Research — 2026-05-25 AM

Memorial Day in the US — equity and bond cash markets are closed; CME futures trade on a modified schedule (halt 12:00 CT, reopen 17:00 CT). UK closed for Spring Bank Holiday. Germany, France and Switzerland observe Whit Monday — Euronext and Xetra report open with thin trading per T3 but the Swiss exchange is closed, and London is shut. South Korea closed today for the Buddha's Birthday substitute holiday T3. The note therefore covers an asymmetrically Asia-led overnight tape with thin liquidity and US contingency planning for Tuesday's reopen.

Top of mind

The single most-important overnight development is that Trump himself broke the "imminent signing" frame yesterday's PM note flagged as vulnerable, and he did it from a position of strength rather than weakness. In a Sunday Truth Social post he wrote that negotiations with Iran were "proceeding in an orderly and constructive manner" and that he had told his representatives "not to rush into a deal in that time is on our side" T3. A senior US official told CBS overnight that an agreement "will be signed in the coming days" T3. The structural read this delivers is the one the PM note arrived at independently from the Sunday news flow — that "deal-in" was actually two scenarios (clean MOU vs. framework MOU) and the clean signing was never the most likely path. Trump's own pivot from Saturday's "largely negotiated" to Sunday's "time is on our side" is the highest-tier confirmation we are going to get that branch (b) — framework-MOU, interim, contested, signed "in the coming days" not Tuesday — is now the central case. The framework-vs-deal sub-binary has stopped being a theme being tracked and become the operative reality. The deep-value posture this implies is unchanged from the PM note: cash through Tuesday's open is correct, and Tuesday's first 30 minutes are to be used for reading the tape, not deploying capital.

The second-order development is that the Asian tape has already begun pricing the deal-in branch as if it were clean, even though Trump's own framing now disputes that. Japan's Nikkei 225 broke 65,000 for the first time, closing +2.87% at 65,158.19, on the back of Strait-of-Hormuz-reopening hopes and a SoftBank / Tokyo Electron / Advantest semis-led rally T3. Brent fell more than 5% — the July contract dropped ~4.4% to $98.96 and WTI July ~4.7% to $92.06 in early Asia trading T3. The dollar weakened to ~99.05 and gold pushed to ~$4,575/oz on the combined risk-on plus rate-cut-narrative tailwind T3. The tape is functionally pricing branch (a) — clean signing, full Hormuz reopening — in a holiday-thinned session, while the President of the United States is publicly walking down the timeline. That gap is the trade in front of us: not what direction to take, but the discipline to wait for it to resolve before committing.

The third item worth landing at the top is that Iran has now publicly delivered the assurances on enriched-uranium disposal that the deal architecture requires, but on terms that preserve the framework character of the MOU rather than collapsing it into a clean signing. A senior US official said Supreme Leader Khamenei has approved the broad framework, with the Iranians providing verbal and written assurances that any subsequent permanent deal will include "disposal" of all enriched uranium T3. President Pezeshkian publicly reinforced that no decision in Iran is made without Khamenei's permission T3. The 14-point framework being crafted by Witkoff and Kushner is now the operative document, not a signed treaty. The MOU is real, the framework is real, and the signature is genuinely deferred — exactly the texture the PM note described.

