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Stocks end worst quarter since 2022 with best day since May

Optimism that the end of the war may be near sent stocks surging.

The S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 surged and oil prices fell following reports from Iranian state media that 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.”

Despite a banner day, stocks had both a losing month and quarter, with the S&P 500 posting its largest quarterly loss since Q3 2022.

Every Magnificent 7 stock rose at least 2.9%, propelling the communications and information technology sectors to each gain over 4%, while energy and utilities were the only decliners.

Stocks that moved higher:

Marvell Technology surged after Nvidia announced it is investing $2 billion in the custom chip maker. The AI ecosystem as a whole bounced on the news, sending shares of Cipher Digital, IREN, Nebius, Applied Digital, and POET Technologies higher.
Oil-sensitive stocks like airlines Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, American Airlines, and Southwest Airlines and cruise stocks Carnival, Norwegian, and Royal Caribbean jumped on the news of the potential for a resolution to the war.
Memory stocks Seagate Technology Holdings, Micron, Western Digital, and Sandisk bounced after Bernstein analysts called the recent panic over Google’s TurboQuant AI algorithm “overdone.”
CoreWeave jumped after closing a unique financing deal to borrow $8.5 billion backed by its chips and Meta’s AI compute purchases.
Snap surged after Bloomberg reported that activist investor Irenic has taken a position in the social media company.
Virgin Galactic soared after reopening limited ticket sales for space tourists at $750,000 a pop. Space stocks AST SpaceMobile and Rocket Lab also rose on the news.
Centessa Pharmaceuticals skyrocketed on news that Eli Lilly is acquiring the company for up to $47 a share.
Netflix ticked higher as the streamer is reportedly looking to grow its NFL package to four games.
Hims & Hers soared on news that Novo Nordisk is launching a multi-month subscription program for its weight-loss drug Wegovy through its telehealth partners, as well as the possibility that the FDA may lift restrictions on certain peptides, allowing them to be sold by compounding pharmacies.
SoFi Technologies and Robinhood reversed yesterday’s losses after Elon Musk said that reports of SpaceX cutting the brokerages out of its IPO are false. (Robinhood Markets, Inc., is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company.)

Stocks that moved lower:

Constellation Energy tumbled after posting underwhelming guidance. The company’s failure to unveil any new data center deals likely added to the sell-off.

Max Knoblauch1h

Nike’s China business declines for seventh straight quarter

Sportswear kingpin Nike reported results for its third quarter, which ended in February, after the bell Tuesday. The stock fell about 3% in after-hours trading.

For fiscal Q3, Nike reported:

Earnings of $0.35 per share, comfortably above the Wall Street consensus of $0.29 per share compiled by FactSet.
$11.28 billion in total revenue, roughly in line with the $11.26 billion estimate.

Nike’s sales in China — where the company earns about 15% of its revenue — fell 7% to $1.62 billion. That’s its seventh straight quarter of sales declines in the market, though this quarter’s was less than feared. The company had issued weak guidance for this quarter considering continued softness in the region.

“This quarter we took meaningful actions to improve the health and quality of our business,” said Nike CEO Elliott Hill. “The pace of progress is different across the portfolio and the areas we prioritized first continue to drive momentum.”

Nike shares are trading near decade lows this month, as tariffs continue to weigh on profits and shipping costs rise amid the war with Iran. As of Tuesday’s close, the stock was down 17% year to date.

Max Knoblauch3h

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 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%.

J. Edward Moreno6h

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.

The peptide gold rush: How impending deregulation could supercharge a shadow industry

Matt Phillips7h

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.

Matt Phillips7h

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.

Constellation Stock Falls. Investors Didn’t Get What They Really Wanted.