>>> What to look at today - 24th of March 2026

A rally in equities eased, crude oil jumped and gold extended its slump as fragile optimism around a potential de-escalation in Middle East tensions gave way to renewed caution. Equity-index futures for the S&P 500 Index fell 0.5% and European shares were set to drop 0.8% at the open as sentiment weakened after the Wall Street Journal reported that US allies in the Persian Gulf are inching toward joining the fight against Iran. Adding to the downbeat tone, Iran’s deputy speaker ruled out talks with the US, echoing similar comments from other officials in the regime. As sentiment soured, Brent jumped 4% to about $104 a barrel. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index advanced 0.3% and yields on the two-year Treasury rose four basis points on expectations that higher oil prices may boost the chances of an interest-rate hike by the Federal Reserve. Gold slid 1.5%, set for its longest losing daily streak on record, and Asian stocks rose 1.6%. The shift marked a reversal from Monday’s relief rally, when Wall Street stocks surged and oil slumped after President Donald Trump signaled a delay in strikes on Iranian energy assets. The conflict showed few signs of easing and the Strait of Hormuz — crucial for the flow of oil from the Middle East — remained effectively shut with only a trickle of vessels making their way through. Tuesday’s moves suggest investors are dialing back optimism that followed Trump’s signal of a delay in strikes, which was seen as a potential step toward de-escalation in the Middle East. Renewed tensions risk keeping oil prices elevated, potentially stoking inflation and reinforcing expectations that policymakers may delay easing or even tighten policy further. Headlines about the Middle East continue to sway markets with traders staying focused on the Hormuz Strait. Since the conflict began, disruptions to traffic through the waterway have driven sharp price swings and heightened inflation risks, leaving progress in US-Iran talks pivotal to stabilizing energy markets and broader financial conditions.
Trump told reporters on Monday that he was holding off on striking Iranian energy infrastructure for five days, citing “major points of agreement” with the country. The abrupt shift caught traders off guard as there was little sign of diplomatic progress before the US president’s social media post. Tensions remained high in the Middle East. A gas pressure-regulation station and an associated administrative building were targeted in Iran’s central Isfahan province in recent US–Israeli attacks, the semi-official Fars news agency reported. Iran also launched a new wave of missiles at Israel. BofA’s Winnie Wu says investors are starting to price in prolonged inflationary pressure. The key to de-escalation is not rhetoric, but financial conditions, said Noureldeen AlHammoury, chief market strategist at Equiti Group in Dubai.  Markets remain on “hyper alert on the next development,” said Anna Wu, a cross asset strategist at Van Eck Associates Corp. in Sydney. US After Hours NTGR +14.5% sharply higher on favorable FCC announcement; CLB -6.1% under pressure after guidance cut; ABVX +2.1% higher on earnings.

Nikkei +0.79% Hang Seng +1.84% CSI +0.67% Shanghai +0.95% Shenzen +0.78%

Eur$ 1.1581 CNH 6.8957 CNY 6.8937 JPY 158.75 GBP 1.3393 CHF 0.7886 RUB 81.9392 TRY 44.3463 WTI$ 91.68 Gold 4,341 -1.91% BTC 70,370 -0.95% ETH 2,136 -1.31%

S&P -0.21% Nasdaq -0.21% EuroStoxx -0.07% FTSE -0.13% Dax -0.05% SMI -0.05%

Macro :
- Russia Looks to Restrict Foreign Oil-Service Firms: Izvestia
- Citadel Securities’ Rubner Sees Short Squeeze Fueling S&P Rally
- Global Air Quality Worsened in 2025 and Poses Threat to Growth
- EU, Vietnam to Invest Over €560M in Clean Energy, Transport
- EU February Car Registrations Rise 1.4% Y/y to 0.865m Units (BYD +162%, STLA +9%, RNO BMW MBG lower, VOW TSLA higher)

