Intelligence Brief

Maritime crossings through the Strait of Hormuz dropped from 15 on Friday to six on Sunday and Monday, well below the 10-day average of roughly 11, as U.S.-Iran negotiations stall over competing compensation claims. President Trump on August 10 demanded Iran pay damages for American casualties, including families of sailors killed in the 2000 USS Cole bombing, while Iran has outlined six conditions for reopening the strait, including full payment of war and sanctions damages and withdrawal of U.S. naval forces. The strait normally carries about 20 percent of global petroleum-liquids consumption daily, making the traffic decline a significant indicator of ongoing disruption to global energy supply chains.

Amentum posted $3.49 billion in fiscal Q3 2026 revenue, a 2% year-over-year decline driven by joint-venture transitions, a prior-year divestiture, and program ramp-downs in its Global Engineering Solutions segment. The company simultaneously lowered its full-year revenue guidance to $13.80–$13.95 billion and raised adjusted EBITDA guidance to $1.115–$1.140 billion and adjusted diluted EPS guidance to $2.40–$2.50, without specifying the precise drivers behind the profitability improvements. Total backlog reached $48.2 billion, up from $44.6 billion a year earlier, supported by $17.7 billion in net bookings for the quarter including NASA and classified defense awards.

The National Association of Realtors releases its July 2026 existing-home sales report today at 10 a.m. ET, with no figures yet published as of this writing. The June baseline showed a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.09 million sales, a 2.4% monthly decline, a median price of $440,600, and 4.6 months of supply. A subsequent 5.4% drop in June pending sales and a 30-year mortgage rate of 6.69% as of August 6 provide the affordability context heading into today's release.

Zoox announced August 10, 2026 as the start date for paid robotaxi fares on and around the Las Vegas Strip, following a NHTSA temporary exemption issued July 31, 2026 that permits up to 2,500 vehicles annually through 2028 and waives eight federal safety standards inapplicable to a vehicle with no manual driving controls. Pricing was described as a base charge plus distance and time, positioned to compete with Uber's Comfort tier, though no specific fares were disclosed and no confirmed completed paid ride appeared in sources retrieved as of August 11. The federal exemption includes an Adaptive Operational Authorization framework giving NHTSA ongoing authority to modify, suspend, or revoke deployment conditions and requiring annual vehicle-level reporting and U.S.-based remote assistance personnel.

Three weeks after Mykhailo Drapatyi replaced Oleksandr Syrskyi as Ukraine's commander-in-chief, a civic protest movement has scheduled its next demonstration for August 14 in Kyiv, continuing demands that include Mykhailo Fedorov's return as defense minister. Fedorov stated on August 6 that President Zelensky has not ruled out his reinstatement, though any formal appointment would require parliamentary action expected no earlier than August 17–18. No official announcement resolving Fedorov's status has been issued, and no confirmed strategy shift under Drapatyi has been documented through August 11.

Taiwan's Han Kuang 42 exercise conducted multi-weapon live fire at Penghu on August 10, integrating M60A3 tanks, howitzers, and mortars in a simulated amphibious assault scenario. The exercise also introduced a deliberate 30-minute mobile network slowdown across Taichung, Miaoli, and Nantou to test command resilience under degraded communications, with a northern Taiwan slowdown scheduled for August 13. Separately, claims that HIMARS fired during Han Kuang 42 are unconfirmed; the documented first Taiwan Strait HIMARS rocket firing occurred in a distinct June 10 drill.

The BLS June 2026 CPI report shows the all-items index fell 0.4% month over month, driven largely by a 9.7% drop in gasoline prices, while core inflation was flat and food costs continued to rise. The headline decline does not reflect every household's experience, since individual spending patterns differ from the urban-consumer market basket used to calculate CPI. The July 2026 figures are scheduled for release August 12 and will serve as the first of three monthly inputs used to calculate the 2027 Social Security cost-of-living adjustment.