TEL AVIV, ISRAEL - APRIL 08: An Iranian cluster munition is fired towards Tel Aviv and the surrounding area around 3 AM on April 08, 2026 in Tel Aviv, Israel. Alexi Rosenfeld | Getty Images News | Getty Images Many Middle Eastern countries reported incoming missiles and drones from Iran on Wednesday, triggering air defenses across the Gulf within hours of a newly announced two-week ceasefire betwe...
TEL AVIV, ISRAEL - APRIL 08: An Iranian cluster munition is fired towards Tel Aviv and the surrounding area around 3 AM on April 08, 2026 in Tel Aviv, Israel. Alexi Rosenfeld | Getty Images News | Getty Images Many Middle Eastern countries reported incoming missiles and drones from Iran on Wednesday, triggering air defenses across the Gulf within hours of a newly announced two-week ceasefire between Washington and Tehran. The U.S. and Iran agreed to the temporary truce just before U.S. President Donald Trump's deadline to launch massive attacks if no deal was reached. The ceasefire, if it holds, would open a two-week negotiating window with U.S. and Iranian delegations expected to meet in Islamabad on Friday. The ceasefire, brokered by Pakistan, was contingent on the "complete, immediate, and safe opening" of the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said. Iranian officials said in a statement on Wednesday that "if attacks against Iran are halted, our Powerful Armed Forces will cease their defensive operations." Tehran added that safe passage through the strait would be possible through coordination with its armed forces and with "due consideration of technical limitations" — caveats that may give Iran some room to define compliance on its own terms. Despite the reprieve, missiles were still launched from Iran towards Israel and several Gulf states. The Israeli military said it had identified ballistic missile attacks from Iran early Wednesday, with early warnings issued in central and northern parts of the country. The United Arab Emirates said its air defense systems were intercepting missiles and drones and urged the public to remain in safe places. "The sounds heard in scattered areas of the country are the result of the UAE air defense systems intercepting ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones," the ministry said. Saudi Arabia's Civil Defense organization also issued early warnings of "potential danger" across the country, including Riyadh. Kuwait , Bahrain and Qat...
Quincy Institute Executive VP Trita Parsi says the US decision to negotiate an opening of the Strait of Hormuz on the basis of Iran's 15-point framework shows a changing of dynamics in the conflict. Parsi notes that by successfully threatening the global oil supply, Tehran has successfully shifted the conflict’s dynamics by retaining leverage. (Source: Bloomberg)
Quincy Institute Executive VP Trita Parsi says the US decision to negotiate an opening of the Strait of Hormuz on the basis of Iran's 15-point framework shows a changing of dynamics in the conflict. Parsi notes that by successfully threatening the global oil supply, Tehran has successfully shifted the conflict’s dynamics by retaining leverage. (Source: Bloomberg)
Wachirapong Sukkasemsakorn/iStock via Getty Images By Behnood Noei, CFA Over the past month, markets have been rattled by the escalating conflict in the Middle East. Risk assets were the first to react, but the damage didn’t stop there. Even traditional safe havens, including gold and other precious metals, have fallen sharply. At the same time, the U.S. dollar has strengthened, and central banks ...
Wachirapong Sukkasemsakorn/iStock via Getty Images By Behnood Noei, CFA Over the past month, markets have been rattled by the escalating conflict in the Middle East. Risk assets were the first to react, but the damage didn’t stop there. Even traditional safe havens, including gold and other precious metals, have fallen sharply. At the same time, the U.S. dollar has strengthened, and central banks across developed markets, including the Federal Reserve, have shifted toward a more hawkish tone. In a landscape where both risk and safety seem uncertain, it’s worth taking a closer look at how one of our strategies designed for turbulent inflationary environments, the WisdomTree Inflation Plus Fund ( WTIP ) has performed. How Did We Get Here? The recent closure of the Strait of Hormuz has pushed oil prices significantly higher, bringing inflation risk back to the top of the list of concerns for the market. For many investors, this feels uncomfortably familiar. The post-COVID inflation shock is still fresh, and the prospect of another prolonged inflationary period is enough to cause heartburn for investors who are not positioned appropriately. While the underlying cause of this inflation spike differs from the last time around (monetary response to COVID), the implications are similar: rising costs, shifting policy expectations, and a growing need for effective hedges. Near-term inflation expectations have already begun to climb, and if the conflict persists, those pressures may only intensify. Figure 1: 1-Year Zero-Coupon Inflation Swaps Source: WisdomTree, Bloomberg, as of 03/30/2026. 1-year Zero-coupon swap: A derivative used to transfer inflation risk from one party to another through an exchange of cash flows. In a zero-coupon inflation swap, only one payment is done at maturity where one party pays a fixed rate on a notional principal amount, while the other party pays a floating rate linked to an inflation index. WTIP’s Performance WTIP was designed for moments like...
