- Henkel (HEN3 TH) +1.2%
- Henkel Sees 2026 Organic Sales +1% to +3%, Est. +2.23%
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- Engie (GZF TH) -1.6%
- Danske Bank (DSN TH) -2.1%
- Prosus (1TY TH) -2.4%
- John Hancock Int’l Dynamic Growth Adds Samsung, Exits Prosus
- Delivery Hero (DHER TH) -3.1%
DAX:
- Henkel (HEN3 TH) +1.4%
- Henkel Sees 2026 Organic Sales +1% to +3%, Est. +2.23%
- Rheinmetall (RHM TH) -0.9%
- Rheinmetall Sees 2026 Operating Margin About 19%, Est. 19.1%
- Deutsche Bank (DBK TH) -1.1%
- The Tycoon Who Had a Secret Life as an Alleged Scam Kingpin
MDAX:
- Aixtron (AIXA TH) -1%
- Porsche (P911 TH) -1.6%
- Porsche Pivots to Cost-Cutting as Sales Come Under Pressure (1)
- Wacker Chemie (WCH TH) -1.9%
- Wacker Chemie Sees 2026 Ebitda EU550M to EU700M, Est. EU619M
- Delivery Hero (DHER TH) -2.4%
SDAX:
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- Vossloh (VOS TH) +1.4%
- Deutsche PBB (PBB TH) +1.1%
- Heidelberger Druck (HDD TH) -1.3%
- Verbio SE (VBK TH) -1.4%
- Tonies SE (TNIE TH) -2%
- Evotec (EVT TH) -2.5%
- Evotec PT Cut to 2 euros from 5.40 euros at Intron Health
- Gerresheimer (GXI TH) -20%
- RELEASE: Publication of the 2025 annual and consolidated financial statements only after March 31, 2026
JPMorgan marking down loan portfolios of private credit groups
Devaluation of collateral will limit credit to firms that have become top lenders to higher-risk companies
JPMorgan Chase has clamped down on its lending to private credit groups, with bankers looking to cut risk as concerns mount over the credit quality of companies in their stables.
The bank informed private credit lenders that it had marked down the value of certain loans in their portfolios, which serve as the collateral the funds use to borrow from the bank, according to people familiar with the matter.
The move will limit how much money JPMorgan lends to private credit groups against those loans going forward — a sign traditional Wall Street banks are growing cautious of an industry that has grown rapidly as non-bank lenders became top creditors to higher-risk borrowers.
The loans that have been devalued are to software companies, which are seen as particularly vulnerable to the onset of AI.
Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s chief executive, told investors at the bank’s leveraged finance conference last week that it was being more prudent in lending against software assets, according to two people briefed on the closed-door meetings.
Troy Rohrbaugh, co-chief executive of JPMorgan’s commercial and investment business, told analysts at a February company update that the bank was becoming more conservative compared to its peers on the risks in private credit.
“As the world gets more volatile […] this outcome should be expected,” he said, adding: “I’m shocked that people are shocked.”
One person briefed on the bank’s decision said the valuation haircuts did not trigger margin calls at funds but were done to pre-emptively reduce the amount of credit available to the funds.
Private credit executives said they had not seen other banks take a similar view as JPMorgan.
“They have been more difficult the past three months,” the head of one fund said of JPMorgan’s willingness to provide back leverage. He added JPMorgan rarely got “rattled and this is the first time we’ve had a little issue”.
JPMorgan declined to comment.
Investors are concerned AI will heavily disrupt enterprise software businesses, with scrutiny centred on the companies and their private capital financiers who poured hundreds of billions of dollars into the space.
Publicly traded software stocks and debt have all plummeted this year. Private credit lenders, by contrast, tend to hold loans for the entire term and have not marked down their portfolios in lockstep.
Private lenders have said enterprise software companies are still growing and expect their loans to continue performing, as investors backstop the borrowers.
The growth of the private credit industry has been supplemented by leverage from regulated banks, debt that is critical in bolstering returns above high-yield bond or leveraged loan funds.
