Electricity demand is expected to grow rapidly over the next decade. According to Bank of America , U.S. electricity demand is projected to grow 2.5% annually, or five times faster than the previous decade's growth rate, driven by the expansion of data centers. Constellation Energy (NASDAQ: CEG) is well-positioned to capitalize on this trend. With its strong presence in the energy sector and a mas...
Electricity demand is expected to grow rapidly over the next decade. According to Bank of America , U.S. electricity demand is projected to grow 2.5% annually, or five times faster than the previous decade's growth rate, driven by the expansion of data centers. Constellation Energy (NASDAQ: CEG) is well-positioned to capitalize on this trend. With its strong presence in the energy sector and a massive nuclear footprint, Constellation's ability to meet the growing demand of data centers bodes well for its future outlook. Here's what investors have to look forward to from the utility provider over the next three years. Continue reading
Welcome to Bloomberg’s Banking Monitor . Every Thursday we’ll deliver you the top news of the global banking industry with emerging trends, winners and losers and market opportunities. Sign up now if you’re not already on the list. Amid hopes for a robust peace and restored navigation in the Hormuz Strait, bankers are gingerly returning to their offices in the Middle East. Meanwhile their global c...
Welcome to Bloomberg’s Banking Monitor . Every Thursday we’ll deliver you the top news of the global banking industry with emerging trends, winners and losers and market opportunities. Sign up now if you’re not already on the list. Amid hopes for a robust peace and restored navigation in the Hormuz Strait, bankers are gingerly returning to their offices in the Middle East. Meanwhile their global colleagues return to more prosaic problems that were there before the war broke out, including the turmoil in private credit. And right on schedule, here comes earnings week , with Wall Street banks expected to report a record $18 billion stock-trading haul, in part because of volatility caused by the war and private lending. Oaktree’s Howard Marks, the dean of distressed investing, likes to say that there are no bad assets, only bad prices. Wall Street is taking this to heart: Morgan Stanley is setting up an interval fund to buy private credit at a time when some investors are dumping holdings in a near panic. Deutsche Bank’s US distressed specialists doubled their quarterly profit . Some nonbanks also are set to take advantage of hasty exits: Blackstone took in $10 billion for a new opportunistic credit fund , and Ares Management raised almost as much for a similar portfolio. Fans of irony will note that even Blue Owl, the firm at the center of the tumult, raised $2.9 billion for a new opportunistic credit fund. The firm gamely cited “an increasingly attractive opportunity set, driven by market dislocation, complexity and the demand for flexible capital.” Goldman Sachs Group, which has a knack for doing well where others do badly, persuaded customers to keep redemptions in its Private Credit Fund to just 4.999% of their cash in the first quarter, a sliver under the 5% limit. UBS Group did some financial alchemy by packaging stakes in private credit funds into debt that’s backed by an insurance company, allowing it to cash out of the positions without having to unload them ...
phive2015 Market breadth has strengthened notably, with more than 75% of S&P 500 ( SP500 ) constituents now trading above their 20-day moving average—marking the most robust participation since November. The broad-based advance reflects improving short-term momentum across equities. Gains accelerated midweek following a sharp rally on Wednesday, driven by news of a conditional ceasefire between th...
