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JetBlue is raising its bag fees as fuel costs squeeze airlines
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Virgin Galactic soars after boosting space tourism ticket prices to $750,000
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Allbirds, the once buzzy multi-billion-dollar sneaker startup, is selling up for $39 million
The FDA is expected to lift restrictions on certain peptides, the NYT reports
Memory stocks bounce as Bernstein analyst calls TurboQuant fears “overdone”
Constellation tumbles after posting underwhelming guidance, failing to announce new data center deals
CoreWeave jumps after closing unique financing deal to borrow $8.5 billion backed by its chips and Meta’s AI compute purchases
Traders pay a premium for defense ETF that US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s broker reportedly attempted to buy before the war
Trump reportedly willing to end Iran war without reopening the Strait of Hormuz
Latest News
- Oil-sensitive travel stocks pop following Iran state media reporting on potential war resolution
- Bitcoin treasury firm Nakamoto bought high and sold much, much lower as bitcoin suffers another bad quarter
- Vertiv falls after Jefferies downgrade, company announces $50 million to expand Ohio manufacturing capacity
- US gas prices top $4 a gallon for the first time since 2022
Deep Dives
- The power play behind Hyperion, Mark Zuckerberg’s colossal data center being built in rural Louisiana
- Clean energy investment hit a new record last quarter, mostly driven by EVs
- The cruise industry is booming thanks to younger consumers looking to “seacation”
- Reading an article online? It’s now a coin flip whether it was authored by a human or AI
Latest Stories
Oil-sensitive travel stocks pop following Iran state media reporting on potential war resolution
Travel stocks are surging on Tuesday as oil prices fall following reports from Iranian state media that Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian said the country has "the necessary will to end this war," but would only do so with guarantees that "prevent the recurrence of aggression."
The war has sent oil prices and refining margins surging this month, causing airlines and cruise lines to cut profit forecasts despite reported high demand.
Following Tuesday’s update, shares of the big four US airlines (Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, American Airlines, and Southwest Airlines) all climbed, along with smaller rivals including JetBlue. US airlines have stopped fuel hedging in recent years, increasing their exposure to upward swings in oil prices.
Cruise stocks also rallied, with Carnival and Norwegian up more than 6% and Royal Caribbean up about 5%.
The FDA is expected to lift restrictions on certain peptides, the NYT reports
The Food and Drug Administration is expected to lift restrictions on certain peptides, allowing the experimental, often injectable substances to be sold by compounding pharmacies, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
The potential move was previously reported by The Wall Street Journal, and teased by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast in late February.
Peptides have boomed in popularity recently, with search interest for “peptides” surpassing “ozempic” this month. Many of them are currently understudied and not approved for human use, a rule consumers are able to bypass by purchasing them from suppliers that sell them for, ostensibly, research purposes only.
As reports of the FDA changing its stance of peptides mount, consumer health companies like Hims & Hers and Superpower have been getting ready to roll out their peptide offerings as soon as they get the FDA's blessing.
Peptides have boomed in popularity recently, with search interest for “peptides” surpassing “ozempic” this month. Many of them are currently understudied and not approved for human use, a rule consumers are able to bypass by purchasing them from suppliers that sell them for, ostensibly, research purposes only.
As reports of the FDA changing its stance of peptides mount, consumer health companies like Hims & Hers and Superpower have been getting ready to roll out their peptide offerings as soon as they get the FDA's blessing.
As volatility becomes more event-driven and market leadership more concentrated, traders are increasingly turning to index options as tools for managing exposure and expressing short-term market views.
Allbirds, the once buzzy multibillion-dollar sneaker startup, is selling up for $39 million
That’s less than 1% of its peak market cap about four years ago.
Memory stocks bounce as Bernstein analyst calls TurboQuant fears “overdone”
Memory stocks rose Tuesday, after Bernstein analysts called the recent panic over Google’s TurboQuant AI algorithm “overdone.”
Bernstein analyst Mark Newman wrote:
“[Hard disk drive] and Memory stocks have sold off significantly due in part to fears from Google’s TurboQuant report. This however, should have zero impact on HDD demand and negligible impact on NAND demand. Given the stock sell-off we see this as an attractive entry point for Seagate Technology Holdings, Western Digital and Sandisk’s and upgrade WDC to Outperform.”
All three stocks were up early Tuesday, as was memory chip maker Micron.
