Your 5 weekly reads:

Range Takeaway: The Strait of Hormuz is reopening. Trump and Iran signed a 60-day reopening agreement Wednesday night, and relief is already showing up at the pump. The national average for gasoline slipped back under $4 on Thursday, down 12% from its May peak. Don't expect pre-war levels overnight, but analysts say sub-$3 gas is possible late this year if the truce holds. Cheaper diesel should ease freight and food costs next.

Kevin Warsh's first meeting as Fed Chair was always going to be a tone-setting exercise. And on that front, he delivered: less hand-holding, fewer breadcrumbs, and a clearly hawkish bias to remind us the Fed is still in the inflation-fighting business.

For many, it seemed like a major break. But history says otherwise. First speeches from new Fed Chairs almost always skew "hawkish"; by our count, the last nine all did. The bigger shift was communication. Warsh appears intent on saying less, not more. But even that isn't revolutionary. Before Bernanke began the tradition in 2011, markets did not get post-meeting press conferences, dot-plot theater, and constant attempts to pre-explain every policy move.

So yes, there is a new sheriff. But in many respects, this is a familiar Fed. One that doesn't say much, but talks tough when it does.

The real test will be follow-through. Talk is one thing; actually keeping rates tight when the tradeoffs get hard is another. For now, markets are taking Warsh at his word: rates moved sharply higher, the dollar strengthened, and investors began recalibrating to a Fed that may be less accommodative and less predictable.

This created some initial indigestion. But by the end of the trading week, investors seemed much more comfortable with the new regime. We think markets can live with a hawkish Fed when it's backed by a resilient economy and a real effort to tackle inflation that's still squeezing lower-income Americans. Better to get in front of inflation than relive 2022.

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Here's a 2026 tax change worth a place on your radar: standard-deduction filers can once again deduct charitable cash gifts — up to $1,000 single, $2,000 married filing jointly. It's modest, but if you're already giving a few hundred dollars a year and taking the standard deduction, that's a federal benefit you simply couldn't claim the last few years.

A few catches worth flagging:

The bigger picture for HNW households: if you itemize — increasingly common as SALT limits bite — charitable giving remains one of the most powerful levers for lowering your tax bill, well beyond this $1–2K floor.

There’s less talk of the Mag 7 and more talk of MANGOS among retail traders. Could these be the new Big Tech stocks to watch?

That's just one of the stories we covered this week on our Instagram-native news show, The Daily Range. We also covered Google cofounder Sergey Brin's $42M Lake Tahoe mansion and the tax move behind it, SpaceX minting a new retail trading-volume record on its market debut, and Fox's $22B deal to buy Roku.

Follow us on Instagram @rangefinance to catch our videos next week.

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