Banks including JPMorgan, Wells Fargo and Bank of America have all lent heavily to the industry, in part because regulations allow them to reserve less capital than if they were lending to borrowers directly.
The fundraising prowess of private credit firms, which took in $400bn from wealthy individuals and hundreds of billions more from savvy institutions since the end of 2020, has allowed the funds to provide larger loans and compete directly with banks on multibillion-dollar leveraged buyouts.
That included financing mega takeovers when software businesses were fetching high valuations given work-from-home trends, including Thoma Bravo’s $6.4bn takeovers of customer service software companies Medallia and Permira, and Hellman & Friedman’s $10.2bn buyout of Zendesk.
That debt is maturing in the coming years and much of it faces a dramatically different outlook.
JPMorgan is somewhat of an outlier in the private credit financing business as it reserves the right to revalue assets at any time. Most other banks require triggers such as missed interest payments.
Private credit funds can dispute the marks, according to a sample credit financing agreement reviewed by the FT. That could take months and require a third-party valuation. In the meantime, the bank’s determination remains.
The bank considers individual analysis and macroeconomic factors when valuing loans, according to another person familiar with the bank’s thinking. It also looks to public proxies, such as investment vehicles that buy private credit loans, and occasional private trades it can evaluate.
“The point is to do it as needed, not only when there’s a crisis,” one person said.
Lloyd’s of London says it will still insure ‘basically anyone’ in the Gulf
Insurance market responds to criticism over cancelled policies and higher prices for stuck ships
Lloyd’s of London has said it will “still provide cover to basically anyone who asks” as the insurance market hits back at criticism over cancelling policies and raising prices for ships stuck in the Gulf.
Insurance prices have soared 12-fold for ships seeking to transit through the Strait of Hormuz, where shipping has slowed to a standstill. In response, the US government has said it will provide up to $20bn of reinsurance cover to backstop the market and restart trade.
However, Lloyd’s head of underwriting Patrick Davison said the slowdown in vessel traffic was “not an insurance issue — it’s a question of vessel and crew safety”.
He told the FT: “All the insurers at Lloyd’s are still quoting business, and will still provide cover to basically anyone who asks.”
On Monday, Lloyd’s chair Sir Charles Roxburgh met UK chancellor Rachel Reeves as insurers at the market sought to fend off criticism for cancelling shipowners’ policies and raising prices for a single voyage in the region into the hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.
Reeves is said by colleagues to agree with Lloyd’s that there is “not really a problem with insurance” in that cover is still available. They added that she argued the priority must be to de-escalate the conflict to ensure crew safety in the region.
A proposal by US President Donald Trump to provide insurance to backstop trade through the Gulf has raised speculation over Lloyd’s ability to provide cover for ships in the region.
However, senior London market figures argued that the Middle East conflict was a growth opportunity for Lloyd’s insurers. Markets such as political violence have experienced a surge in demand from data centres and other infrastructure across the Gulf region.
London market insurers have defended the decision to cancel policies for ships sailing into the Gulf. They said that higher prices reflected heightened physical risk faced by ships and crews as well as elevated oil prices increasing a vessel’s insured value — rather than price gouging or a shortage of capital.
Shipping through the strait has in effect been blockaded because of threats by Tehran to strike any vessels that sail through the waterway, part of the expanding conflict triggered by the US-Israel attacks on Iran this month.
Oil prices have surged, meanwhile, with Brent hitting almost $120 a barrel on Monday before falling back to about $85 on Tuesday.
Last week the FT revealed the US Development Finance Corporation’s plans to create a $20bn reinsurance facility to restart maritime cargo and oil commerce.
Senior London insurance figures said they had learned of the US plan from a Trump post on Truth Social and that they were lacking detail about it. Some doubted that the facility would be set up.
Several figures said additional cover was not needed but that the industry would welcome a US taxpayer-funded subsidy that could be partly passed on to shipowners and investors if shipping through the strait resumed.
While insurers were still offering war risk cover for individual ships, one person added that it was not clear whether or how the industry would cover a convoy escorted by the US military.
