Flash News

TREE NEWS reports: Bitfinex said bitcoin broke below its $77,100-$81,300 range on Tuesday, closing at $75,702, down 3.2%, after 24 days of trading. The report warns a retest of $73,500 is possible and that only a reclaim of $77,100 on significant spot volume would invalidate the pullback scenario. U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs saw $450.4 million in net outflows on Tuesday, the 33rd-largest single-day outflow on record.

TREE NEWS update: Some Swiss upper-house lawmakers want the government, not parliament, to decide on new capital requirements for UBS Group AG. The executive branch is pushing to require UBS to fully back its foreign subsidiaries with domestic capital, a measure UBS calls “extreme” and says would make it uncompetitive. Lawmakers will decide Thursday how to proceed, when the upper house debates the new rules and considers a motion to send the bill back to the Federal Council.

TREE NEWS update: Saudi Arabia plans to restore half the capacity of a key oil pipeline within the coming days. The move concerns one of the kingdom’s main crude transport routes, with no further details given on the cause of the outage or the pipeline’s name. No timeline beyond “the coming days” was provided.

TREE NEWS update: Iranian President met with Iraq’s Prime Minister, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported. The meeting between the two leaders was confirmed by Iranian media. No further details on the agenda or outcomes were immediately provided.

TREE NEWS reports: ICE UK natural gas futures closed down 2.58% in late European trading on Wednesday, September 16, while the TTF benchmark Dutch natural gas contract fell 4.33%. ICE EU carbon allowance futures slipped 1% over the same session.

TREE NEWS reports: Bitcoin dropped about 4.6% this week to roughly $76,000, breaking below its late-August range floor and the $76,700 true market mean, Glassnode said. On-chain capital inflows stalled after 27 straight days, ETFs flipped to net outflows, stablecoin supply was flat and corporate treasuries stopped buying. After the failed Senate CLARITY Act vote, options flipped from upside bets to downside protection, with max pain at $72,000 and heavy call buildup near $85,000; support thins below $68,000, next target $71,300.

TREE NEWS reports: The MSCI Nordic Countries Index rose 0.5% to 394.18 points, with Nordic industrials posting the biggest gain among the ten sectors tracked. Defense company Kongsberg Gruppen ASA climbed 3%, leading all Nordic constituents. The advance was driven by sector-level strength in industrials and defense names.

TREE NEWS update: Nicole Saphier, President Trump’s nominee for US Surgeon General, told her Senate health committee confirmation hearing that she does not believe childhood vaccinations cause autism. Saphier said she supports universal hepatitis B vaccination and that existing evidence shows the birth dose is safe and effective, though she stopped short of explicitly recommending it. Her ethics agreement discloses investments including McDonald’s, which she would divest if confirmed.

TREE NEWS reports: U.S. Bancorp CEO Gunjan Kedia said a slowing AI arms race benefits companies actually deploying the tools. Speaking at a Barclays Plc conference, she said the bank’s use cases do not require the most complex frontier models, so a pause in model upgrades will not hurt its programs — and may help by giving it breathing room to fully use existing technology.

TREE NEWS update: The US Treasury auctioned four-month bills at a high yield of 4.030%, with a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.72. The auction drew bids equal to 2.72 times the amount offered. No further details on the size of the offering were disclosed.

TREE NEWS reports: Bitcoin found support around $68,000 ahead of Wednesday’s Federal Reserve rate decision, with markets pricing a 93% chance of a 0.25% hike. The largest cryptocurrency remained below $76,000 as analysts discounted the odds of a dovish surprise from the central bank.

TREE NEWS reports: Germany’s DAX 30 index closed provisionally up 0.72% at 25,586.12 on Wednesday. France’s benchmark index gained 0.76% and Italy’s rose 1.01%, with Italian bank stocks up 0.98%. The UK’s index advanced 0.45%.

TREE NEWS reports: Europe’s STOXX 600 index closed provisionally up 0.59% at 637.92 points. The eurozone STOXX 50 rose 0.72% to 6,281.13, while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 gained 0.61% to 2,548.36.

TREE NEWS reports: Bank of America expects the AI-driven bond supply shock to fade over the next two years. The bank’s view points to a cooling in the wave of debt issuance tied to artificial intelligence financing, easing pressure on credit markets. No specific figures or timeline beyond the two-year window were given.

TREE NEWS update: Two pump stations along Saudi Arabia’s East-West oil pipeline were damaged in attacks last week. The damage affects infrastructure on the kingdom’s main crude conduit running from the eastern fields to the Red Sea coast. No further details on the extent of the damage or the impact on flows were provided.

TREE NEWS update: Russia struck a container cargo vessel at Chornomorsk in Ukraine, Interfax reported. The report gave no details on casualties, the extent of damage or the ship’s flag and operator. Chornomorsk, on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast near Odesa, is one of the country’s main port and grain-export hubs.

TREE NEWS update: Libya’s National Oil Corporation said oil production has returned to normal levels after a brief drop caused by the shutdown of three oilfields. The head of the state oil company said the situation is now normal and no further shutdowns are expected.

TREE NEWS update: Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad-Bagher Qalibaf outlined a “Hormuz Strait version” of the Taylor rule, adding positive-coefficient terms for the Strait of Hormuz and Bab-el-Mandeb Strait gaps to the standard interest-rate formula. He said a 25-basis-point rate hike alone cannot clear the energy chokepoint or produce a barrel of crude, adding that r* is not a neutral rate and that the Hormuz risk premium is Iran’s to set, with expectations no longer anchored.

TREE NEWS reports: WTI crude oil futures extended losses to 3%, trading near $102.50 a barrel. The front-month Shanghai crude contract fell 4% on the day to 804.60 yuan. The moves mark a sharp intraday decline in both benchmarks.

TREE NEWS reports: Nomura’s G10 foreign-exchange strategist says the dollar will keep strengthening if Federal Reserve Chair Warsh delivers a hawkish signal, a move that would open up opportunities to sell the greenback into rallies. The strategist framed the scenario as a chance to short the dollar at higher levels.