David's Daily Bread
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Business & markets

Trump calls off Iran strikes and Wall Street futures climb as oil retreats

A cancelled strike, a promised strait, and a market that decided to believe it.

President Trump said he called off an attack against Iran in order to negotiate a deal to open the Strait of Hormuz, and traders read the reversal as de-escalation. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures each rose about 0.5% ahead of the open, Dow contracts added 0.6%, and Russell 2000 futures gained 0.80%, with the VIX at 15.97. Oil prices declined and Treasury values rose on the news. The week's real ballast arrives on a schedule: Palantir reports Monday, SpaceX posts its first quarterly results as a public company, and Friday's July jobs report is the week's most critical piece of data.

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Letters to the King
You gathered timber and gold for a temple you were told you would never build. How does a person work hard on something they will not live to see finished?
From the Baker's own shelf

The word came plainly through Nathan, and it did not soften: not you, but your son. Your hands have carried too much war for a house of peace. So I did the only thing left to a man with a fire in him and no permission to light it. I bought the threshing floor, I quarried the stone, I weighed out the gold and the iron and the cedar, and I wrote down the pattern so Solomon would not have to guess at a single doorpost. Here is the small secret, friend, and you may have it free. A man who must see the roof go on is not building a house at all; he is building a monument to himself, and those fall down faster than temples. Plant the tree, cut the beam, teach the child, and let the shade drop on a head you will never meet. The Lord keeps better accounts than we do, and He is famously unhurried. I never once stood inside that temple, and I have never once been sorry.

– David, son of Jesse
Letters answered in the voice of the biblical King David.
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