Macro worldview (4.0.0 - Friday August 28 regime reframe - the June de-escalation that defined 3.0.x has REVERSED: the 60-day US-Iran ceasefire lapsed on August 17 with no deal, the US naval blockade was reimposed, Strait of Hormuz traffic sank to a new low and Trump threatened to strike Oman, taking WTI from below $69 back to ~$82.55 and making energy the top S&P sector. In parallel the long end broke: Warsh held 9-3 on July 29 over three hawkish dissents and the 30Y reached 5.33%, its highest since 2007, in a global bond rout. Gold recovered ~15% on the month to ~$4,650 on record 289t Q2 central-bank buying, NVIDIA printed a record $89.0B data-center quarter, and the S&P set a record in mid-August on the best earnings surprise since 2008. MAJOR: no thesis added, retired, or invalidated, but the macro framing is rewritten and energy re-rates +0.30)

4.0.0 refresh, taken Friday August 28 ~9:20 AM ET - the window runs from the July 2 pre-market (3.0.1) through the July 29 FOMC, the August 17 ceasefire lapse, the August bond rout, and the August 26 NVIDIA print, into the Jackson Hole morning. This is a MAJOR bump and a regime reframe, not a patch. 3.0.0 and 3.0.1 built their framing on a war turning toward a negotiated end and an energy premium unwinding toward invalidation. That framing has reversed: the ceasefire lapsed with no deal, the blockade returned, and oil round-tripped. No thesis is added, retired, or invalidated - every one of the seven active theses survives as written - but the macro configuration they sit in is materially different, and Persistent energy premium re-rates +0.30. Net moves: Persistent energy premium +0.30 to 0.75 (band 0.13 to 0.08), Hawkish Warsh regime and higher-for-longer +0.06 to 0.82, Iran war rearmament cycle +0.05 to 0.88, Gold structural debasement bid +0.05 to 0.90, AI capex sustained but with China decoupling tail risk +0.02 to 0.90, Stagflation risk and Fed independence stress +0.02 to 0.89, Equity melt-up versus building recession risk +0.02 to 0.80.

The energy de-escalation reversed. Persistent energy premium steps 0.45 to 0.75 and the band tightens to 0.08 - the largest single-refresh move this worldview has booked. 3.0.1 judged the sustained-sub-threshold-after-durable-reopening invalidation leg "genuinely in motion"; it is now firmly out of motion. The 60-day negotiating window lapsed on August 17 with no agreement and Trump declining to extend, the US naval blockade was reimposed after the MOU collapsed, Hormuz shipping traffic sank to a new low, and Tehran insisted the waterway will not reopen without major US concessions while Trump conceded the US is "only semi-negotiating" and threatened to bomb Oman with the war in stalemate. Price followed: WTI is back to ~$82.55 and Brent ~$87.54, and energy re-took sector leadership - XLE 62.29 with XOM 156.44 and CVX 199.77. The thesis is not merely un-invalidated; its central mechanism is operating again.

The long end broke, and the hawkish-Warsh regime is confirmed. Hawkish Warsh regime and higher-for-longer steps 0.76 to 0.82 and the band tightens to 0.05. The July 29 FOMC held at 3.50-3.75% on a 9-3 vote with three officials dissenting in favour of a HIKE - the first real test of the regime 3.0.0 called, and it resolved hawkish from the committee's own ranks rather than from the chair. Warsh kept the statement short and withheld a roadmap, and the market punished the ambiguity: the Dow fell 1,100 points, its worst day in over a year, while the 30Y reached its highest level since 2007. The move persisted through August into a global rout that took French yields to 2008 highs, German to 2011 highs and Japanese 10Y to a 30-year high, forcing Treasury to at least double its long-bond buybacks from $2B to $4B. Yields sit at 4.68% on the 10Y and 5.20% on the 30Y, off a 5.33% peak. Markets price roughly one-in-three odds of a September 16 hike.

