WS #6254
No material new developments in the last 30 minutes. The Iran conflict narrative remains dominant and escalating, with no counter-signals or de-escalation. Oil prices continue elevated, and the prior key developments (Iran blockade, oil surge, Fed dissent, Big Tech earnings) remain unchanged.
Key developments
- Oil surges above $118/bbl as US prepares extended Strait of Hormuz blockade
- Fed holds rates at 3.5-3.75% with 4 dissents; Powell to stay on as governor
- Alphabet (GOOGL) Q1 revenue beats, cloud revenue up 63%, stock up 6% after hours
- Meta (META) Q1 revenue beats but capex guidance raised to $125-145B, stock down 6%
- Anthropic in talks to raise funds at $900B valuation, surpassing OpenAI
- Qualcomm (QCOM) surges 16% on data center chip deal with hyperscaler
- US Treasury seizes $500M in assets linked to Iran
- Pentagon puts Iran war cost at $25bn for first time