Here are the major earnings before the open Monday
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Venezuela’s aging oil port terminals are essentially imposing export caps on the country’s resurgent crude production, with tankers having to wait up to 30 days to load because of infrastructure in disrepair, power outages, and quality issues, Reuters reported this week, citing shipping data, sources, and documents.
SA Asks: What are the most promising oncology companies right now?
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Since early August 2026, several Venezuelan media outlets that have reported on businessman Alejandro Betancourt and his role at the helm of oil company North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP) have faced attacks on X from a group of accounts defending his activities, praising Delcy Rodríguez’s administration, and disparaging María Corina Machado.
Hundreds of these responses came from inauthentic accounts that do not appear to be operated by regular users.
Cazadores de Fake News identified at least 75 such accounts on X, resembling trolls, whose activity led to 13 newly created websites posing as Venezuelan regional news outlets. On Instagram, another previously documented network of fake news accounts known as La Fábrica de Desinformación (“The Disinformation Factory”) has also published favorable content about Betancourt and his activities, acting as another front in the same communications strategy.
The analysis found that an influence operation in Betancourt’s favor began to be deployed in August, seeking to improve his reputation while discrediting journalistic coverage of the businessman amid his contacts with Rodríguez’s administration.
The operation remains active, and the number of accounts and fake outlets could grow.
Beginning August 11, journalists and Venezuelan media outlets reported to Cazadores de Fake News that posts about Betancourt were receiving large numbers of hostile responses, sometimes insults, almost simultaneously. The accounts questioned the posts and defended the businessman.
Among those targeted were journalists and social media personalities like Germania Rodríguez Poleo, Norbey Marín, and Emmanuel Rincón, as well as Armando.info, El Pitazo, EVTV, VPI TV, and Spain’s El País. The same accounts also respond to other users discussing Betancourt and, in some cases, to unrelated news.
Under different headlines, the fake outlets reproduced only the favorable portions of the article that portrayed him as an intermediary for Washington.
Based on their behavior and attack patterns, Cazadores de Fake News considers them part of a troll network: a group of fake accounts covertly and selectively spreading propaganda in Betancourt’s favor without appearing automated.
The accounts mix attacks with memes, sports comments, and everyday posts, making them appear more like ordinary users. This allows them to intervene in and discredit legitimate conversations without immediately being recognized as propaganda.
The network’s messages revolve around three main narratives. The first promotes and defends Betancourt and NABEP, the private oil company he leads and which operates Venezuelan fields under new concessions granted by the Rodríguez administration. The accounts portray the company’s activities as an opportunity for Venezuela’s economic development.
The second expresses optimism about Venezuela’s economy and, while celebrating Nicolás Maduro’s capture, simultaneously supports Rodríguez’s performance as acting president. The third, promoted less frequently, rejects Machado’s leadership of the Venezuelan opposition.
The 75 accounts fall into two groups: 62 that appear to be real people, with names, profile pictures, and short biographies, and 13 posing as news outlets.
The apparent personal accounts share a striking pattern: 61 were created between 2011 and 2015, with more than half created in 2013 or 2014.
Most follow between 90 and 200 accounts, have 80 to 120 followers, and have fewer than 300 posts. Some have no posts predating August 2026, despite having been created more than a decade ago. Cazadores de Fake News considers it likely that the accounts were purchased in bulk, a common practice for giving inauthentic networks an appearance of age and avoiding newly created profiles that are more vulnerable to suspension under X’s platform-manipulation policies.
The other X accounts do not present themselves as individual users. Instead, they pose as Venezuelan news outlets with generic names. As of August 19, 13 such accounts had been identified.
Several accounts posing as individuals have posted favorable comments beneath the fake outlets’ posts, creating the appearance of organic approval. Legitimate X users could interpret these exchanges as genuine conversations, even though both sides belong to the same network.
Twelve of the fake news profiles were created between January 2024 and July 2026 and have already accumulated between 5,681 and 18,900 followers. Yet none has published more than 157 posts. Their coverage repeatedly advances the same narratives as the accounts posing as individuals: favorable coverage of Betancourt and NABEP, support for Rodríguez, and attacks on Machado.
The operation extends beyond X. Almost all of the fake outlets link to websites using the same name as their X profiles. The sites are designed to resemble legitimate Venezuelan digital media, with sections for politics, crime, business, sports, and regional news.
