The Commerce Department announced Monday that the Trump administration's effort to export "full-stack" U.S. AI packages will enter its next phase on April 1.
Why it matters: The American AI exports program is meant to bundle the infrastructure, tools and models into ready-to-deploy AI systems for allies and partners, and has been touted as a key part of the White House's AI policy goals.
President Trump is zeroing in on a major vulnerability for Iran as the war's risks to the global economy grow increasingly serious.
Why it matters: Trump is ramping up his threats to Kharg Island, where Iran handles most of its oil, as the country maintains a stranglehold over the Strait of Hormuz.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Monday that he expects the company to reap "at least" $1 trillion in revenue from its newest AI chips through 2027.
Why it matters: The company is operating at the center of the AI universe, providing the critical processing infrastructure that powers models like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude.
Jerome Powell's term as Federal Reserve chair expires in less than two months. What happens then has only gotten murkier since a court ruling Friday in his favor.
Why it matters: The question of who will be in charge of the world's most important central bank later this spring — at a time of elevated inflation, stalled job creation and a war overseas driving energy prices higher — is looking surprisingly uncertain.
When Jared Kushner formed Affinity Partners in 2021, and then raised most of his first fund from Middle Eastern sovereigns, he took great pains to say that the endeavor was conceived after he left the White House.
He bristled at suggestions of quid pro quo, but also understood that the whiff was strong enough that it had to be addressed.
The S&P 500 appears relatively calm on the surface this year, but dig a little deeper and you'll find some wild swings.
Why it matters: Investors have retreated from the Big Tech names that carried the market in recent years, putting downward pressure on stocks.
By the numbers: The S&P 500 has fallen just 3% for the year, but that masks some big-time volatility.
57 stocks are up by at least 20%, and 47 stocks are down by at least 20%, according to an analysis conducted Friday afternoon by Bespoke Investment Group.
That's unusual, says Paul Hickey, the investment advisory firm's cofounder.
The big picture: AI and the war are pushing stocks around in new ways.
Investors are pulling back from software in the wake of the SaaS-pocalypse and rotating toward defense and energy stocks.
Winners. Energy and defense industry stocks like Valero (+43%), Occidental Petroleum (+40%) and Lockheed Martin (+34%).
Losers. Workday, which makes HR software imperiled by the SaaS-pocalypse, has declined 39% this year. Oracle, an AI darling stock, is down 20%, and Salesforce, the SaaS king, off 27%.
Yes, but: Software might be out, but hardware is very much in: Companies benefiting from the RAM and memory chip shortage are slaying.
SanDisk is up 168% for the year; Micron (+48%).
Between the lines: The biggest stocks that weigh most heavily on the market haven't seen such wild ups or downs — but things are meh.
The Magnificent 7 was down about 8% for the year, as of Friday afternoon, when Bespoke pulled the numbers.
How it works: The S&P 500 is weighted by company size — bigger firms have outsize impact on the index.
The top 10 stocks on the S&P 500 — that includes the Mag 7 — make up about 40% of the index, as Apollo Global's chief economist Torsten Slok recently pointed out.
"If they do nothing, the other 60% has to go up to move the needle," says Hickey from Bespoke.
Reality check: You could also argue that the relatively mild fall for the Mag 7 stocks is keeping the market from looking even worse.
The intrigue: If Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX are added to the S&P 500 this year, market concentration could approach 50%, Slok noted. That would mean the index "basically doesn't offer much diversification anymore."
What to watch: Some of this trend is actually starting to reverse, says Abby Yoder, U.S. equity strategist at JPMorgan Private Bank.
Software started performing better in the first week of the war, she tells Axios. Tech is recovering a bit now that it's out of the spotlight.
"AI is taking a backstep to geopolitics," she says.
The bottom line: "For years we basically heard about how the market was top heavy. Now those mega-cap stocks haven't performed as well," Bespoke's Hickey says. "So they act as a weight on the market."
The war in Iran has sent oil prices skyrocketing, scrambling an economic conflict with Russia that's been raging for more than a decade.
The big picture: It's harder to maintain tight sanctions on Russia —effectively a "cold war" — while also grappling with the economic impact from the "hot war" with Iran.
For five years in office, President Trump has operated with intuition, impulse and improvisation.
The Iran war, now entering Week 3, is the first time Trump's style has made it impossible for him to easily talk or improvise his way out.
Why it matters: Trump could wind up trapped between his caprice and the realities of war. He expects a quick, clear victory. But unlike tariffs that can be swiftly imposed and rescinded, the war's outcome is beyond unilateral control and quick fixes. And Iran gets a say.
Oil prices rose over $3 per barrel Sunday in the first major trading since President Trump's threat to strike Iran's main oil export hub unless Tehran allows tankers through the Strait of Hormuz — and they remained somewhat volatile into Monday.
Why it matters: The climb shortly after the markets' opening signals that traders see no major near-term market loosening or end to a conflict that has brought an unprecedented throttling of oil flows.
President Trump said Sunday he may delay his visit to China this month and urged the country to help the U.S. reopen the Strait of Hormuz that Iran's effectively shut during the war.
The big picture: Trump made the comments during an interview with the Financial Times that included him issuing warnings to Iran and NATO, as the effectively shuttered strait that's a key commercial shipping channel and high oil prices weigh heavily on his administration.
