- BTC: ~$64,700 (swap in your number at posting) - ETH: ~$1,910 - 30 year fixed mortgage: ~6.6% (what a regular person pays to borrow for a house, still stuck high) Some weeks the story is loud and some weeks the market just sits on its hands, and this is one of those weeks. Everyone is waiting on two things at once. The Fed meets next Tuesday and Wednesday, and the whole world is watching to see whether the Iran war cools off or keeps spreading. Until one of those breaks, nobody wants to make a big move, and honestly neither do we. I'm not going to invent a bold prediction just to have one. But there's still plenty worth understanding this week, so let's get into it. The quick stats: - Oil: Brent crossed $100 a barrel (the world price of oil, up more than 30% this month, and the single biggest driver of inflation right now) - Rate hike odds for next week: jumped to roughly 40% (the market's guess that the Fed raises rates, up from nearly zero just days ago because of oil) - BTC: holding around $64,000 to $65,000 (top of the range we've been tracking between 59,500 and 65,000) - Bitcoin ETF flows: 7 straight days of money coming in, about $1 billion this month (big investors buying through funds, after two months of heavy selling) - Nasdaq: down 2.65% yesterday (the tech heavy stock index, hit by worries that AI spending got ahead of profits) ________________________________________ The war got uglier, like we said it would. We told you weeks ago that we didn't believe this war ends this year, and that it probably drags into 2027, because the people in control of Iran clearly don't want peace. They were handed a sweet deal and burned it to the ground. This week proved the point again. Trump is now threatening to destroy a bridge or power plant every time Iran touches a ship, Iran is threatening energy targets across the whole region, and attacks are spreading beyond the strait to Saudi tankers in the Red Sea. That's why oil crossed $100.

- BTC: ~$64,000 (the price of one Bitcoin, up on the good news) - ETH: ~$1,900 (the price of one Ethereum, quietly outrunning Bitcoin lately) - 30 year mortgage: ~6.6% (what a regular person pays to borrow for a house, still stuck high) Quick one this week, because honestly the story kind of tells itself. The inflation number we've been waiting on for months finally cooled off, and it cooled off harder than pretty much anyone expected, which is exactly the direction we said things would head once oil started coming back down. But (and you knew there was a but coming) the timing on it is rough, because that cool number is from June, and the Iran war reignited right at the start of July, which means the exact thing that pulled prices down last month could turn around and shove them right back up this month. So we take the win, we enjoy it, and we keep one eye open while we do. Because with this war, anything can happen. Here's what actually came out: - Inflation (CPI): 3.5%, down from 4.2% (how fast prices climbed over the past year, and it's finally slowing) - Core inflation: 2.6% (same idea, just ignoring gas and food since those two bounce around too much to trust) - Prices last month: down 0.4% (the biggest one month drop in about six years) - Gas: down 9.7% (basically the whole reason the number cooled) - Fed rate: still 3.5% to 3.75% (unchanged again, still no cut, and Warsh made clear he's in no rush and said he will not cut even if that's what Trump wants - but honestly I think he's just allowing things to happen that will lead to cuts anyway. Chart Update: Price is still tracking in that channel we talked about ranging from 65k down to potentially 59k. We're still dollar cost averaging by buying a little every week. Nothing big just waiting for our timeline to continue. --------------------- New Members ----------------------- If you just found us, pretty much everything we talk about each week fits inside one story, a chain of events we laid out months ago that tends to play out in order. Once you can see the whole map, it gets a lot easier to understand why we keep saying now is a fine time to be buying slowly instead of waiting around for perfect news. So here's the sequence, start to finish.

- BTC: ~$62,000 (down ~2% today) - ETH: ~$1,740 (down ~2%) - 30 year fixed mortgage: ~6.6% (ticked up this week) Last week we got the good news we'd been waiting on. The job market finally started showing cracks, which is the thing we've said for months would eventually start pushing the Fed toward cutting rates. This week we got a gut punch we didn't see coming though that really hurt our view. Iran blew up the peace deal. So let me be straight about our own calls, because that honesty is the whole point of these updates. We did say the war would probably drag on longer than most people expected, maybe into 2027. That part is playing out. But we also thought this particular deal would hold, because it was a genuinely good deal for Iran. Them torching it caught us off guard because it was sooo good for them. So let's get into that. ____________________ Why this shocked us...... Look at what Iran walked away from. The deal handed them $300 billion to rebuild, lifted the sanctions strangling their economy, and let their oil flow and earn again. The IRGC could have stayed in power and ruled Iran untouched. The main thing they had to give up was the nuclear weapon. They said no. That tells you something heavy. They want the bomb more than they want their own economy and country to flourish. Crazy. Which means this probably escalates before it gets better. ____________________ What it means for your money..... Iran attacked ships in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow stretch of water where about a fifth of the world's oil passes through. The US struck back. Oil jumped about 5%. When oil climbs, everything costs more to make and move, so the fear of inflation comes right back. Here's why I'm adding mortgage rates to these updates. Watch what the 30 year mortgage did this week. It climbed to around 6.6%. A war on the other side of the world just made it more expensive for a regular family here to buy a house. I hope this help to show how connected all this is.