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J. Edward Moreno2h

Fundrise’s venture fund falls amid concerns about valuation gap

Fundrise Innovation Fund, a publicly traded venture capital fund with stakes in private companies like Anthropic and SpaceX, is coming back down to earth after swelling to more than 25x the value of its assets early this week.

Shares of the fund, which went public on March 19 and uses the ticker VCX, closed at $262 on Thursday and had sunk to $189.26 shortly after market open on Friday. The stock closed at $533 on Wednesday.

The fund is still trading well above its net asset value (NAV), which was $18.26 per share as of March 2, 2026, according to its IPO documents. That means retail investors, desperate for exposure to high-flying private companies but left with no other ways in, are paying a hefty premium.

The gap between its NAV and the stock price led Citron Research to go short on the stock, the firm revealed Thursday.

Ben Miller, Fundrise cofounder and CEO, pushed back on the short report in an interview on CNBC Friday morning, saying his firm can’t control the stock price and noting that pre-IPO investors were actually worried the fund would end up trading at a discount, not a premium.

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Matt Phillips23m

Trump’s Hormuz deadline delay fails to soothe markets amid signs of US and Iranian escalation

There’s little sign of relief in the markets from President Trump’s announcement yesterday of a 10-day delay of the deadline he imposed on Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Crude oil prices are climbing and stocks are once again slumping, with the S&P 500, Nasdaq Composite, and Russell 2000 small-cap index all in the red early Friday.

Consumer discretionary stocks sank. Cruise lines Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, and Carnival — which cut its profit outlook on climbing fuel costs as part of earnings Friday — are falling. Other bellwethers of discretionary consumer spending that are less oil-exposed, like Airbnb, DoorDash, and Starbucks, are sinking.

On the other hand, consumer staples stocks — which typically hold up better during tough economic times — rallied.

Soup giant Campbell’s, cigarette seller Altria, ketchup behemoth Kraft Heinz, and spice maker McCormick are climbing.

Energy shares bounced along with rising crude oil prices, with gas driller APA Corporation, oil field services company Halliburton, and integrated giant Exxon gaining.

The energy trade, of course, keyed off the climb in crude oil prices, with benchmark US West Texas Intermediate rising to roughly $98 a barrel, despite Trump’s assurances as part of his deadline delay on Thursday that talks to end the war “are going very well.”

Those comments were largely brushed aside by the markets, a starkly different reaction from the president’s previous delay of the same deadline on Monday. That announcement generated a massive relief rally in crude oil prices and stocks on the hopes that substantive negotiations would begin shortly, or already had.

But Iran’s rejection of an initial US peace plan on Thursday, along with reports that the administration is considering sending another 10,000 US troops to the region and that Chinese ships trying to transit the Hormuz choke point had turned back, seemed to undercut that message.

“Any further statements by Trump about a deal are white noise to the markets,” market analyst Jim Bianco wrote in a post on LinkedIn on Friday. “Only if the IRANIANS say the talks are going well will it impact markets.”

President Trump extends Strait of Hormuz opening deadline to April 6

Trump delays Strait of Hormuz deadline as Wall Street has biggest loss of war

Consumer discretionary stocks sank. Cruise lines Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, and Carnival — which cut its profit outlook on climbing fuel costs as part of earnings Friday — are falling. Other bellwethers of discretionary consumer spending that are less oil-exposed, like Airbnb, DoorDash, and Starbucks, are sinking.

On the other hand, consumer staples stocks — which typically hold up better during tough economic times — rallied.

Soup giant Campbell’s, cigarette seller Altria, ketchup behemoth Kraft Heinz, and spice maker McCormick are climbing.

Energy shares bounced along with rising crude oil prices, with gas driller APA Corporation, oil field services company Halliburton, and integrated giant Exxon gaining.

The energy trade, of course, keyed off the climb in crude oil prices, with benchmark US West Texas Intermediate rising to roughly $98 a barrel, despite Trump’s assurances as part of his deadline delay on Thursday that talks to end the war “are going very well.”

Those comments were largely brushed aside by the markets, a starkly different reaction from the president’s previous delay of the same deadline on Monday. That announcement generated a massive relief rally in crude oil prices and stocks on the hopes that substantive negotiations would begin shortly, or already had.

But Iran’s rejection of an initial US peace plan on Thursday, along with reports that the administration is considering sending another 10,000 US troops to the region and that Chinese ships trying to transit the Hormuz choke point had turned back, seemed to undercut that message.