Market context

Nikkei 225: 65,158.19, +2.87% — first close above 65,000; SoftBank, Tokyo Electron, Advantest the notable gainers T3
Hang Seng: open on a regional holiday day; specific May 25 close not yet wire-reported in available sources; Friday May 22 close 25,606.03 is the anchor T3
Kospi: closed (Buddha's Birthday substitute) — Friday May 22 close 7,847.71 T3
ASX 200, CSI 300, Sensex, Nifty: open per their own calendars; AS-cal directional read is broad Asia bid on the same Hormuz-reopen narrative
London (FTSE): closed (Spring Bank Holiday) T3
Frankfurt (Xetra), Paris (Euronext): open per investingLive but Whit Monday in Germany/France means thin liquidity; Swiss exchange closed T3
US cash equities and bonds: closed (Memorial Day); CME equity index futures halt 12:00 CT and reopen 17:00 CT T3
S&P 500 futures (ES): higher in Asia trading on the Hormuz narrative — magnitude qualitative, not pinned to a single confirmed print before the CT halt T3
10Y Treasury yield: cash closed; 10Y yield futures Friday close 4.5730 / spot Friday 4.56% T3
VIX: cash market closed; Friday close 16.70 T3
WTI July contract: $92.06, −4.71% in early Asia trade T3
Brent July contract: $98.96, −4.42% in early Asia trade T3
DXY: ~99.05, weaker T3
Gold: ~$4,575/oz, +1%+ T3
Bitcoin: ~$76,700 range from weekend T3

Note on the two Brent prints: the −4.42% / $98.96 figure is the July contract in early Asia; the −$5.82 / $97.72 figure is an aggregate move cited by HDFC Sky for Monday session. Both directionally consistent (Brent down ~5%); the discrepancy reflects contract month and intraday tick. The load-bearing fact is Brent moved decisively below $100 on the Hormuz-reopen narrative.

Business & corporates

[MP Materials](/brain/mp materials) — the watchlist-graduation candidate from yesterday holds at $60.31 with no overnight news that disturbs the thesis. The Wall Street consensus has only sharpened in recent weeks — Deutsche Bank raised PT to $70 (Buy), Goldman to $80 (Buy), and Wedbush to $100 (Outperform), all maintaining bullish stances ahead of the H2 2026 magnet-sales catalyst T3. The structural story — China rare-earth grip "tighter than OPEC's ever was" per Real Alloys CEO in Sunday coverage T3 — is unrelated to the Iran-MOU binary that's driving the rest of the tape today, which is precisely why the thesis pass moves to top priority this week. MP works in branch (a), branch (b) and branch (c) of the trinary because the driver is China policy, not Hormuz. The cleanest entry setup is still a pullback that puts a Greenwald-modified MoS in front of us; consensus PTs at $70–100 suggest we are not the only ones seeing through to magnet production, which is itself a tell that the variant perception needs to be sharper than "MP makes rare earths."
PLTR — $135.90 indicative on Sunday tape; Friday close was $136.88 T3. Coverage continuing to debate whether the YTD ~23% drawdown discovers a margin of safety or merely reprices the most-richly-valued software name in the index from a P/S of 100+ to ~66 T3. Neither number is within shouting distance of the thesis trigger of $29. The relevance overnight is mechanical: if Tuesday's open prices the framework-MOU disappointment (rather than the clean signing the Asia tape has already pulled forward), long-duration software is where multiple compression bites first, and PLTR is the cleanest in-watchlist read of that compression. Treat any meaningful gap-down on Tuesday as information about how the market discovers value in elite-execution-already-priced names, not as a buy signal.
Marvell (MRVL) — Wednesday May 27 after close. Multiple sources now align that MRVL reports Wednesday rather than Thursday — consensus EPS $2.30, consensus revenue ~$11.2B as the syndicate has it T3. Management's prior FQ1 FY27 guide was $2.40B revenue (+27% sequential) and adjusted EPS $0.74–$0.84 with midpoint $0.79 above the $0.74 consensus that prevailed before the print T3. The structural read is that Marvell custom-silicon and networking exposure is the most direct in-week test of whether the hyperscaler capex cadence the bottleneck thesis depends on is actually translating to upstream component bookings as hard as the NVDA Q1 print implied T1.
Salesforce (CRM) — Wednesday May 27 after close. Same-day with Marvell per the same source T3. Consensus pegs EPS $2.30, revenue ~$11.0–11.2B, with Agentforce attach as the variable that the buy-side will use to grade whether AI-feature monetization at the SaaS layer is delivering the bridge from narrative to NRR. The framing matters across the kit because CRM's print is the cleanest in-week test of the "Software / SaaS valuation environment" position in the house view — the variant perception there is that names with concrete monetization hold their premium, names without it de-rate; CRM has the platform position to show concrete monetization or fail to.
Costco (COST) — expected to report revenue ~$69.3B (+9% YoY) and adjusted EPS ~$4.56 (+13% YoY) T3. Earlier in the week relative to Marvell/CRM; consumer-cycle read at the upper-income / membership-club end. Not a primary kit name; relevant as cross-check on consumer health into the PCE print.
No US after-hours moves of consequence Sunday. With both Friday's session and the weekend behind us and no major filings or 8-Ks crossing the wire, corporate-flow color resumes on Tuesday's open. Material movement in any individual name is futures-tape implied, not cash-tape confirmed.

