Markets
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Hyunsoo Rim

Brent crude surges past $100 again and stocks tick lower after Trump orders Hormuz blockade

Oil prices topped $100 a barrel once again and stocks fell in early trading, after President Trump announced the US will blockade the Strait of Hormuz starting Monday.

After US-Iran peace talks in Pakistan failed to reach a deal over the weekend, Trump said Sunday morning in a Truth Social post that the Navy would block "any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz.” US Central Command later confirmed the blockade would begin at 10:00 a.m. ET Monday, adding that vessels transiting the strait to and from non-Iranian ports would not be impeded.

Futures on international benchmark Brent crude rose nearly 8% to $103 per barrel, while US WTI crude also gained ~8% to $104 per barrel as of 5:30 a.m. ET. Asia markets traded lower, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 and South Korea’s Kospi falling 0.7% and 0.9%, respectively. Europe’s Stoxx 600 was also modestly in the red, while S&P 500 futures were off 0.5%.

The early morning action is reminiscent of the early days of the war, with energy stocks catching a bid as oil prices jumped. Oil and gas producers including Occidental Petroleum, Devon Energy, Diamondback Energy, ConocoPhillips, APA Corporation, Coterra Energy, and EOG Resources all rose in premarket trading, alongside oil majors Exxon and Chevron, as well as refiners Marathon Petroleum, Valero, and Phillips 66.

Oil filed services  Halliburton and natural gas producer EQT Corp also gained, along with chemical makers Dow, Inc. and LyondellBasell, fertilizer company CF Industries and Natural gas exporter Cheniere Energy.

Airline and cruise stocks moved in the opposite direction, giving back last week’s ceasefire-driven gains as the anticipation of higher fuel costs once again weighed on both sectors. Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, and American Airlines were all down 2-3% in premarket trading, along withRoyal Caribbean, Carnival, and Norwegian.

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J. Edward Moreno

Sandisk to join the Nasdaq 100 Index

Sandisk is up marginally in premarket trading on Monday after Nasdaq announced that it would add the chipmaker to its benchmark, tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index.

Come April 20, Sandisk will replace Atlassian in the index, which underpins millions of portfolios, the exchange announced Monday morning.

Sandisk is up 1.6% in premarket trading after the announcement, bucking a slightly risk-off mood in equities this morning following the latest developments in the US-Iran war.

The company is up more than 1,800% since August as soaring chip prices turned the long-forgotten company into one of the hottest AI trades.

Sandisk Corporation to Join the Nasdaq-100 Index® Beginning April 20, 2026 | Nasdaq, Inc.

Come April 20, Sandisk will replace Atlassian in the index, which underpins millions of portfolios, the exchange announced Monday morning.

Sandisk is up 1.6% in premarket trading after the announcement, bucking a slightly risk-off mood in equities this morning following the latest developments in the US-Iran war.

The company is up more than 1,800% since August as soaring chip prices turned the long-forgotten company into one of the hottest AI trades.

Tasha Matsumoto
4/10/26
Stocks dip ahead of tomorrow’s scheduled talks between the US and Iran

While the S&P 500 fell on the day, the benchmark index posted a winning week amid ceasefire optimism.

Brown bear on a rock
markets
Matt Phillips

Intel shares are officially a thing

April most definitely has not been the cruelest month for US chip giant Intel or its shareholders.

The stock is on a remarkable run that’s made it the best performer in the S&P 500 for the month, posting a gain of nearly 43% shortly after 11 a.m. ET Friday. That’s outdone AI darlings like Sandisk, Lumentum, Ciena Corp., Coherent, and Seagate Technology Holdings.

In fact, the monthly view actually underplays the extent of the stock’s performance. Over the eight sessions that ended yesterday — which includes March 31 — the stock was up just shy of 50%. That’s by far its best eight-day streak over the last 30 years.

Investors have eaten up Intel’s announcements this week of partnerships, first with Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Terafab project, and separately, with Alphabet on developing custom chips for Google Cloud’s AI infrastructure needs.

More broadly, the seemingly relentless demand for computing capacity and chips related to AI seems to present, at least, the prospect of Intel actually solving the long-standing problems at its contract chipmaking business — known as a foundry — that have weighed on the business for years.

Oh, being partially nationalized by the US government amid an increasing global focus on ensuring secure supply chains for crucial technologies like semiconductors probably doesn’t hurt either.

(In case you're keeping track, the US bought a nearly 10% stake in Intel for about $8.9 billion in late August of last year. Today, that stake is worth about $27 billion.)

Luke Kawa
4/10/26
Anthropic’s making AI boom again — and picking the winners

More compute = more revenues, and going custom has its own particular consequences for different AI stocks.

4th of July Fireworks in Long Beach
markets
Matt Phillips

Palantir’s slide continues, but President Trump tries to help

Investors were selling Palantir shares again on Friday, with the stock falling as much as 6% before stabilizing, thanks to an assist from the White House.

At its worst moments, the sell-off put the retail favorite on track for its worst weekly loss (more than 16%) since February 2021.

But Palantir has powerful friends: President Trump posted on Truth Social celebrating the company’s “great war fighting capabilities,” sending the stock higher, though it remained in the red.

Truth post on PLTR
(Truth Social)

The overall negative sentiment seems to stem from Anthropic’s powerful new AI models, at least judging from the latest epistle from Palantir bull Dan Ives at Wedbush Securities:

“Anthropic released a new product around multi-agent orchestration, which continues to add more headwinds to the software sector. While Anthropic is hitting a new scale with the company now at $30 billion [annual run rate], up from $9 billion at the start of the year, we believe this is not at the expense of PLTR’s business as the company continues to accelerate both its US commercial and government businesses.”

Of course, the specter of AI undermining of other software companies has been a well-established theme for months. And it’s clearly at play in the market on Friday, with Palo Alto Networks, ServiceNow, CrowdStrike, Zscaler, Figma, and Atlassian continuing to get clocked on negative AI implications.

But the recent inclusion of Palantir among the pack of potentially replaceable software providers is newer, with the view popularized by well-followed market commentator Michael Burry’s pronouncement — since deleted — that Anthropic is “eating Palantir’s lunch,” which seemed to contribute to the downdraft for Palantir today.

The stock dove through its 50-day moving average in recent days, underscoring the sputtering momentum for what has been one of the market’s biggest winners over the last couple years. Long-term holders are still up massively, with the stock up about 1,400% over the last three years.

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