Keep an eye on :
- ABVX FP : Abivax Announces Full Year 2025 Financial Results and Provides Business Updates
- AGS BB : Ageas Holds 10% of Taiping Pension Co. After Capital Increase
- AKAST NO : Akastor’s HMH Holding Launches IPO to Raise Up to $231.4m
- AMZN US : Amazon Leo to Double Annual Launch Rate
- AMZN US : AWS eyeing 2-3 gigawatts India capacity on tax sops sweetener
- AMZN US : AWS Region in Bahrain ‘Disrupted’ After Drone Activity: Reuters
- ASML NA : SK Hynix to Buy EUV Scanner Worth 11.9t Won From ASML (6.9bil Euros - 21% of Annual Revenue)
- AAOI US : AOI Up on New ~$53m Order for 800G Data Center Transceivers
- BAMI IM : Credit Agricole Says It’s Not Seeking Control of Banco BPM
- BAYN GY : Activist Ubben’s Inclusive Capital Looks to Sell Stake in Bayer
- BO DC : B&O Prelim 3Q Revenue Misses Estimates
- BMW GY : BMW Recalls 179,527 Cars in China Over Fire Risk, Regulator Says
- BLX CN : Renewable Energy Firm Boralex Is Said To Explore Going Private
- BYD : 1211 HK : +2.64%
- CATL : 3750 HK : -3.78% - The Chinese Billionaire Who Says America’s EV Market Is Doomed Without Him - WSJ
- CON GY : Apollo, Bain Said Among Bidders for Continental Industrial Unit
- ACA IM : Credit Agricole Says It’s Not Seeking Control of Banco BPM
- DRW3 GY : Draegerwerk FY Ebit Beats Estimatesvlf
- EL US : Estée Lauder Falls on Report of Deal to Combine With Puig
- EQNR NO : Equinor Hunts for Shale Gas Expansion Targets in Marcellus Area
- EXA FP : Exail Technologies Holder Gorgé Offers 500,000 Shares
- EXO FP : Exor FY Net Assets Misses Estimates
- EXO FP : Agnellis’ Exor Plans to Deploy Over €3.5 Billion (March 23)
- EXO NA : Exor Sells Italian Media Group Gedi to Kyriakou Family’s Antenna
- EGLA IM : Eurogroup Laminations FY Revenue Misses Estimates
- FDR SM : Fluidra Extends 2027 Revolving Credit Facility Maturity to 2029
- GILD US : Gilead to Buy Ouro Medicines for as Much as $2.175 Billion
- GIMB BB : Gimv Secures €400 Million Revolving Credit Facility
- IDIA SW : Idorsia Proposes Three New Board Candidates for Election
- INH GY : Indus Holding Sees 2026 Revenue EU1.80B to EU1.95B, Est. EU1.82B
- IFCN SW : Inficon 2026 Sales Forecast Misses Estimates, Inficon Sees 2026 Operating Margin 17% to 19%, Est. 19.8%
- MSFT US : OpenAI calls out Microsoft reliance as risk in investor document ahead of expected IPO
- NTGR US : NTGR: Netgear higher after reports FCC bans foreign-made routers
- PHARM NO : Pharming Group Says Joenja Leniolisib Approved in Japan
- PUIG SM : Estée Lauder in Talks to Buy Spain’s Puig to Create Beauty Giant
- SAABB SS : Saab, Cohere Sign MoU on Advanced AI Collaboration
- SATL US :
- SBMO NA : SBM Offshore Gets FEED Contracts for Longtail Project in Guyana
- 9986 JP : SoftBank tests its own borrowing limits with $30bn bet on OpenAI, Masayoshi Son faces investor nerves with massive spending on AI investments - FT
- SIE GY : Siemens Says Industry’s Demands Keep It Safe From AI Disruption
- 000660 KS : SK Hynix Weighs US Float to Raise Up to $10 Billion, Daily Says
- TECN SW : Spectrum Entrepreneurial Ownership Takes 3.4% Stake in Tecan
- TIT IM : Telecom Italia Confirms Received Bid From Poste Italiane
- TTE FP : Total Released From $1 Billion US Offshore Wind Leases
- TRST LN : Trustpilot Holder Offers Up to ~21.59m Shares
- VLA FP : Pfizer’s Lyme Vaccine Misses Mark in Study, Complicating Quest for Approval, Drugmaker seeking regulatory review for first new shot to combat disease in decades - WSJ
- WT US : WisdomTree Is Said to Offer 4.5% Coupon on Convertible Bond

>>> Europe : Brokers Upgrades & Downgrades - 24th of March 2026

>>> Up
* BASF Raised to Buy at Deutsche Bank; PT 55 euros
* Bechtle Raised to Buy at Berenberg; PT 34 euros
* Brenntag Raised to Buy at Deutsche Bank; PT 57 euros
* Coloplast Raised to Buy at UBS; PT 530 kroner
* Ottobock SE Raised to Buy at UBS; PT 74 euros
* Salzgitter Raised to Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley
* Thyssenkrupp Raised to Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley
* Umicore Raised to Buy at Deutsche Bank; PT 17.20 euros
* Wacker Chemie Raised to Hold at Deutsche Bank; PT 68 euros