Geopolitics & macro

The framework-MOU is now Trump's preferred framing, not just the reality the PM note was reading into the news flow. Trump's Sunday Truth Social post pivoting to "not rushing" and "time is on our side" T3 is more material than the Saturday "largely negotiated" framing because it now becomes the official US position into the Tuesday open. The PM note framed this as deal-in branch (b); we can now treat (b) as the central case rather than a probability mass shift. The behavioural change matters because it is also the public framing that gives Trump space to absorb the GOP intra-party opposition (Cotton, Graham, Cruz, Wicker) that emerged Sunday — by making the deal manifestly an interim arrangement with detail negotiation, Trump narrows the criticism aperture to "you signed a bad final deal" which has not happened yet, rather than "you signed a bad deal today." This is tactically smart; it is also exactly what the market should not be priced for if the Asia tape is moving as if a clean MOU is signing.
Khamenei approval of the broad framework, not the agreement itself. A senior US official described overnight that Khamenei "has approved the broad framework" with the Iranians delivering verbal and written assurances on subsequent uranium disposal T3. President Pezeshkian reinforced publicly that no Iranian decision happens outside the SNSC and the Leader's permission T3. Two structural reads: first, the durability of the framework improves measurably because Khamenei is now bought in at the framework level, removing the most asymmetric tail risk (Khamenei rejects mid-negotiation); second, the signing timeline lengthens because each of the 14 points still requires bilateral wordsmithing under SNSC oversight. The "coming days" framing the senior official used T3 reads as 3–10 days plausibly, not Tuesday. The Asia bid for a clean Tuesday signing is therefore likely premature.
Netanyahu's deniable-veto positioning held overnight. The Israeli cabinet that convened Sunday evening produced no public breakaway statement, and reporting now suggests Netanyahu admitted privately that Israel "currently has no maneuver to influence the president" T3. The PM note's framing — that Netanyahu's public hard-line condition (full nuclear dismantlement) paired with public alignment on the MOU concept is the construction of a future justification for unilateral action — is sharpened by the private "no maneuver" admission. The combination is a known geopolitical posture: signal red lines publicly, defer action while signing politically, preserve future optionality. The signed-then-broken scenario the PM note flagged as a tail (branch c) remains a real tail because the political space for it has been deliberately constructed even as the immediate motivation (block the framework MOU) has been neutralized.
Oil-curve break of $100 Brent is the cleanest market signal of the day. Brent below $100 (July contract $98.96, intraday print $97.72) is the first sustained move below the conflict-era floor that has held since the Iran war began in April T3. The macro consequence is direct: an oil curve sustained below $100 begins to undo the energy-component CPI heat the April print delivered and that the Cleveland Fed nowcast has been pricing into the April PCE expectation. The SPF Q2 PCE consensus of 4.5% headline / 3.4% core that yesterday's PM note flagged T2 depends materially on oil holding the upper end of the recent range. A few-day move from $103+ to $97 if sustained changes the disinflationary calculus into Thursday's April PCE print. But — and this is the load-bearing caveat — the oil move is rebuilding on a framework-MOU narrative that Trump himself is walking down. If branch (b) gets explicit Tuesday confirmation that signing is days-not-hours away and the GOP opposition adds procedural friction, the move below $100 partially unwinds and the disinflation read on Thursday's PCE is back to where the SPF had it.
Warsh as Fed chair — institutional context. Kevin Warsh was confirmed Wednesday May 13 (54–45, the narrowest modern-era margin, Fetterman the only Democratic cross-over) and sworn in at the White House Friday May 22 T3. His first FOMC is June 16–17. Between now and then his communications calendar — first public remarks, any speech, any soft signal on the reaction function — is the most-load-bearing event for the rate path. As of overnight there is no Warsh-attributed substantive remark yet on Iran, oil, or PCE; the house view rate-path position carries the "Warsh's first communications will reset the read" caveat [from _house-view 2026-05-24 PM] and that remains true.
G7 / G20 macro data quiet overnight. No central bank decisions; no major Asia ex-Japan macro prints of consequence on a Memorial Day / Whit Monday / Buddha's Birthday-adjacent session.

