South Korean President Lee Jae Myung called for the quick launch of a cap on fuel prices as the government moves to contain a spike in energy costs triggered by escalating conflict in the Middle East. Authorities should “swiftly introduce and boldly implement the maximum fuel price system” to curb excessive price increases, Lee told officials during an emergency economic meeting Monday. Lee’s rema...
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung called for the quick launch of a cap on fuel prices as the government moves to contain a spike in energy costs triggered by escalating conflict in the Middle East. Authorities should “swiftly introduce and boldly implement the maximum fuel price system” to curb excessive price increases, Lee told officials during an emergency economic meeting Monday. Lee’s remarks came as global oil prices surged toward $120 a barrel , the highest level since 2022, amid mounting supply risks. Oil suppliers in the Middle East have lowered output, the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed, and the US has threatened to escalate a conflict that has already roiled energy markets. South Korea imports almost all of its energy supplies, with about 70% of its oil cargoes typically shipped through the vital strait. The move to impose a price cap — the first time such a measure will have been used in nearly 30 years — is part of a broader effort to stabilize domestic energy markets as geopolitical tensions disrupt supply chains. According to Korea National Oil Corp. , the average retail gasoline price at service stations was 1,895.32 won ($1.27) per liter on Sunday, up about 12% from 1,692.89 won on Feb. 28 as the US began its airstrikes on Iran. On Sunday, Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan said the government could implement the fuel price cap quickly if market conditions deteriorate. “We have almost finished preparations,” Kim told reporters after returning from a trip to the US. “We plan to monitor market conditions and respond accordingly.” The initial response will be a release from the country’s strategic oil reserves. These stand at about 100 million barrels or enough to cover more than 210 days of consumption, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resource said in December. Separately, Kim convened an emergency meeting with domestic refiners and industry groups to review local fuel prices, warning companies against exploiting the surge in global c...
Track your investments for FREE with Simply Wall St, the portfolio command center trusted by over 7 million individual investors worldwide. Why TransUnion’s new AI agent matters for stock watchers TransUnion (TRU) has introduced its AI Analytics Orchestrator Agent, a Google Gemini powered tool within the TruIQ suite, aimed at making advanced credit analytics faster, more transparent and easier to ...
Track your investments for FREE with Simply Wall St, the portfolio command center trusted by over 7 million individual investors worldwide. Why TransUnion’s new AI agent matters for stock watchers TransUnion (TRU) has introduced its AI Analytics Orchestrator Agent, a Google Gemini powered tool within the TruIQ suite, aimed at making advanced credit analytics faster, more transparent and easier to audit. See our latest analysis for TransUnion. Despite the AI announcement, TransUnion’s share price, at US$77.38, has been under some pressure recently. It has a 30 day share price return of 5.31%, a year to date share price return of 7.14%, and a 1 year total shareholder return of 9.99%, while the 3 year total shareholder return of 30.50% points to stronger momentum over a longer horizon. If TransUnion’s AI push has caught your attention, this could be a good moment to look across the sector and check out 35 AI infrastructure stocks as potential next candidates for your watchlist. With TRU trading at US$77.38, showing a 1 year total return decline of 9.99% but a 3 year total return of 30.50%, and an intrinsic discount estimate of roughly 50%, is this a potential opportunity, or is the market already pricing in future growth? Most Popular Narrative: 18.3% Undervalued At $77.38, TransUnion sits below the most widely followed fair value estimate of $94.75. That estimate is built using a detailed cash flow narrative. With technology modernization and operational transformation investments ending in 2025, management projects free cash flow conversion to rise significantly (from 70% in 2025 to 90%+ in 2026). This is expected to provide a catalyst for future shareholder returns through buybacks, acquisitions, or reinvestment, and to support a step-change in long-term earnings growth. Read the complete narrative. Curious how higher cash conversion, revenue growth expectations and a richer profit margin profile all feed into that $94.75 figure and discount rate assumptions? The fu...
