Good afternoon and welcome to Markets Desk midday.
President Trump is pressing the new Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh for rate cuts, telling reporters he knows what Warsh wants to do but that the Fed board may stand in the way. The comments add fresh pressure to a central bank already navigating a delicate inflation and growth balance, and markets are watching closely for any signal that monetary policy independence is eroding.
Turning to commodities, cotton futures are posting meaningful midday gains, up between seventy and eighty-six points, even as crude oil slides more than six dollars and sixty-three cents per barrel. The strength is being driven in part by managed money spec funds, who added more than three thousand five hundred contracts to their net position according to Friday's Commitment of Traders report, signaling renewed bullish conviction from the speculative community.
And on Venezuela, President Trump says the United States has now sold more than thirteen billion dollars worth of Venezuelan oil since taking control of the country's energy exports. The claim underscores how aggressively the administration has moved to redirect South American crude flows, with significant implications for global oil supply dynamics and Latin American geopolitics heading into the second half of the year.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
