And The Winner For Poorest Big City In America Is...
Philadelphia has once again been named the poorest major city in the United States, reclaiming an unwanted title after briefly losing last year.
A whopping 20.4% of Philadelphia residents lived below the poverty line in 2025, according to newly released U.S. Census Bureau data, marking the city's first increase in poverty since 2011.
The figures, first reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer, put Philadelphia ahead of Houston and New York City, which both recorded poverty rates of 17.7%.
The reversal comes after Philadelphia briefly surrendered its unwanted title to Houston in 2024, when its poverty rate dropped to 19.7%, its lowest level since at least 1979.
The latest figures also revealed that Philadelphia's median household income stood at just $67,400 in 2025. A family of four earning approximately $32,750 annually was considered to be living in poverty, according to federal guidelines.
In a statement to the Inquirer, Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker (D) conceded that city's poverty rate unacceptable.
"A rate of 20.4 percent is too high and unacceptable to me as mayor," the mayor said, pointing to the rising cost of everyday necessities as a major burden on struggling families.
"Affordability is a very real issue, and basic staples like food, fuel and clothing cost too much for too many Philadelphians," she added.
Philadelphia's poverty rate peaked at 28.4% in 2011 before gradually declining over the following decade.
Philadelphia's poverty figures come as city officials push a risky new housing scheme that bears troubling echoes of the 2008 financial crisis.
As we reported earlier Friday, Philadelphia plans to roll out a taxpayer-subsidized mortgage program allowing first-time homebuyers to put down as little as 3% and avoid private mortgage insurance, with public funds covering part of the interest costs.
The program, dubbed One Philly Mortgage, is part of Parker's H.O.M.E. housing initiative, which earmarks $25 million for low-interest mortgages and down-payment assistance.
However, questions remain about who will shoulder the financial risks.
Private mortgage insurance typically costs between $30 and $70 per month for every $100,000 borrowed, according to Freddie Mac. Homeowners could end up paying nearly $3,000 a year on a $350,000 mortgage.
The insurance protects lenders if borrowers with little equity default on their loans. Under Philadelphia's program, buyers would not be required to pay it, although publicly available city materials do not specify who would assume that risk instead.
With the median listing price in the Philadelphia metro area hovering around $375,000, a buyer putting down just 3% would have only $11,250 in initial equity.
A 3% decline in the property's value would wipe out that initial equity, assuming no mortgage principal had been repaid, even before accounting for selling costs.
Translation: This could be a slow-moving train wreck. But don't tell the Democrats running Philadelphia that.
Iran Issues Nov 1st Blanket Ban On South Korean Tanker Giant Moving One-Third Of Persian Gulf Oil Exports
South Korean tanker giant Sinokor is the world's dominant VLCC owner (Very Large Crude Carrier) and has in recent weeks found itself front and center in the crosshairs of Iranian retaliation in the Strait of Hormuz and regional waters.
This past week, Iran's Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA) has put the major South Korean maritime shipping and logistics group on notice, saying Sinokor will suffer sweeping action against its fleet starting November 1st if it keeps violating Tehran's protocol for shipping through the strait.
This has marked the first time the Islamic Republic issued a blanket warning covering a shipowner's entire fleet, but this is perhaps because Sinokor alone accounted for about 37% of Hormuz oil transits in September and more than 50% of VLCC traffic in the first 10 days of October, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence data.
Despite regional passage being fraught with obvious ultra high risks, Sinokor has risen to dominance in the Gulf's shipping market, moving to capitalize on extraordinary freight rates.
However, this has come at a steep physical cost, with at least seven Sinokor-linked tankers having been attacked and struck by Iranian missiles or drones recently and during the conflict.
New VLCC's contracted from shipyards can run from $125 million to $135 million to build - but a prompt delivery resale can run much, much highter - especially now.
Also, war risk insurance has been exploding in price. One industry watcher has put together a brief primer:
Standard hull and machinery insurance excludes war risks, so owners buy separate hull war cover and pay an additional premium (AP) each time a ship enters a Joint War Committee listed area.
Before the war that began on February 28, 2026, Hormuz war-risk cover typically cost 0.15% to 0.25% of hull value; brokers quoted 6% to 10% in early October 2026, according to the Financial Times.
On a $100 million tanker, that swing turns a roughly $250,000 premium into $6 million to $10 million for one transit, before cargo cover, which is bought separately.