Their forward was once suspended when her head scarf slipped off during a goal celebration. Their youngest player is just 18. Another once worked as a personal trainer overseas. These are the women of the Iran football team, who are at the centre of an international diplomatic incident, even as the US and Israel rain missiles down on their family back home. The team remains in a hotel on the Gold ...
Their forward was once suspended when her head scarf slipped off during a goal celebration. Their youngest player is just 18. Another once worked as a personal trainer overseas. These are the women of the Iran football team, who are at the centre of an international diplomatic incident, even as the US and Israel rain missiles down on their family back home. The team remains in a hotel on the Gold Coast, where they played their third and final match of the Women’s Asian Cup on Sunday. Their departure from Australia is imminent, even if it’s not clear whether they want to go. They came to Australia to play football, but from here they cannot win. Fears are held for their safety if they were to return. The players were dubbed “wartime traitors” by a state-linked commentator, who called for them to be “dealt with more severely”, after they failed to sing the national anthem in their first Asian Cup game. In subsequent matches not only have the players sung – or at least mouthed the anthem’s words – they have saluted. Were they to stay in Australia, they face cutting off ties from their family and friends, who may be then vulnerable living under a regime that has already killed tens of thousands. Backlash might extend to teammates, other footballers, and out through community networks still living in Iran. It is a torrid choice, but one the players may have for only hours more. Daniel Ghezelbash, director of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW, said now the team’s matches had finished, time was of the essence. “The Iranian officials accompanying the team would be wanting to get them out of Australia as quickly as possible,” he said. “And that does create a sense of urgency.” Protestors briefly blocked the team bus leaving the stadium on Sunday, waving the international sign for help at the players – a fist closed with thumb underneath the four fingers, then opened again. Some appeared to return the gesture. But in truth, nobody outside the team knows ...
China’s consumer prices rose during the first two months of the year as a longer-than-usual Chinese New Year holiday drove a surge in spending, though analysts cautioned that Beijing might need to implement stronger measures to boost demand to sustain the recovery. The national consumer price index (CPI), a crucial gauge of inflation, rose by 0.8 per cent year on year during the January-February p...
China’s consumer prices rose during the first two months of the year as a longer-than-usual Chinese New Year holiday drove a surge in spending, though analysts cautioned that Beijing might need to implement stronger measures to boost demand to sustain the recovery. The national consumer price index (CPI), a crucial gauge of inflation, rose by 0.8 per cent year on year during the January-February period, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday. Readings for the first two months are typically grouped together to reduce distortions from the Chinese New Year holiday, which fell in February this year but took place in January last year. Advertisement In February, consumer prices rose 1.3 per cent year on year – the largest monthly jump recorded in around three years – which the bureau largely attributed to the different timing of the extended break and a recovery in demand. The monthly reading also beat market expectations for a 0.93 per cent increase, according to economists polled by financial data provider Wind, which did not provide a forecast for the January-February period. Advertisement
( Tomdispatch.com ) – “I love the idea of getting a drone and having light fentanyl-laced urine spraying on analysts that tried to screw us,” said Alex Karp, the CEO of the emerging military tech firm Palantir. Far from an offhand outburst, his statement reflects a broader ethos taking hold in Silicon Valley’s military-tech sector, one that treats coercion as innovation, cruelty as candor, and the...