Under Maduro, Cazadores documented similar campaigns favoring other Venezuelan oligarchs and their businesses, such as Alex Saab (2020) and José Simón Elarba (2026), the owner of waste-management company Fospuca.
The 13 domains were registered between July 26 and 27 using the same hosting provider, about a week before the coordinated X activity began. All operate on WordPress, and none has a contact page, editorial team, legal notice, advertising, or audience-measurement tools. In several cases, the same image appears on four or five different sites.
One of the clearest examples was the coordinated amplification of a Bloomberg article about Betancourt published August 17. The fake outlets reproduced, under different headlines, only the favorable portions of the article that portrayed him as an intermediary for Washington. They omitted other details mentioned by Bloomberg, including financial sanctions imposed in the United States on one of his partners and allegations involving the supply of power-generation equipment in Venezuela.
Content supporting the same narratives was also published by five fake news accounts and one influential account belonging to La Fábrica de Desinformación, a network of anonymous Instagram news accounts aimed at opposition audiences that Cazadores de Fake News has documented since 2020 as a recurring source of disinformation and pro-government propaganda.
Digital reputation operations benefiting businessmen linked to political power were a recurring feature under Nicolás Maduro. Cazadores de Fake News documented one deployed in favor of Alex Saab beginning in 2020, and in May 2026 identified a network of inauthentic accounts that attacked media outlets investigating José Simón Elarba while praising Fospuca, his company.
The evidence documented here indicates that such operations continue under Rodríguez’s administration.
Who commissioned the operation and how it was financed remain unanswered questions. What is documented is that, in four weeks, someone purchased dozens of old accounts, registered 13 domains, and activated six profiles from a previously exposed network—all serving the same purpose.
Zerbor
Corporate earnings this week featured a high-stakes lineup of reports from 12 notable companies across the consumer discretionary, consumer staples, information technology, industrials, and financials sectors.
Earnings Roundup:
Bottom Line: All 12 reporting companies beat consensus earnings estimates, with 11 delivering
Anthropic (ANTHRO) could seek as much as $100B from its much-anticipated U.S. initial public offering, the AI company’s bankers have said during recent discussions with potential investors. The New York Times reported, citing two people familiar with the matter.
The
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The amount of Iranian oil offered to Chinese buyers has declined sharply and is rapidly running out, while prices have jumped, Reuters reported Friday, showing the effectiveness of the U.S. blockade of Iran’s ports in preventing new supply from leaving the Persian Gulf.
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Boeing (BA) engineers and technical workers rejected the company’s four-year contract offer and voted in favor of a strike authorization, union officials said Friday.
The 17,000 members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace voted overwhelmingly to give its negotiating
If not renewed, CISA 2015 protections end in the US on September 30.
This article appears in the September issue of Global Finance Magazine.
Companies that share cybersecurity information with their peers have until Sept. 30, 2026, before the limited liability granted by the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 runs out, exposing them to potential regulatory scrutiny and penalties.
Under the Act, non-federal entities may share anonymized cyberattack and response information with other non-federal entities and the federal government via the Automated Indicator Sharing (AIS) program operated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
In July, 23 industry associations that represented the financial services, energy, technology, transportation, healthcare, and retail sectors wrote to Speaker of the House Michael Johnson (R-LA) requesting an extension to the Act since it is “a foundational component of the nation’s cybersecurity.”
However, some view AIS as a relic of an earlier era of cyberdefense that provides machine-readable cyber threat indicators and defensive measures against malicious IP addresses, file hashes associated with malware distribution, and known malicious web links.
“It was a failure from the get-go, and it accomplishes nothing,” Milton Mueller, a professor of cybersecurity policy at Georgia Institute of Technology’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy, told Global Finance. “No one will notice when it’s gone.”
A web post by Mueller earlier this year cited a DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) report stating that non-federal participants using AIS fell to fewer than 90 in 2024 from a high of 304 in late 2022. The report also noted that alert volume on the platform dropped 93% between 2020 and 2022. Though there was a surge in alerts, to 10 million from 1 million, the OIG found that 89% of the data came from a single private-sector participant.