>>> Down
* Akzo Nobel Cut to Hold at Deutsche Bank; PT 55 euros
* Givaudan Cut to Hold at Deutsche Bank; PT 3,000 Swiss francs
* SAP Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan; PT 175 euros
* Teleperformance Cut to Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley

>>> Initiation
* Brinova Fastigheter Rated New Buy at SB1 Markets; PT 15 kronor
* Corem Property Rated New Neutral at SB1 Markets; PT 3.70 kronor
* Europris Reinstated Hold at Nordea
* Fastighets AB Trianon Rated New Neutral at SB1 Markets
* FastPartner Rated New Buy at SB1 Markets; PT 50 kronor
* Hongkong Land Reinstated Outperform at Macquarie; PT $11
* Intea Fastigheter Rated New Buy at SB1 Markets; PT 85 kronor
* Kid ASA Rated New Buy at Nordea; PT 146 kroner
* Klarabo Sverige Rated New Buy at SB1 Markets; PT 17 kronor
* Logistri Fastighets Rated New Buy at SB1 Markets; PT 18 kronor
* Mondi Reinstated Neutral at Goldman; PT 910 pence
* MTG Rated New Buy at SB1 Markets; PT 132 kronor
* Roche Rated New Buy at LBBW; PT 360 Swiss francs
* Sats Rated New Buy at Nordea; PT 49 kroner
* SCA Reinstated Neutral at Goldman; PT 120 kronor
* SIG Group Reinstated Buy at Goldman; PT 16 Swiss francs
* Sirius Real Estate Rated New Outperform at Oddo BHF
* Smurfit Westrock PLC Reinstated Buy at Goldman; PT $49
* Stora Enso Reinstated Sell at Goldman; PT 8 euros
* Studentbostader i Norden Rated New Neutral at SB1 Markets
* Sveafastigheter Rated New Neutral at SB1 Markets; PT 38 kronor
* UPM-Kymmene Reinstated Neutral at Goldman; PT 27 euros

>>> Call
* Bechtle Raised at Berenberg on Memory Chip Shortage Opportunity
* Pandora Estimates Boosted at Danske on Lower Silver Price
* Salzgitter, Thyssenkrupp Raised, MS Constructive on Carbon Steel
* Sirius Real Estate Outperform at Oddo on Defense-Linked Upside
* Teleperformance Cut at Morgan Stanley on Strategic Uncertainty

>>> Stoxx 600 Pre-Market Indications

  • Bechtle (BC8 TH) +3.3%
    • Bechtle Raised to Buy at Berenberg; PT 34 euros
  • Coloplast (CBHD TH) +2.7%
    • Coloplast Raised to Buy at UBS; PT 530 kroner
  • Prosus (1TY TH) +2.1%
  • Brenntag (BNR TH) +2%
    • Brenntag Raised to Buy at Deutsche Bank; PT 57 euros
  • BASF (BAS TH) +1.7%
    • BASF Raised to Buy at Deutsche Bank; PT 55 euros
  • Technip Energies (68F TH) +1.1%
    • Technip Energies convenes its 2026 Annual General Meeting
  • Rolls-Royce (RRU TH) +1.1%
  • Neste (NEF TH) +1%
  • Voestalpine (VAS TH) -1.4%
    • Salzgitter, Thyssenkrupp Raised, MS Constructive on Carbon Steel
  • AUTO1 (AG1 TH) -1.4%
  • BAE (BSP TH) -1.5%
  • HSBC (HBC1 TH) -1.5%
  • Bayer (BAYN TH) -1.7%
    • Activist Ubben’s Inclusive Capital Looks to Sell Stake in Bayer
  • Stora Enso (ENUR TH) -1.8%
    • Stora Enso Initiated with Sell by Goldman Sachs
  • Exor (EYX TH) -1.9%
  • SAP (SAP TH) -2.3%
    • SAP Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan; PT 175 euros
  • Orkla (OKL TH) -2.7%
    • Orkla Resumed with Buy by Danske Bank
  • Inwit (WI8 TH) -3.2%