( Tomdispatch.com ) – “I love the idea of getting a drone and having light fentanyl-laced urine spraying on analysts that tried to screw us,” said Alex Karp, the CEO of the emerging military tech firm Palantir. Far from an offhand outburst, his statement reflects a broader ethos taking hold in Silicon Valley’s military-tech sector, one that treats coercion as innovation, cruelty as candor, and the unchecked application of technological power as both inevitable and desirable. Karp loves verbal combat as much as he likes running a firm that makes high-tech weaponry. His company has helped Israel increase the pace at which it has bombed and slaughtered Palestinians in Gaza, and its technology has helped ICE accelerate deportations, while also helping locate and identify demonstrators in Minneapolis. Not only is Karp unapologetic about the damage done by his company’s products, he openly revels in it. This February, he told a CNBC interviewer that, “if you are critical of ICE, you should be out there protesting for more Palantir. Our product actually, in its core, requires people to conform with Fourth Amendment data protections.” (That amendment being the one that protects citizens from “unreasonable searches and seizures.”) Yet Karp’s speculation hasn’t led him to ask ICE to stop using his software in its war on peaceful dissent, nor has it dissuaded him from accepting an open-ended, $1 billion contract with ICE’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In keeping with his full-throated support for repression at home and abroad, at the height of the Gaza war, Karp held a Palantir board meeting in Tel Aviv, proclaiming that “our work in the region has never been more vital. And it will continue.” In an interview with Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, he summed up his philosophy this way: “I actually am a progressive. I want less war. You only stop war by having the best technology and by scaring the bejabers — I’m trying to be nice here — out of our...
To get John Authers’ newsletter delivered directly to your inbox, sign up here . Today’s Points: The Iranian conflict is intensifying , sending crude above $110. Iran has chosen Khamenei’s son as new supreme leader . Both food and fuel inflation are now under upward pressure. Back on the home front, US employment suddenly went negative. AND: Congratulations to India for a cricketing World Cup . Le...
To get John Authers’ newsletter delivered directly to your inbox, sign up here . Today’s Points: The Iranian conflict is intensifying , sending crude above $110. Iran has chosen Khamenei’s son as new supreme leader . Both food and fuel inflation are now under upward pressure. Back on the home front, US employment suddenly went negative. AND: Congratulations to India for a cricketing World Cup . Lengthening Arabian Nights Meet the new boss, same as the old boss . Iran has chosen a new leader, and it’s Mojtaba Khamenei , son of the slain former supreme leader. This isn’t regime change, or the choice of a country about to surrender, and it contributed to a shocking open to trade in Asia. Brent crude is now above $110 per barrel, up 60% for the week, while in Japan, the Nikkei 225 is down 7% at the time of writing. Crude is at a four-year high: Khamenei’s appointment could be critical in the longer term, but for markets, it’s the length of the war that now matters more than anything else. Who wins doesn’t matter — the goals remain unclear, and Iran is highly unlikely to emerge as a “victor” in any meaningful sense. The new supreme leader will impact the “endgame” of the future governance of Iran, which could in turn have profound economic consequences long into the future (just as the Iranian revolution of 1979 has done). But for now, prices rise and fall on the chances of a drawn-out conflict, and with it a protracted delay to the flow of oil from the region. Prediction markets, the flavor of the moment, see the chances of a swift conclusion as having ebbed swiftly over the last week, and now put a 48% probability on the notion that there still won’t be a ceasefire by the end of next month: For a more positive outlook, Saudi Arabian stocks obviously stand to be grievously affected by a long war, and investors there seem optimistic. The market was closed on Friday and traded Sunday, by the end of which the main Saudi stock benchmark was higher than before war broke out:...
A woman allegedly fired numerous shots into the Beverly Hills home of Rihanna on Sunday, and a round went through a wall of the house, local news outlets reported. The Los Angeles Times and NBC4, citing a Los Angeles police spokesperson, reported that authorities responded to the shooting at 1.21pm on Sunday and detained a 30-year-old female suspect. Los Angeles police and a representative...
A woman allegedly fired numerous shots into the Beverly Hills home of Rihanna on Sunday, and a round went through a wall of the house, local news outlets reported. The Los Angeles Times and NBC4, citing a Los Angeles police spokesperson, reported that authorities responded to the shooting at 1.21pm on Sunday and detained a 30-year-old female suspect. Los Angeles police and a representative for Rihanna did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Rihanna was at home but no injuries were reported, the Los Angeles Times said, citing a source. The newspaper cited police radio traffic that “approximately 10 shots” had been fired from a vehicle across the street from the property’s gate.