They also said Development Finance Corporation backing may help ensure such a scheme could obtain insurance coverage.
“Would the market insure, potentially, a convoy of 20 oil tankers in one go? Is there appetite or not? I don’t know, because that hasn’t been tested yet,” the person said. “That’s where the DFC could potentially help.”
Trump Says the Iran War Is Nearly Won but Israel Has Other Ideas
Israel is sticking with its overarching goal of creating the conditions for regime change in Tehran
- The U.S. and Israel are at odds over the duration and conditions for ending the war with Iran, according to Trump administration officials.
- President Trump seeks to end the conflict on his terms, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pursues maximalist goals for regime change.
- The Iranian regime has shown resilience by selecting a new supreme leader and extending its blockade of Persian Gulf oil.
President Trump’s suggestions that the war with Iran might soon be over are bringing a new problem to the fore: Israel and the U.S. have different ideas on when to end the conflict and under what conditions.
Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have spoken nearly every day since the war began, sometimes more than once a day. Netanyahu has also held conversations with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and envoy for Iran. All those talks center on the current state of the war and how to end it, the U.S. officials said, as both countries try to bridge their differences in real time.
There is some concern among White House officials that Israel wants the war to last after the U.S. expresses its desire to end the bombing campaign, the officials said. U.S. and Israeli officials say the Israeli message is it will stop its campaign in Iran whenever U.S. involvement stops. Trump has told aides he wants to end the war on his terms and, after brokering a cease-fire in last year’s 12-day war, believes he can put a stop to the fighting when he wants, U.S. officials said.
“The end of America’s involvement in this conflict will ultimately be determined by the commander in chief, when he feels the military objectives are fully met, and the threat of the rogue Iranian regime has been completely demolished,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
Despite their close coordination, differences in the Israeli and American approaches are emerging, with Israel continuing to track and kill top Iranian officials while broadening its range of targets to include the country’s oil industry as it tries to force a change in leadership.
The U.S. also told Israel Monday that the administration was “not happy” with the attacks on Iranian energy facilities and told Israel not to do it again unless approved by Washington, according to U.S. sources. Axios earlier reported that the U.S. asked Israel to halt strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure.
And hours after Trump told a reporter the military campaign was “very complete, pretty much,” Netanyahu reiterated his maximalist goals for the war.
“Our aspiration is to enable the Iranian people to cast off the yoke of tyranny; ultimately, it is up to them,” Netanyahu said Tuesday. “There is no doubt that through the actions taken so far, we are breaking their bones and we are still active.”
The different priorities in the air campaign were evident at the start. Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s top policy official, told Congress last week that the airstrike that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was part of a series of “Israeli operations.” Colby contrasted the Israeli attack with the “scoped and reasonable” objectives the U.S. was pursuing by focusing its strikes on Iran’s missiles, drones and navy.
The U.S. administration has shifted its stated goals from the outset. Trump had initially called for regime change in Tehran, but told reporters Monday that the U.S. had already achieved most of its military goals, saying, “We’re way ahead of schedule.”
Like the U.S. military and senior Pentagon officials, Rubio has articulated a more limited set of goals, including setting back Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. Air power alone has never removed a foreign government from power, a fact that U.S. military planners and analysts acknowledge.
The Pentagon also acknowledged the divergent approaches to the air campaign in a briefing Tuesday by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Hegseth said the Israeli military has been a good partner but added, “Where they have different objectives, they have pursued them.” He was responding to a question about Israel’s strikes on fuel depots near Tehran, which Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and Trump ally, has criticized as a move that may alienate the Iranian public.
Meanwhile, the Iranian regime has shown some resilience in recent days, selecting a new supreme leader and extending its blockade of Persian Gulf oil.
“Trump may be learning the oldest lesson of human conflicts: It is much easier to start a war than to end one,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran project director at International Crisis Group. “By hinting at stopping the bombing without a credible diplomatic off-ramp, he risks creating the worst of both worlds—Iran has every incentive to keep using its leverage over the Strait of Hormuz, while Israel may see no reason to stop its own campaign.”