“The non-Federal participants we interviewed stated that they find AIS useful and an effective tool for protecting their systems from cyber threats,” wrote the report’s authors. “However, the number of non-Federal participants remained lower in 2023 and 2024 than in previous years. AIS now has 87 non-Federal participants compared to 252 in 2020.”
Nonetheless, the House of Representatives included an extension to the Act in part of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, which is waiting for Senate approval.
In July, the Trump administration sidestepped legislative concerns and created “Gold Eagle,” a clearinghouse to share cybersecurity vulnerability information and coordinate responses among private industry and federal agencies, including the U.S. Treasury Department, CISA, and the U.S. War Department, formerly the Defense Department. The new system will be powered by frontier artificial intelligence, which emulates and may surpass human-level intelligence.
Although CISA 2015’s renewal is up in the air and details regarding Gold Eagle are sparse, private industry has had formalized cybersecurity data-sharing programs since 1999.
“There is plenty of threat intelligence sharing going on,” said GeorgiaTech’s Mueller. “There are commercial services, sectoral nonprofit Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs), and industry consortia like the Cyber Threat Alliance.”
The newly rebranded Alliance for Critical Infrastructure (formerly the Tri-Sector Executive Working Group) seeks to bring together critical infrastructure operators to strengthen national resilience and reduce systemic risk, while sustaining economic continuity.
The 501c(6) non-profit industry coalition started with nine founding members: American International Group Inc., AT&T Inc., Berkshire Hathaway Energy Co., Consolidated Edison Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Lumen Technologies Inc., Mastercard Inc., The Southern Co., and Xcel Energy Inc.
Since its formation, the organization has been on a membership drive, with JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon reportedly having private conversations with numerous companies across industry sectors to join the alliance.
Despite the benefits of sharing cybersecurity data, such as faster and broader threat detection and coordinated responses, sharing that data is not risk-free for a corporation.
“When information is shared, one should assume that information could be obtained by others, including regulators, litigants, and insurers, and that can inform the nature, contour, and context of the sharing,” said Mary Alexander Myers, lead of law firm Jones Day’s Cybersecurity, Privacy & Data Protection practice.
For chief financial officers, uncertainty around CISA’s liability shield adds another costly risk to the existing risk landscape. As cyber governance moves from the realm of IT to a board-level issue, CFOs and other C-level executives will have to determine if a reauthorized CISA 2015 or Gold Eagle provides them with enough confidence to continue to share cybersecurity information without the fear of regulatory penalties.
Rob Daly covers fintech and the economy. Contact him at rdaly@gfmag.com.
In the last few years, lithium has emerged as one of the most crucial metals for the global electric transition.
This is mainly due to its widespread usage in electric vehicles (EVs), through lithium-ion batteries. These provide high energy density, a lightweight structure and fast-charging capacity, along with a long cycle life, which supports modern driving range and performance.
As such, it has become key to achieving widespread, practical advancements in automotive electrification.
However, lithium continues to face vital long-term structural supply challenges, which has led to more EV producers considering other alternatives like manganese and magnesium.
Magnesium, another critical metal for electric vehicles and energy storage batteries, could potentially be a key alternative to lithium in EVs.
This is because it is cheaper, abundantly found across the world and also stores more energy. It is also considered to be safer than lithium, as it does not form the sharp spikes known as dendrites that cause lithium batteries to sometimes short or catch fire.
A magnesium battery can also hold more energy in a smaller space, which could have significant size and efficiency benefits for EV makers who want to make more compact vehicles.
It is also one of the most common elements found both in seawater and in the ground, which could help makers bypass potential supply constraints with lithium down the line.
Magnesium ions also carry double the charge of lithium ions, at a +2 charge, which can help support a higher volumetric capacity, enabling more compact, energy-dense power storage for both EVs and other devices.
China produces the overwhelming majority of the world’s magnesium, accounting for around 87% to 95% of the world’s primary magnesium in 2025, coming up to anywhere between 830,000 and 950,000 metric tons, according to Visual Capitalist’s Elements.
This is mainly from extensive dolomite reserves, with the largest magnesium reserves being in the Liaoning province.
The second top producer of magnesium is Israel, which extracts the metal mainly from the Dead Sea. Russia and Brazil are other major producers, with some key magnesium reserves being located in Satka and Brumado.