Quoted rates are not an official index: they vary by ship, flag, ownership links, route and date, and underwriters can reprice or withdraw cover at short notice.
WarBrief Live has provided the following brief timeline and outline of soaring rates:
Pre-war rate: 0.15% to 0.25% of hull value (Lloyd’s List, March 11, 2026)
Early October 2026 quote: 6% to 10% of hull value per voyage (brokers via the Financial Times, reported October 7)
Worked example: $100 million tanker: about $250,000 before the war, $6 million to $10 million at early-October quotes
Trigger: entry into a Joint War Committee listed area, usually priced for a seven-day period
Days ago, Bloomberg highlighted the outsized role this single South Korean company has played in shipping contract pricing amid the global energy crisis:
The messages from the world’s biggest supertanker owner often begin with pleasantries: “Dear Ladies and Gentlemen.” Within minutes, the WhatsApps are the talk of the oil-tanker industry, a multibillion-dollar corner of the energy market that’s been plunged into chaos by the Iran war this year, and where word of mouth is the main way information spreads. The details vary, but the messages to shipbrokers from Sinokor Group, the South Korean company controlled by tycoon Ga-Hyun Chung, mostly boil down to the same thing — one of its vessels has just been hired at a new sky-high rate to ferry oil out of the Persian Gulf.
Some messages detail a new contract, listing the ship, counterparty and eyewatering price. Others just refer loosely to negotiations underway. The format fluctuates from terse strings of numbers and names to full sentences and florid signoffs: “Very respectfully. Thank you very much and best regards,” concludes one message sent to brokers in August, and seen by Bloomberg. Usually, in the days that follow, the global benchmark price set by London’s Baltic Exchange takes another leap higher.
What would simply be fodder for gossip in most industries, brokers say that Sinokor’s WhatsApp messages have for months played an outsized role in setting the cost of transporting oil around the world. Rates for very-large crude carriers (VLCC) — the biggest kind of oil tanker — have soared more than 1,600% this year amid disruptions caused by the war, creating an unprecedented boom for the industry, but throwing a spotlight on the arcane system used to price the world’s shipping contracts, and the centuries-old institution that manages it.
As for the threat against the company coming from Iran, it remains to be seen what unspecified "legal action" will be taken going forward or in what form, or how to interprete "appropriate enforcement measures" - which has so far involved full-on military attacks.
SINOKOR Fleet update - Given the direct threat to their fleet by the IRGC from 1 Nov onwards. The fleet seems very interestingly poised.
The statement PGSA released on October 27 said Sinokor vessels "have committed the highest number of crossing violations over the past 3 months" and that "appropriate enforcement actions have been taken against at least 7 of them."
A top Washington state official said on Oct. 29 that the state has no way to confirm whether people are U.S. citizens when registering them to vote.
"We don't have a system that can identify whether someone is an actual noncitizen," Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said during a press conference in King County.
Hobbs also said that "it's not unusual for noncitizens to actually be on voter rolls" and that "we never said that there are none on there."
Federal officials recently saidthey identified more than 400 people registered to vote in Washington state who are suspected of being noncitizens.
They said they would send Hobbs's office a list of the people and ask him to set aside ballots from those individuals until their citizenship status could be confirmed.
Hobbs, responding in a letter on Wednesday, said a preliminary analysis showed that some of the people on the list are not currently registered to vote and that others are U.S. citizens, "based on information of which Washington is aware." Hobbs asked the federal government for "individualized proof that certain registered voters in Washington are ineligible."
Washington state has automatic voter registration. That means people who present proof of citizenship to state agencies are automatically registered to vote.
To meet the requirements, a person must sign a statement saying they're a U.S. citizen and provide identification.
Hobbs told the briefing, after saying the state lacks a system to verify citizenship, "That's why when people go up to get their registration done at a [government facility], they are asked if they are a noncitizen, they are asked to sign the form; they're attesting whether or not they're a U.S. citizen."
Hobbs's comments show that the state "does nothing to confirm citizenship" and is "knowingly sending out ballots to noncitizens and trusting that the noncitizens will not fill out the ballot," Charles Neil Floyd, acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington, said in a statement to news outlets on Oct. 29.
"Registering noncitizens to vote with or without their knowledge could jeopardize their ability to become citizens. The noncitizens we have interviewed tell us that they assumed they could vote because the state sent them a ballot."
Hobbs said registering noncitizens to vote could happen because a noncitizen wasn't listening to what a government worker said or because a government worker clicked the wrong box.