Technology & sectors

AI infrastructure capacity — Nikkei 225 above 65,000 was led by the AI-tooling complex. SoftBank, Tokyo Electron and Advantest specifically named as the notable gainers T3. The structural read is unchanged from the house view (high confidence position): hyperscaler capex translates to upstream rents at TSMC, the HBM ecosystem (Hynix, Samsung, Micron) and the semicap layer (TEL, Advantest, AMAT, KLA, LRCX, ASML). The Asia-led move overnight is consistent with the demand trajectory NVDA's Q1 print T1 put on the table. The fact that the market is buying the upstream cap-ex beneficiaries in a Hormuz-relief rally is not a fundamental shift in the AI thesis; it is the same trade getting amplified by the risk-on overlay. Marvell Wednesday will be the next direct fundamental test.
Energy — the most rate-sensitive single signal on the tape. WTI July $92.06 (−4.7%) and Brent July $98.96 (−4.4%) is exactly the magnitude of move that branch (a) of the trinary implied and branch (b) does not justify T3. The XLE / SPY relative read AlphaSteve flagged in the PM note as the Tuesday-open instrument will inherit some of this overnight repricing rather than provide a fresh signal. If futures hold the overnight Asia low through Tuesday's CT reopen at 17:00 and the cash session, the deal-in branch (a) bid is being sustained; if it partially unwinds Sunday evening or Tuesday Asia / early US session as the market reads Trump's "time is on our side" framing as branch (b), the more reliable signal returns.
Critical minerals — theme matured to dossier status with the Sunday data point. The 24/7 Wall St. piece anchored on the Real Alloys CEO comparison ("China's grip tighter than OPEC's ever was") combined with the prior data points (China May 20 reaffirmation, MP Q1 print, Australia divestment) meets the 3-confirmation threshold for spinning out a Themes/critical-minerals.md dossier. The PM note already proposed this as a Tier 2 backlog add. Re-flag for action this week.
Software / SaaS valuation environment — Wednesday tests the variant perception. With Marvell on the cap-ex / upstream side and Salesforce on the AI-monetization side both printing the same evening, Wednesday is the cleanest single-evening test we will get this quarter of whether the bifurcation the house view describes (concrete-monetization holds premium; narrative-only de-rates) actually holds. The Tuesday open will give us a pre-print read on positioning; the print itself is the verification.

