alexsl/iStock Unreleased via Getty Images Investment Thesis Eight months ago, I wrote an article about how generative AI put Amazon.com, Inc.'s ( AMZN ) public cloud service, AWS, in a defensive position. AWS's absence in key AI narratives is worrying, not only to investors but also to the management team (podcast timestamp 28:19 ). Today, AMZN is closing that gap. Its decision not to pursue the d...
alexsl/iStock Unreleased via Getty Images Investment Thesis Eight months ago, I wrote an article about how generative AI put Amazon.com, Inc.'s ( AMZN ) public cloud service, AWS, in a defensive position. AWS's absence in key AI narratives is worrying, not only to investors but also to the management team (podcast timestamp 28:19 ). Today, AMZN is closing that gap. Its decision not to pursue the development of its own large language model, or LLM, as aggressively as Meta Platforms ( META ) and xAI ( X.AI ) also seems less consequential. Microsoft ( MSFT ) and Alphabet ( GOOGL ) gained an early advantage over AMZN by partnering with OpenAI ( OPENAI ) and acquiring DeepMind in the mid and late 2010s. AMZN is closing the gap created by this early market entry. Anthropic ( ANTHRO ), through Claude, is gaining real traction. AWS is the primary training and inference provider of Claude and has equity ownership in the company. There is still work to be done. However, the narrative that AMZN is playing catch-up no longer tells the whole story. ChatGPT Models Are Now Available on AWS In early 2025, the agreement that gave MSFT an advantage and exclusive access to commercialize OpenAI technology was renegotiated . MSFT still has preferential access to key commercialization opportunities. It still controls access to APIs via Azure. However, the renegotiated agreement gives AWS enough, namely, direct access to OpenAI's non-API products. By August 2025, two of OpenAI's open-weight models became available on AWS Bedrock. The agreement was amended again in October 2025, with MSFT losing the "right to first refusal" on OpenAI's computing capacity needs in the renegotiated agreement, in return for $250 billion of incremental computing purchase commitment from OpenAI. In November 2025, OpenAI signed a $38 billion computing agreement with AWS for training and inference applications. In February 2026, OpenAI signed a strategic agreement with AMZN, which entails the co-development of ne...
You can buy the Apple Watch Series 11 for $100 off in multiple sizes and colors. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge If you’re still holding onto an older Apple Watch, now might be a good time to upgrade. Right now, the 42mm Apple Watch Series 11 with GPS is on sale for around $299 ($100 off) at Amazon , Best Buy , and Target , which is its best price to date. If you prefer a larger size...
You can buy the Apple Watch Series 11 for $100 off in multiple sizes and colors. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge If you’re still holding onto an older Apple Watch, now might be a good time to upgrade. Right now, the 42mm Apple Watch Series 11 with GPS is on sale for around $299 ($100 off) at Amazon , Best Buy , and Target , which is its best price to date. If you prefer a larger size, the 46mm is also $100 off for a limited time, with the base GPS configuration selling for about $329 at Amazon , Best Buy , and Target . Apple Watch Series 11 Where to Buy: $399 $299 at Amazon (42mm) $429 $329 at Amazon (46mm) $399 $299 at Best Buy (42mm) While it’s not a significant upgrade over the Apple Watch Series 10 , we still recommend it if you’re using a Series 5 or Series 6. It’s Apple’s fastest and most durable flagship wearable yet, with a bright, wide-angle OLED display that’s easy to read at a glance. It offers the longest battery life of any Series model to date, allowing you to eke out up to 24 hours (or 38 hours in low-power mode) on a single charge with the base configuration. The LTE version doesn’t drain as quickly either thanks to Apple’s power-efficient 5G modem, and you can charge a dead watch to 80 percent capacity in just 30 minutes. On the health and wellness side, it offers a diverse range of features, from FDA-cleared hypertension notifications and sleep scores to ovulation tracking, sleep apnea detection, and fall detection. Beyond that, you get access to watchOS 26 features like Workout Buddy, which offers real-time coaching, as well as wrist flick and double tap gestures so you can control the watch without touching the screen. Rounding things out, you also get Apple’s usual set of smart features, including Apple Pay, Siri, and access to music directly from your wrist. Read our Apple Watch Series 11 review .
Exclusive: Analysis of government figures indicates public finances will gain £600m not £10bn if migrants’ access to benefits is reduced Shabana Mahmood’s migration reforms are expected to deliver just £600m in savings – about 6% of the £10bn the home secretary claimed, according to the government’s own data. Under the plans, most people would have to wait 10 years to qualify for settled status, r...
Exclusive: Analysis of government figures indicates public finances will gain £600m not £10bn if migrants’ access to benefits is reduced Shabana Mahmood’s migration reforms are expected to deliver just £600m in savings – about 6% of the £10bn the home secretary claimed, according to the government’s own data. Under the plans, most people would have to wait 10 years to qualify for settled status, rather than the existing five-year period, which the home secretary argued would save costs on public services. Continue reading...