>>> TradeGate Pre-Market Indications

DAX:
  • Brenntag (BNR TH) +2.5%
    • Brenntag Raised to Buy at Deutsche Bank; PT 57 euros
  • BASF (BAS TH) +2%
    • BASF Raised to Buy at Deutsche Bank; PT 55 euros
  • Bayer (BAYN TH) -1.3%
    • Activist Ubben’s Inclusive Capital Looks to Sell Stake in Bayer
  • SAP (SAP TH) -2.1%
    • SAP Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan; PT 175 euros
MDAX:
  • Bechtle (BC8 TH) +4%
    • Bechtle Raised to Buy at Berenberg; PT 34 euros
  • Aroundtown (AT1 TH) +1.7%
  • Thyssenkrupp (TKA TH) +1.2%
  • Delivery Hero (DHER TH) +1.2%
  • Salzgitter (SZG TH) +1.1%
    • Salzgitter Raised to Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley
  • AUTO1 (AG1 TH) -1%
  • Lufthansa (LHA TH) -1.1%
SDAX:
  • Ottobock SE & Co KGaA (OBCK TH) +4.3%
    • Ottobock SE Raised to Buy at UBS; PT 74 euros
  • Hamborner REIT (HABA TH) +2.1%
  • Eckert & Ziegler (EUZ TH) +1.4%
  • Patrizia (PAT TH) +1%
  • Heidelberger Druck (HDD TH) -1%
  • Evotec (EVT TH) -1.2%
  • PVA TePla (TPE TH) -2.1%
    • Morgan Stanley & Co. Raised PVA TePla Voting Rights to 5.80%

WSJ : The Chinese Billionaire Who Says America’s EV Market Is Doomed Without Him

The Chinese Billionaire Who Says America’s EV Market Is Doomed Without Him
Robin Zeng of CATL can’t build a factory in America, but Ford and GM rely on its technology

  • U.S. automakers, including Ford and General Motors, are increasingly using China’s CATL battery technology despite U.S. government curbs.
  • CATL, the world’s largest EV battery maker, posted over $10 billion in profit last year, driven by its cheaper iron-based batteries.
  • CATL Chief Executive Robin Zeng believes the U.S. EV market will boom and require CATL, despite current U.S. land restrictions.

NINGDE, China—Inside a headquarters shaped like a giant battery cell, the billionaire who runs the world’s largest battery company is confident the Americans will eventually come calling.

Washington has spent the past few years ghosting Robin Zeng, China’s fourth-richest man. To the U.S. government, Chinese battery maker CATL is a geopolitical threat to be warded off with tariffs and national-security curbs.

Yet CATL has grown to become the world’s largest electric-vehicle battery manufacturer thanks to its technology and low costs. It posted record profit of more than $10 billion last year, and an estimated one in three EVs sold around the world carries its batteries.

That is even without the U.S. market, where electric adoption lags behind that in China and Europe and where CATL’s presence is limited. Zeng sees that as temporary. The EV market in the U.S. will remain small “for several years. But after that, it’ll have to be booming, because it is the trend. It is the future,” said Zeng, who turned 58 on Friday, in an interview. And building that future without CATL, he said, “is difficult and the cost [is] too high.”

There is evidence for that even in America’s EV winter.

Ford recently ditched South Korea’s SK Group as its joint-venture partner for battery projects, focusing instead on its plan to build CATL-designed batteries at a $3 billion factory in Michigan. Ford is paying to license the Chinese company’s intellectual property, a workaround the U.S. allows while it puts up legal and political barriers to prevent CATL from building its own plants.

General Motors GM 4.00%increase; green up pointing triangle is set to import China-made batteries from CATL and put them in its new Chevrolet Bolt—also legal, albeit only by swallowing a 60% tariff. GM is selling the Bolt for only one model year while it makes longer-term plans. Meanwhile, the two U.S. battery plants GM spent billions of dollars to build are idle, unable to make the cheaper batteries that the automaker needs for the $30,000 vehicle.

And Tesla is using CATL technology for a battery plant in Nevada producing energy-storage systems, a business that is growing strongly while Tesla’s core EV business has stalled.


Critics of China argue that embedding a Chinese battery maker in the U.S. supply chain would make the U.S. even more vulnerable to Beijing’s economic coercion and undercut the chances of American battery companies catching up. Many are skeptical that America will welcome a full-fledged presence for Zeng and CATL anytime soon. The battery maker last year was placed on a Pentagon list of companies working with China’s military—a description CATL calls erroneous.

“It will be politically ‘a bridge too far’ in the short term for the U.S. administration to do a 180-degree pivot on any policies that result in liberalizing U.S. investment from Chinese companies, especially in sensitive industries,” said William Zarit, a senior counselor at business-consulting firm Cohen Group and former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China.