The growing economic damage from the war is further diverging U.S. and Israeli interests.
Netanyahu has for years called for the removal of the Iranian regime and spoken about the threat posed by the country’s nuclear program to Israel. After a series of successful military operations against Iran’s allies in the region, he saw an opening last year, launching a 12-day war that further set back Iran militarily.
While the U.S. shares that goal, it has a broader set of interests in the region, including its role as the main military partner of the energy-rich Gulf states, some of which are now seeing their oil-and-gas exports bottled up by Iran and their cities and industrial infrastructure under attack.
Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which pushed oil above $100 a barrel this week, is a sign that turmoil unleashed by the conflict could require yet another set of military solutions.
Trump on Monday said that “if needed” the U.S. Navy could escort oil tankers through the strait, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil typically passes. That could keep the U.S. in the conflict longer than planned. On Monday, Trump threatened an escalation of attacks to unblock the channel, saying on Truth Social that the U.S. would bomb targets that “will make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back, as a Nation, again—Death, Fire, and Fury will reign upon them.”
Israel is hoping the U.S. stays in the fight longer.
“Bibi’s dream and I think Israel’s dream for decades is a joint war to topple the Islamic Republic. But to rely on Trump for anything is always a dubious undertaking,” said Chuck Freilich, a former deputy national security adviser in Israel and senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank, referring to Netanyahu by his nickname.
The two leaders are speaking to very different domestic audiences, with public polling revealing gaps between the two countries.
A poll conducted by the INSS in early March showed 82% of Israelis support the war. The issue is of utmost importance to Netanyahu, who is likely betting on a boost in polling from the war in the lead-up to Israeli elections expected later this year.
The Israeli public is also exposed to Iran’s missile threat in a way that Americans aren’t. It takes about nine minutes for a ballistic missile to fly from Iran to Israel, but Tehran doesn’t have the capability to strike the American homeland with a long-range missile. The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency projected in May that Iran could deploy as many as 60 ocean-spanning missiles by 2035 if it decided to adapt a system it has been developing for putting satellites into low-Earth orbit for intercontinental ballistic missiles instead.
Israel is well aware that Trump could end the war at any moment and is fighting as if every day is the last, said a person briefed on the operation. Israel wants more time, but is aware of the pressures Trump is facing at home to end the war, the person said.
The Trump administration’s shifting objectives have damped public backing for the war in the U.S., with a range of opinion polls showing that a minority supports it. Trump is facing criticism from some Democrats and the right of his party, who want him to pursue a more isolationist vision of his foreign policy. He initially campaigned against the U.S. invasion of Iraq and in years past promised to end America’s “forever wars” in the Middle East.
Some of Trump’s advisers have privately urged him to look for an exit plan amid spiking oil prices and concerns that a lengthy conflict could spark political backlash, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff said he is likely to travel to Israel next week to coordinate with Israeli leaders on the continuing military campaign in Iran.
IEA Proposes Largest Ever Oil Release From Strategic Reserves
Countries would decide Wednesday whether to release oil stocks in an attempt to tame crude prices
- The International Energy Agency proposed its largest-ever oil reserves release to counter crude price surges from the U.S.-Israel war with Iran.
- The proposal, circulated Tuesday, aims to address the near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which handles one-fifth of global oil supply.
- Since Feb. 28, oil prices soared as much as 40% after U.S. and Israel strikes on Iran began, risking inflation and a market correction.
PARIS—The International Energy Agency has proposed the largest release of oil reserves in its history to bring down crude prices that have soared during the U.S.-Israel war with Iran, officials familiar with the matter said.
The release would exceed the 182 million barrels of oil that IEA member countries put onto the market in two releases in 2022 when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the officials said. The proposal was circulated at an emergency meeting of energy officials from the IEA’s 32 member countries on Tuesday.
Countries are expected to decide on the proposal Wednesday. It would be adopted if none objects, but even one country’s protests could delay the plan, officials said.