Manganese is also emerging as a support to lithium batteries, rather than fully replacing them. This is due to manganese batteries having a much lower energy density and not being easily rechargeable hundreds of times. They also provide lower voltage.
As such, they work well to support lithium systems in hybrid setups but fail under heavy power demands.
One of the biggest challenges facing lithium supply is slow project timelines. This is because opening a new lithium mine takes an average of 16 to 18 years, from initial discovery to first production. This is mainly due to complex permitting rules, exploration rights and financing issues in many regions of the world.
Hard rock mining also produces significant waste and brine extraction consumes vast amounts of water in the arid regions lithium is usually found in. This leads to more scrutiny from local communities and environmental groups as well.
Similarly, due to lithium prices having crashed recently, following previous oversupply, mining investment and exploration budgets have now reduced somewhat. This significantly threatens the pipeline for future production and the global green transition.
The majority of lithium is also concentrated in Australia and South America’s “Lithium Triangle,” whereas China controls a significant portion of the refining capacity required to make battery-grade material.
Currently, most magnesium batteries still in the testing phase by entities like the University of Waterloo.
However, some major automakers are increasingly developing and experimenting with magnesium-rich or manganese-doped alternatives like Lithium Manganese-Rich or LMFP cells or long-term magnesium chemistry.
MG (SAIC Motor) has recently deployed new Lithium-Manganese-Oxide (LMO) semi-solid-state SolidCore battery tech in models like the MG4 EV Urban, which is scheduled to hit UK and European markets by the end of 2026.
General Motors and LG Energy Solution are currently aiming for a 2028 commerical launch for advanced lithium manganese-rich (LMR) battery cells. These use high manganese content to decrease costs and raise energy density for future electric trucks and SUVs.
Similarly, Toyota has also funded long-term dedicated research into replacing standard lithium chemistry with high-capacity magnesium alternatives. However, it is still unclear when commercial vehicles could be using this technology, as researchers are still awaiting further electrolyte stabilisation.
Great Wall Motor also uses semi-solid magnesium casting technology to reduce component weight, while Tesla integrated selective magnesium alloy components inot the Model 3 and Model Y.
While magnesium batteries are seeing more interest as potential alternatives to lithium now, significant challenges remain before they can be mass-adopted yet.
One of the biggest drawbacks of magnesium is slow ion movement, which means that magnesium particles move more slowly inside the battery materials.
This causes very slow charging times and weak power during fast acceleration, along with poor cold-weather performance. These factors could make it much harder for magnesium batteries to match fast-charging and high-power lithium EV batteries.
Finding a liquid, solid or electrolyte that lets magnesium move easily without breaking down is hard too, currently, as electrolytes that successfully move magnesium ions efficiently end up corroding the internal battery components.
Similarly, finding a cathode material that can withstand insertion and removal of magnesium ions without breaking down remains incredibly complex.
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The world’s largest cryptocurrency touched an intraday high of $79,500 on Friday, its best level in months, before easing to around $77,700 at the time of writing, leaving it up more than 25% since Monday.
The rally caps one of Bitcoin’s most dramatic weeks in years, following a stretch in which the token had lagged well behind its 2025 highs for much of 2026.
For six straight weeks, Bitcoin had been stuck grinding between $62,000 and $66,000, having fallen over 50% from the all-time high of around $126,000 it reached last year in October, to the low of roughly $57,600 it hit early in July of this year.
That prolonged malaise had encouraged traders to build up bearish positions over the course of the year, betting the token’s underperformance would continue. When the price broke higher this week, those bets unwound violently leading to an episode of forced short covering.
Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, and other digital assets have also surged on the same wave of positioning and momentum was reinforced by signals of extra liquidity from Washington.
The US Treasury doubled the size of its bond buybacks earlier in the week to calm a jittery bond market, and when yields climbed back regardless, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent vowed on Thursday to increase the buybacks even further.
Easier financial conditions and a softer dollar tend to favour riskier assets such as Bitcoin.
Regulatory developments also added further fuel. On Tuesday, the US Securities and Exchange Commission filed a proposal called “Regulation Crypto Assets”, offering crypto issuers lighter registration requirements.
A day later, US President Donald Trump hosted Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong, Ripple’s Brad Garlinghouse, Gemini’s Winklevoss twins and other industry leaders at the White House, pushing Congress to pass the long-delayed Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act.
