Key Economic Data and Events to Watch Today: Wednesday, August 12, 2026 ① TBD: OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report ② TBD: MSCI August Index Adjustment ③ 14:00: Germany July CPI Final (MoM) ④ 16:00: IEA Monthly Oil Market Report ⑤ 20:00: Tencent Q2 Earnings Call ⑥ 20:30: US July Unadjusted CPI (YoY) ⑦ 20:30: US July Seasonally Adjusted CPI (MoM) ⑧ 20:30: US July Seasonally Adjusted Core CPI (MoM) ⑨ 20:30: US July Unadjusted Core CPI (YoY) ⑩ 22:30: US EIA Crude Oil Inventories for the Week Ending August 7 ⑪ 22:30: US EIA Cushing Crude Oil Inventories for the Week Ending August 7 ⑫ 22:30 U.S. EIA Strategic Petroleum Reserves for the week ending August 7 ⑬ 01:00 (next day) U.S. 10-year Treasury auction (ending August 12) - Winning rate ⑭ 01:00 (next day) U.S. 10-year Treasury auction (ending August 12) - Bid-to-cover ratio

A senior White House economic adviser and a former administration official said President TRUMP is seeking new policy pledges ahead of the midterms that could include calling on Congress to cut the capital gains tax and creating an exclusion for certain home sales. HASSETT said TRUMP wants additional incentives to secure voter support in November. Former NEC director Larry Kudlow, a TRUMP ally, said he recently discussed indexing capital gains to inflation so gains would be taxed after inflation adjustment, and proposed exempting home sales of $2 million or less from capital gains tax, adding TRUMP is "very interested".

Domestic News: 1. Foxconn Industrial Internet (FII): Net profit for the first half of the year reached 23.74 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 95.99%. 2. Manus: Will resume operations as an independent company; some user data will be deleted. 3. China Passenger Car Association (CPCA): Retail sales of passenger cars in China reached 1.461 million units in July 2026, a year-on-year decrease of 20.9%. 4. Shanghai issued the "15th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Shanghai's Software and Information Service Industry," planning to build a 100,000-card-level ultra-large-scale intelligent computing cluster in Songjiang, Lingang, and Qingpu districts. International News: 1. Federal Reserve's Goolsby: The biggest problem facing the economy is inflation. 2. CME Group's 24-hour silver trading will launch on September 11. 3. CME Group, in conjunction with Silicon Data, will launch computing power futures in October. 4. Former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was sentenced to death in absentia. 5. South Korean media: SK Hynix plans to increase its NAND production capacity in China by 50%. 6. Sources: Shipowners paid a record $4 million to cut in line for passage through the Panama Canal. 7. The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) kept interest rates unchanged as expected, noting that inflation risks are skewed to the upside. RBA Governor Bullock stated that rates would be raised again if necessary. 8. Middle East Situation— ① Pakistan: The US and Iran are close to reaching some kind of agreement. ② Qatar: Negotiations between Oman and Iran have entered an "advanced stage." ③ Trump: We can use "powerful force" to strike Iran. ④ Pakistan's Interior Minister arrived in Tehran and met with the Iranian President. ⑤ US helicopters fired on a cargo ship bound for Iran, causing it to stop. ⑥ The Houthi rebels claimed to have struck Saudi-linked military targets in several parts of Yemen and stated their willingness to engage in dialogue with Saudi Arabia, provided their demands are met.

Iran’s oil minister said on the 11th that repairs to gas production facilities damaged in recent hostilities are underway and that daily capacity could recover by about 95 mln cubic meters by end-September. Reconstruction of four attacked gas-processing plants are progressing rapidly, contractors have started work, and projects are expected to finish ahead of schedule and fully restore pre-attack output. Earlier reports said Iranian gas output had fallen roughly 230 mln cu m/day since U.S. and Israeli military actions.

1. Ukraine claims at least nine people were killed in a large-scale Russian military attack. 2. The Ukrainian military issued a statement saying it attacked an oil refinery in Orsk, Russia. 3. The local governor stated that an industrial enterprise in the Orenburg region of Russia caught fire after being attacked by an "enemy drone." 4. An informed source revealed that the Ukrainian air defense forces, for security reasons, have stopped disclosing the number of missiles launched by Russia in the attack. 5. The Russian Ministry of Defense reported that Russian forces sank a patrol boat in the waters south of Odessa. The patrol boat's mission was to escort a cargo ship carrying weapons for the Ukrainian armed forces to a Ukrainian port. 6. Ukrainian President Zelensky: Ukraine has submitted a proposal to US negotiators to end the war with Russia. 7. In the four weeks ending August 9, Russian crude oil exports fell to 3.71 million barrels per day, the lowest level since late May.

The world's largest gold ETF, SPDR Gold Trust, increased its holdings by 1.712 tons from the previous day, with its current holdings at 1022.672 tons.