The IEA proposal is intended to counter the massive disruption caused by the near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to global markets. Roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply moves through the strait every day and the threat of attacks on tankers by Iran have brought shipments to a near standstill.
Iranian attacks on oil tankers traveling through the strait are the kind of scenario that led Western nations and their allies to create the IEA in 1974 in the wake of the Arab oil embargo. The agency, a club of Western nations and their allies, sets guidelines for how much crude member countries must keep in their reserves and coordinates releases to protect economies from oil market turmoil.
Since Feb. 28 when the U.S. and Israel first began their strikes on Iran, the price of oil has soared as much as 40%, breaching $100 before falling this week as traders closely track statements from President Trump on how long the war will last. Oil ended Tuesday under $84, but the price of fuels such as diesel has continued to skyrocket.
Economists have warned that a sustained run-up in oil prices risks creating inflation and a stock market correction, in addition to pain at the pump for drivers.
IEA members hold 1.2 billion barrels in public stocks, plus another 600 million in mandatory commercial inventories, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said Monday. By rough calculation, that is around 124 days worth of lost supply from the Gulf.
Previous releases from strategic reserves have had mixed results.
IEA members did two releases in quick succession after Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022. The move at first caused oil prices to rise 20% as traders saw the release as a sign the oil crisis was more serious than they had anticipated. Analysts say the releases eventually helped bring prices down.
A particularly successful release took place in 1991 when then-President George H.W. Bush prepared for Operation Desert Storm by ordering what was then the first ever drawdown of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve on the same night a U.S.-led coalition attacked Iraq. IEA members joined in releasing more oil from stockpiles in a plan they had put in place ahead of the invasion.
Prices fell more than 20% on the first day of the U.S.-led assault. By the time coalition forces entered Iraq and Kuwait in February, oil from the SPR was on the market.
The Billion-Dollar AI Startup That Was Founded by Teenagers
The team behind Aaru is attracting brands including McDonald’s and EY by betting AI bots can predict human behavior better than humans can
- AI startup Aaru, founded by teenagers, reached a $1 billion valuation by using AI agents to simulate human responses for market research and strategic tasks.
- Aaru’s technology has been used by companies like Bayer and Spindrift Beverage to test products and messaging, often proving faster and more accurate than human research.
- Professional services firm EY is now using Aaru’s technology for a dozen clients and its own studies after Aaru proved more accurate than a human-completed survey.
Artificial-intelligence startup Aaru’s first New York headquarters had a basketball hoop and a “rage room” where employees smashed tables with a hammer after coding failures. The conference room served double duty as a co-founder’s bedroom.
The space looked like a cross between a frat house and a high-tech research lab, a fitting aesthetic for a company founded by teenagers.
Aaru recently reached a $1 billion valuation, making it one of a growing crop of hot companies led by people who have barely cracked their 20s and want to shake up entire industries in lieu of attending college.
Co-founders Cameron Fink and Ned Koh started the company two years ago when they were 18 and 19 years old, respectively, along with technology chief John Kessler, then 15. (Kessler isn’t yet old enough to join the board, and his father had to sign off on the investment paperwork.) Their firm’s work offers a window into how AI is automating labor-intensive, expensive tasks once controlled by research companies, consultants and Madison Avenue.
Instead of paying humans to join focus groups and complete surveys, Aaru uses thousands of AI agents, or bots, to simulate human responses. It feeds demographic and psychographic information into its models to create human profiles that match clients’ needs, and the results those bots spit out are being used for product development, pricing, identifying new customers and political polling.
Aaru has done research work or conducted tests for companies including McDonald’s, Boston Beer and film studio A24, according to people familiar with the matter. It is now helping Bayer, the maker of Aleve and Aspirin, test creative copy and ad slogans for some of its brands, the drugmaker said.
Diplo, the DJ and music producer whose real name is Thomas Wesley Pentz, recently became an investor, a deal he said was hatched over Swiss beers during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January.
