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$4
Hyunsoo Rim

US average gas prices 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.

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Luke Kawa
30m
Virgin Galactic soars after boosting space tourism ticket prices to $750,000

Virgin had paused its space tourism program after a June 2024 flight in order to focus on building a better spacecraft.

US-SPACE-TOURISM-BEZOS-BRANSON
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Claire Yubin Oh

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.

Tasha Matsumoto
16h
Stocks continue slide as US oil settles above $100

Stocks fell, weighed down by tech, as the US-Iran war entered its fifth week.

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markets
Matt Phillips & Luke Kawa

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.

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Luke Kawa

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.)

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