Proponents of cooperation with CATL say the company holds the key to cheaper batteries and affordable EVs. Otherwise, they say, the U.S. may never catch up to China.

Zeng’s big bet
A technology bet by Zeng drove the company’s growth.

Other companies invested tens of billions of dollars in building plants in the U.S. to make lithium-ion batteries with expensive nickel and cobalt inside. CATL, formally known as Contemporary Amperex Technology, wagered on batteries that use cheaper iron instead. The technology proved to offer nearly equal performance for less money.

At the Jiaocheng production base near Zeng’s office, the company runs 12 battery-cell production lines. It is a business built for today’s China, where factory workers are scarce.

Sheets of copper and aluminum go through machines that coat electrode slurry. Big winding machines then roll up the coated sheets, followed by a 20-ton pressing machine that squeezes them tightly. Robot arms weld the battery cell components. Every once in a while, workers dressed in white with hats and masks inspect the process, alongside artificial-intelligence technology used for quality control.

The company employs more than 21,000 engineers and has built expertise in electrochemistry that Zeng said doesn’t exist in the U.S.

“U.S. people all go to chips, software, AI” because “they get a lot of money,” he said. Batteries are considered “a very stupid industry in the U.S.,” he added.

Founded just 15 years ago, CATL benefited from a Beijing policy in the second half of the 2010s that gave Chinese EV makers subsidies if they used batteries from approved supplies such as CATL. It also received government money directly—more than $500 million in the first half of 2024 alone, according to CATL filings. Only state-owned petrochemical company Sinopec got more among mainland-China-listed companies, according to data provider Wind.

Technology lead
The iron-based battery chemistry, called lithium ferrophosphate, or LFP, costs up to 30% less a kilowatt-hour compared with nickel-manganese-cobalt batteries, the type South Korean and Japanese companies usually produce, industry experts say. Last year, CATL developed an LFP battery with 500 miles of driving range that can be powered for up to 320 miles in just five minutes.

CATL’s technology is the reason Ford chose it for the Michigan factory tie-up, said Lisa Drake, a Ford executive on the project. “It probably would’ve taken us a decade to catch up and have LFP technology on our own,” Drake said last year.

She lamented that LFP batteries were invented in the U.S., but Chinese firms such as CATL figured out how to make them viable in cars. “We just didn’t commercialize that technology,” she said.

When Ford shut down EV-battery production at a just-built factory in Kentucky recently, it again turned to CATL. Ford now plans to make utility-scale stationary batteries there, using CATL’s technology.

Battery makers outside of China are racing to catch up. In recent days, LG Energy Solution, the battery unit of Korean electronics giant LG, said it would produce LFP batteries for Tesla’s energy-storage business at a new factory in Michigan. LG and General Motors added that they are retrofitting a Tennessee EV battery plant to make LFP cells for grid-scale storage.

CATL is betting next on sodium-ion batteries, made from a sodium compound using table salt. Salt is much cheaper than lithium, and the battery also works better in very cold weather, although it packs less energy into a given volume. Chinese carmaker Changan is set to start selling an EV with CATL’s sodium-ion battery in the middle of 2026.

While Ford and GM have needed CATL’s battery technology, both automakers are also working on a new type of battery that would free them of dependence on the Chinese giant. “If we just do LFP like the Chinese are gonna do, we’re not going to win,” Kurt Kelty, GM’s battery chief, said at a conference in October. “We need innovation.”


Meeting Xi
At home, Zeng is a national tech hero, and was last year invited to meet leader Xi Jinping. This month, he was in Beijing attending China’s biggest annual political event as an advisory body member. “We will sell our Chinese products globally and at the same time, we will promote our technology and standards worldwide,” he told reporters at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

For Zeng, it’s not just about serving lower-end, affordable EVs but also the cutting-edge tech CATL can offer for higher-end cars. Americans need CATL, Zeng said, because it can supply the latest technology while keeping costs down. “For the high-end products, it’s very difficult without CATL,” he said.

Zeng observed that robotaxis, potentially the industry’s next big thing, are almost always EVs. If Americans abandon EVs, he said, “then you would be left behind for autonomous driving.”

For now, Zeng says he can’t build his own factory in the U.S. “I’m willing to invest there, but the problem is in some of the states, a Chinese company cannot even buy land,” he said, alluding to restrictions in Texas and elsewhere.

