Douglas Rissing/iStock via Getty Images Stock index futures fell before the bell Thursday as market sentiment soured following President Donald Trump’s rare prime-time address signaling a potential escalation in military action against Iran. Now, here are five news stories that broke overnight to watch out for: Trump blames Iran for gas price spike: President Donald Trump blamed Iran for the recen...
Douglas Rissing/iStock via Getty Images Stock index futures fell before the bell Thursday as market sentiment soured following President Donald Trump’s rare prime-time address signaling a potential escalation in military action against Iran. Now, here are five news stories that broke overnight to watch out for: Trump blames Iran for gas price spike: President Donald Trump blamed Iran for the recent surge in U.S. gasoline prices, citing attacks on oil tankers and regional targets as the primary driver. Gas prices have climbed more than 30% since the war began, topping $4 per gallon. “Many Americans have been concerned to see the recent rise in gasoline prices,” Trump said during a prime-time address on Wednesday night. Oil prices surge on Trump escalation remarks: Oil prices jumped Thursday after President Trump said the U.S. will strike Iran “extremely hard” over the next two to three weeks while signaling the conflict could be short-lived and that talks with Tehran remain ongoing. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures ( CL1:COM ) gained 6.1% to $106.21 a barrel, and the international benchmark Brent crude futures ( CO1:COM ) rose 6.57% to $107.80 per barrel. EU weighs stablecoin “kill switch”: Germany and Italy have jointly proposed an EU-wide “kill switch” that would let regulators abruptly ban foreign global stablecoins operating in the bloc if they threaten financial stability or breach rules, Euronews reported. The plan would allow the European Union to bar stablecoins issued outside the bloc unless their home-country regulations are deemed equivalent to EU standards. Pharma tariffs expected as soon as Thursday: The Trump administration plans to impose tariffs on pharmaceutical companies that haven’t agreed to lower U.S. drug prices, with an announcement expected as soon as Thursday, Bloomberg reported. The president had earlier threatened tariffs ranging from 100% to 200% on the pharmaceutical industry as part of a broader push to bring drug manufacturing...
Blackstone Inc. -owned AGS Health Pvt. has filed draft paperwork for an initial public offering in Mumbai through the confidential route, according to people familiar with the matter. The private equity firm is working with JM Financial Ltd , Jefferies Group LLP , ICICI Securities Ltd , JP Morgan and Nomura Holdings Inc. for the offering, which could raise as much as $500 million, the people said,...
Blackstone Inc. -owned AGS Health Pvt. has filed draft paperwork for an initial public offering in Mumbai through the confidential route, according to people familiar with the matter. The private equity firm is working with JM Financial Ltd , Jefferies Group LLP , ICICI Securities Ltd , JP Morgan and Nomura Holdings Inc. for the offering, which could raise as much as $500 million, the people said, asking not to be identified as the discussions are private. The proposed share sale is expected to comprise a mix of primary issuance and secondary stake sales by existing investors, the people said. Blackstone is seeking a valuation of as much as $3 billion for AGS Health and is likely to move toward a public listing in the coming months, one of the people said. Details of the offering, including size and timing, remain subject to change. Representatives for Blackstone and AGS didn’t respond to queries seeking comment. The pipeline for India’s primary market has been busy and riddled with uncertainties recently. The Securities and Exchange Board of India has cleared the listing of nearly 150 companies so far, while another 48 firms have filed draft papers and are awaiting approval. Blackstone acquired AGS Health in 2025 from Stockholm-based EQT AB, which had inherited the asset through its 2022 acquisition of Baring Private Equity Asia. Read More: Blackstone Is Said to Plan $500 Million India IPO for AGS (1)
gettinthere/iStock via Getty Images I am always looking to add new names to my aerospace and defense coverage. I already cover over 130 aerospace and defense stocks, but I believe there are still many more names that are worthy of further investigation for investment. A reader tipped M-Tron Industries ( MPTI ) as a name following the company’s price movement post-earnings. In this report, I discus...
gettinthere/iStock via Getty Images I am always looking to add new names to my aerospace and defense coverage. I already cover over 130 aerospace and defense stocks, but I believe there are still many more names that are worthy of further investigation for investment. A reader tipped M-Tron Industries ( MPTI ) as a name following the company’s price movement post-earnings. In this report, I discuss the company’s activities, the most recent results and I explain why I believe the stock is a hold despite its growth prospects but still is very close to a buy rating. M-Tron Industries Is Niche Radio Frequency Component Manufacturer M-Tron is a small but important provider of high-reliability RF (Radio Frequency) component manufacturer focused on frequency and spectrum solutions. You can see this as the timing and signal integrity backbone of advanced electronic systems. The company designs filters, oscillators, crystal resonators, RF/microwave assemblies and high-power amplifiers for the aerospace and defense, space & satellite communication and communication & data infrastructure markets. The company Is not a high-volume player but provides solutions when in high-spec and high-reliability applications such as electronic warfare, radar, space systems and guided munitions. That also means that the company is positioned extremely well for missile, radar and drone proliferation with deep vertical integration as the company stretches from material science to design to manufacturing, testing and integration. M-Tron is active in the critical RF components layer placing it as a Tier 2/2.5 supplier. As demand is increasing, M-Tron faces a ramp up challenge that it has to execute but once executed successfully there should be substantial margin upside. M-Tron faces some risk in the sense that it has customer and integration overlap with other companies. Whereas M-Tron is active in the component layer offering high customization options, there are players such as Qorvo and Mercur...
Hayri Er/iStock via Getty Images I’ve written about the data marketplace since the 1990s starting with Documentum. Next, the big data honeymoon started in 2012. Every few years, someone decides complexity is a feature. Snowflake ( SNOW ) actually broke that pattern and they’re running into an architectural and legal wall. SQL won’t fix it. What's happening isn't one problem, it's three running at ...
Hayri Er/iStock via Getty Images I’ve written about the data marketplace since the 1990s starting with Documentum. Next, the big data honeymoon started in 2012. Every few years, someone decides complexity is a feature. Snowflake ( SNOW ) actually broke that pattern and they’re running into an architectural and legal wall. SQL won’t fix it. What's happening isn't one problem, it's three running at the same time. Snowflake is paying rent to the hyperscalers on every transaction. Countries are demanding their data stay inside their own borders. And Snowflake is undercutting its own pricing by making the product work better. That last one is the strangest problem to have. Any one of those, you can usually engineer around. All three at once is different. The Landlord Problem The biggest structural problem isn't Snowflake's code. It's their landlord situation. Sitting on top of AWS , Azure , and GCP means customers pay a double margin on their own data. Move data into Snowflake and there's often an egress bill waiting on the other side — $0.08 to $0.12 per GB from the cloud provider. That's a tax on your own information, and Microsoft in particular is using it as a weapon. With Fabric , they bundle analytics into existing enterprise agreements and let it look "free" next to a standalone Snowflake bill. The One Lake architecture gives them a unified storage layer that skips the expensive data movement Snowflake has always depended on. Snowflake's answer is Apache Iceberg v3 , which lets data stay in open formats inside the customer's own storage. Smart play for interoperability. It's also cutting into their own revenue, their Q4 FY2026 earnings report acknowledged that efficiency gains are a 6.3% revenue headwind for the year ahead. A 6.3% hit from your own product improvements is not a rounding error. Then there's the geopolitical layer, which in 2026 isn't just a macro talking point. It shows up on the balance sheet. The surge in sovereign clouds, countries demanding the...