Commodity Prices

• Aluminum: $2,441/ton
• Antimony (ingot min. 99.65% fob China): $13,250/ton
• Cobalt: $38,920/ton
• Copper: $8,858/ton
• Gold: $1,862/toz
• Lead: $2,079/ton
• Natural Gas (Nymex): $2.58/MMbtu
• WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $79.65/barrel
• Zinc: $3,043/ton

• U.S. fighter jets shot down a third unidentified object Saturday - and a fourth yesterday. Saturday's was a cylindrical thing shot down over Canadan territory (with Canada's consent); yesterday's was "octagonal" and intercepted over Lake Huron.
• U.S. officials are cautiously avoiding jumping to conclusions about these flying objects and haven't linked any except the first to China yet.
• Meanwhile, China's foreign ministry retorted to the fervor about these flying objects in U.S. airspace to say the U.S. has flown spy balloons into Chinese airspace at least ten times over the past year.
• Separately, the Philippines accused a Chinese coast guard ship of shining a military-grade laser at a Philippine coast guard vessel in the South China Sea, temporarily blinding some of its crew. This isn't the first time the Philippines has complained about being antagonized by China: in 2022, the Philippines filed almost 200 diplomatic complaints about aggressive Chinese actions in disputed waters.

• Anti-government hackers interrupted Pres. Raisi's televised speech celebrating the 44th anniversary of the Iranian revolution to post the logo of their hacking collective with a voiceover: "Death to the Islamic Republic."
• In his speech, Raisi made a vague commitment to freeing more prisoners. The mass prisoner releases Ayatollah Khamenei promised weeks ago still have yet to materialize, though.

• Turkish officials are starting to go after corrupt companies whose poorly-built constructions crumbled in last week's earthquake. They've arrested at least 113 contractors - but so far zero of the officials who would've had to sign off on their shoddy work...and likely received bribes for doing so.
• The quake's death toll is at 36,000 and still rising.

• India announced a massive new lithium discovery that instantly catapulted it to the top five national reserves. This find - 5.9 million tons in Jammu and Kashmir - dwarfs India's only other known lithium deposit, which was a puny 1,600 tons in Karnataka.
• It'll take years to develop a domestic lithium supply chain, so India will continue to rely on Australia, Chile, and Argentina for its lithium in the near term.
• Unrelatedly, Air India has reportedly signed agreements with Airbus and Boeing to buy over 500 planes. It's the largest bulk purchase the aviation industry has ever seen.