The bill, which would split oversight of digital assets between the SEC and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, cleared the House last year but remains stalled in the Senate, needing 60 votes to clear a procedural hurdle on 15 September that it is not yet assured of overcoming.
Among the most striking moments of Wednesday’s summit came when US President Donald Trump said the Commodity Futures Trading Commission was working to bring Hyperliquid, a decentralised derivatives exchange, onshore “in a fully compliant legal fashion”, though the regulator has yet to publish any timeline for doing so.
The comment sent HYPE, Hyperliquid’s native token, surging 25% within 24 hours.
As it stands, HYPE is trading at around $74, up more than 30% since Trump’s remarks.
The decentralized exchange, popular with perpetual futures traders, has become something of a proxy for how far Washington’s warmer stance on crypto could extend.
South Korea plans to create a “Future Response Fund” to channel tax revenue generated by the country’s semiconductor boom into programs supporting younger generations and investment in future growth industries, particularly AI, the budget ministry said on Friday.
The fund
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Earnings Call Insights: OSI Systems (OSIS) Q4 2026
Seeking Alpha’s Disclaimer: This article was automatically generated by an AI tool based on content available on the Seeking Alpha website, and has not been curated or reviewed by humans. Due to inherent limitations in using AI-based tools, the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of such articles cannot be guaranteed. This article is intended for informational purposes only. Seeking Alpha does not take account of your objectives or your financial situation and does not offer any personalized investment advice. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank.
ALK-Abelló A/S reports Q2 results
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Accelerating yield hikes fuel capital repatriation, threatening to drive up USD debt issuance costs.
Japan’s rapidly rising interest rates are providing another significant variable for corporate treasurers with upcoming bond offerings or refinancings to monitor.
While the deluge of debt issued by so-called hyperscalers has yet to increase other companies’ borrowing costs, it’s critical for treasurers to track it alongside another recent development: rapidly rising Japanese interest rates.
The Japanese government and private investors hold $1.2 trillion of U.S. federal debt, more than any other country, according to the Congressional Research Service, and they are major investors in U.S. corporate bonds. Three years ago, the 10-year Japanese government bond rate was close to zero, as it had been for decades, prompting Japanese investors to seek yield abroad. The rate began increasing in 2022 and has nearly doubled over the past year, approaching 2.9% by mid-August.
Lotfi Karoui, a multi-asset credit strategist at PIMCO, noted in an Aug. 3 report the accelerating reduction in U.S. Treasury purchases by non-U.S. public and private sector entities. The best evidence of that trend is Japan, he wrote, where Bank of Japan (BoJ) data show government and private Japanese investors becoming net sellers of long-term U.S. debt securities in the 12 months leading up to May 31, following three years as net buyers.
There is little evidence so far of a “sell America trade,” Karoui said, and demand for U.S. corporate credit remains strong. But issuers may have to pay more for it.
The U.S. federal government must fund a record deficit, and investment-grade corporate issuance in August, typically a slow month, is setting records.
“If Japanese investors are also selling U.S. securities into the market, that’s a lot of selling pressure that could push up U.S. rates,” said Amol Dhargalkar, senior managing director at Chatham Financial, which advises corporates on debt and hedging strategies. U.S. issuers, he added, could see wider spreads on top of a higher benchmark rate.
One indication of further retrenchment by Japanese investors, Dhargalkar said, would be more non-Japanese issuers pursuing yen offerings to take advantage of growing demand for yen-denominated securities. Alphabet and Berkshire Hathaway recently completed large yen offerings, and he anticipates more, especially from companies with Japanese operations that can avoid costly currency hedges.
Another wrinkle is the intervention starting in late July by the Japanese and U.S. governments to counter the yen’s dramatic weakening against the U.S. dollar by selling dollars and buying yen. Further yen appreciation will likely require more rate hikes by the BoJ, according to Aug. 5 commentary by Fitch Ratings, prompting even more yen repatriation.
“This is one of many new avenues that CFOs and their finance teams have to make sure they’re looking at as they consider capital markets transactions,” Dhargalkar said.
John Hintze is a contributing writer based in the U.S.
Deere beats top-line and bottom-line estimates; updates FY26 outlook
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