Good Afternoon. Q2 is off to a better start than Q1 ended. Stocks extended yesterday's monster rally as Trump signaled a two-to-three-week exit from Iran, pulling oil below $100 briefly and sending Asia on its biggest tear in a year.

—Rosie, Wyatt, Evan & Conor

🔥 What’s Hot: 🔥

🥶 What’s Not: 🥶

1. Trump Will Address the Nation Tonight and Polymarket Says There's a 74% Chance He Announces a Ceasefire

The News: President Trump is scheduled to deliver a national address at 9 p.m. ET tonight, described by the White House as "an important update on Iran." This comes after Trump told reporters last night that U.S. forces would leave Iran "in two or three weeks" and that a formal agreement isn't necessary for withdrawal. The address will be his first formal communication to the country since the conflict began on February 28.

Why It Matters: The market is already pricing this in. Tuesday's 2.9% S&P 500 surge and today's follow-through rally are a bet that the war's endgame is here. On Polymarket, 74% of bettors expect him to mention a ceasefire or peace deal, and 81% expect him to address Hormuz specifically. For investors, the question isn't whether the war ends -- it's whether ending the war actually fixes the damage. Oil is still above $100, gas just crossed $4, and Q1 was the worst quarter for stocks since 2022.

What to Watch: The specific language on Hormuz. If Trump announces a timeline for reopening the strait, oil could crater. If he punts on that question, the rally might stall.

Source: npr.org

2. Nike Beat Earnings Estimates Then Crashed 10% Anyway After Warning

The News: Nike reported Q3 FY2026 earnings of $0.35 per share on $11.28 billion in revenue, beating Wall Street's estimates of $0.29 EPS and $11.23 billion in sales. But it was the outlook that sent shares plunging 10% in after-hours trading. Management said revenue will decline 2% to 4% in the current quarter and remain down in the low single digits for the rest of the year. Greater China sales are expected to drop nearly 20% next quarter.

Why It Matters: CEO Elliott Hill has been on the job 18 months and conceded the turnaround is "taking longer than I'd like." Nike is losing ground in China to local competitors, its Converse brand is in freefall, and the Iran war is disrupting European supply chains and travel retail. For investors, the stock is now trading at nine-year lows -- levels last seen in October 2017. For consumers, the good news is that the discount era at Nike isn't ending anytime soon.

What to Watch: Nike's investor day this fall, where management plans to resume full-year guidance. Until then, the stock is flying blind -- and the market hates uncertainty.

Source: cnbc.com

3. ISM Manufacturing Shows Expansion Held Steady

The News: The ISM Manufacturing Index edged up to 52.7 in March from 52.4, marking the third consecutive month of expansion and the strongest run since mid-2022. Production strengthened to 55.1 and 13 of 18 manufacturing sectors reported growth. But the prices-paid index surged to 78.3 -- its highest reading since June 2022 and a level that has historically coincided with peak inflation cycles. Supplier deliveries also climbed to 58.9, signaling growing bottlenecks.

Why It Matters: The headline number is fine. The inflation number is not. A prices-paid reading of 78.3 means factories are paying drastically more for raw materials, and those costs always get passed downstream to consumers. For the Fed, this complicates the rate-cut narrative at exactly the wrong time. For investors, the combination of decent activity plus surging input costs is a margin squeeze in slow motion -- especially for manufacturers who can't pass through increases fast enough.

What to Watch: Whether the war's price shock starts showing up in next week's CPI print. If input prices keep running at these levels, the "transitory" argument gets a lot harder to make.

Source: economics.td.com

4. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Threatens to Strike 18 American Companies

The News: Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps issued a threat to 18 major U.S. corporations, including Apple, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Tesla, Intel, IBM, Boeing, Oracle, Palantir, and JPMorgan Chase. The IRGC accused them of aiding "U.S.-Israeli terror operations" and declared them "legitimate targets." The threat specified that strikes against company facilities in the Middle East would begin at 8 p.m. Tehran time on Wednesday (12:30 p.m. ET today).

Why It Matters: This is a new dimension of the conflict. Targeting corporate infrastructure -- not just military or energy assets -- raises the stakes for every multinational with operations in the Gulf. For investors, the practical risk to Big Tech is limited (most don't have major facilities in Iran's strike range), but the reputational and supply chain implications are real. For companies like Boeing and JPMorgan that have significant Middle East operations, this is a direct threat.

What to Watch: Whether any actual strikes materialize. If Iran follows through, expect insurance premiums for Gulf-based corporate operations to spike and multinationals to accelerate contingency planning.

