The Strait of Hormuz (Fadel Senna/Getty Images)

Oil jumps, stock futures fall as tensions rise and US fires shots at Iranian ship in Strait of Hormuz

The state of the war in Iran is at its most tenuous point since the ceasefire began.

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If there’s one thing we know about the war in Iran, it’s that things can change quickly. This weekend was a perfect example.

As trading opened on Sunday evening, oil prices soared and stock futures dropped, with the situation in the Strait of Hormuz deteriorating. By 4:31 a.m. ET, Brent crude futures were up a little over 6%, leaving the international benchmark just shy of $96 a barrel, while S&P 500 futures were down 0.6%.

After a Friday where markets surged and oil prices dropped as both the US and Iran declared the strait open, American investors woke up to news on Saturday that Iran’s military said the strait had “returned to its previous state.” A UK maritime authority said it had gotten word of a tanker coming under Iranian fire near Oman. Ships were turning back.

Then on Sunday night, things got even more heated: President Trump and US Central Command said the US had opened fire on an Iranian ship that had, after hours of warnings, defied the US blockade of its ports. The US said Marines had seized the ship. The Associated Press, citing Iranian state-run media, said Iran vowed a swift response.

A US delegation led by Vice President JD Vance is reportedly still expected to resume peace talks with Iran this week in Pakistan, but today, the war appears to be at its most tenuous point since the ceasefire between the two countries was announced on April 7.

Any time this war heats up, it becomes a good time to be someone who sells oil and a bad time to be someone who buys it. This time is no different.

Oil and gas producers like Occidental Petroleum, Coterra Energy, APA Corporation, and ConocoPhillips rose in premarket trading along with oil giants Exxon and Chevron.

Meanwhile, airlines — like Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, and American Airlines — fell in premarket trading, as did cruise lines like Royal Caribbean, Carnival, and Norwegian.

J. Edward Moreno2h

Fermi plunges after CFO, CEO depart

Fermi is down more than 18% in premarket trading after it disclosed in regulatory filings that its now former CEO, Toby Neugebauer, and its CFO, Miles Everson, departed on Friday and Monday, respectively.

The company dubbed its executive shake-up as “Fermi 2.0.” In addition to ousting Neugebauer and Everson, Fermi added Marius Haas as chairman of its board and Jeffrey S. Stein as director of the board.

Fermi, which was cofounded by former Energy Secretary Rick Perry, plans to build nuclear energy infrastructure to power data centers. But the cost to build out its power site is mounting while it still doesn’t have any customers secured, according its annual report released on March 30.

In September, Fermi announced that it had entered into a nonbinding letter of intent with a tenant to lease a portion of its Project Matador power grid site in Amarillo, Texas. That contract was terminated in December.

The company, which went public in October, is down about 75% from its IPO through Friday’s close.

J. Edward Moreno4h

Marvell and Google reportedly in talks to develop new AI chips

Marvell Technology rose nearly 6% in premarket trading Monday after The Information reported over the weekend that the chip company is in talks with Google to develop two ‌new chips to run AI models.

Broadcom, which counts Google as its most important customer (having developed multiple generations of its TPUs), is down 1% as Marvell muscles in on its turf.

However, the custom chip giant still appears poised to benefit from Google’s chip deployment for years to come. Earlier this month, Broadcom disclosed in a regulatory filing that it had entered into a long-term agreement with Google to supply future generations of AI accelerator chips. That filing also revealed that Broadcom, Google, and Anthropic expanded a partnership that will see the Claude developer access 3.5 gigawatts of AI compute capacity beginning in 2027.

Marvell’s reported new business would also be the latest in a series of wins for custom chips in general. Nvidia, the most valuable chip designer and GPU specialist, is also lower in premarket trading.

Google, with help from its custom chip designers, has been increasingly positioning itself as a competitor to chip giants.

Marvell, meanwhile, appears to have gained pride of place as an Nvidia partner while gaining exposure to the custom chip business that’s impressed Wall Street (and downstream AI customers). On March 31, Nvidia announced that it would invest $2 billion in Marvell as part of a strategic partnership, and the stock has been on a tear since.

