Last century, wars were fought over oil.

The 21st century will be won or lost on rare earth elements.

These minerals are the "digital gunpowder" of modern dominance, powering robotics, AI data centers, and the F-35 Lightning II, which requires 920 lbs. of rare earths just to stay in the sky.

And in today's warfront, the dependency is existential.

In 2024, 97% of the 1.2 million drones produced for the Ukraine conflict relied on heavy rare earth magnets processed in China.

The bottleneck isn't the minerals themselves. As President Trump put it, "There's no such thing as rare earths. There's rare processing."

Nearly all global refining equipment is built, coded, and controlled overseas - a dangerous chokepoint that could be cut at any time.

REalloys (NASDAQ: ALOY) is working to bring that leverage back to North America.

The company's strategy spans the full supply chain, from mineral sourcing to refining to magnet manufacturing.

While giants like MP Materials focus on high-volume light elements, REalloys is targeting the heavy rare earth market critical to advanced defense and aerospace.

With a proprietary tech stack that's 100% independent of Chinese equipment, paired with an AI-optimized refining engine, the company plans to deliver 99.5% purity metals required for the next-generation.

See how REalloys (NASDAQ: ALOY) is building
an "uncuttable" sovereign supply chain.

☕️ GM Munchers! I watched paint dry for 20 minutes yesterday. Literally just stared at our freshly painted wall. Was I bored? No. Was I trying to experience something less volatile than the market? Absolutely.

On today’s menu:

• 📉 CPI Confirms Everything Still Costs Too Much

• 🛢️ The Oil Paradox Nobody Can Explain

• ☕ The Starbucks Billionaire Just Fled Seattle's New Tax

• 🐄 Cows Have Outperformed The S&P 500

• 🤑 This Rare Earths Stock Is Up 157% in 6 Months

Yesterday’s numbers:

BREAKING NEWS

📉 CPI Confirms Everything Still Costs Too Much (Shocker)

The moment of truth arrived yesterday morning and confirmed our worst fears: everything's still way too expensive and the Fed's stuck.

• The Numbers: February headline CPI came in at 2.5% year-over-year. Core CPI (which strips out volatile food and energy) also held stubbornly at 2.5%. The Fed's target? 2%. We're not moving toward it. We're camping out at 2.5% like it's a permanent vacation home.

• The Market Reaction: Wall Street just swallowed a very bitter pill like when my wife tells me we have to spend Sunday at my in-laws. Inflation's officially stuck instead of dropping, which means there's absolutely no immediate pivot to rate cuts coming. The Fed's trapped. They can't cut rates to help the dying economy because inflation refuses to cooperate.

Then It Got Worse (The Jobs Lie):

A massive report dropped yesterday revealing a devastating trend: US job numbers have been quietly revised downward for 13 consecutive months.

• The Missing 710,000 Jobs: In total, an astonishing 710,000 jobs the government previously claimed were created have been completely wiped from the record. For over a year, employment was initially overstated by roughly 55,000 jobs every single month.

• Translation: The rosy jobs reports that drove Wall Street rallies and political talking points were essentially fiction. The "strong labour market" narrative that justified keeping rates high? Built on fake data that got quietly revised away months later after everyone stopped paying attention.

The Munch Take: Inflation's stuck at 2.5%, the Fed can't cut rates, and 710,000 jobs we thought existed never actually materialized. Recession odds are now at 30% before year-end. The Dow dropped over 300 points as a result. The Fed is trapped. Welcome to the show.

🛢️ The Oil Paradox Nobody Can Explain (Except We're Going To Try)

The entire market is almost singlehandedly depending on what oil does and lately, we’ve had a ton of conflicting signals.

• The International Energy Agency just announced the largest oil reserve release in history, 400 million barrels, to try and lower prices.

• But at the same time, Iran is exporting record amounts of oil.

• Wouldn’t all of this make the price of oil drop? You’d think so. But oil prices actually went UP 4% yestrerday, and are now over $90/barrel.

If you're confused, you're not crazy. Here's what's actually happening.

♟️ Iran's Playing 4D Chess:

• Iran isn't blocking every ship through the Strait of Hormuz. They're harassing Western tankers while letting their own ships and "dark fleet" sail freely to China.

