Good evening and welcome to Markets Desk, your end-of-day read on the stories moving markets and the broader economy.
The UAE's exit from OPEC is the geopolitical headline you cannot ignore tonight. Years of tension with Saudi Arabia finally snapped under the pressure of the Iran conflict, and Riyadh's grip on cartel discipline now looks considerably weaker. Economist Steve Hanke put it bluntly — the UAE simply decided to take the money and run, prioritizing production freedom over quota compliance.
That energy backdrop feeds directly into the next story, where French oil major TotalEnergies posted a twenty-nine percent jump in profits, lifted by the oil price surge the war helped engineer. The company managed to grow production outside the Gulf, offsetting disruptions from the conflict, and trading gains added meaningful upside — a reminder that volatility in energy markets cuts both ways.
Turning to tech, AWS chief executive Matt Garman is making a direct push into software-as-a-service, unveiling a new desktop application called Amazon Quick on Tuesday. Garman is dismissing fears of a so-called SaaSpocalypse, arguing AI will remake the software landscape entirely and that Amazon intends to be at the center of that transformation, competing head-on with established enterprise software players.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