Today’s rally stands in stark contrast to the pummeling these shares have endured over the last week, after Google Research published a technical paper on March 24 detailing its TurboQuant AI algorithm, which compresses the amount of data associated with AI operations without affecting the accuracy of AI models.
That was seen as a threat to surging AI demand for memory storage, which has supercharged prices for memory chips and memory-related stocks over the last year.
Constellation tumbles after posting underwhelming guidance, failing to announce new data center deals
AI power trade Constellation Energy tumbled early Tuesday after issuing an investor day update the market seemed to find unsatisfactory.
The company introduced full-year 2026 operating earnings guidance of between $11 and $12 a share, the midpoint of which is shy of consensus expectations for $11.73, according to FactSet.
Over at Barron’s, Avi Salzman suggested that the company’s failure to unveil any new data center deals as part of the festivities is also adding the the sell-off. He wrote:
“Constellation CEO Joe Dominguez said at the event that he anticipates signing major new deals to provide power to tech companies, but doesn’t want to announce anything too early given the increasing spotlight on data centers today and some changing regulations.
‘I recognize that the last time we spoke, I indicated that we expected to be done with an important transaction by this call, but we’re not ready to announce anything today,’ Dominguez said.
‘There is clearly more scrutiny on data center development,’ he added.”
It’s clear that growing public pushback on data centers is becoming a limiting factor in the AI investment binge.
Over at Barron’s, Avi Salzman suggested that the company’s failure to unveil any new data center deals as part of the festivities is also adding the the sell-off. He wrote:
“Constellation CEO Joe Dominguez said at the event that he anticipates signing major new deals to provide power to tech companies, but doesn’t want to announce anything too early given the increasing spotlight on data centers today and some changing regulations.
‘I recognize that the last time we spoke, I indicated that we expected to be done with an important transaction by this call, but we’re not ready to announce anything today,’ Dominguez said.
‘There is clearly more scrutiny on data center development,’ he added.”
It’s clear that growing public pushback on data centers is becoming a limiting factor in the AI investment binge.
CoreWeave jumps after closing unique financing deal to borrow $8.5 billion backed by its chips and Meta’s AI compute purchases
Shares of CoreWeave are spiking on Tuesday after the company announced that it closed an $8.5 billion loan backed by its chips and what Meta is willing to pay to use them.
Last September, the neocloud reached an agreement to provide $14.2 billion worth of AI compute to the social media giant.
CoreWeave said the loan agreement is “the first investment-grade rated financing secured by HPC infrastructure and an associated customer contract.”
These terms helped to reduce CoreWeave’s cost of borrowing: this facility includes a floating rate (SOFR plus 2.25%, or about 5.9%) as well as a fixed rate tranche (at 5.9%). Last July, CoreWeave raised fixed-rate debt with a coupon of 9%.
In a world where Oracle’s five-year credit default swap spreads recently exceeded their 2008 peak, it’s nice to get some positive debt-related news in the AI realm.
Traders pay a premium for defense ETF that US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s broker reportedly attempted to buy before the war
The iShares Defense Industrials Active ETF is spiking this morning after the Financial Times reported that US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s broker attempted to make a multimillion-dollar purchase of the ETF ahead of US-Israeli attacks on Iran.
Per the FT, this purchase attempt did not go through after being flagged internally by BlackRock. (The chief Pentagon spokesperson has called this report false and fabricated.)
The actively managed ETF has actually performed poorly since the start of the war, down more than 12% since the end of February versus a less than 8% decline for the SPDR S&P 500 ETF.
But as of about 8:30 a.m. ET, it was up almost 4% in premarket trading. Even more curiously, as of 8:39 a.m. ET, only one of this actively managed ETF’s constituents (Rocket Lab) was up more than the ETF itself.
In other words, in what appears to be an amazing twist, traders are now seemingly willing to pay a premium for IDEF because it got a pseudo seal of approval from Pete Hegseth...
...except it didn’t, because the FT reports that the broker’s purchase order never went through after being flagged internally by BlackRock.
Trump reportedly willing to end Iran war without reopening the Strait of Hormuz
President Trump told aides he’s willing to pull out of the war in Iran even if the Strait of Hormuz — through which roughly a fifth of global oil supply previously flowed — remains closed, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday morning.
Futures for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 rose after the report. Over the past month, the closure of the strait to all but a minuscule amount of tanker traffic has sent oil prices skyrocketing and pushed major indexes down.
