They’re not the most glamorous stocks in the market, but chemical-slash-fertilizer companies CF Industries, Mosaic Co. , Dow, Inc., and LyondellBasell are the belles of the ball in Thursday trading, topping the list of S&P 500 performers shortly before 12 p.m. ET.

Natural gas is a crucial input for the chemical and fertilizer industries, and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is basically cutting off supply from the region, which European and Asian chemical companies depend on.

That leaves these US giants — with access to abundant stateside gas supplies — able to produce and take advantage of pricing power in the absence of robust global competition.

Here’s how Citi analysts put it today in a note upgrading LyondellBasell and Dow to “buy” from “neutral”:

“While the duration of the conflict remains uncertain, we believe the disruptions and shutdowns across the upstream LNG plants to downstream crackers in Asia and Europe could provide months of supply-driven pricing uplift.”

Good times for them. (And their shareholders.)

Some of these companies like Dow, Mosaic, and CF Industries are also major suppliers of fertilizers, which influence food prices. And that suggests the world economy is experiencing growing inflationary pressures stemming from the less than 2-week-old war, which could eventually become a problem for the market.

The steady drip of negative news on private credit is exacerbating the sell-off in stocks tied to the asset class and the broader financial sector.

Asset manager Blue Owl Capital is trading at its lowest level since October 2022, the month the S&P 500 bottomed. Its business development company, Blue Owl Capital Corp. — effectively its private credit arm — is likewise sinking, with a price-to-book ratio below 0.8. That suggests investors don’t think its loans are worth what the company has reported they’re worth (or are worried that they’ll be marked down in the future).

Glendon Capital Management is leveling that direct charge against the firm and others in the industry. In a presentation seen by the Financial Times, Glendon alleged that “private credit funds managed by Blue Owl and many of its rivals had ‘misrepresented’ loss rates in their portfolios and were sitting on ‘larger losses than reported.’"

This news comes after JPMorgan reportedly curbed some of its lending to private credit funds and reduced the estimated value of software loans in those portfolios, according to Bloomberg.

Other lowlights in financials:

• Deutsche Bank, which revealed a $30 billion exposure to private credit in its annual report, is down nearly 8% as of 11:10 a.m. ET, on track for its biggest one-day loss since April 2025.

• With this week’s losses, the SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF has erased its year-to-date gains, which were in excess of 13% as of early February.

• Jon Turek, founder of JST Advisors, flagged that the Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund is poised to deliver a Q1 drop in excess of 10%. Other years in which that fund tumbled by 10% or more in the first three months include 2001, 2008, 2009, and 2020 — a nearly comprehensive list of the most tumultuous periods for global markets in the 21st century.

Bumble surged more than 20% in premarket trading on Thursday after the dating app operator posted better-than-expected Q4 results and provided Q1 profit guidance that also beat estimates, powered by its ongoing turnaround efforts.

For the quarter ended December 31, 2025, the company reported:

• Revenue of $224.2 million — down 14% year on year, but above the Wall Street consensus estimate of $221 million (per data compiled by Bloomberg).

• Adjusted EBITDA of $71.6 million, beating analyst expectations of $63.5 million.

For the first quarter of fiscal 2026, Bumble forecasts:

• Adjusted EBITDA of $76 million to $80 million, well ahead of analysts’ consensus estimate of $57.7 million.

• Revenue in the range of $209 million to $213 million, roughly meeting Wall Street expectations of $210 million.

Since founder Whitney Wolfe Herd returned to the top job around a year ago, Bumble has been undergoing a broad turnaround plan, featuring the introduction of new AI-enabled features to compete with stiff competition in the dating app market.

In the company’s press release, Wolfe Herd commented on its strategic overhaul: “With the heavy lift of our quality reset behind us, we are accelerating product innovation and prioritizing member experience enhancements. We are building from a stronger base and positioning Bumble for its next chapter of product-led growth.”

UiPath is down 5% in premarket trading on Thursday after the software and agentic automation company’s guidance failed to fully address investors’ growth concerns, despite posting upbeat results for the quarter and full year ended January 31, 2026.

For the final quarter of FY2026, UiPath posted revenue of $481 million, just above analysts’ consensus estimate of $465 million (compiled by Bloomberg), and adjusted earnings per share of $0.30, topping Wall Street estimates by 18%. The company’s annualized recurring revenue grew 11% year over year to $1.853 billion, and the quarter also rounded out the company’s first profitable full year, with a GAAP operating income of $57 million for fiscal 2026.

Despite the better-than-expected results, shares slumped seemingly on the company’s conservative growth guidance. UiPath expects the following for the full year ending January 31, 2027:

• Revenue between $1.754 billion and $1.759 billion, which would signal a slowdown in year-over-year growth to at least 9%, compared with 13% in the latest full-year results.

• ARR in the range of $2.051 billion to $2.056 billion as of January 31, 2027.

• Non-GAAP operating income of approximately $415 million.

In the wake of the results, a number of analysts have cut their price targets, suggesting that Wall Street was implicitly hoping for more exciting guidance. Morgan Stanley’s analyst cut their price target to $17 (from $19), Canaccord dropped its target to $15 (from $19), and UBS lowered it to $13 (from $17).

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said Wednesday that Tesla and xAI, which is part of SpaceX, would work on a joint AI agent project called “Macrohard,” also referred to as “Digital Optimus,” as part of Tesla’s $2 billion investment in xAI. The collaboration would pair Grok with what Musk described as a real-time computer-controlling AI agent running on Tesla hardware.

In his post, Musk said Grok would serve as the higher-level “System 2” reasoning layer directing “Digital Optimus,” a faster “System 1” layer that processes the last five seconds of screen video and keyboard/mouse inputs to take action. He said the system would run inexpensively on Tesla’s low-cost AI4 chip alongside more expensive Nvidia chips at xAI, and suggested it could, “in principle,” emulate the function of entire companies. “No other company can yet do this,” he said.

Business Insider reported earlier Wednesday that Tesla was taking up the AI agent mantle as xAI’s similar project stalled, but Musk’s post suggests the initiatives are more intertwined than previously understood.

The collaboration marks the latest example of Musk’s companies working closely together, further blurring the lines between Tesla and the recently merged SpaceX-xAI entity.