161 configured feed connections.

I.Tier-1 squawk and breaking wire

Pure speed. When something hits the desk, this is almost always where it files first. These feeds get the shortest latency budget and can wake a provisional alert on a single source; the trader-facing confirmation state stays unconfirmed until an independent receipt arrives.

• FinancialJuice. The fastest English-language squawk for FX, commodities and geopolitical headlines.
• ForexLive / InvestingLive. Squawk + short commentary. Reliable same-minute confirmation.
• ZeroHedge headline feed. Fast but polarised. Used as a speed signal, scored accordingly.
• Reuters urgent / Bloomberg headline desk. The professional benchmark for confirmed wire copy.

Representative list only. Full source list is not published source-by-source. Some OSINT accounts rely on a low profile, and the mix shifts as channels change. What stays stable is the shape of sourcing and the tiering rules described in the methodology.

II.Mainstream wire services

Slower than squawk but heavier on verification. Used to confirm tier-1 bursts and to capture stories that surface only once a full desk has them.

• AP, AFP, Reuters, BBC, Al Jazeera, CNBC. Standard English-language wires across Middle East, Europe and US beats.
• Regional wires. Tasnim (Iran), IRNA (Iran), TASS (Russia), Xinhua (China), Anadolu (Türkiye). Used for direct reading of state-linked sources, always labelled as such.
• National broadcasters. France 24, Deutsche Welle, NHK, RTÉ, used for Europe / Asia-Pacific context beats.

III.OSINT Telegram channels (translation where available)

Where the early-warning edge lives. Many of the most significant conflict stories surface on Telegram hours before they touch an English wire. These feeds are treated as Tier 3, allowed on the desk, never allowed to trigger a critical alert on their own.

• Ukrainian front. DeepState, ZSU Ukraine, Operatyvnyi ZSU and similar channels, machine-translated from Ukrainian when the upstream request succeeds.
• Russian-language military commentators. Used to read the other side of the Russia–Ukraine front, machine-translated from Russian when available and labelled.
• Middle East channels. A mix of Farsi and Arabic channels covering Iran / IRGC, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and the Gulf. Translation is attempted where available; source label is preserved.
• Specialist OSINT threads. Accounts that track maritime incidents, airstrikes and sanctions movement. Surfaced on the desk with a clear badge.

IV.Think tanks and specialist analysts

Slower, heavier, context-rich. Not used for speed, used for interpretation and for the shape of the week.

• Institute for the Study of War (ISW). Daily Iran and Russia campaign assessments.
• Critical Threats Project. Iran- and IRGC-focused analysis, complementary to ISW.
• RUSI, IISS, CSIS, Chatham House. Long-form analysis on defence, sanctions and macro risk.
• Independent specialist analysts. A short list of X / Substack voices with a track record on conflict-to-market reasoning.

V.Energy, shipping, chips and commodities press

Commodity-specific desks that the general wires routinely miss. Critical for traders whose portfolios sit in Brent, WTI, LNG, refining, tanker, semiconductor or AI infrastructure exposure.

• OilPrice, Rigzone, Natural Gas Intel. Daily energy-beat reporting and commentary.
• TradeWinds, Lloyd's List. Shipping and tanker market coverage.
• TSMC, ASML, SIA, Semiconductor Engineering. Foundry, lithography, memory, packaging and AI-chip supply-chain coverage, backed by official company and policy pages where possible.
• S&P Global Platts, Argus (public feeds). Price and assessment reporting where public.

VI.Government, central bank and official releases

Primary sources, used as soon as they publish.

• US Treasury / OFAC. Sanctions designations and SDN list updates (drives the onboard vessel screening).
• US EIA, OPEC, IEA. Oil demand and supply data, inventory reports, OPEC calendars.
• Central banks. Fed, ECB, BoE, BoJ, PBoC release calendars and statements.
• SEC, BIS, Federal Register, CHIPS.gov/NIST. Filings, export-control tape, Entity List changes and chip-policy releases.
• MoDs and defence agencies. UK MoD, Pentagon, IDF, NATO press releases where published.

VII.Prediction markets and market data

• Polymarket. Public prediction-market context for geopolitical tripwires (e.g. "Strait of Hormuz closed in 2026"), integrated directly into the desk; it is not a probability recommendation or execution venue.
• Configured market-data providers. Provider-dependent quotes and supported real-time streams are shown with their freshness. When Twelve Data data is displayed, the desk attributes it as “Data provided by Twelve Data.” External-display and redistribution rights are reviewed provider by provider before paid access opens; Intel Desk does not promise tick-level commodity data.
• Seeking Alpha ratings. Quant ratings and analyst consensus may be shown for cross-reference when the provider is configured and its commercial rights are cleared; otherwise this layer remains disabled.
• GDELT. Event monitor indexing 100K+ global sources; used as a long-tail catch-net.

VIII.Vessel, aircraft and sanctions screening feeds

• AISStream.io. Provider-dependent AIS bounding boxes for the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, Gulf of Oman, Bab el-Mandeb, Suez and Bosphorus when transponders broadcast. When the provider returns broadcasts, they drive the vessel map; an empty Hormuz window means no qualifying positions were received, not that the Strait is clear.
• ADS-B aircraft feeds. Public military-aircraft context used for sortie-rate analysis when an aircraft is broadcasting and an upstream aggregator has coverage.
• OFAC SDN list. Continuously matched against vessels in tracked areas to flag sanctioned ships.

Read the methodology for how these sources are tiered, verified, translated and scored, or see the current evidence window on the live lead-time proof page.