Trump told the New York Post on Tuesday that the war in Iran wouldn’t last “much longer” because Iran has been weakened so much already. He also said that the Strait of Hormuz would open “automatically” once the war ends, but put the onus on other countries to open the strait.
“[Iran has] no strength left, and let the countries that are using the strait, let them go and open it… because I would imagine whoever’s controlling the oil will be very happy to open the strait,” Trump told the Post.
By 11:40 a.m. ET Tuesday, the S&P 500 had risen about 1.4% and the Nasdaq Composite had risen nearly 2%.
Analysts at Signum Global, an advisory firm, told clients in a note immediately following the news that they find it “extremely unlikely” that Trump would in fact end the war without at least trying to reopen the strait. Failing to reopen the strait, Signum noted, would negatively affect the US, as well as America’s Gulf allies, and would effectively cede the strait to US rivals such as China.
Rising energy prices may soon become a domestic political and economic liability as well, with US gasoline climbing to an average of $4 per gallon for the first time since August 2022.
Trump told the New York Post on Tuesday that the war in Iran wouldn’t last “much longer” because Iran has been weakened so much already. He also said that the Strait of Hormuz would open “automatically” once the war ends, but put the onus on other countries to open the strait.
“[Iran has] no strength left, and let the countries that are using the strait, let them go and open it… because I would imagine whoever’s controlling the oil will be very happy to open the strait,” Trump told the Post.
By 11:40 a.m. ET Tuesday, the S&P 500 had risen about 1.4% and the Nasdaq Composite had risen nearly 2%.
Analysts at Signum Global, an advisory firm, told clients in a note immediately following the news that they find it “extremely unlikely” that Trump would in fact end the war without at least trying to reopen the strait. Failing to reopen the strait, Signum noted, would negatively affect the US, as well as America’s Gulf allies, and would effectively cede the strait to US rivals such as China.
Rising energy prices may soon become a domestic political and economic liability as well, with US gasoline climbing to an average of $4 per gallon for the first time since August 2022.
Vertiv falls after Jefferies downgrade, company announces $50 million to expand Ohio manufacturing capacity
Vertiv Holdings is sliding 2% in premarket trading on Tuesday after the data center digital infrastructure provider was downgraded to “hold” from “buy” by analysts at Jefferies.
Citing risks in slowing hyperscaler capex growth in 2027 and beyond, as well as the view that out-year margin expectations are elevated, Jefferies cut its price target for Vertiv to $260 from $280. Estimates from Jefferies analysts assume that the firm successfully expands its capacity to meet its “outsized” current order book.
Separately, the company announced an investment worth up to $50 million to expand its manufacturing facilities in Ironton, Ohio, and headquarters in Westerville, Ohio.
The Ironton expansion will “increase Vertiv liquid cooling and chilled water systems used in advanced thermal management applications,” often used in high-performance AI workloads, by ~45%, per the company’s press release, and is expected to be operational in the second quarter of 2027.
The company also recently announced its acquisition of heat-exchange technology provider ThermoKey, as Vertiv continues to focus on investing in advanced cooling solutions used in AI data centers.
The US national average gas price hit $4.018 a gallon on Tuesday, crossing the $4 threshold for the first time since August 2022, according to the American Automobile Association. That’s roughly a 35% jump, or $1.04 more per gallon, since the Iran war began in late February. Diesel has surged even more sharply, rising about 45% to $5.45, raising concerns about higher shipping, grocery, and consumer goods prices.
With the Strait of Hormuz — through which roughly a fifth of global oil supply previously flowed — effectively closed, crude prices are up more than 50% since the war began, feeding quickly into pump prices across the US.
Still, regional differences remain, with drivers in California now facing nearly $5.90 a gallon for regular gasoline, followed by Hawaii ($5.50) and Washington ($5.30), while those in Oklahoma, Iowa, and Kansas pay under $3.30 a gallon.
Prices could even approach $5 nationwide if the strait remains blocked, Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, told CNBC.
JetBlue is raising its bag fees as fuel costs squeeze airlines
JetBlue will reportedly hike its bag fees, as the cost of jet fuel continues to climb amid the war in Iran. It’s the latest example of carriers finding ways to push rising costs onto travelers.
Last week, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said that if fuel prices remain elevated, fares would need to rise another 20% for his airline to break even this year.