Pavel Kot/iStock via Getty Images Markets may be pricing some relief for now, but the true measure of an oil shock is how long it endures. The Middle East ceasefire sparked a relief rally last week as markets dialed back the risk of a deep, drawn-out oil supply shock. Stocks have already erased much of the post-conflict drop. Bonds haven’t gotten the memo: Yields are still elevated, keeping a bit ...
Pavel Kot/iStock via Getty Images Markets may be pricing some relief for now, but the true measure of an oil shock is how long it endures. The Middle East ceasefire sparked a relief rally last week as markets dialed back the risk of a deep, drawn-out oil supply shock. Stocks have already erased much of the post-conflict drop. Bonds haven’t gotten the memo: Yields are still elevated, keeping a bit of extra term premium on the table. That gap is telling. Bond investors are still pricing a messier growth-inflation mix than the pre-conflict baseline. And crude isn’t exactly flashing “all clear,” either, with spot prices still near $100 a barrel as of this writing. History is blunt on this point: It’s not the oil spike that breaks risk appetite, it’s how long it sticks around. Figures 1 and 2 illustrate this pattern by comparing cumulative changes in spot and six-month crude futures across the four major oil supply shocks of the past four decades: the 1990 Gulf War, the 2000 OPEC production cuts, the 2022 Russia–Ukraine conflict, and the current Middle East war. Just over a month into the current episode, both spot and six-month futures have tracked a path remarkably similar to the early phase of the 1990 Gulf War. Figure 1: Spot WTI prices have followed an almost identical pattern to the 1990 Gulf War Source: Bloomberg, Haver Analytics, PIMCO as of 1 April 2026. WTI refers to West Texas Intermediate crude oil. Figure 2: The same is true for the six-month contract Source: Bloomberg, Haver Analytics, PIMCO as of 1 April 2026 The bottom line is that it was only as the 1990 conflict dragged on – energy infrastructure was taken offline and excess inventories depleted – that markets began to sharply reprice longer-dated oil futures. That inflection coincided with material widening of U.S. dollar investment-grade credit spreads (see Figure 3) and lower Treasury yields, as investors increasingly treated the shock as a negative impulse for economic growth. Figure 3: USD IG credi...
Olekcii Mach/iStock via Getty Images By Steffan Szumowski One critical step of the nuclear fuel chain - uranium enrichment - has long been a domestic vulnerability for the United States. Traditional gas-centrifuge technology has been the proven workhorse for decades, delivering low-enriched uranium (LEU) for today’s reactor fleet. Now, next-generation laser-based methods promise dramatically highe...
Olekcii Mach/iStock via Getty Images By Steffan Szumowski One critical step of the nuclear fuel chain - uranium enrichment - has long been a domestic vulnerability for the United States. Traditional gas-centrifuge technology has been the proven workhorse for decades, delivering low-enriched uranium (LEU) for today’s reactor fleet. Now, next-generation laser-based methods promise dramatically higher efficiency, lower energy use, smaller footprints, and faster deployment. The VettaFi Nuclear Renaissance Index (NUKZX) includes companies adding new uranium enrichment capacity and developing laser-based technologies. Importantly, these companies may not be found in other nuclear power strategies. The fuel segment of NUKZX tends to focus on uranium enrichment and conversion, with less exposure to uranium mining. Centrus Energy Corp. ( LEU ) utilizes centrifuge technology, while three laser players, Silex Systems ( SILXY ), ASP Isotopes ( ASPI ), and LIS Technologies (private), are closing the gap toward commercial reality. Recent milestones across all four companies signal accelerating progress and open tangible investment opportunities across the nuclear value chain. Centrus Energy: The Established Centrifuge Leader Scales up Centrus Energy operates its uranium enrichment facility at the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio. Using its proprietary AC-100M advanced gas centrifuges, the company has been producing high-assay LEU (HALEU) under a Department of Energy (DOE) contract since 2023, and recently reached the milestone of 900 kilograms delivered to the DOE. Centrifuge technology remains the current standard. While proven at industrial scale, the process is capital-intensive, with large physical footprints and higher energy requirements per unit of enrichment effort. It provides a reliable baseline against which the laser approaches are measured. Centrus recently launched a centrifuge manufacturing project to support commercial-scale expansion. In January 2026, t...
Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer releases the Homestretch — an actionable afternoon update, just in time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street. Another resilient session for the stock market , which, at least for Monday, is unfazed by the spike in oil prices and the uptick in Treasury yields. A gain for the S & P 500 would mark its eighth advance in the past nine sessio...
Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer releases the Homestretch — an actionable afternoon update, just in time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street. Another resilient session for the stock market , which, at least for Monday, is unfazed by the spike in oil prices and the uptick in Treasury yields. A gain for the S & P 500 would mark its eighth advance in the past nine sessions. WTI Crude climbed as high as $105 per barrel this morning after the meeting between the U.S. and Iran did not immediately translate into a deal. The breakdown in talks led President Donald Trump to order a blockade of all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports as of 10:00 a.m. on Monday. Still, there is optimism that a deal will be made before tensions escalate again. The S & P 500 added to its gains, and WTI briefly fell below $100 after Trump told reporters that Iranian officials called this morning, wanting to make a deal. It's unclear what impact Monday's market reversal will have on the S & P Oscillator. This technical tool moved back into overbought territory after Friday's session, exactly one month after the S & P 500 entered oversold territory on March 10. The S & P 500 closed at 6,781.48 when it first became oversold, and it currently trades around 6,850. While the index was little changed over this period, it shows you why we are increasingly opportunistic when the Oscillator moves deeper into oversold territory. Energy was the best-performing sector for most of Monday, but that changed when Trump gave his Iran update. Financials were near the top of the leaderboard despite the post-earnings sell-off in Goldman Sachs . But technology performed best, with secular strength in AI-related stocks once again lifting the market. There was also a significant rebound in enterprise software following a couple of ugly sessions late last week on concerns that AI will disrupt the group. Names like CrowdStrike , Salesforce , Palo Alto Networks , and Microsoft ...
Getty Images Since our last update on the U.S.-Israel-Iran war, the Trump administration has announced a two-week ceasefire, hours ahead of last Tuesday’s deadline, after which the U.S. threatened, “a whole civilization will die.” Markets rallied past pre-war levels on news of the ceasefire and U.S. acceptance of Iran’s proposed 10-point plan as “workable.” Truth Social A well-reasoned market rall...
Getty Images Since our last update on the U.S.-Israel-Iran war, the Trump administration has announced a two-week ceasefire, hours ahead of last Tuesday’s deadline, after which the U.S. threatened, “a whole civilization will die.” Markets rallied past pre-war levels on news of the ceasefire and U.S. acceptance of Iran’s proposed 10-point plan as “workable.” Truth Social A well-reasoned market rally should’ve disappeared shortly after Wednesday, as the ceasefire has only grown more fragile since its announcement less than a week ago. Both sides call this ceasefire a victory but confirm they're ready to re-engage if it falls through. That's where concern seeps in. Iran has warned: "Our hands are on the trigger, and the moment the enemy makes the slightest mistake, it will be met with full force." Pete Hegseth emphasized at Wednesday's press conference that the U.S. military will be "hanging around" prepared to jump back in "at a moment's notice." White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt added to the conversation on Wednesday, stating that: "The Iranians originally put forward a 10-point plan that was fundamentally unserious, unacceptable, and completely discarded. It was literally thrown in the garbage by President Trump and his negotiating team." The two sides are describing completely different deals. The three most contested issues that have yet to be resolved during this ceasefire are: 1. Enriching Uranium - The first major disagreement has to do with the age-old debate about Iran's right to enrich uranium. Trump claimed that Iran had agreed to surrender its enriched uranium stockpile and halt all future enrichment, but Iran's own security council, in its published 10-point plan, explicitly asserts the opposite. 2. Lebanon - The U.S. and Israel insist Lebanon was not included in the ceasefire, while Iranian officials disagree. JD Vance explained the entire situation on this front as a genuine "misunderstanding" between both sides and warned that Iran would be ...
Cybercriminals allegedly used the W3LL phishing kit to target more than 17,000 victims worldwide, stealing their passwords and multi-factor authentication codes.
Cybercriminals allegedly used the W3LL phishing kit to target more than 17,000 victims worldwide, stealing their passwords and multi-factor authentication codes.
minemero/iStock Unreleased via Getty Images Thesis Mastercard represents an attractive buying opportunity, with increasingly scrutinous regulations and growing competition concealing the silent transition to a data/service-driven business. Along with this, a rebound in cross-border transactions and an already asset-light model justify current premiums in forward multiples. For these reasons, I am ...
minemero/iStock Unreleased via Getty Images Thesis Mastercard represents an attractive buying opportunity, with increasingly scrutinous regulations and growing competition concealing the silent transition to a data/service-driven business. Along with this, a rebound in cross-border transactions and an already asset-light model justify current premiums in forward multiples. For these reasons, I am assigning a Buy rating with a ~40% potential upside, as I see such points playing out in the long term. Company Overview Mastercard operates a worldwide technology network that facilitates electronic transactions between consumers, institutions, businesses, and others. Most of their products fall into 3 main segments: Payment Processing: The company acts as an intermediary , securely routing transaction data between parties, ensuring the right banks, businesses, and institutions have access to the right funds. Network Operations: Mastercard supports credit, debit , and prepaid card transactions (you will often see its logo on these cards), facilitating EFTs (Electronic Fund Transactions) among different parties. Security & Redundancy: Provide threat detection , AI analytics, and cybersecurity solutions to defend companies and consumers from data breaches and fraud. The company operates on an entirely electronic scale, having virtually no COGS or inventory. They act solely as an intermediary and electronic router/service provider ( 2025 10-K Page 23 ), enabling payments for around 150 million merchants worldwide. This contributes to the asset-light model and operating leverage, which will be explained later. Mastercard has a roughly 60/40 split (2025 10-K Page 56) in terms of revenue, with 60% coming from its payment processing segment (core to the business, slower growth) and 40% from value-added services (security, consulting, loyalty programs). Services are the fastest-growing segment, with a shift in business model becoming more apparent in recent years. For reference, v...