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Chevron is making a significant strategic move in the Middle East, signing two oil deals in Iraq as part of an effort to explore pipeline routes that would bypass the Strait of Hormuz. That chokepoint handles roughly a fifth of global oil supply, and any alternative routing would reduce geopolitical risk premiums embedded in energy prices, a meaningful development for Chevron's long-term production outlook.
Shifting to the technology sector, Anthropic is in early talks with Meta to acquire compute power, weeks after striking a similar arrangement with SpaceX's Colossus data center. The pattern is telling — leading AI developers are scrambling to secure raw processing capacity outside traditional cloud arrangements, signaling that infrastructure constraints remain the binding limit on frontier model development.
And on prediction markets, the World Cup final between Argentina and Spain has become the single largest contract in the history of platforms Kalshi and Polymarket combined, with total bets topping one point two seven billion dollars and Spain currently favored. The scale underscores how rapidly regulated prediction markets are capturing speculative interest that once flowed exclusively through traditional sports books.
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