Day ahead

US cash markets closed (Memorial Day) T3
UK closed (Spring Bank Holiday); Germany / France / Switzerland: Whit Monday — Euronext and Xetra reported open with thin trading, Swiss closed T3
South Korea closed (Buddha's Birthday substitute) T3
CME equity index futures: trade until 12:00 CT halt; reopen 17:00 CT Monday evening — primary US tape signal of the day T3
No US macro releases scheduled
No earnings of consequence scheduled
Tuesday May 26 (next session): S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller home price index; Conference Board Consumer Confidence; FHFA House Price Index — first US session post-Memorial Day, first cash open into the framework-MOU news T1
Wednesday May 27: Marvell (MRVL) and Salesforce (CRM) earnings after close
Thursday May 28: April PCE Price Index released at 8:30 ET — the most important US macro print of the week; weekly jobless claims; durable-goods orders; new home sales T1
Cleveland Fed inflation nowcast — to be cross-checked Tuesday / Wednesday for the model April PCE read before the Thursday print T1

Themes emerging

The framework-vs-deal sub-binary the PM note flagged as a developing theme has matured in less than 24 hours into the operative reality of the week, with Trump's own pivot to "not rushing" and Khamenei's framework-only approval as the load-bearing evidence. This now graduates from "developing" to a confirmed near-term theme that should be tracked through Tuesday-Thursday's resolution. The second theme that became sharper overnight is holiday-thinned tape pricing the optimistic branch of a trinary that the principals are publicly walking down — Nikkei +2.87% to a record above 65,000 on a day where the President of the United States said "not to rush" is a tape that is reading the headlines selectively. The third theme is the oil-curve break of $100 Brent as the leading indicator into Thursday's PCE — if it holds, the rate-path house view extends toward "first cut materialised earlier"; if it partially unwinds, the higher-for-longer base case strengthens. The fourth theme — critical-minerals as a structural story independent of the Iran binary — earned its dossier-creation threshold with the Sunday coverage and remains queued for action this week. The AI-infrastructure-capacity theme is unchanged and continues to compound; the cycle-late-market-selectivity theme is the connective tissue that makes Tuesday's reopen interesting (selectivity in how the cash open prices the Asia overnight); the Fed-independence / Warsh-reaction-function theme is dormant pending his first communications.

What shifted in the underlying story

What shifted overnight is not the map the PM note drew of the trinary; what shifted is which branch is centred. The PM note left branch (b) as more probable than (a) without saying (b) was the central case. After Trump's own "time is on our side" framing and the senior US official's "coming days" timeline, the central case is now branch (b): framework MOU, interim, signed in a window of 3–10 days rather than Tuesday morning. Branch (a) is now the upside tail (clean Tuesday signing with full Hormuz reopening would be a positive surprise relative to Trump's pivoted framing), and branch (c) remains the downside tail with the same justification space Netanyahu constructed Sunday. The rate-path house view sharpens marginally toward higher-for-longer in the very near term because branch (b) keeps the disinflationary tailwind from being fully delivered: oil moved overnight on a hope, not on a signature, and is therefore subject to partial unwind. The equity-cycle position sharpens marginally in the same direction: Tuesday's cash open into a fresh-eyes read of Trump's Sunday framing is the moment where the peace-deal bid component of the 8-week S&P streak gets tested, and the test is now harder for the bulls because Trump himself supplied the disappointment frame. The MOU-framework-vs-deal sub-binary in the house view themes section graduates from developing to operative.

Implications for AlphaSteve

The top-down stance shift is small but specific: the PM note's branch-conditional pre-positioning still holds, but the probability weighting across branches has shifted further toward (b) being the central case overnight, which in turn argues for an even more disciplined patience window into Tuesday's open. The deep-value posture remains cash and observation through Tuesday 9:30; the key new instruction is to re-read Trump's "time is on our side" framing against the Asia tape pricing as if a clean signing is imminent and trust the principals' words over the tape's price. If Tuesday's cash open prices the Asia overnight (gap up on the Hormuz-relief narrative), the disappointment is set up for later in the week as the "coming days" signing slips on the GOP procedural friction; if Tuesday's cash open partially fades the Asia overnight (the market reads Trump's pivot before opening), the disappointment is already being priced and the patience window narrows from days to hours. The MP Materials thesis pass continues to be top priority because the name's structural drivers are independent of the trinary and the H2 2026 magnet-sales catalyst is the highest-conviction medium-term setup in the watchlist. PLTR remains a re-read candidate (not a buy) on any meaningful Tuesday gap-down; the trigger is still $29 and any 2026 print of that price requires a fundamental thesis change, not just multiple compression.

