Diet Coke prices jump 13.6% in India as Iran war disrupts supply chains

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[1] In India, Iran war forces Diet Coke to roll out a bigger can, heftier price tag (https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-ira ...)[2] Boeing pips Airbus in low-key Farnborough jet order race (https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/topstories/bo ...)[3] Colorado Avalanche become first NHL team to clinch a playoff spot in 2026 (https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/ice_hockey/c ...)

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Jul 24 2026, 10:14

Elon Musk loses $650 billion in 5 weeks as Tesla and SpaceX plunge

**Elon Musk's paper fortune has been cut nearly in half as his two largest holdings — Tesla and SpaceX — suffered simultaneous declines that erased more than $650 billion of wealth in just over a month.** SpaceX's market capitalization fell 41% from its post-IPO peak and Tesla dropped 15% in a single day after a second-quarter earnings miss, vaporizing roughly $650 billion of Elon Musk's paper wealth between June 16 and July 23. "This is two idiosyncratic repricings landing on one balance sheet at the same time," said a portfolio manager who tracks concentrated wealth positions. "The macro backdrop is calm — the VIX closed at 16.64 on July 22 — which makes the scale of the drawdown even more striking." SpaceX shares closed at $118.24 on July 23, down 41.41% from their June 16 peak of $201.80, cutting the rocket-and-satellite company's market cap from $2.64 trillion to $895 billion. Tesla fell 14.52% to $319.69 after reporting Q2 non-GAAP EPS of $0.33 against a $0.5367 consensus — a 38.51% miss — while operating income collapsed 56.88% year-over-year to $398 million and free cash flow swung to negative $1.09 billion. Musk's peak wealth of $1.45 trillion on June 16 has shrunk to roughly $738 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The next catalyst is SpaceX's looming lockup expiration — larger than the entire IPO float — which could flood the market with shares and extend losses further. ## SpaceX's $1.7 Trillion Round Trip SpaceX's June 12 IPO was the largest in history, and shares surged to $201.80 within days, pushing the company past a $2.6 trillion valuation. The reversal was swift. A delayed Starship launch on July 16 hit the stock in extended trading. Post-IPO enthusiasm faded. A broader reappraisal of AI-linked valuations rolled through the tape. By July 21, SPCX had briefly traded below $120, dipping under its IPO price after seven consecutive down sessions. Short sellers have booked an estimated $15.5 billion in profit on the slide, according to retail trading forum data. ## Tesla's Margin Squeeze Tesla's Q2 revenue of $28.24 billion beat estimates by 7.10%, and deliveries hit a record 480,126. The problem sat below the top line. Operating margin compressed to 1.4% from roughly 5% a year earlier as operating expenses surged 47% year-over-year to $4.35 billion, driven by spending on AI, robotaxi development, the Optimus humanoid robot, and stock-based compensation tied to Musk's 2025 CEO Performance Award. Capital expenditures jumped 141.81% to $5.79 billion, pushing free cash flow to negative $1.09 billion. Shares are now down 28.91% year to date. Musk's headline number is a mark-to-market figure, not a realized loss — neither his TSLA nor SPCX stakes have been sold. The signals to watch over the next quarter are specific. On Tesla: whether Q3 operating margin recovers off the 1.4% floor and whether capex guidance holds near the $25 billion analyst figure. On SpaceX: the lockup calendar and the next Starship attempt. If those go badly, the $650 billion number gets larger. If they go well, it shrinks fast. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.

Jul 24 2026, 10:12

US solar output hits record as AI data centers drive 66 GW demand surge

**US solar farms generated more electricity in a single month than ever before, just as AI data center power demand is on track to nearly double to 66 GW by 2027.** American solar farms produced their highest monthly output on record in June, up 21 percent from a year earlier, while total US electricity demand is grinding to fresh all-time highs as AI infrastructure rewrites utility load forecasts across the country. "Solar is sprinting to keep pace with a demand surge that is also pushing power bills higher for households," according to Energy Information Administration data that shows the national average residential rate rising 21 percent over five years to 18.05 cents per kWh. Developers are on track to add a record 43.4 GW of new utility-scale solar photovoltaic capacity in 2026, a 60 percent increase over 2025 and more than 12 GW above the prior record set in 2024. Solar accounts for 51 percent of all new utility-scale generating capacity planned for the US grid this year, followed by battery storage at 28 percent and wind at 14 percent. Texas alone is forecast to absorb roughly 40 percent of the new solar additions. The question is whether 43.4 GW of new solar, plus batteries, can close the gap on 66 GW of data center demand by 2027. If it cannot, natural gas fills the difference, and residential bills keep climbing. **Solar's Record Run Meets the AI Load Wall** In California's CAISO grid region, solar generation surpassed natural gas during the first five months of 2026, a marker that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. The EIA revised its 2026 utility-scale solar generation forecast 1.4 percent higher in its May outlook after finding more capacity online than expected. Total US electricity consumption is projected to rise from a record 4,195 billion kWh in 2025 to 4,269 billion kWh in 2026, with new records expected again in 2027. The engine is AI infrastructure. US data center power demand is projected to climb from 31 GW in 2025 to 41 GW in 2026 and 66 GW in 2027, with total data center IT load capacity potentially doubling from about 80 GW to roughly 150 GW by 2028. The Department of Energy projects data centers could account for up to 12 percent of US electrical demand by 2028. **Batteries Become the Enabler** The 125-MW/500-MWh Tumbleweed energy storage facility in California became in June the first major US battery site capable of discharging power for eight hours, doubling the duration of most domestic installations. Grid-scale battery storage is at record growth, driven by a historic 90 percent drop in manufacturing costs and the need to prevent transmission blackouts as renewable capacity surges. Hyperscaler power purchase agreements have become the pricing floor under new US solar projects. Renewables, mainly wind and solar, are meeting nearly half of the growth in data center electricity demand globally, with generation for data centers growing at an average 22 percent annual rate between 2024 and 2030. **First Solar's Contradiction** First Solar, the Tempe-based thin-film manufacturer with a $22.44 billion market cap, is the clearest pure-play on the trend. The company posted record first-quarter revenue of $1.04 billion, up 23.64 percent year over year, with diluted EPS of $3.22, and carries a 47.9 GW contracted backlog stretching through 2030. Yet the stock is down 21.17 percent year to date, as markets price the eventual Section 45X credit phase-out scheduled between 2030 and 2033 alongside the demand tailwind. For investors, the tension is between a structural demand driver — AI's insatiable electricity appetite — and a policy cliff that will remove a key subsidy within four years. First Solar trades at roughly 15 times forward earnings, a discount to the broader market that reflects the uncertainty. Residential solar installers such as Sunrun and Enphase Energy also stand to benefit from rising electricity rates, though their exposure to the AI-driven utility-scale buildout is more indirect. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.