phive2015 Market breadth has strengthened notably, with more than 75% of S&P 500 ( SP500 ) constituents now trading above their 20-day moving average—marking the most robust participation since November. The broad-based advance reflects improving short-term momentum across equities. Gains accelerated midweek following a sharp rally on Wednesday, driven by news of a conditional ceasefire between the United States and Iran. The development eased geopolitical tensions and supported risk appetite, helping fuel widespread buying activity. As a result, several stocks have delivered outsized moves, contributing to the market’s upward push. The latest data highlights the top 20 S&P 500 performers over the past week, underscoring how leadership has expanded beyond a narrow group and into a more diverse set of sectors. S&P 500 stocks ranked by weekly performance: Intel ( INTC ), +33.58% Lumentum ( LITE ), +27.50% Ciena ( CIEN ), +27.25% SBA Communications ( SBAC ), +27.08% Seagate Technology ( STX ), +26.68% Western Digital ( WDC ), +25.25% Synopsys ( SNPS ), +22.91% Corning ( GLW ), +21.42% Teradyne ( TER ), +20.86% Micron Technology ( MU ), +20.39% Monolithic Power Systems ( MPWR ), +20.08% Skyworks Solutions ( SWKS ), +19.96% Coherent ( COHR ), +18.29% Arista Networks ( ANET ), +18.15% Lam Research ( LRCX ), +15.37% Humana ( HUM ), +14.42% Advanced Micro Devices ( AMD ), +13.96% Centene ( CNC ), +13.87% KLA Corporation ( KLAC ), +13.58% Broadcom ( AVGO ), +13.29% S&P 500 Funds: ( SPY ), ( VOO ), ( IVV ), ( RSP ), ( SSO ), ( UPRO ), ( SH ), ( SDS ), ( SPXU ), ( FXAIX ), ( VFIAX ), ( VFFSX ), and ( SWPPX ). More on markets VIX falls below 20 for the first time since the conflict began in the Middle East Why this oil rally isn’t crashing stocks—Deutsche Bank breaks it down Ceasefire uncertainty looms large as prediction markets signal a long road to de-escalation Cantor Fitzgerald calls the market pullback a buying opportunity despite Middle East risks From oil surge to econo...
adamkaz/iStock via Getty Images While Energy Vault's ( NRGV ) rapid rally has cooled from its 52-week high, the utility-scale energy storage company is still underway with a rapid buildup of its order book and corresponding revenue growth. Revenue for its fiscal 2025 fourth quarter came in at $153.3 million , up a material 358% over its year-ago comp and a beat by $740,000 on consensus estimates. ...
adamkaz/iStock via Getty Images While Energy Vault's ( NRGV ) rapid rally has cooled from its 52-week high, the utility-scale energy storage company is still underway with a rapid buildup of its order book and corresponding revenue growth. Revenue for its fiscal 2025 fourth quarter came in at $153.3 million , up a material 358% over its year-ago comp and a beat by $740,000 on consensus estimates. Critically, NRGV saw its contract backlog grow to $1.3 billion as of the end of the fourth quarter, adding $380 million of orders sequentially and up 3x from the year-ago comp. The company's product offerings include its proprietary battery, gravity, and green hydrogen energy storage technology stacks sold to a range of customers, including industrial energy users, utilities, and independent power producers ("IPPs"). NRGV was originally listed on the NYSE via a special purpose acquisition company in 2022, offering only a novel gravity-based long-duration energy storage ("LDES") technology stack. This was an intense solution that would use excess renewable energy to lift huge composite blocks that would then be dropped for dispatchable energy, smoothing out the peaks and troughs of intermittent renewable energy generation. NRGV has since expanded its technology portfolio to deliver short, long, and ultra-long duration energy storage solutions. Energy Vault Fiscal 2025 Fourth Quarter Presentation The bullish thesis here comes from the ongoing transition to renewables to limit carbon emissions and load growth as the global electric grid takes on more data centers every year on the back of AI demand for compute. U.S. utility Duke Energy ( DUK ) is increasing its 5-year capital expenditure plan by $16 billion to meet higher load demand through to the end of the decade, with Southern Energy ( SO ) set to boost its capital spending plan by as much as $15 billion to meet roughly 8 gigawatts of additional load over the next six years. These spending plans are centered on new electri...
J Studios Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners, predicts inflation will remain stubbornly elevated at 3-4% through the end of the year, far exceeding the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. In an interview with CNBC, Boockvar suggested that any rate cut by Fed Chair Kevin Walsh would be “more symbolic than anything” given persistent price pressures, noting that recent ...