Hacking the Wi-Fi
Fink and Koh met on the first day of their freshman year at Lake Forest Academy in the Chicago suburbs. They bonded over cross-country running and a shared mischievous streak that involved trying to hack their school’s Wi-Fi to avoid submitting homework.
David Wick, an English and Latin teacher at Lake Forest, said Koh seemed “more excited about his business ventures than about Latin.” Wick often jokes with his students that if they become rich and famous, they should buy him a Ferrari, a promise Koh said he hopes to keep.
As freshmen, the teenagers started a political crayon company to encourage voter turnout. They used Fink’s bar mitzvah money to import 20,000 boxes of crayons from China, which they branded with political names such as “Bernie Blue” and “Trump Tangerine.”
Next came a health-tech startup, Elda Bio. That helped earn them a spot in the Z Fellows program, a fast track for young builders into Silicon Valley. The duo eventually ditched Elda Bio, partly due to the regulatory hurdles in the healthcare industry.
Over chocolate cream pie and a side of broccoli at New York’s Au Cheval with Z Fellow founder Cory Levy in early March 2024, the pair said their true passion lay in solving the problem of predictions.
Kessler entered the picture after sending Fink a LinkedIn message seeking advice on his Z Fellows application. The call lasted 2½ hours, after which Fink called Koh to tell him that Kessler, who started high school at 12 and was building simulation infrastructure at the MIT City Science Lab two years later, was the “smartest person I’ve ever met in my life.”
As they started the business, Fink and Koh headed off to college—but just barely. Fink spent one night at Dartmouth College, while Koh spent two weeks at Harvard University, before they decided to focus on building their budding business.
During a spring trip to the Bahamas, days after Fink and Koh shared a white paper describing their new business idea with a potential investor, they began negotiating a pre-seed investment. Fink’s father, Constellation Brands incoming Chief Executive Nick Fink, overheard the conversation his son was having on the deck of their vacation rental.
He barely understood what the business was at the time and was surprised the two teenagers didn’t ask him for help. They “steadfastly refused” any financial assistance from their families, Nick Fink said.
Proving it
Working initially from a friend’s basement, the team sought to validate their AI models by predicting elections. Backtesting past elections, their model for 2020 came within 0.5% of the actual results—far better than the margin of error in standard polls that year. They began doing research and polling for think tanks and politicians.
Like their human counterparts, Aaru’s bots are fallible; for instance, they wrongly forecast a Kamala Harris victory in the 2024 election. Fink said the firm has significantly improved its models since then.
Aaru’s work in politics and a chance introduction to Dave Burwick, the former CEO of Boston Beer, helped the company set a new course. Burwick enlisted well-known pollster Frank Luntz to validate their approach.
“This really is the new generation seeing things completely differently,” Luntz said.
Burwick helped Aaru move from political polling to corporate-strategy work, introducing the founders to venture capitalists and CEOs. When he advised Gryphon Investors on its acquisition of sparkling water brand Spindrift Beverage in 2024, he enlisted Aaru to identify which new product lines could accelerate growth.
Burwick, now Spindrift’s CEO, asked Aaru to evaluate concepts including soda, tea, energy drinks and smoothies, using bots modeled after a target demographic: consumers aged 25 to 35 with average household incomes above $100,000. Within one week, Aaru’s bots selected fruit tea, matching the results of Spindrift’s independent, 500-person consumer research, which had taken two months.
“The biggest challenge for consumer product companies is, how do you shorten that innovation cycle,” and move into the marketplace quickly, said Burwick. Spindrift recently launched a line of noncarbonated iced teas made with brewed tea and squeezed fruit.
Ashlee Adams, Coca-Cola’s senior director of open innovation and corporate development, said there are some doubts that synthetic models could have more accurate insights than humans. The company is currently testing Aaru’s technology.
Professional-services firm EY tested its mettle in predicting future behavior, asking it to replicate a global, yearlong survey of 3,600 high-net-worth investors. It proved more accurate than the human-completed survey—and finished the work far faster.
EY is now using Aaru technology to help a dozen of its clients. It is also using it on its own studies, in some cases replacing traditional surveys altogether.