Still, he looked ahead to a spring thaw.

“Maybe by the year 2028 it will change because business relationships are always stronger and longer-lasting than politicians,” he said.

WSJ : Pfizer’s Lyme Vaccine Misses Mark in Study, Complicating Quest for Approva

Pfizer’s Lyme Vaccine Misses Mark in Study, Complicating Quest for Approval
Drugmaker seeking regulatory review for first new shot to combat disease in decades

  • Pfizer and Valneva’s experimental Lyme disease vaccine was over 70% effective in a trial, but the findings were inconclusive due to low disease incidence.
  • Valneva’s stock fell 39% on the uncertainty surrounding the vaccine’s trial results, while Pfizer’s stock was trading about 0.5% lower.
  • Pfizer plans to submit the vaccine to U.S. regulators, aiming to provide a needed option against Lyme disease, which affects 476,000 Americans each year

An experimental Lyme disease vaccine from Pfizer PFE -0.74%decrease; red down pointing triangle and Valneva VLA -39.01%decrease; red down pointing triangle didn’t conclusively succeed in a large study, raising questions about the shot’s prospects.

While the shot was more than 70% effective at preventing the tick-borne disease in the trial, not enough people contracted the disease for the findings to be conclusive. Pfizer is pushing ahead with its plans to seek regulatory approval anyway, saying the study hit a different statistical measure and the shot showed “meaningful efficacy.”

Valneva’s stock fell 39% on the uncertainty. This vaccine is key for the French company, which has a chikungunya shot that ran into trouble with U.S. regulators last year over safety concerns. Pfizer, a far bigger company that is less reliant on the shot, was down about 0.5% in afternoon trading.

The vaccine, if approved, would provide a much-needed addition to the arsenal against Lyme disease. The tick-borne disease has been spreading across the U.S., but there have been few good medical options beyond antibiotics. A vaccine was pulled two decades ago after questions about its safety hurt demand.

No safety concerns were identified in Pfizer and Valneva’s 9,400-person trial. Annaliesa Anderson, Pfizer’s chief vaccines officer, called the study’s results “highly encouraging” and said it “creates confidence in the vaccine’s potential to protect against this disease that can be debilitating.”

Lyme disease is a bacterial infection that can be spread to humans by infected ticks, and affects an estimated 476,000 Americans each year. There currently aren’t any vaccines for people, though there is a shot for dogs.

Early Lyme symptoms include a rash, fatigue, muscle and joint pain, headache and fever, but it can often be overlooked or misinterpreted. Lyme disease is most common in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and upper Midwest regions of the U.S., and in recent years the disease has been spreading to other parts of the country.

Pfizer and Valneva studied their shot, which is administered in four doses over more than a year, in adults and children ages 5 and older.

An older Lyme disease vaccine, Lymerix, from a predecessor company to GSK, was on the market from 1998 until it was withdrawn in 2002. The company voluntarily withdrew it after lawsuits alleged it caused side effects such as arthritis. The lawsuits were settled in 2003.

GSK cited low demand for its withdrawal, rather than safety concerns. Many doctors and medical experts say there was never any definitive evidence that the old vaccine caused serious side effects such as arthritis or neurological problems.

Even so, some Lyme-disease patient advocacy groups that came out against the old vaccine have expressed concerns that the Pfizer-Valneva vaccine could carry risks similar to those alleged for Lymerix.

The Pfizer-Valneva vaccine is different from Lymerix in that it protects against six strains of the disease, whereas Lymerix protected against only one.

Valneva initially developed the new vaccine and Pfizer struck an agreement with the French drugmaker in 2020 to co-develop it. Pfizer will exclusively manufacture and market the shot, if it gets regulatory approval.

Analysts expect the shot, if approved, to begin generating revenue in 2028 and deliver sales of about $470 million in 2029, according to FactSet.

FT : Traders placed $580mn in oil bets ahead of Donald Trump’s social media post

Traders placed $580mn in oil bets ahead of Donald Trump’s social media post on Iran talks
Thousands of Brent and WTI contracts changed hands 15 minutes before president’s message on Truth Social

Traders made bets worth half a billion dollars in the oil market about 15 minutes before Donald Trump’s post touting “productive” talks with Iran sent the price of crude tumbling and ignited volatility in other assets.

Roughly 6,200 Brent and West Texas Intermediate futures contracts changed hands between 6.49am and 6.50am New York time on Monday, just a quarter of an hour ahead of the US president’s post on Truth Social that there had in recent days been “productive conversations” with Tehran to end the war in Iran. The notional value of those trades was $580mn, according to FT calculations based on Bloomberg data.