He said that there have been 15 cases of noncitizen voting between 1982 and 2025 in the state.
Hobbs and King County Elections Director Julie Wise, who has expressed concerns in the past about noncitizens being registered to vote, told the briefing that noncitizens who are registered to vote have in the past called authorities to have their names removed.
"It is not a crime to be accidentally put on the voter roll, because sometimes it's not their fault," Hobbs said.
Officials noted that voting as a noncitizen is a crime, with prison time among the penalties upon conviction.
The U.S. military killed five people Tuesday aboard what Southern Command described as a "go-fast vessel" associated with "narco-terrorists" in the eastern Pacific Ocean, bringing the death toll from its campaign against suspected drug traffickers to at least 240 since September 2025.
U.S. Southern Command said Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere carried out the Oct. 27 strike against a speedboat traveling along known drug-trafficking routes.
The command said intelligence confirmed the vessel's involvement in narcotics trafficking but did not publicly provide evidence supporting that assessment, with the majority of these killings occurring at sea.
Video released by U.S. Southern Command on X appears to show the vessel sitting nearly motionless in the water before a large explosion engulfs it. The footage does not establish whether the vessel was anchored or disabled.
On October 27, under the direction of #SOUTHCOM, Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere executed a lethal, kinetic strike on a go-fast vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific. Confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel's active involvement... pic.twitter.com/egwWVgoypi
The families of two men killed in an October 2025 strike have also sued the U.S. government, alleging wrongful death and extrajudicial killing. The lawsuit, filed with assistance from the American Civil Liberties Union and Center for Constitutional Rights, concerns Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo, 41, both from Trinidad and Tobago.
Their families say the men had been fishing and working in Venezuela and were returning home when the military struck their boat. The lawsuit seeks damages and a finding that their deaths were unlawful.
The Trump administration has maintained that the strikes are lawful. SOUTHCOM previously told Task & Purpose that all military operations had complied with the law of armed conflict and that every person killed was a confirmed member of a designated terrorist organization.
Google Plunges After Ugly Top And Bottom Line Miss, As AI Cannibalizes Search And Ads
Today, ahead of the doubleheader of Mag 7 reports when both Microsoft and Google parent Alphabet report, we wrote in our preview that Microsoft has become the consensus long, while Alphabet "still feels like the consensus funding short across megacaps." And both have to convince a market that, as Goldman's Rich Privorotsky put it this morning, now has "eye watering expectations":
"These really matter. Eye watering expectations… buyside probably closer to Azure growth around high 40s%, Google Cloud around mid 90s%. The question isn't whether those are good numbers, but whether they can surpass already high expectations... Azure probably needs a guidance raise to be properly supportive. The nuance is capacity… if they miss elevated expectations simply because they cannot bring enough compute online. That's disappointing for near term revenue but potentially even more bullish for the scarcity premium and future spending. Watch customer concentration, how broad the demand really is and, crucially, the relationship between revenue growth, capex and margins. The market wants evidence that the incremental economics work."
In other words, a cloud beat is just the price of admission, and the debate tonight is what all that cloud costs, and who pays for it.
Within the Mag 7, Microsoft and Alphabet sit at opposite ends. Goldman's derivatives desk has Microsoft at 8/10 on its positioning score (the same score Meta carried into its print last week, and we all know how that went). Alphabet, meanwhile, keeps getting sold to pay for everything else. JPMorgan's TMT trader Brian Heavey wrote this morning that "we continue to see GOOG being used as a source of funds (note there was another negative 3P check ahead of earnings - all pointing to a Search miss)." The stock dropped 10% from its October 13 high into Monday.
There are some signs of a thaw. Goldman's US desk saw "a buyer of 50k GOOGL 15Jan 360 calls" on Tuesday, and Privorotsky notes that "people have barely begun to re-risk. What we've really seen so far is the abatement of supply, rather than meaningful fresh demand."
Away from Goldman, and focusing on Alphabet, the whole debate fits in one line from JPMorgan's Mark Schilsky, whose Tech Sketch "Earnings Preview Bonanza" (available to pro subs) frames it as "Street (Consensus) Fighter II: Search vs. Cloud":
"On the one hand, Google Cloud Revenues are likely to crush this quarter, thanks to TPU sales. On the other hand, Search Revenue growth is expected to miss the Street because the alt data (which is always right!) suggests so... GOOGL is also on a path to where Google Cloud Revenues could be equal to Search Revenues by late 2028. That's massive! Who thought that was possible 1 year ago? And now we're debating whether or not Search is going to miss by like -50 bps this quarter. Who cares?!?"