As CNBC reported, when one airline raises fees, others tend to follow.
Earlier this month, JetBlue hiked its first-quarter outlook for operating revenue per seat mile to between 5% and 7%, saying that strong Q1 demand helped “partially offset additional expenses realized from operational disruptions and rising fuel costs.” Now, the carrier appears to be making moves to further boost revenue to offset those costs.
Earlier on Monday, JetBlue rival Alaska Air lowered its Q1 profit forecast. The refining margins for the carrier’s cheapest fuel option — sourced from Singapore and representing about 20% of Alaska’s overall supply — have spiked 400% since February.
JetBlue did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
As CNBC reported, when one airline raises fees, others tend to follow.
Earlier this month, JetBlue hiked its first-quarter outlook for operating revenue per seat mile to between 5% and 7%, saying that strong Q1 demand helped “partially offset additional expenses realized from operational disruptions and rising fuel costs.” Now, the carrier appears to be making moves to further boost revenue to offset those costs.
Earlier on Monday, JetBlue rival Alaska Air lowered its Q1 profit forecast. The refining margins for the carrier’s cheapest fuel option — sourced from Singapore and representing about 20% of Alaska’s overall supply — have spiked 400% since February.
JetBlue did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Memory, optical, and AI-construction stocks dive as embattled SaaS stocks rebound
Memory stocks sank on Monday, continuing a sell-off that began last week with new details about a potentially more memory-efficient AI algorithm from Google Research.
Western Digital, Micron, Seagate Technology Holdings, and retail favorite Sandisk all tumbled.
Industry publication Wccftech flagged that some memory chip prices have seen a “significant drop” recently across multiple US retailers.
A new, upbeat initiation for Seagate by JPMorgan analysts — they rated it “overweight,” basically a buy, on “opportunity for significant upside” — couldn’t help Seagate shake off the slump in the broader data center trade.
Optical stocks — recent high-flyers — also got slammed, taking down Applied Optoelectronics, Corning, Lumentum, Coherent, and Ciena Corp. . The group may also under particular pressure in light of reports that Samsung is entering the silicon photonics market.
AI construction trades like Emcor, Vertiv Holdings, and Sterling Infrastructure also sank.
Meanwhile, traders seemed to be scurrying back to securely profitable software-as-a-service (SaaS) and cybersecurity stocks as a place to wait out the market mayhem.
ServiceNow, Zscaler, CrowdStrike, Salesforce, and Atlassian were all solidly in the green in midday training.
Ethereum looks likely to register first monthly green candle since August
Ethereum has increased nearly 4% in the last 24 hours, outpacing crypto majors in the period.
If the asset can hold the current level, trading around $2,065, ethereum will record its first monthly green candle since August, helping the token outperform the broader market slump during the Iran War.
Amid the news, BitMine Immersion Technologies, the largest ethereum treasury firm and largest staking entity, announced acquiring 71,179 tokens, or $146.3 million, in the past week.
“Crypto is demonstrating itself to be a good ‘war time’ store of value,” BitMine Chairman Tom Lee said in a press release.
“The inverse correlation of crypto (and equities) to oil has been increasing and is at the highest levels in the past year. This is logical. Until equity markets become comfortable with the future trajectory of oil prices, rising oil is a headwind for equities and crypto. And in a sense, the crypto winter likely ends when the upside risk to oil prices peaks,” Lee continued.
Meanwhile, ethereum ETFs suffered last week, with the investment vehicles registering $206.6 million in outflows, the third-most in the year, data from SoSoValue shows.
In other ethereum news:
The Ethereum Foundation staked around $46.2 million worth of ethereum on Monday, according to on-chain data. “This is more ETH than they have EVER staked before,” Arkham Intelligence said on social media.
Lido, the second-largest decentralized finance protocol and known for its liquid staking services, primarily for ethereum, is considering a $20 million buyback for its native token, LDO, which has plummeted nearly 96% since its all-time high of $7.30 set in 2021.
Meta rallies after being named a “top pick” by Morgan Stanley
Meta is off to a strong start to the week after being named a new “top pick” of Morgan Stanley’s internet analysts.
Their case: the social media giant is cheap and commands an ever-increasing amount of eyeballs, which it’ll leverage to make money from its massive AI capex through nascent opportunities like agentic shopping and assistants.