CoreWeave NASDAQ: CRWV co-founder and chief development officer Brannin McBee said demand for the company’s AI infrastructure remains “overwhelming” and “insatiable,” describing 2026 as “broadly sold out” in terms of billable compute capacity. Speaking with Morgan Stanley’s Keith Weiss, McBee said the demand backdrop has broadened from an early focus on AI labs to include hyperscaler cloud custome...
CoreWeave NASDAQ: CRWV co-founder and chief development officer Brannin McBee said demand for the company’s AI infrastructure remains “overwhelming” and “insatiable,” describing 2026 as “broadly sold out” in terms of billable compute capacity. Speaking with Morgan Stanley’s Keith Weiss, McBee said the demand backdrop has broadened from an early focus on AI labs to include hyperscaler cloud customers and, increasingly, large enterprises. Get CoreWeave alerts: Sign Up Demand broadens across customer types and contract terms lengthen McBee said CoreWeave’s demand has expanded beyond the “starting cohort” of AI labs beginning in 2022, first reaching hyperscaler cloud clients and more recently accelerating within the enterprise segment. He pointed to the pace of enterprise adoption as “truly fascinating” and noted that customer behavior has been shifting toward longer commitments. CoreWeave provides multi-year “take-or-pay” contracts, and McBee said the typical contract duration has increased over time. He described a progression from roughly three-year contracts about 24 months ago, to four-year contracts 12 months ago, to a backlog now weighted toward five-year contracts, with some extending up to six years. McBee also highlighted that demand is not limited to the newest hardware. He said customers are requesting a range of GPU generations—including A100s, H100s, H200s, and Blackwell—and that these requests are often driven by workloads engineered for specific systems, with inference described as a key driver. CoreWeave emphasizes operational differentiation and software “stack” Weiss pressed McBee on whether CoreWeave’s growth is simply a function of supply availability or whether the company has durable differentiation. McBee argued that GPU infrastructure “is not fungible,” saying that a given GPU in one cloud environment is not necessarily equivalent to the same GPU elsewhere due to operational execution and performance at scale. McBee said CoreWeave’s platform was...
Nvidia (NVDA 2.94%) has been the staple of artificial intelligence (AI) investing since it became mainstream in 2023. However, its stock has remained relatively dormant since August 2025. The stock is up about 5% since then, and there have been several other AI investments that have taken off in that same time frame. One of the best stocks to bet on since Nvidia quit rising is Micron Technology (M...
Nvidia (NVDA 2.94%) has been the staple of artificial intelligence (AI) investing since it became mainstream in 2023. However, its stock has remained relatively dormant since August 2025. The stock is up about 5% since then, and there have been several other AI investments that have taken off in that same time frame. One of the best stocks to bet on since Nvidia quit rising is Micron Technology (MU 6.68%). In the same time frame that Nvidia rose a mere 5%, Micron's stock is up nearly 300%. With returns like that, investors may be wondering if it's still worth holding on to Nvidia or if they're better off switching to Micron. Micron operates in a cyclical industry Micron and Nvidia may both be associated with AI chips, but they're in completely separate parts of the market. Micron is a memory chip manufacturer, and its products are used in products ranging from smartphones to laptops to graphics processing units (GPUs) made by Nvidia. While there have been several bottlenecks in the AI build-out, memory has become one of the largest ones, and it will be some time before this demand issue is resolved. Expand NASDAQ : NVDA Nvidia Today's Change ( -2.94 %) $ -5.39 Current Price $ 177.95 Key Data Points Market Cap $4.3T Day's Range $ 176.83 - $ 182.75 52wk Range $ 86.62 - $ 212.19 Volume 6M Avg Vol 177M Gross Margin 71.07 % Dividend Yield 0.02 % Nvidia is more of a chip designer than a producer. It designs the computing units, then outsources the components and manufacturing to several different suppliers, Micron being one of them. However, because it's supplying the end product, it has significant control over how much it can charge. This is a key advantage that Micron doesn't have. There isn't a lot that separates one memory chip manufacturer from another, so the product is relatively commoditized. As a result, the only pricing power Micron has is based on supply and demand. Right now, memory prices are soaring because demand is low, so Micron is making a ton of money,...