Pre-deployment posture for Tuesday: unchanged — hold full cash through the open; let the cash tape reveal which branch is being priced before any deployment.
Read instruments for Tuesday open, refreshed: (1) front-month WTI vs. Friday $96.60 and vs. overnight Asia $92.06 — the question is which level Tuesday's cash open anchors to; (2) Brent vs. $100 — whether the overnight $100 break holds is the cleanest single inflation-tailwind read; (3) XLE / SPY relative — energy underperformance confirms the rate-cut narrative is being priced into duration; (4) VIX from 16.70 — direction in the first 30 minutes signals which branch the market thinks Trump's "time is on our side" framing reveals; (5) Nikkei follow-through (Tuesday-Wednesday Asia session) — if Asia gives back overnight gains as US prices the framework MOU, the global tape is converging on branch (b).
Branch (a) — clean MOU with full Hormuz reopening, Tuesday signing: would require Trump's Sunday post to be re-framed as tactical posturing; treat as upside tail; resist crowding into the peace-deal bid; AI-infrastructure-upstream names participate at non-stretched prices only.
Branch (b) — framework MOU signed "in coming days," interim, contested, central case: defer all capital deployment 24–48 hours; let long-duration multiple compression in software discover prices; PLTR specifically is a re-read candidate (not buy) at $100–$110 if it gets there; oil bounces back toward $95–$100 if the curve unwinds.
Branch (c) — collapse on Strait language or Israeli unilateral action: defer 48–72 hours; oil spike toward $115+ discovers prices; deep-value framework explicitly favors holding cash.
MP Materials thesis pass: top priority this week; the name works across all three branches; Goldman / Wedbush / Deutsche Bank PTs at $70–$100 are themselves a "consensus already sees the magnet catalyst" data point that sharpens the variant-perception requirement.
Pattern for the Tuesday scan: "names where the Asia overnight pricing of branch (a) has pulled the US tape ahead of fundamentals" — specifically airline / refiner relative, energy beta names, long-duration software multiples. Observe, don't act.
Critical-minerals dossier creation: action this week in Themes/critical-minerals.md; the threshold has been met.
VIX-as-cheap-insurance note from PM remains valid: Friday 16.70 going into a trinary where the central case has officially shifted to branch (b) is even cheaper insurance than yesterday's framing.
Discount-rate posture: unchanged — higher-for-longer until Thursday's April PCE prints; today's oil move below $100 is suggestive but not yet confirming; let the print do the work.

House view reconciliation

Earnings cycle character — no Sunday/overnight corporate data. No change.
US rate path — confirms with mild sharpening toward branch (b). Trump's "time is on our side" pivot and Khamenei's framework-only approval extend the existing position (cut pricing fragile; energy-component CPI sensitivity central) by making the framework-MOU path the central case rather than a co-equal scenario with the clean deal. The implication — oil staying elevated relative to a clean-deal scenario — is exactly what the existing position carries. Today's overnight oil break below $100 is suggestive of disinflation but is built on framework hopes Trump himself is walking down, so the move is fragile. No change to the position itself; the confidence assessment of "medium — Fed communication unusually data-dependent" remains correct because Warsh's first communications are still ahead of us.
Iran / Strait of Hormuz — extends. The trinary framing established yesterday is confirmed by Trump's own pivot to "not rushing" and the senior US official's "coming days" timeline. The extension is that branch (b) is now the central case rather than a co-equal scenario. Probability mass: branch (b) roughly 55–65%, branch (a) 15–25%, branch (c) 15–20% — these are AS-cal directional weights, not from a probability market. Updating the house view to reflect that the central case is now branch (b) with the timing language refined ("framework signed in coming days, 3–10 day window plausibly, with subsequent 30–60 days of detail").
AI infrastructure capacity — confirms. The Asia-led move overnight specifically led by SoftBank / TEL / Advantest is consistent with the demand trajectory thesis. No change to position; Marvell Wednesday is the next direct fundamental test.
Software / SaaS valuation environment — no new data; CRM Wednesday is the in-week test. No change.
Equity-market cycle position — extends. The Sunday-driven observation (peace-deal bid in the 8-week S&P streak is vulnerable) gains a specific Tuesday-open setup: the overnight Asia tape priced branch (a) while Trump publicly pivoted to branch (b), creating an asymmetric setup where Tuesday's cash open is either pricing the disappointment or extending the Asia overnight optimism. Confidence remains medium because late-cycle calls have been wrong for 12+ months; the near-term setup is sharper.
USD positioning — mild extends. DXY ~99.05 on a risk-on overlay is consistent with the existing range-bound position (high-90s); a sustained move below 98 on a clean-deal signing would be the next data point worth re-rating against. No update to position.
Themes — graduates. The "MOU framework-vs-deal sub-binary" theme graduates from developing to operative — it is the current week's central reality. Critical minerals graduates to dossier-ready.