“META sentiment has troughed due to GenAI ROIC and long-term positioning fears, and more recently macro ad market and regulatory question marks,” wrote analyst Brian Nowak. “In all, META now trades at ~15X our ’27 $36 EPS, 1 standard deviation below the long-term average, which creates a strong buying opportunity, in our view.”
Reported job cuts would also be “a bullish development” that boosts earnings, he added.
Even so, Nowak trimmed his price target on the stock to $775 from $825, which still represents upside of about 50%.
The hyperscalers have come under persistent pressure as investors remain reticent to bet that this capex binge will have a happy ending. Per The New York Times, Meta recently delayed the launch of its new model because of performance issues.
(That being said, the company’s latest earnings report did show that its ability to use AI tools to grow its top line remains impressive, even if its models aren’t best in class.)
American aluminum stocks rip following strikes against Gulf’s giant smelters
Aluminum stocks soared Monday after Iran attacked major smelting operations in the Gulf region over the weekend.
Alcoa and Century Aluminum both surged Monday, after strikes Saturday hit aluminum plants in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. New York aluminum futures were up about 4% shortly after 11 a.m. ET.
Bloomberg reports that the Gulf is the source of roughly 9% of the world’s aluminum supply, which was already imperiled by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said the combined drone and missile attacks on the plants were justified by the aluminum producers’ links to the US military and aerospace industries in the region.
Producing aluminum is highly energy-intensive, and the Gulf has emerged as a center of the industry in recent years due to its energy assets. Emirates Global Aluminum, for example, is one of the world’s largest producers of the lightweight metal.
The attacks on the plants only add to the upward pressure on prices, as it can take months to restart closed smelters.
Bloomberg reports that the Gulf is the source of roughly 9% of the world’s aluminum supply, which was already imperiled by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said the combined drone and missile attacks on the plants were justified by the aluminum producers’ links to the US military and aerospace industries in the region.
Producing aluminum is highly energy-intensive, and the Gulf has emerged as a center of the industry in recent years due to its energy assets. Emirates Global Aluminum, for example, is one of the world’s largest producers of the lightweight metal.
The attacks on the plants only add to the upward pressure on prices, as it can take months to restart closed smelters.
British government weighs removing Palantir from NHS data systems
Officials in the British government are exploring ways to eject defense, intelligence, and AI software company Palantir Technologies from data systems used by the National Health Service, the government-funded health system.
The Financial Times reports:
“The US company was awarded a seven-year £330mn contract in 2023 to create a data platform that collates health waiting lists, patient information and other sensitive data.
Its role has become an increasing source of controversy, given its ties to the US defence sector and its co-founder and CEO Alex Karp’s vocal support for Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. MPs, NHS staff and medical trade unions have voiced concerns about Palantir’s suitability for managing data in national health systems.”
While Palantir’s AI software services business — aimed at corporate customers — is a fast-growing business line, the US government remains Palantir’s single largest source of revenue, accounting for $1.9 billion in sales in 2025. That’s almost as much as Palantir’s entire commercial division, which logged $2.1 billion in revenue in 2025.
But the company’s close ties to the US government — including providing services to US agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement amid the Trump administration’s mass deportation program, as well as US intelligence and military services — have created resistance to growth in some other areas.
For instance, Switzerland repeatedly rejected Palantir systems, according to recent reporting from Swiss magazine Republik, after officials there raised concerns about data sovereignty and risks data could be accessed by the US government and intelligence services.
“The US company was awarded a seven-year £330mn contract in 2023 to create a data platform that collates health waiting lists, patient information and other sensitive data.
Its role has become an increasing source of controversy, given its ties to the US defence sector and its co-founder and CEO Alex Karp’s vocal support for Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. MPs, NHS staff and medical trade unions have voiced concerns about Palantir’s suitability for managing data in national health systems.”
While Palantir’s AI software services business — aimed at corporate customers — is a fast-growing business line, the US government remains Palantir’s single largest source of revenue, accounting for $1.9 billion in sales in 2025. That’s almost as much as Palantir’s entire commercial division, which logged $2.1 billion in revenue in 2025.
But the company’s close ties to the US government — including providing services to US agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement amid the Trump administration’s mass deportation program, as well as US intelligence and military services — have created resistance to growth in some other areas.
For instance, Switzerland repeatedly rejected Palantir systems, according to recent reporting from Swiss magazine Republik, after officials there raised concerns about data sovereignty and risks data could be accessed by the US government and intelligence services.