Jul 24 2026, 10:09

Oil's path to $120 accelerates as Iran chokepoints tighten

**The oil market's five-month run of resilience faces its sternest test as supply disruptions at two critical chokepoints compound with each passing month of the Iran conflict.** Brent crude topped $100 a barrel Thursday for the first time since May, as the Iran conflict simultaneously choked traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab-al-Mandeb strait, cutting off more than 12 million barrels a day of supply routes. "The conflict has entered a decidedly more dangerous phase that could shift the sentiment of the 'the market always finds a workaround' camp," said Helima Croft, head of global strategy at RBC Capital Markets. Iran's attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz have frozen most crude traffic through the waterway, forcing the market to reroute about 7 million barrels a day via pipelines to the Red Sea, according to JPMorgan. Now the Houthi blockade of the Bab-al-Mandeb strait has blocked another exit point for roughly 5 million barrels a day of Saudi oil. Saudi Arabia can reroute that oil north through the Suez Canal, but the largest fully laden tankers cannot navigate the canal's depth constraints, said Natasha Kaneva, head of global commodities strategy at JPMorgan. A typical four-week trip becomes an eight-week journey. The compounding disruptions threaten to push oil past the 2022 high of $128 a barrel and potentially toward a new record above $150 if a full regional war breaks out, Croft said. Goldman Sachs head of oil research Daan Struyven sees oil testing $120 by October if the status quo persists. **Insurance Void Leaves Tankers With No Path Out** Lloyd's Market Association, the group representing maritime insurance agents, has introduced a new clause that could effectively trap vessels inside the strait. Paying Iran's re-imposed tolls of $1 to $2 per barrel of oil violates US sanctions and can void a vessel's entire insurance policy, LMA said. With Iran insisting it has the right to attack ships that exit without paying, vessels have effectively no path out of the strait. Only 44 vessels remain inside the Strait of Hormuz, compared with 97 just before the US-Iran memorandum of understanding, according to Kpler analyst Naveen Das. The insurance crisis compounds a broader supply squeeze. Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries and the Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminal in the Black Sea have created a significant new problem for global energy markets. Russia, facing a massive fuel shortage, banned diesel exports — removing 800,000 barrels a day, or 12 percent of global diesel shipments, from the market, according to Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates. The Black Sea pipeline attacks threaten to remove an additional 1.7 million barrels a day of crude supply. **Global Inventories Drain as China's Stockpile Cushion Fades** The most fundamental shift since the war began in March 2026 is the drawdown of global crude inventories, which have tumbled by 1.3 billion barrels over five months, according to Dan Pickering, chief investment officer at Pickering Energy Partners. The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve has been drawn down by 116 million barrels to its lowest level since 1983, with just 60 million barrels remaining before it hits its congressionally mandated floor. US commercial inventories are nearing their operational minimums, at which point physics no longer allows oil companies to force crude through pipelines with gravity alone. China, the world's biggest oil importer, had stockpiled crude before the war and has relied on those reserves to avoid importing at high prices. But that cushion has about three to four months before it runs out, Kaneva said. Once China returns to the market, demand will accelerate just as supply routes remain constricted. Before the war, WTI crude traded in the high-$50s to low-$60s a barrel. It briefly touched $112 in early April before settling into a range above $100 through mid-May. By late June, NYMEX oil had fallen back to $73.60 as demand destruction and China's stockpile usage temporarily eased pressure. Thursday's move back above $100 signals that the relief may be short-lived. The oil market is now in a race against time. Demand destruction has so far kept prices from surging, but each additional month of disruption erodes the buffers that have prevented a full-blown crisis. If the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed and China exhausts its stockpiles, the conditions for a spike above $120 — and potentially toward $150 — will align by the fourth quarter. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.