Trading volumes for Brent and WTI leapt at the same time, 27 seconds before 6.50am. Futures tracking the S&P 500 share index jumped in price moments after the oil trade, with volumes also rising significantly during that timeframe.

It was not known whether one entity or several entities were behind Monday’s trades.

Trump’s announcement at 7.04am triggered a sharp sell-off across global energy markets and jumps in S&P 500 stock index futures and European equities as investors dialled back bets of a prolonged conflict.


The well-timed trades echoed the flurry of large highly profitable bets made on prediction market Polymarket on the timing of the US’s attacks in recent months on Iran and Venezuela.

“It’s hard to prove causality . . . but you have to wonder who would have been relatively aggressive at selling futures at that point, 15 minutes before Trump’s post,” said a market strategist at a US broker, referring to Monday’s trades.

White House spokesperson Kush Desai said: “The only focus of President Trump and Trump administration officials is doing what’s best for the American people.”

He added: “The White House does not tolerate any administration official illegally profiteering off of insider knowledge, and any implication that officials are engaged in such activity without evidence is baseless and irresponsible reporting.”

Several hedge funds noted that this was one of a number of examples in recent months of large trades being made ahead of official US government announcements.

One trader at a major hedge fund said energy consultants had recently noticed several large block trades that they found to be unusually timed. Another portfolio manager said a series of large and well-timed trades had created a “level of frustration” among investors.

“My gut from watching markets for the last 25 years is this is really abnormal,” he added. “It’s Monday morning, there’s no important data today, there aren’t any Fed speakers you’d want to front run. It’s an unusually large trade for a day with no event risk . . . Somebody just got a lot richer.”

In a post on X later on Monday, the Speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, denied that any negotiations between Washington and Tehran had taken place, triggering a pullback for global stocks and fresh buying across energy markets.

He added: “Fake news is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped.”

One commodities trader said the sales of oil futures were not huge when measured against volumes in a market that even before the war was highly active but that they had spotted a sharp move in TTF, the European gas benchmark, at roughly the same time.

Tim Skirrow, head of derivatives at the consultancy Energy Aspects, said: “That is a larger than usual volume [in Brent and WTI] than I would expect at that time of day, but in the same breath it’s not excessively large. I find it a bit hard to join the dots here.”

He added that the Brent futures and options markets had seen “significant inflows” from funds over recent weeks. “Given the price reaction, it seems that nearly everyone was long. This is almost a necessary precursor for such a violent move.”

FT : SoftBank tests its own borrowing limits with $30bn bet on OpenAI

SoftBank tests its own borrowing limits with $30bn bet on OpenAI
Masayoshi Son faces investor nerves with massive spending on AI investments

SoftBank is testing a key self-imposed borrowing limit as it commits a further $30bn to OpenAI, a move that risks unsettling investors already wary of its growing exposure to artificial intelligence.

The Japanese group aims to keep its loan-to-value ratio — a measure of net debt against the value of its holdings — below 25 per cent in normal conditions. But it now accepts the threshold could be exceeded in the coming months as it increases AI investment.

“I don’t deny the possibility in the future that we may go temporarily beyond 25 per cent,” chief financial officer Yoshimitsu Goto told the FT.

The move marks one of the clearest signs yet that SoftBank is ready to push its own financial guardrails to back OpenAI, despite mounting investor unease over the costs, competition and uncertain returns of the AI boom.

“There’s [an estimated] $50bn of funding, between OpenAI, investments and refinancing, that they have got to put in place in the course of 2026,” said David Gibson, an analyst at MST Financial. “The loan to value will hit 25 per cent or more. So to me that’s the story as I’m not sure the market is prepared for it.” 

SoftBank’s LTV has already increased from 16.5 to 20.6 per cent in the quarter to December. Shares have fallen more than 45 per cent since last October as investors grow more cautious about its AI exposure, particularly as OpenAI faces intensifying competition from Google and Anthropic.

Spreads on SoftBank’s credit default swaps have widened to their highest level in nearly a year, while S&P this month revised its outlook on the group to negative, citing the planned OpenAI investment.


Goto said that, if needed, SoftBank would bring its loan-to-value ratio back below 25 per cent as quickly as possible through a combination of asset sales, listings and asset-backed financing.