Plenty of people care, apparently. Schilsky gives Alphabet a 5 out of 10 on his investor expectations gauge, vs. a 9 for Meta last week:
Here is the buyside bar, combining Schilsky and the UBS bogeys:
Search: investors expect ~14% growth, FXN and reported, vs. the Street's ~15%. UBS has the bogey at 14-14.5%. Goldman's analysts are 1% below consensus. Per Schilsky, "everyone 'knows' that Search is likely to miss by about -100 bps because that's where the alt data is," so "if this beats, the stock is almost assuredly going higher T+1." Watch paid clicks too (+13% in Q2), where "the comps get 3 points harder this print."
YouTube: ~11-12%. "Honestly, no one really cares about YouTube. As long as growth doesn't dip below +10% Y/Y, investors will continue to ignore it."
Google Cloud: this is where the buyside is way above the sellside. Schilsky hears +105% to +115%, UBS +100-115%, Goldman's analysts ~+100%, and Privorotsky's desk "mid 90s," all vs. the Street at roughly +90-96%. Implied TPU sales in the quarter: "most are in the $5B to $7B range."
Operating income: ~$45 billion vs. the Street's ~$43 billion (UBS says $44-45 billion).
Note just how wide the range is on Google Cloud in Bloomberg's consensus: the median is $29.1 billion, but individual estimates run from $24.3 billion to $36.7 billion, roughly 60% to 140% growth. Elsewhere, Search is expected at $64.9 billion, YouTube at $11.4 billion, and total operating income at $43.2 billion. And look at the bottom line: consensus has Alphabet generating negative free cash flow of $3.5 billion this quarter, as $55.8 billion of capex swallows $53.9 billion of operating cash flow.
For Schilsky, the sneaky most important number is the Google Cloud margin: "given that this is the first quarter in which TPU sales are likely to be truly meaningful, any beat to the Street's ~33% EBIT Margin estimate will be rightfully viewed by investors as modest validation that TPU margins are close to – or possibly higher than – core Google Cloud Margins." Goldman's TMT specialists add the other side of that ledger: "Watch cloud margin commentary as they have flagged modest pressure... Search still funds the build. Any softness in search monetization or YouTube would compound the spend narrative."
Then there's the consumer agent. UBS says investors want two things before sentiment can inflect: "a credible AI agent that helps ease Muse/Search concerns, and a broader Gemini 4 rollout." Perceptions of Alphabet as a direct competitor to the leading frontier labs "have faded" after the latest Gemini delay (and after Gemini 4 Argon proved to be, well, benchmaxxed). Goldman's Eric Sheridan sees "an eventual consumer agent launch, possibly aligned with Gemini 4 ahead of the holiday season," and Schilsky expects "a 'real' competitor to META Muse in the coming months."
The $350 Billion Question
As always, the number that moves the stock may not even be in the quarter. Alphabet's 2026 capex guide sits at $195-205 billion, and UBS says the focus tonight is simply a reiteration. 2027 is another story:
2027 capex: Street ~$305 billion, per Schilsky. The buyside is at "$330B to $350B" (JPM) or "$350-375 bn" (UBS). Goldman's own estimate is $350 billion.
2028 capex: "Trust me, I've been asking investors for weeks for this number, but the most common answer I've received is a combination of 'Higher' and 'If anyone tells you with any certainty what their estimate for Google's 2028 is, they are b*#!$#!ing you.'"
2027 EPS: $14.50-16.00 per JPM, $15-16 per UBS, vs. the Street at ~$15. 2028 EPS is anyone's guess, with the "modal outcome" in the low $20s vs. the Street at ~$18.