“If you can predict behavior, this isn’t just an accelerator for research,” said Sameer Munshi, head of behavioral science at EY. “This is strategy.”
After Hours Summary: ORCL +9.3% higher on earnings/guidance; GRPN -11.9%, AVAV -9% lower on earnings
After Hours Gainers:
Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: DOMO +39.5%, AUNA +17.2%, ORCL +9.3%, NATR +7.7%, SI +6%, FNV +0.8%
Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: SVCO +4.8% (announces immediate availability of production ready Mixel MIPI PHY IP), UPST +2.5% (to establish an insured national bank, Upstart Bank), LZM +2.2% (exclusivity agreement over the Musongati nickel project), MPT +1.5% (affirms that HSA is fully current on rent), PRU +1.5% (CEO to also become Chairman), AWK +1.2% (West Virginia approves new rates), AMAT +0.9% (R&D partnership with SK hynix to accelerate AI memory innovation), ALSN +0.9% (significant expansion in its partnership with Daimler Truck North America), CORZ +0.9% (Director bought 7,000 shares worth ~$102K), SMR +0.7% (expands partnership with Framatome), STRZ +0.4% (adopts limited duration shareholder protection rights agreement), BA +0.3% (secures $298 mln smart bomb deal with Israel, according to Bloomberg)
After Hours Losers:
Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: GRPN -11.9%, AVAV -9%, WEST -8.9%, CDRE -6.6%, KDK -4.7%
Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: KOS -10.8% ($175 mln stock offering), SEDG -3.3% (CFO to step down; reaffirms Q1 guidance), FANG -3.2% (launches 11 mln share offering), ADCT -3.1% (stock offering by selling shareholders), BKV -1.9% (launches stock offering, includes shares offerece by co and a selling shareholder), BDN -1% (files mixed securities shelf offering), QGEN -0.6% (receives US clearance for gastrointestinal panels), SHEL -0.1% (CVX and SHEL nearing first big oil production deal with Venezuela, according to Reuters), TXO -0.1% (joint venture to sell oil & gas properties; TXO expects to receive $100 mln in proceeds)
Iran Conflict Triggers Losses for Citadel, Millennium and Point72
Big-name hedge funds hit by big dollar-figure losses amid market upheaval
Hedge funds were off to a roaring start this year, overcoming market fears about artificial intelligence, tariffs and private credit to post two straight months of solid gains.
Then came the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran.
Some of the world’s savviest investors suffered big dollar-figure losses last week after the conflict in the Middle East sent global markets on a wild ride, with oil prices surging and bonds selling off.
Citadel, Millennium Management and Point72 were among those hit by the market fallout, according to people familiar with the matter, as were Balyasny Asset Management and ExodusPoint Capital Management.
Millennium and Point72 each lost $1.5 billion last week, the people said, while Citadel lost about $1 billion in its fixed-income and macro business.
While there wasn’t a particular trade that stoked the losses, some funds were hit by macroeconomic bond-market bets that went awry. That includes the popular steepener trade, in which investors bet on a widening gap between short- and long-dated bond yields.
Balyasny lost about $1 billion, including $700 million in its fixed-income business alone, the people said. ExodusPoint lost a couple hundred million dollars on bond-market bets.
Billion-dollar losses for the world’s most famous hedge funds are relatively modest on a percentage basis, given how many assets they oversee. Many of the firms remain up for the year.
Citadel, which oversees $66 billion, finished last week down about 2% in its flagship Wellington fund, but was still up for the year. Millennium and Point72—which oversee nearly $87 billion and almost $46 billion, respectively—are also still in positive territory year to date, people familiar with the firms’ performance said.
Balyasny suffered a 3.5% loss last week, putting it down 3.1% for the year as of Friday, according to people familiar with the firm’s performance.
Some of the performance figures were earlier reported by Bloomberg News.
The losses underscore the extent to which the conflict in Iran has upended perceived wisdom in the bond markets. Going into this year, investors had expected inflation to continue to moderate, and for central banks to keep cutting interest rates. Bond yields around the world trended lower.