J Studios Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners, predicts inflation will remain stubbornly elevated at 3-4% through the end of the year, far exceeding the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. In an interview with CNBC, Boockvar suggested that any rate cut by Fed Chair Kevin Walsh would be “more symbolic than anything” given persistent price pressures, noting that recent economic data showed a “very hot PPI for February” and “much higher than expected import prices.” Boockvar expressed cautious optimism that the ceasefire with Iran will hold, calling the de-escalation “a big deal” driven by mounting economic pain from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. While price shocks have been global, he warned that the U.S. may soon face “volume shocks” if shipping lanes remain blocked. “I think at the end of the day, the Iranians want to get this done,” Boockvar said, adding that failure to reach a deal would only “sow the seeds of their own demise economically” as supply chains are redrawn around them. Even with a resolution to the conflict, Boockvar believes the global economy has entered a sustained commodity bull market that will prevent any return to the “prewar environment.” He anticipates widespread global stockpiling and the creation of strategic reserves across nations, which will “keep a bid under inflation and interest rates” and effectively tie the hands of central banks for the foreseeable future. The persistent inflation creates significant friction throughout the economy, particularly for low-to-middle-income consumers who remain in “their own sort of personal recession” compared to upper-income spenders. Small businesses facing intense cost pressures are responding by reducing hiring, which Boockvar says prevents the economy from breaking out of its roughly 2% growth rate. On equities, Boockvar suggested that the initial GenAI technology trade driven by hyperscalers has “exhausted itself” due to slowing cash flows, though he remains ...
Strikes that killed more than 200 people spark outrage amid global efforts to salvage truce Middle East crisis – live updates Israel’s devastating bombardment of Lebanon in the hours after a US-Iranian ceasefire was announced has been widely condemned amid global efforts to salvage the truce. More than 200 people were killed by Israeli bombing including strikes with heavy munitions on densely popu...
Strikes that killed more than 200 people spark outrage amid global efforts to salvage truce Middle East crisis – live updates Israel’s devastating bombardment of Lebanon in the hours after a US-Iranian ceasefire was announced has been widely condemned amid global efforts to salvage the truce. More than 200 people were killed by Israeli bombing including strikes with heavy munitions on densely populated areas, which drew outrage from the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international humanitarian organisations. Continue reading...
The near-total shutdown of the internet in Iran is the world’s longest nationwide blackout since the Arab Spring in the early 2010s. The Iranian government blocked access to the web shortly after the US and Israel launched strikes against the country in late February. This cut off many Iranians’ ability to communicate with the outside world. It followed an earlier shutdown in January during anti-r...
The near-total shutdown of the internet in Iran is the world’s longest nationwide blackout since the Arab Spring in the early 2010s. The Iranian government blocked access to the web shortly after the US and Israel launched strikes against the country in late February. This cut off many Iranians’ ability to communicate with the outside world. It followed an earlier shutdown in January during anti-regime protests. Some citizens have bypassed the censorship by using Starlink, Elon Musk ’s satellite internet service. Starlink is illegal in Iran, but receivers have been smuggled into the country in recent years and sold on the black market. Using such tools is risky; if caught, people could face capital punishment, according to Iranian rights activists. The weekslong duration of the current web shutdown is second only to the six-month blackout imposed in Libya in 2011, when Muammar Qaddafi’s government cut internet access to suppress growing dissent. What’s happened to the internet in Iran? Iran’s telecommunications industry is almost entirely state-owned, giving the government total control over voice and data traffic carried via the country’s terrestrial infrastructure. The latest wartime web blackout that began on Feb. 28 has surpassed the length of the shutdowns imposed during the Iran-Israel conflict in 2025 and the anti-government protests in 2026, 2022 and 2019. Connectivity has been hovering at about 1% of pre-war levels, according to internet monitoring group NetBlocks. Under a tiered access system, many government employees have been “white-listed” and are still able to use the worldwide internet during times of war or unrest, according to activists. State-run media is able to broadcast and post on social media despite the blackout. The Iranian regime has used these platforms as their main tool of communication during the war. While the US and Iran have agreed a ceasefire, it’s unclear whether there’ll be an easing of the web restrictions any time soon. An Iran...