While some insiders and advisers are nervous about the scale of its ambitions, SoftBank chief Masayoshi Son is convinced of the need to continue to pour money into achieving the next level of artificial intelligence.

He has already invested more than $34bn in OpenAI for a roughly 11 per cent stake, and shifted the company to play a central role in what the billionaire sees as the next stage of humanity’s development.

As well as refocusing SoftBank’s Vision Fund investment vehicles on AI, Son has bought semiconductor companies to complement Arm, agreed to acquire robotics groups and is building out power and data centres in the US. 

However, the $500bn Stargate data centre project backed by SoftBank, OpenAI and Oracle has been scaled back, said people familiar with the matter.

The group’s more than ¥30tn in net asset value, said Goto, provides balance sheet ammunition to rein in leverage if needed.

“If we do nothing, then the 25 per cent of loan-to-value threshold may go up to 26 per cent to 27 per cent [but] . . . with the utilisation of asset-back financing . . . we are quite convinced that we will be able to manage our loan-to-value back down to less than 25 per cent,” he added.


SoftBank has a variety of assets to draw on. This month it pulled off the successful IPO of payments group PayPay, with a more than $12bn valuation. But raising debt, asset-backed financing and public listings are subject to market risk at a time when geopolitical tremors are hitting company valuations.

Gibson said another issue is that markets know SoftBank needs to raise funds, particularly after it sold its entire stake in Nvidia for $5.8bn last year. “That made everyone think ‘oh, you do have to sell stuff’ . . . and therein lies the challenge,” he said.

Most significantly, SoftBank is also relying on a potential OpenAI IPO to bring down its leverage ratio. The listing would reduce SoftBank’s ratio of private to public assets.

S&P said its decision to revise SoftBank’s outlook to negative reflected the additional investment in OpenAI, adding that “the share of unlisted assets in its portfolio is likely to rise to more than 50 per cent” from an estimated 42 per cent at the end of last year.

Although SoftBank is confident in its success, some investors note that the decline of the group’s own share price could give some indication as to how OpenAI’s valuation is changing in real time.


SoftBank’s shares peaked last year as investors rushed to get exposure to OpenAI as analysts suggested the US start-up could eventually be worth upwards of $1.5tn.

For others, it is now the LTV ratio that has become a Rorschach test for how to view SoftBank.

“If you don’t like SoftBank as an investment, then the LTV going above 25 per cent matters,” said one analyst in Tokyo. “If you think SoftBank is making the right moves with OpenAI, then you can look through it.”

For its near-term commitments, SoftBank has put in place about $40bn of bridge loans with its main lenders, including Japanese megabank Mizuho. The OpenAI investments are to be made in three instalments in April, July and October.

Some investors say banks are incentivised by the prospect of roles in a potential OpenAI IPO. But Goto said the bridge loans show continued market confidence in SoftBank.

“The banks that are closest to us understand all of [our investment and financial plans] very well,” he said. “That is why they also agreed to participate in bridge finance, for this $30bn OpenAI investment activity, in such a short timeframe.”

>>> US After Hours Summary: NTGR +14.5% sharply higher on favorable FCC announce

After Hours Summary: NTGR +14.5% sharply higher on favorable FCC announcement; CLB -6.1% under pressure after guidance cut; ABVX +2.1% higher on earnings

After Hours Gainers:
Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: ABVX +2.1%

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: NTGR +14.5% (FCC announcement stating that covered list now includes foreign-made consumer routers), AAOI +3.4% (new order for 800G data center transceivers), MRP +1.9% (increases dividend), DRS +1.4% (awarded an engineering solutions contract for the Advanced Technology Support Program V), ZION +1.4% (to acquire the agency lending business from a subsidiary of Basis Investment Group), UI +1.3% (FCC announcement stating that covered list now includes foreign-made consumer routers), EL +0.5% (confirms discussions regarding a potential business combination with Puig), SLDE +0.1% (authorizes new $125 mln stock repurchase program), PANW +0.1% (launches NGTS; unveils evolution of Prisma Browser and Prisma AIRS)

After Hours Losers:

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: CLB -6.1% (guidance), SRZN -2% (also files $200 mln mixed shelf offering)

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: OTLK -16.8% (stock offering), BATL -4.3% (stock offering by selling shareholder), APO -1.7% (restricts withdrawals from flagship private credit fund, according to FT), WT -1.6% (convertible notes offering), OIS -0.2% (CEO to retire; names new CEO and CFO), APGE -0.1% (stock offering)