Google in Talks With Marvell to Build New AI Chips for Inference

Google, with help from its custom chip designers, has been increasingly positioning itself as a competitor to chip giants.

Claire Yubin Oh & Tom Jones4h

ASTS drops after BlueBird 7 launched into an incorrect orbit

AST SpaceMobile dropped 13% in premarket trading on Monday after the space internet company updated that its BlueBird 7 satellite, carried by Blue Origin’s New Glenn vehicle, was put into an incorrect position and will now be taken out of orbit.

“During the New Glenn 3 mission, BlueBird 7 was placed into a lower than planned orbit by the upper stage of the launch vehicle. While the satellite separated from the launch vehicle and powered on, the altitude is too low to sustain operations with its on-board thruster technology and will de-orbited. The cost of the satellite is expected to be recovered under the company’s insurance policy,” the company said in a press release.

Launched Sunday, April 19, BlueBird 7 would have been AST SpaceMobile’s eighth deployed satellite into low-Earth orbit as it races to catch up with SpaceX’s Starlink to put up the first satellite constellation capable of providing 5G connectivity anywhere in the world. The company continues to target approximately 45 satellites in orbit by the end of the year. (For context, SpaceX currently has more than 9,500 satellites deployed since 2019, though ASTS’s network plans to depend on less than 100 larger, more sophisticated satellites that individually gather signals more efficiently than Starlink’s mega constellation model.)

The incorrect positioning of the launch vehicle from Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket New Glenn has been blamed for the failure, though the cost of the satellite is expected to be recovered under AST SpaceMobile’s insurance policy.

For Blue Origin itself, the mission did have one major silver lining, as it successfully reused one of its New Glenn rockets for the first time ever, per TechCrunch. The New Glenn model was the result of a decade-long, multibillion-dollar development and was hampered by delays last year. However, as one of the largest reusable vehicles in the world alongside SpaceX’s Falcon 9, it’s also seen as a key way that Bezos’ company can challenge Elon Musk’s outer space supremacy.

SpaceX rocket launch chart — Sherwood News

Separately, Bezos’ main company and the source of the bulk of his wealth, Amazon, announced last week that it was acquiring Globalstar in a move to join the direct-to-device competition starting in 2028.

Tasha Matsumoto, Matt Phillips

4/17/26

The S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 close at record highs again as Strait of Hormuz is declared open

Stocks reached new record highs as risk-on sentiment flooded back into the markets, while oil tumbled.

Chicago Bulls players Dennis Rodman (L), Scottie Pippen (C) and Michael Jordan (R) hold three of the team's four recent Larry O'Brien trophies 18 June at a rally for the team in Grant Park in Chicago.

Matt Phillips4/17/26

With their recent surge, Intel shares just hit their highest level since the dot-com era

Intel’s surge of nearly 60% this month has the iconic American chipmaker’s stock price approaching levels last seen during the dot-com era. Bloomberg noted that shares just touched their highest intraday level since the turn of the century:

“The stock rose as much as 1.5% to $69.55, topping a peak it hit on Jan. 24, 2020. The shares are up 90% this year, after soaring 84% in 2025. Intel is now roughly 8% from its all-time closing high of $74.88, established on Aug. 31, 2000.”

That’s just the most recent late-’90s-era throwback we’ve been seeing in tech shares lately. Oracle is currently pacing for its best week since late 1999.

What’s even more remarkable, however, is that Intel’s forward price-to-earnings ratio today dwarfs the premiums the market was putting on the stock during the nuttiness of the dot-com mania.

That reflects the fact that the recent run-up in Intel shares is, essentially, giving the chip giant credit for a massive turnaround that hasn’t actually happened yet.

One also might wonder if the fact that Intel is partially owned by the US government means it’s more attractive — and therefore worth a higher premium — than other chipmakers without the state imprimatur.

Still, kind of startling.