• By threatening Western ships, they spike global oil prices.

• Then they pump massive amounts and sell it to China at a discount to that elevated price. They're funding their war by creating artificial scarcity. Evil genius.

Why Oil Climbed Despite 400M Barrel Release:

• Wall Street smelled panic. Emergency reserves are a one-time trick. Traders realized if governments are using their biggest bullet now, what happens next month when reserves are empty?

• Even Japan tapped oil reserves for the first time in 50 years. Trump also invoked Cold War-era laws to override California's environmental regulations just to get one company pumping. When that's happening, the shortage is worse than admitted.

🛢️ Where Oil Goes Next:

• The floor’s solid at $85-$90

• The ceiling’s around $100-$110 because anything higher triggers recession fears and destroys demand.

• Expect violent volatility between $90-$105.

• Peace rumor? Oil crashes. Tanker threat? Oil rips.

The Munch Take: The entire market hinges on oil right now. If it stays high, inflation will keep sticking around, the Fed won’t be able to cut rates and that will crush stocks. Our hope right now is that peace talks will come together. Either way, your portfolio's fate is being decided by whether Iranian patrol boats feel like harassing a tanker today. Pay attention to oil. Everything else is noise.

STOCK OF THE DAY

☕ The Starbucks Billionaire Just Fled Seattle's New Tax

Turns out selling sugar bombs disguised as coffee pays well enough to buy a $44 million penthouse in Florida.

Howard Schultz, the billionaire who built Starbucks into a global empire, just abandoned Seattle after 40 years. He dropped $44 million on a 5,500-square-foot luxury penthouse at the Surf Club (Four Seasons Private Residences) in Surfside, Florida.

The Official Story: Schultz framed the move as a "retirement adventure" to enjoy sunshine and be closer to his kids on the East Coast. He's also moving his entire private family office (which manages his fortune) to Miami.

The Real Story (It's Taxes): The timing's suspicious.

• Schultz's announcement coincided with Washington state advancing a controversial bill slapping a 9.9% income tax on anyone earning over $1 million annually.

• Washington historically attracted business because it had zero state income tax.

• Now lawmakers are targeting the ultra-wealthy to bridge budget shortfalls, and billionaires are fleeing.

By moving to Florida (zero state income tax), Schultz saves potentially hundreds of millions over the coming years. The sunshine's nice, but the tax savings are nicer.

The Stock Reaction: Starbucks stock barely budged on the news but is currently up over 20% in 2026 as new CEO Brian Niccol tries turning around a company that's been bleeding customers to cheaper, better coffee options for years.

The Munch Take: It’s simple. Capital goes where it's treated best and this is right on trend with tons of businesses and millionaires leaving the West Coast for Florida. Expect more billionaires to follow.

MARKET OVERVIEW

🍿 Tasty Movers & Shakers

🍕 $PZZA Papa John’s had a heck of a day, surging 19.42% on reports of a Qatari-backed takeover offer. Interesting. They have good pizza in Qatar?

🚗 $UBER climbed 3.56% after Amazon announced a multiyear partnership to offer Zoox robotaxi rides through the Uber app.

📱 $ORCL Oracle revealed a roughly $2 billion stake in TikTok in yesterday's quarterly filing. This comes months after TikTok's US operations landed in investor hands following government threats to shut it down. Stock climbed 9.18%. Turns out Larry Ellison's betting billions that doomscrolling cat videos is a sustainable business model. He's probably right.

🎬 $NFLX Netflix is reportedly paying as much as $600 million for Ben Affleck's AI film production company Interpositive. I already spend an hour scrolling Netflix before picking a movie. Now I get to filter through AI-generated slop too? At least when human writers make garbage, there's someone to blame.

TRADING SUCCESS

🤑 Thursday Motivation

🚀 Pre-Market Fuel

1. 🚀 This rare earths stock is up 157% in 6 months.

2. 🐄 Cows have outperformed the S&P 500.

3. 🤑 The world’s most valuable brands by market cap.

4. 🤯 73.7% of all US wealth is held by those over 55.

5. 🛢️ 3 cargo ships were struck off Iran’s coast.

🍪 Munchy Memes

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