts, even a modest redirection of purchasing decisions could have large consequences for European suppliers and foreign competitors, especially Chinese firms. The core idea is straightforward: when public authorities buy goods and services, they should give greater weight to European supply, sustainability, security and resilience.

China’s lithium market is facing a credibility problem that goes beyond one inventory estimate or one sharp move in futures prices. The criticism from Tianqi Lithium and Ganfeng Lithium points to a broader weakness in the battery-metals sector: the market has become large, financialized and globally important, but the data used to price it remains uneven, opaque and vulnerable to methodological shocks.

The immediate trigger was a jump in inventory figures from a third-party data provider. That estimate sparked debate across the industry and contributed to a 14% fall over three days in the most active lithium carbonate futures contract on the Guangzhou Futures Exchange. The move was significant because lithium prices are already volatile, and market participants are highly sensitive to any signal about supply, demand, inventories or production discipline.

The United States is moving to support Kenya’s ambitions in critical minerals, positioning the country as a potential processing hub in Africa at a time when Washington is trying to reduce dependence on China-dominated supply chains.

The focus on Kenya’s Mrima Hill deposit, which is believed to contain rare earth elements and niobium worth tens of billions of dollars, shows how the global race for minerals is expanding beyond established producers such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa and Australia.

Australia has softened its proposed gas reservation policy, but the central objective remains the same: to ensure that domestic consumers are not left short while LNG exporters continue selling large volumes abroad. The revised plan would no longer require exporters to reserve a fixed 20% of output for the local market.

Instead, the Australian Energy Regulator would determine how much each exporter must hold back, up to one-fifth of production, with the aim of keeping the east coast market modestly oversupplied at around 110% of expected demand. The change is designed to make the policy more flexible and less blunt.

Global clean-technology investment fell 17% to $770 billion in the first half of 2026, but the decline does not signal a reversal of the energy transition. It reflects a cooling of the extraordinary China-led investment boom, especially in solar power and solar manufacturing. The sector is moving from rapid, subsidy-supported expansion toward a more disciplined phase shaped by market pricing, overcapacity, supply-chain diversification and geopolitical competition.

China was the main driver of the slowdown. As the world’s largest clean-tech investor, its investment cycle heavily influences the global total. A shift toward market-based pricing for renewable power has made project economics more demanding, particularly in regions where solar and wind output is already high and grid constraints are becoming more visible.