DaveAlan American Airlines Group ( AAL ) became the latest U.S. carrier to increase prices for checked bag fees as it looks to offset higher jet fuel prices. The Texas-based airline will increase the fee by $10 to check a first piece of luggage at the airport on domestic or short-haul international flights starting with tickets booked Thursday, bringing the price of one bag to $50. A second bag wi...
DaveAlan American Airlines Group ( AAL ) became the latest U.S. carrier to increase prices for checked bag fees as it looks to offset higher jet fuel prices. The Texas-based airline will increase the fee by $10 to check a first piece of luggage at the airport on domestic or short-haul international flights starting with tickets booked Thursday, bringing the price of one bag to $50. A second bag will cost $60 for most tickets, while a third bag will cost $200. Travelers who prepay for their first and second bags online or via the airline's mobile app will get a discount of $5, the company said , adding that customers traveling on a domestic Basic Economy ticket will be charged $55 for their first checked bag and $65 for their second checked bag for tickets purchased on May 18 and beyond. “These changes are the result of the airline’s continuing evaluation of pricing and in light of the current operating environment,” the company said. Airline stocks have been under pressure since mid‑February as escalating Middle East tensions pushed oil prices higher, raising concerns over fuel costs and squeezing profit margins. Recently, United Airlines ( UAL ), JetBlue ( JBLU ), and Delta Air Lines ( DAL ) have hiked their fees for checked bags. Delta also said its fuel bill will be $2B higher this quarter because of the spike in fuel costs. However, a two-week ceasefire agreement by the U.S. and Iran has eased some pressure, leading to airline stocks gaining on Wednesday. More on American Airlines American Airlines: Back In The Game Airline stocks jump as U.S.-Iran ceasefire lifts oil fears DOT Sec. Duffy sees “room” for more airline M&A
Richard Drury S&P 500 earnings are set for a sixth straight quarter of double-digit growth, with consensus pointing to roughly 12% year-on-year EPS expansion in 1Q26 on about 9% sales growth, according to Wells Fargo Securities . The more notable signal, however, is not just the pace of growth but the stability of expectations heading into the season. The chart on S&P 500 first-quarter EPS revisio...
Richard Drury S&P 500 earnings are set for a sixth straight quarter of double-digit growth, with consensus pointing to roughly 12% year-on-year EPS expansion in 1Q26 on about 9% sales growth, according to Wells Fargo Securities . The more notable signal, however, is not just the pace of growth but the stability of expectations heading into the season. The chart on S&P 500 first-quarter EPS revisions over the three months into earnings shows estimates have remained broadly flat, in contrast to the typical pattern of downward revisions ahead of reporting. Wells Fargo This stands in contrast to the typical pattern, where forecasts are steadily marked down ahead of reporting, and suggests a higher degree of confidence in the earnings backdrop. At the same time, that stability at the index level masks a more uneven picture underneath. The breakdown of first-quarter EPS revisions since year-end highlights a clear split across sectors. Technology and Energy have seen upward revisions, reflecting stronger momentum and supportive fundamentals, while sectors such as Health Care, Consumer Discretionary, and Industrials have faced downgrades. Wells Fargo The net effect is a steady aggregate profile, but one that is increasingly reliant on a narrower set of earnings drivers. This growing concentration leaves the earnings cycle more exposed to sector-specific dynamics, particularly within technology, which continues to carry a disproportionate share of growth expectations. While this has supported the headline numbers so far, it also raises questions about the breadth and durability of the expansion if leadership fails to broaden out. Top-down indicators, meanwhile, offer a more cautious read. The comparison of modeled versus consensus S&P 500 revenue growth for 1Q26 points to sales growth of roughly 8.5%, implying a modest shortfall relative to expectations. This suggests that while earnings estimates have held firm, underlying demand conditions may not be as strong as implied b...