“Any further statements by Trump about a deal are white noise to the markets,” market analyst Jim Bianco wrote in a post on LinkedIn on Friday. “Only if the IRANIANS say the talks are going well will it impact markets.”

markets

Meta’s energy deal with Entergy boosts AI-linked utilities stocks

Shares of Entergy are soaring on Friday after Meta agreed to fund the creation of seven natural gas-fired power plants to secure energy for its mammoth Hyperion data center project in Louisiana.

The news is also boosting other AI-linked utilities plays, with Constellation Energy, Vistra, and NRG also trading well to the upside on Friday.

In a press release, Entergy said the deal was “structured to ensure Meta pays its full cost of service.” Electricity prices have become a hot-button political issue, with President Trump pushing tech giants to “pay their own way” on the costs associated with fueling data centers in a bid to avoid having households shoulder any of this burden.

markets

Cyber stocks plunge after reportedly leaked document shows Anthropic is worried its new model will enable indefensible online attacks

Cybersecurity stocks are suffering from another case of Claude-struption:

Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike, Cloudflare, Fortinet, Zscaler, and Okta are all slumping in premarket trading after Fortune reported that a data leak from Anthropic revealed an updated AI model the company fears is so powerful that malicious actors could launch cyberattacks that these companies wouldn’t be able to defend against.

Per the leaked document reviewed by Fortune, the new model “presages an upcoming wave of models that can exploit vulnerabilities in ways that far outpace the efforts of defenders,” and Anthropic plans to release it early to cybersecurity companies in order to help improve their ability to withstand attacks.

According to experts cited by Fortune, this leak was able to be discovered because digital assets created in Anthropic’s content management system “are set to public by default” unless a user shifts them to be kept private. Anthropic refers to this as “human error.”

But given how Claude Cowork was created by Claude Code, one presumes that Anthropic makes extensive use of its AI tools for code and products deployed both internally and externally.

This leaves us with a bit of a conundrum. Anthropic is simultaneously able to:

Develop an AI model so powerful that traditional cyber defenders might be bringing a paper shield to a gun fight; and
Not utilize anything resembling appropriate safeguards for protecting its own information and products using those same powerful AI tools it has developed.

When “hey, maybe make sure we don’t default to publishing information publicly!” can be considered an improvement on one’s own cybersecurity standards, it’s a little difficult to trust one’s assessment of future threats.

These cyber stocks had previously slumped in late February after Anthropic launched a new security feature for its AI model.

markets

Argan spikes on massive Q4 sales beat as power plant supplying PJM region completed ahead of schedule

The ability to add supply ahead of schedule to an energy-hungry AI boom drove a massive earnings beat for power plant builder Argan in Q4.

In the three months ended January, Argan’s adjusted earnings per share of $3.47 crushed the consensus estimate for $1.98, while revenues of $262 million modestly exceeded the consensus call for $255 million.

Following this release, JPMorgan analyst Michael Fairbanks hiked his price target to a Wall Street high of $550 (from $370) and upgraded the stock to “overweight” from “neutral.”

Goldman Sachs also hiked its price target to $518 from $399 in the wake of these results, maintaining a “buy” rating on the shares.

Management attributed the strong profitability to its project mix and execution, including reaching “substantial completion” on its Trumbull Energy Center project early. This natural gas plant supplies energy to the PJM region, the largest US grid operator, at a time when the nation’s spending on data centers has recently overtaken office expenditures.

“Our power grid is under increasing strain, rapid growth in AI and data centers, electrification of everything, the need to replace aging power facilities and years of underinvestment in power infrastructure are driving urgent demand for new reliable power generation capacity,” CEO David Watson said on the conference call.

markets

President Trump extends Strait of Hormuz opening deadline to April 6

President Trump said that he will give Iran another 10 days to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz, postponing the strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure that he had threatened last weekend. Markets have been broadly muted on the deadline delay, however, with oil up moderately and stocks slightly in the red in early trading Friday.

Not long after markets closed Thursday, the president posted on Truth Social that he will pause “Energy Plant destruction” for 10 days until Monday, April 6, 2026, at 8 p.m. ET, at the request of the Iranian government, adding that talks are “going very well.” Iranian mediators told The Wall Street Journal that they hadn’t requested the delay. Oil prices fell briefly on the news but snapped back within minutes, with Brent crude futures now up 2% to $110 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate crude also up 2% to around $96 a barrel.

Global stock markets are mixed with uncertainty around any actual ceasefire prospects: Japan’s Nikkei 225 and South Korea’s KOSPI both closed around 0.4% lower, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng edged up 0.4% on Friday. Meanwhile, Europe’s STOXX 600 is down 0.9% this morning, with other major indexes across the region also lower. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures are down 0.4% and 0.6%, respectively, at 7 a.m. ET.

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