2027 Google Cloud growth: the Street is at +68%, while "most investors are >+100% Y/Y."
So, a 70%-plus jump in capex to $350 billion or more is now the bull case. Recall what Sundar told us in July when the market balked at the last increase:
*ALPHABET CEO: NEXT GEN FRONTIER MODELS WILL BE MUCH LARGER
With all that in mind (and it's quite a lot), here is what GOOGL reported moments ago, which judging by the negative stock reaction to the revenue and EPS miss a sign that the company is failing to generate enough return to justify its massive investments in AI, is a mirror image of the meltup after the stellar 2nd quarter, may explain why as noted above, GOOGL has been the funding short across the Mag 7 space:
Google advertising revenue $82.01 billion, +11% y/y, missing estimate $83.57 billion as AI is starting to aggressively cannibalize search and ad revenue
Google Search & Other Revenue $63.35 billion, +12% y/y, missing estimate $64.85 billion
Google Subscriptions, Platforms and Devices Revenue $14.29 billion, +11% y/y, missing estimate $14.78 billion
Google Cloud revenue $30.71 billion vs. $15.16 billion y/y, beating estimate $29.1 billion
Other Bets revenue $372 million, +8.1% y/y, missing estimate $387.8 million
Other items:
Hedging gains $194 million, estimate $21.1 million
Total TAC $16.37 billion, +10% y/y, estimate $16.53 billion
Operating income $40.58 billion, +30% y/y, estimate $43.16 billion
Operating margin 32% vs. 31% y/y, estimate 33.7%
Google Services operating income $39.16 billion, +17% y/y, estimate $40.53 billion
Other Bets operating loss $2.05 billion vs. loss $1.43 billion y/y, estimate loss $1.72 billion
Alphabet-level activities operating loss $7.66 billion vs. loss $4.47 billion y/y, estimate loss $5.49 billion
Number of employees 204,757, +7.7% y/y, estimate 200,614
Last but not least, Capex:
Capital expenditure $51.36 billion vs. $23.95 billion y/y, estimate $55.78 billion
Oops.
Here are the results visually:
Cloud was the only big beat. Google Cloud came in at $30.7bn vs $29.1bn expected (+103% y/y), but Search, YouTube, Subscriptions and Services all missed. Operating income of $40.6bn was 6% light.
Two speeds. Cloud doubled; Search grew 12% (vs the ~14% buyside bogey and ~15% Street), YouTube 9% (below the 10% line Schilsky said investors would tolerate), and Network just 1%.
Cloud margin jumped to 36.2% from 23.7%, well above the ~33% Street figure Schilsky flagged. But Alphabet-level losses rose 71% to $7.7bn and Other Bets lost $2.0bn, so about half of Cloud's $7.5bn profit gain went straight back out.
The cost of compute. R&D (+36%) and cost of revenues ex-TAC (+32%, where depreciation sits) both grew faster than revenue (+25%). G&A fell 17%, and headcount was still up 7.7% to 204,757.
Operating income was up 30%, but EPS fell 26% to $2.12. A $21bn swing in other income, including an $8.66bn net loss on equity securities, wiped out the operating gain. There was also a new $298mm preferred dividend line.
Capex rose 114% y/y to $51.4bn (below the $55.8bn consensus). Operating cash flow fell 13% y/y to $42.3bn, far short of the $53.9bn consensus, so the capex 'miss' did not help free cash flow.
Free cash flow was negative for a second straight quarter: -$9.1bn vs -$3.5bn consensus. Trailing-12-month FCF collapsed 73% to $19.7bn, from $73.6bn a year ago.
The funniest part is just how dramatic the Y-axis rigging was in the company's presentation to make the YoY growth better:
Some more comments from the press release:
Model Apis Now Processing About 32B Tokens Per Minute
Gemini App Has Reached 1 Billion Users
Gemini App Has Reached Oneb Users—making
Shares Drop 7% After 3Q Earnings Report
Surpassed 150M Youtube Music & Premium Subs
Gemini 4 Argon & Carbon Are Now Leading at Frontier
3Q Net Loss on Equity Securities $8.66B
Google Cloud Rev. Grew 103%
Surpassed 150M Youtube Music & Premium Subs Globally
We expect to hear much more on the call, including capex guidance: as a reminder, Google’s race to build AI infrastructure for both itself and its customers has sent its capital expenditures soaring to record levels. At the same time, the investments have helped Google evolve into a top supplier of computing power to AI companies including Anthropic PBC and Meta. The problem is that AI is now too successful, and is clearly cannibalizing from the company's core "bread and butter" advertising and search business, which missed badly across the board.
The company is also working to develop AI models itself and integrate them into consumer products such as the search engine, YouTube and Gmail - though those efforts have yet to pay off relative to the level of Google’s spending.
In response to the dramatic top and bottom line miss, GOOGL stock plunged 8%, not only reversing the July surge, but dragging the stock back to levels last seen in April as some 6 months of gains have been unwound.
