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Whether the Federal Reserve is engaging in quantitative easing is purely semantic, according to Alden, who says all roads lead to debasement.The US Federal Reserve is entering into a “gradual” era of money printing that will stimulate asset prices “mildly” but will not be as dramatic as the “big print” that many in the Bitcoin (BTC) community anticipated, according to economist and Bitcoin advocate Lyn Alden.“My base case is roughly in line with what the Fed expects: to grow its balance sheet approximately at the same proportional pace as total bank assets or nominal gross-domestic product (GDP),” Alden said in…

Soybeans fell off the intraday highs by 20+ cents, into the Friday close, with contracts closing 2 to 3 cents higher. March was still 51 cents higher this week. Some spreading took place, with November up just 14 ¼ cents this week. The cmdtyView national average Cash Bean price was 1 3/4 cents higher at $10.49 3/4. Soymeal futures steady to $1 higher, with March up $10 this week. Soy Oil futures were down 32 to 33 points in the nearbys, with March still up 182 points this week. The average close for November futures for February is used for determining the spring…

The number of traders expecting a rate cut at the March Federal Open Market Committee meeting rose following fears of a hawkish Fed nominee.The number of traders expecting an interest rate cut at the March Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting has risen to 23%, following investor fears of a hawkish stance from Kevin Warsh, US President Donald Trump’s Federal Reserve chair nominee.Investors and traders forecasting a rate cut surged by nearly 5% from Friday, when only 18.4% signaled they were expecting an interest rate cut, according to data from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group.Those anticipating a rate cut…

March WTI crude oil (CLH26) on Friday closed up +0.26 (+0.41%), and March RBOB gasoline (RBH26) closed up +0.0266 (+1.38%).Crude oil and gasoline prices recovered from early losses on Friday and moved higher after the dollar (DXY00) weakened.   Also, doubts that the US-Iranian talks in Oman will lead to a breakthrough in a nuclear deal are underpinning oil prices after the Wall Street Journal reported that Iran stands by its refusal to end uranium enrichment, a major sticking point for the US.  Crude prices also found support on Friday after the University of Michigan US Feb consumer sentiment index…

Ian Hawk has joined Western Alliance Bank as the New York market manager for the Note Finance Group. Hawk will provide Western Alliance Bank’s differentiated leverage solutions to its New York-based private credit platforms. Prior to joining Western Alliance Bank, Hawk served as a senior director for capital markets at Lument. He has previously held roles at Fitch Ratings, Dwight Securities Management, and Walker & Dunlop.  Connor Teskey has been named CEO of Brookfield Asset Management. Brookfield’s former CEO Bruce Flatt will continue as chair of Brookfield Asset Management’s board, while also remaining as CEO of Brookfield Corporation.  Warren Seubel has joined Opto Investments, a private markets investment platform, as VP of sales and revenue. Seubel will lead the firm’s commercialization efforts across RIAs, family offices, and institutional investors. Seubel will also be…

Crypto’s latest sell-off isn’t just a price story. It’s showing up on balance sheets, inside spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and even in how infrastructure gets used when markets turn.This week, Ether’s (ETH) slide is leaving treasury-heavy companies nursing massive paper losses, while Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs are giving a new wave of investors their first real taste of downside volatility. At the same time, extreme weather is reminding miners that hash rate still depends on power grids, and a former crypto miner-turned-AI darling shows how yesterday’s mining infrastructure has quietly become today’s AI backbone.This week’s Crypto Biz newsletter breaks down BitMine Immersion…

The wheat complex posted gains across the three markets on Thursday. Chicago SRW futures closed 7 to 9 cents higher in the front months. KC HRW futures were 7 to 9 cents in the green on the day. MPLS spring wheat was up 4 to 6 cents at the close. Export Sales data from this morning showed 373,877 MT of wheat sold in the week of January 29. That was down 33.02% from the previous week and 14.81% below the same week last year. The largest buyer was the Philippines, with 89,200 MT sold to Taiwan, and 67,900 MT to Mexico.…

The $200 Billion Spending Shock The big shock was Amazon’s announcement that it expects to spend about $200 billion in capital expenditures in 2026. Wall Street was looking for something closer to $146 billion. That’s not a small miss. That’s a massive jump, and it immediately raised red flags about cash flow and profitability. Why Capex Matters More Than You Think For everyday investors, capex might sound like boring accounting jargon, but it matters a lot. Capital spending is real money going out the door for things like data centers, AI infrastructure, chips, warehouses, and delivery networks. When a company…

Tether has made a $100 million strategic equity investment in Anchorage Digital, formalizing an existing relationship between the stablecoin issuer and the federally regulated US crypto bank.According to a post by Tether on Thursday, the investment builds on the companies’ prior collaboration, which includes Anchorage Digital’s role as the issuer of USAt, which launched on Jan. 27.USAt is dollar–pegged stablecoin designed to operate in the United States under the federal payment stablecoin framework established by the GENIUS Act in July 2025.Anchorage Digital Bank, founded in 2017 in San Francisco, is the first federally chartered digital asset bank in the United…

Corn futures ended the Wednesday session with contracts a penny to 2 cents higher across the front months. The CmdtyView national average Cash Corn price was up 2 cents at $3.96 1/4. Some spillover support was from the rally in soybeans. USDA reported a private export sale of 130,480 MT of corn to unknown destinations this morning. Weekly data will be out on Thursday, with traders looking for between 0.8-2.1 MMT in corn sold for the week ending on 1/29. Don’t Miss a Day: From crude oil to coffee, sign up free for Barchart’s best-in-class commodity analysis.   EIA data from this…