House view changes this run

Iran / Strait of Hormuz — central case updated from "trinary with branch (a) and branch (b) co-equal, both more likely than (c)" to "branch (b) — framework MOU signed in coming days, interim, contested — is the central case, with branch (a) as upside tail and branch (c) as downside tail." Probability weights moved to ~55–65% (b), 15–25% (a), 15–20% (c) — AS-cal directional. Timing language refined to "3–10 day window plausibly for framework signing; subsequent 30–60 days of detail." last_updated bumped to 2026-05-25 AM. Confidence remains medium.
US rate path — no position change, but adding "today's oil break below $100 Brent is built on framework-MOU hopes Trump himself is walking down; suggestive of near-term disinflation but fragile and conditional on the framework holding" as a recent-confirming bullet. last_updated bumped to 2026-05-25 AM.
Equity-market cycle position — adding "Tuesday May 26 open is the specific setup test — Asia overnight priced branch (a) while Trump pivoted publicly to branch (b), creating an asymmetric setup where the cash open is either pricing the disappointment or extending the optimism" as a recent-confirming bullet. last_updated bumped to 2026-05-25 AM.
Themes — "MOU framework-vs-deal sub-binary" graduated from developing theme to operative reality of the week. "Critical minerals — multi-year structural" reached the 3-confirmation threshold and is queued for dossier creation as Themes/critical-minerals.md per the Backlog Tier 2 add the PM note proposed.

Cross-references

_house-view — central case for Iran/Hormuz updated; rate-path and equity-cycle positions extended; themes graduations
02-philosophy-deep-value — patience-as-action; Tuesday open is the discipline test
2026-05-24-PM — yesterday's PM note; this AM confirms the framework-vs-deal sub-binary as operative
2026-05-24-AM — yesterday's AM note; deal-in playbook still on the shelf, branch-conditional
2026-05-23-PM — first establishment of the Iran-binary frame; now superseded by the trinary
PLTR — thesis unchanged; trigger $29 firm; framework-MOU Tuesday-open disappointment would test variant perception
Watchlist — MP Materials elevated to top thesis-pass priority this week
Portfolio — Tuesday May 26 inception; trinary-conditional plans pre-built; central case now branch (b)
Backlog — Tier 2 critical-minerals dossier creation now actionable
bottleneck-mapping-framework — AI upstream rent thesis confirmed by Nikkei tech-led move
narrative-cycle — Asia tape pricing branch (a) while principals walk down to branch (b) is a textbook narrative-vs-fundamentals divergence
margin-of-safety-pricing — higher-for-longer base case carries; oil move below $100 is suggestive but conditional
rates-and-discount-rates — Thursday April PCE the first post-Warsh, post-overnight-oil-move data point
capital-cycle — critical-minerals dossier will instantiate the capital-cycle frame in REE-specific terms