Good afternoon and welcome to Markets Desk, your midday read on what's moving and why.
China's equity markets have crossed a threshold investors had been watching with growing unease. The CSI three hundred has now fallen twenty percent from its June peak, the technical definition of a bear market, capping a ten-week rout that reflects deepening concerns about domestic demand, property sector stress, and a lack of credible policy response from Beijing.
Shifting from equities to the digital asset space, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has put stablecoin issuers on notice with a waiver rule that carries real teeth. Existing issuers awaiting OCC approval cannot simply rely on a pending application to keep operating past January eighteenth, two thousand twenty seven — they must actively seek discretionary relief or risk losing the ability to issue entirely.
And in energy markets, a significant development in the Iran oil story. Washington's monthslong blockade of Tehran's shadow tanker fleet has apparently worked. Iran had been sitting on millions of barrels of crude floating in Asian waters, a quiet revenue stream that helped cushion sanctions pressure. That buffer has now been exhausted, tightening the financial vice on the regime considerably.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