Source: gizmodo.com

5. Anthropic Accidentally Leaks Claude Code's Entire Source Code and the Internet Has Already Forked It 82,000 Times

The News: Anthropic inadvertently published the full source code of its flagship coding assistant, Claude Code, via a misconfigured 60MB source-map file in an npm package update on Monday. Security researcher Chaofan Shou discovered the leak, which exposed the complete TypeScript codebase including CLI implementation, agent architecture, unreleased features, and internal tooling. Anthropic confirmed it was "a release packaging issue caused by human error" and said no customer data was exposed. The leaked code has already been forked over 82,000 times on GitHub.

Why It Matters: This is deeply ironic for a company that has built its brand on safety and responsible AI development. While no model weights or user data were compromised, the leak gives competitors and researchers a detailed look at Claude Code's architecture and unreleased feature roadmap. For investors, Anthropic was last valued at $61 billion -- and this kind of error raises questions about operational maturity. For developers, the silver lining: the code revealed a sophisticated "Buddy/companion" system scheduled for rollout this week.

What to Watch: Whether the leak accelerates competitors' development timelines, and how Anthropic handles the PR fallout. Some in the AI community are already speculating this was a deliberate "controlled preview" -- but Anthropic insists it was a genuine mistake.

Source: thehackernews.com

1. Asian Markets Post Their Biggest Rally in a Year

The News: Asian stocks surged on Wednesday, tracking Wall Street's massive Tuesday rally. South Korea's Kospi opened up 267 points (5.3%), Japan's Nikkei 225 gained 1.7%, and the MSCI Asia Pacific Index posted its largest single-day advance since April 2025, jumping 5.1%. Taiwan Semiconductor, Samsung, and SK Hynix led the charge. European stocks followed suit, gaining 2.6%.

Why It Matters: Asia bore the brunt of the Iran war's oil shock -- the region is the world's largest oil importer and depends heavily on Middle East supply. For investors, the scale of this rally reflects how much pain had been priced in. South Korea's market had been particularly hammered, so the 5.3% bounce is partly relief and partly short covering. For the global economy, if the war truly ends, Asia's recovery could be the fastest because the energy price drag gets lifted first.

What to Watch: Whether the Bank of Japan follows through on rate hike signals. The latest Tankan survey beat expectations across the board, and falling oil prices remove one of the biggest obstacles to tightening.

Source: bloomberg.com

2. China and Pakistan Propose a Five-Point Peace Plan for Iran

The News: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar unveiled a joint five-point peace initiative in Beijing on Tuesday. The plan calls for an immediate ceasefire, the start of peace talks, cessation of attacks on critical infrastructure (energy, desalination, nuclear facilities), restoration of safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, and a comprehensive peace framework based on international law. When asked about the plan, Trump told reporters that "negotiations with Iran are going well" but didn't endorse or criticize it specifically.

Why It Matters: This is the most concrete third-party peace proposal since the war began, and the fact that China is involved gives it weight. Beijing has leverage with Tehran that Washington doesn't, and Pakistan has been the only country hosting direct diplomatic channels. For investors, the existence of a credible off-ramp is what's fueling the two-day rally. For the geopolitical landscape, China positioning itself as peacemaker is a strategic win regardless of whether the plan succeeds.

What to Watch: Iran's official response. Tehran has rejected every U.S.-initiated proposal so far, but a China-brokered deal could be politically easier for Iran to accept without losing face.

Source: axios.com

3. Oil Dips Below $100 for the First Time in Two Weeks

The News: Brent crude briefly fell below $100 a barrel overnight for the first time since mid-March, driven by Trump's withdrawal comments and the China-Pakistan peace proposal. The global benchmark touched a low of around $99 before recovering to approximately $104 by midday as Iran's Foreign Ministry denied Trump's ceasefire claims and the IRGC issued its corporate threat. WTI fell about 1% to around $100 per barrel. U.S. gasoline prices, which hit $4.018 per gallon yesterday, remained elevated.

Why It Matters: The brief dip below $100 is a signal of what's possible if peace actually materializes. Brent gained nearly 50% in March alone -- the biggest monthly surge since the Gulf War -- so even a partial unwind would be enormous. For consumers, oil at $100 versus $113 is the difference between $4 gas and $4.50 gas. For investors, the oil market is now a pure geopolitics play: every Trump tweet and Iran denial moves crude $5 to $10 in minutes.

What to Watch: Tonight's address. If Trump announces a Hormuz reopening timeline, oil could test $90. If Iran escalates in response, $115 is back on the table.

Source: fortune.com

Q: Why did the scarecrow win an award?

A: Because he was outstanding in his field.

A strategy where a hostile investor buys a large enough stake in a company to threaten a takeover, then sells the shares back to the company at a premium in exchange for agreeing to walk away.

"The activist fund accumulated 9% of the float, but management suspected greenmail and adopted a poison pill rather than negotiate a buyback at inflated prices."

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