The rapid surge in oil prices has turned those expectations on their head, prompting traders to suddenly bet on inflation rising. Bond yields have correspondingly jumped. Traders are now betting that some central banks might no longer cut rates at all—or may even raise rates.
In recent weeks, investors had grown accustomed to the idea that the U.S. might strike Iran. They had watched for weeks as military hardware poured into the Middle East. But the speed and severity of Iran’s response to the strikes—and the sudden choking off of global oil markets—caught some traders off guard.
Many of the hedge funds that suffered losses last week are so-called multimanager funds—a type of investor that is different from the swing-for-the-fence firms of yesteryear. Rather than going big on a few risky bets, they instead divvy up money, in some cases, across hundreds of specialized investment teams.
The strategy for these funds is to go for base hits, not home runs. They run a so-called market-neutral approach that aims to benefit from rising and falling markets. And their businesses are typically diversified across stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities and beyond. That means when a few trades suffer, they ideally have other winners to help offset any losses.
Losses for the first week of March don’t necessarily mean that these firms will finish the month lower. While last week’s market upheaval may have led to losses as some funds recalibrated their positions, ongoing volatility could offer opportunities to profit.
Last year, some hedge funds were caught off guard by President Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs. Yet many such firms finished higher last year.
Before the conflict in the Middle East started, hedge funds were up more than 3% through February, according to a broad hedge-fund index from research firm PivotalPath.
FDA Warns Novo Nordisk of Unreported Side Effects Tied to GLP-1 Patients
The FDA underscored cases including two deaths and a suicide linked to patients taking semaglutide
- The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning to Novo Nordisk for failing to report serious suspected side effects in patients who took the company’s GLP-1 treatments.
- The FDA underscored cases including two deaths and a suicide linked to patients taking semaglutide.
- The agency said Novo Nordisk inappropriately invalidated one case and failed to report the other two to the FDA.
Novo Nordisk NOVO.B -2.97%decrease; red down pointing triangle received a warning from the Food and Drug Administration for failing to report serious suspected side effects in patients who took the company’s GLP-1 treatments.
The FDA in a Thursday letter underscored cases including two deaths and a suicide linked to patients taking semaglutide, which Novo markets as Ozempic and Wegovy.
The agency said Novo Nordisk inappropriately invalidated one case and failed to report the other two to the FDA. The agency didn’t conclude whether the deaths were linked to the GLP-1 drug.
The FDA said Novo’s policies around reporting suspected side effects were inconsistent with FDA regulations. It added that other adverse events were inappropriately invalidated or not submitted to the FDA within the required 15-day timeframe.
The FDA’s findings were based on an inspection of a Novo facility conducted in early 2025. The agency acknowledged Novo’s corrective and preventive actions since the inspection, but said the company’s responses didn’t ensure that future violations would be prevented.
“Your explanations, when taken into consideration with the violations described above and your failure to adequately address your noncompliance, suggest systemic failures with your surveillance, receipt, evaluation, and reporting of ADEs to FDA,” the agency said in the letter.
The FDA gave Novo 15 days to notify the agency of actions it will take to prevent future violations.
Novo Nordisk said it is working quickly to respond to the FDA’s request, adding that it has been regularly communicating with the agency about its corrective and preventative action plan. It said the letter does not make conclusions about the quality or safety of Novo’s treatments.
“Over the past year, Novo Nordisk has undertaken a broad, multi‑pronged effort to address the FDA PADE inspection-closing potential gaps while building durable and scalable pharmacovigilance capability,” the company said. “We are confident that we will be able to respond to the requests in the Warning Letter to the Agency’s full satisfaction.”
The letter comes as Novo battles with Eli Lilly for dominance in the rapidly growing weight-loss and diabetes drug market. The two companies have been cutting prices and racing to release pill versions of the drugs in an effort to expand their shares of the roughly $72 billion global market for the treatments.
Novo had an early lead in the market over Lilly, but Lilly has since pulled ahead, The Wall Street Journal has reported.