Major Indexes Surge in Early Trading as Oil Retreats Below $100/Barrel; Dow Adds 500 Points

Fertilizer Stocks Drop for Second Straight Session

FROM 38 minutes ago

Fertilizer stocks are pulling back for a second consecutive session after their recent surge.

CF Industries (CF) and Mosaic (MOS) were the two worst-performing stocks in the S&P 500 in early trading, down nearly 5% apiece, and Nutrien (NTR) shares fell about 4%.

Fertilizer producers stand to benefit from supply disruptions due to halted transit through the Strait of Hormuz, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC that the U.S. is allowing Iranian tankers to pass through “to supply the rest of the world.”

On Friday, Mosaic, CF Industries, and Nutrien shares retreated about 6%, 4.5%, and 1%, respectively. Shares had advanced since Middle East fighting commenced Feb. 28.

Crypto-Tied Stocks Jump Along With Bitcoin

FROM 1 hr 58 min ago

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are on the rise Monday morning. So are crypto-tied stocks.

MARA Holdings (MARA), Circle Internet Group (CRCL), and Strategy (MSTR) were among crypto-related shares surging before the bell, rising a respective 6%, 5.5%, and 4.5%, respectively.

Coinbase Global (COIN) and Robinhood Markets (HOOD) also were higher, rising a respective 4% and 2.5%.

Bitcoin was trading around $73,600, up from overnight lows below $71,500, but still well below its record above $126,000 set last October. Ether was up 6.5% on the day to roughly $2,270.

Americans Under 35 Are Buying Homes Again But the Lockout for Many Continues

FROM 2 hr 39 min ago

Homeownership among Americans under 35 recently hit its highest point in two years, a rebound after months of grim headlines about young buyers being priced out of the market.

Data from the Census Bureau’s Housing Vacancy Survey shows that 37.9% of households headed by someone under 35 owned their home in the fourth quarter of 2025. That’s up 1.6 percentage points from a year earlier, when the rate had sunk to 36.3%—the lowest level in five years. That number for 2025 was a surprise to analysts who expected homeownership rates to continue dropping.

Easing mortgage rates have been “the most immediate catalyst, pulling some previously sidelined buyers back into the market by improving monthly affordability,” said Hannah Jones, senior economic research analyst at Realtor.com, in an email. Modest price adjustments, rising inventory, and increased geographic flexibility toward lower-cost markets also played a role, she said.

Read the full article here.

–Peter Gratton

Nebius Group Shares Soar After Latest AI Deal, This Time With Meta Platforms

FROM 2 hr 55 min ago

Nebius Group (NBIS) shareholders no doubt are loving their recent press releases.

Shares of Nebius Group soared 13% in premarket trading Monday after the Amsterdam-based AI cloud company said it had reached a new five-year AI infrastructure supply agreement with Meta Platforms (META) worth up to about $27 billion.

Nebius said it “will provide $12 billion of dedicated capacity across multiple locations, based on one of the first large-scale deployments of the NVIDIA Vera Rubin platform,” starting in early 2027. In addition, Meta committed to buy up to $15 billion of additional available capacity across certain upcoming Nebius clusters, the Dutch firm said.

“We are pleased to expand our significant partnership with Meta as part of securing more large, long-term capacity contracts to accelerate the build-out and growth of our core AI cloud business,” Nebius founder and CEO Arkady Volozh said. “We will continue to deliver.”

Last Wednesday, Nebius shares surged 16% on news that Nvidia (NVDA) would invest $2 billion in the company as part of “a strategic partnership to develop and deploy the next generation of hyperscale cloud for the AI market.”

Nebius shares have added more than a third of their value this year.

The Fed Will Almost Certainly Hold at Its Meeting This Week-Here’s What’s Still Up in the Air

FROM 3 hr 20 min ago

The Federal Reserve policymakers are nearly certain to keep their key interest rate unchanged when they decide on monetary policy this week, with the real question being how officials are thinking about the Iran war and its effects on inflation.

The Federal Open Market Committee is widely expected to keep the federal funds rate at its current range of 3.5% to 3.75% when it concludes its two-day policy meeting on Wednesday. That would be the second meeting in a row the central bank has kept the rate flat, after cutting it by a quarter-point at each of its last three meetings of 2025 to lower borrowing costs on all kinds of loans and boost the faltering job market.

Financial markets are pricing in more than a 99% chance the Fed will keep policy flat, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool, which forecasts rate movements based on fed funds futures trading data.

Read the full article here.

–Diccon Hyatt

Stock Futures Point Higher After Major Indexes Close Lower for 3rd Straight Week

FROM 3 hr 58 min ago

Futures contracts connected to the Dow Jones Industrial Average pointed up 0.3%.

S&P 500 futures were 0.6% higher.

Nasdaq 100 futures also pointed up 0.7%.