Inflation is not cooperating on the Fed's preferred gauge. Stagflation risk and Fed independence stress steps 0.87 to 0.89. July core PCE held at 3.3% and headline at 3.7%, hotter than expected, even as July CPI eased to 3.4% headline with core back to 2.5%, its pre-Iran-conflict pace. The divergence is the story: the CPI improvement was substantially an energy base effect that the August oil reversal now un-does, while the Fed's preferred measure stayed stuck above 3%. The energy accelerant 3.0.1 wrote off has returned, and the rate path repriced higher rather than lower. Growth remains the dormant leg, so this is a step up rather than a regime change within the thesis.

Gold recovers hard, but the January high still stands. Gold structural debasement bid steps 0.85 to 0.90 and the band tightens to 0.04. Spot reached $4,677 on August 25, a three-month high, after adding more than 15% on the month, with GDX at 103.69 following its strongest single-day rally since 2022 and GLD at 422.60. The structural leg strengthened materially: central banks bought a record 289 tonnes in Q2, up 62% year-over-year and the strongest Q2 in World Gold Council records, led by Poland at 51 tonnes, and a record 45% of central banks expect to raise gold reserves over the next twelve months. Note the discipline point: at ~$4,650 gold remains roughly 17% below its January record of $5,586. This is a recovery within a drawdown, not a new high - the structural bid is confirmed by official-sector flow, not by price alone.

AI capex is validated on the numbers while the China tail is now explicitly priced at zero. AI capex sustained but with China decoupling tail risk steps 0.88 to 0.90 and the band tightens to 0.04. NVIDIA reported $96.2B in Q2 FY27 revenue, up 106% year-over-year against a $92.07B consensus, with a record $89.0B data-center quarter, up 117% year-over-year and ahead of the $86.33B estimate on the Blackwell Ultra ramp, and shares rose ~8.7% to 227.98 the next session. AMD's data-center segment grew 107%. The tail did not disappear - it got quantified: NVIDIA now guides assuming no China data-center compute revenue at all after Commerce moved to block advanced Rubin, Blackwell and MI350x parts reaching Chinese entities offshore. A tail that is fully excluded from guidance is a smaller forward risk than one that is not, which is why the band tightens even as the tail persists.

Equities set records on the best earnings surprise on record. Equity melt-up versus building recession risk steps 0.78 to 0.80. 86% of S&P 500 companies beat EPS estimates, the highest since Q2 2021 and aggregate earnings came in 29.2% above estimates, the largest surprise since FactSet began tracking in 2008. The index set a record in mid-August with midcaps and small caps also at records, and SPY closed 771.10 and QQQ 721.11 with the VIX at 14.47 - the vol-expansion leg is further away than at any point this year. The counterweight is real and is why this is only +0.02: the July 29 Fed day produced the worst session in over a year, and a live September hike against a 5.20% 30Y is the obvious path by which the melt-up ends.

Rearmament firms as the war re-escalates. Iran war rearmament cycle steps 0.83 to 0.88 and the band tightens to 0.05. The invalidation required an implemented durable peace; instead the ceasefire lapsed and the blockade returned. The procurement cycle delivered independently: Lockheed reported a record $230.4B backlog on $65B of new orders, sales up 11% to $20.1B, and raised full-year guidance, driven by a $35B multi-year THAAD interceptor award that nearly doubled Missiles and Fire Control backlog to $87.9B, with the FY2027 request seeking a 44% increase toward a ~$1.5T budget including $52.9B for critical munitions. The primes have not yet re-rated on it - LMT 565.89, RTX 212.08, NOC 545.13, all well below 52-week highs - which is the gap the thesis expresses.

Catalyst calendar. Warsh delivers his first Jackson Hole keynote at 10:00 AM ET today, forty minutes after this snapshot - its content lands in the next version, and it is the single largest near-term swing factor for Hawkish Warsh regime and higher-for-longer and the long end. The September 16 FOMC follows, with a live hike priced at roughly one-in-three. August CPI on September 11 is the first inflation print to carry the reversed energy base. On energy, whether any US-Iran channel reopens - Oman is currently the only active mediator - governs Persistent energy premium. Q3 earnings begin mid-October against the hardest comparison in years.