This is what a market looks like when politics gets louder but price discovery refuses to follow immediately.

U.S. futures are lower across the board after yesterday’s pullback from record highs. The Dow and S&P are pointing modestly down. The Nasdaq is softer again. 

Rates are steady. Oil is flat to lower. Metals are sliding. Volatility remains contained.

Nothing here suggests disorder.
Nothing here suggests chase.

What changed overnight was not sentiment. It was tolerance.

Markets are no longer reacting to geopolitical shock. They are reapplying filters as policy intervention becomes more explicit and more frequent. 

That distinction matters, because it tells you this is not fear-driven de-risking. It is standards tightening.

Yesterday’s selloff broke a short opening rally, but it did not unwind positioning. This morning’s price action confirms that interpretation. Risk is being tested, not rejected.

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The headline number was enormous. A proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget would normally read as a clean tailwind for the sector.

The market did not treat it that way.

Defense equities rallied premarket, but the enthusiasm is capped by the same force that lifted them. 

The administration is no longer just expanding demand. It is asserting control over capital allocation. 

Restrictions on buybacks, dividends, and executive compensation reframed defense from a free-cash-flow story into a politically governed one.

That shift matters more than the budget figure.

Markets can price spending. They struggle to price discretion. Defense is being repriced as policy infrastructure rather than shareholder infrastructure. 

That produces volatility, not conviction.

If U.S. control of Venezuelan oil were a scarcity shock, crude would not be sitting near $60.

It is.

That tells you everything. Oil is being priced as administrative flow, not as an incremental supply impulse. 

Sanctions mechanics, storage, transport, refinery compatibility, and political sequencing matter more than reserve size. Until those clear, barrels are theoretical.

This is why refiners continue to look better than producers. Heavy crude access is valuable over time, not overnight. The market is refusing to prepay for execution risk.

The signal is not indifference.
It is patience enforced by process.

Gold and silver are selling off sharply, but the reason is visible and contained. Commodity index rebalancing and a firmer dollar are doing the work.

There is no disorderly unwind. No credit spillover. No volatility shock.

Last week priced geopolitical insurance. This week is resizing it. The market is not abandoning hedges. It is recalibrating them now that escalation looks staged rather than abrupt.

Late-cycle markets do not abandon protection.
They right-size it.

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Between Venezuela, Greenland, housing, defense, and trade, the administration is widening the policy surface area rapidly.

Markets are responding selectively.

Housing rhetoric hit homebuilders and rental REITs hard, but did not leak into credit. 

Defense absorbed the budget shock but balked at capital controls. Energy shrugged off geopolitical escalation entirely.

That divergence matters.

Markets are distinguishing between authority and enforceability. Until policy translates into durable legal and economic frameworks, capital will continue to price optionality rather than outcomes.

Prediction markets are racing ahead of equities. Diplomats are reacting faster than traders. 

That gap tells you markets still believe escalation, if it comes, will be sequenced and absorbed rather than forced.

The most important signal this morning is not what sold. It is what stayed held.

Rates remain orderly. The dollar is firm but not disruptive. Credit is calm. Volatility is compressed.

Capital is still willing to sit in exposures where outcomes are governed rather than speculative. 

Defense is tolerated because demand is policy-backed, even if returns are capped. 

Refiners are held because infrastructure exists even if barrels lag. 

Select AI exposure remains supported where demand converts into installed reality rather than narrative.

By contrast, assets that depend on immediate political execution were told to wait.

This is not fear.
It is filtration.

Markets are deciding what they are willing to tolerate next, not what they need to escape from.

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Data: Balance of Trade, Initial Jobless Claims, Nonfarm Productivity
Earnings: RPM International (RPM), SYNNEX (SNX)
Overnight: Nikkei -1.63%, Shanghai -0.07%, FTSE 100 -0.17%, DAX -0.08%

This is not a market losing confidence.
It is a market demanding proof.

Policy is visible. Intervention is rising. But capital is still governed by rates, cash flows, and execution timelines. Headlines are being processed, not chased.

Some upside will stall.
Some volatility will persist.
Some narratives will fail to clear the bar.

That is the cost of control.

The system is not accelerating.
It is not breaking.
It is deciding how much discretion it is willing to absorb before repricing risk.