US Scientists Crack Superconductor Code - Zero Energy Loss Moves Closer To Reality Authored by Prabhat Ranjan Mishra via Interesting Engineering , Researchers in the United States have unlocked secrets of high-temperature superconductors. Small differences in how atoms are arranged in a crystalline lattice can strongly affect superconductivity. (Representational image) Wildpixel/Charles Researcher...
US Scientists Crack Superconductor Code - Zero Energy Loss Moves Closer To Reality Authored by Prabhat Ranjan Mishra via Interesting Engineering , Researchers in the United States have unlocked secrets of high-temperature superconductors. Small differences in how atoms are arranged in a crystalline lattice can strongly affect superconductivity. (Representational image) Wildpixel/Charles Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have discovered how tiny changes in superhydride structure enable superconductivity at near room temperatures but extreme pressure - offering clues for designing more practical superconductors. “ These experiments show what the upgraded APS can do. We can now study atomic-level structures with unprecedented detail in materials under extreme pressure,” said Maddury Somayazulu, Argonne physicist. Superconductors allow electricity to flow without resistance Researchers revealed that superconductors allow electricity to flow without resistance, meaning no energy is lost as heat. This property makes them useful for technologies such as MRI scanners, particle accelerators, magnetic-levitation trains and some power-transmission systems . They also highlighted that most superconductors, however, only work at extremely low temperatures - often hundreds of degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Keeping materials that cold requires complex and costly cooling systems, which limits where the superconductors can be used. Now, researchers in the U.S. have helped take a step toward easing that limitation . They have gained new insight into a class of materials called superhydrides that can become superconducting at much higher temperatures - around 10 degrees Fahrenheit. In the new study, Hemley and his fellow researchers explored whether changing the material’s chemistry could lower the pressure needed for superconductivity. They added a small amount of yttrium to the lanthanum superhydride to make it more stable and reduce th...
Bain Capital ’s Bridge Data Centres has removed from its Malaysian computing hub a Southeast Asian company the US suspects of smuggling Nvidia Corp. chips. The company replaced Megaspeed International Pte. with cloud provider Zenlayer Inc. at its Malaysian facility, people familiar with the matter said, citing a memo the Bain-owned firm sent to its lenders in February. The data center operator did...
Bain Capital ’s Bridge Data Centres has removed from its Malaysian computing hub a Southeast Asian company the US suspects of smuggling Nvidia Corp. chips. The company replaced Megaspeed International Pte. with cloud provider Zenlayer Inc. at its Malaysian facility, people familiar with the matter said, citing a memo the Bain-owned firm sent to its lenders in February. The data center operator didn’t cite a reason for the switch in the letter, which was sent to the providers of a recent $2.8 billion loan, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private matters. The change follows a US government probe into Megaspeed’s ownership structure and whether it smuggled advanced Nvidia AI chips to China in violation of American export restrictions. Read More: Nvidia’s Biggest Southeast Asia Buyer Faces Chip Smuggling Probe The removal of Megaspeed may help BDC reduce its exposure to scrutiny from US authorities. Washington has intensified oversight of advanced US technology exports amid an escalating battle between the world’s two superpowers for artificial intelligence dominance. For Megaspeed, one question is what happens to the vast quantities of Nvidia-powered AI servers that the chipmaker observed at BDC’s facilities — Megaspeed’s largest site by far — last fall. Singapore-based Megaspeed is what’s called a neocloud, a specialized cloud-computing provider used by AI services. Nvidia declined to comment on whether it was aware of the change at BDC or whether it had visited Megaspeed’s operations there in recent months. The chipmaker performed spot checks across Megaspeed’s Southeast Asia footprint several times last year, and said in December that it would do so again “in the near future.” Representatives for Bain Capital, BDC and Zenlayer declined to comment. Megaspeed didn’t respond to a request for comment. Read More: Asia Bankers Fear US Scrutiny of Loans Involving Chips, China In its February letter to lenders, BDC said that all the 68.4 megawatts of...