The "live economy" — Broadway shows, concerts, music festivals and more — is in pandemic purgatory.

What's happening: Some events are getting the green light to restart as vaccinations roll out. But operators in states mandating audience caps are holding back as they contemplate whether it makes financial sense for the show to go on.

Driving the news: A small business aid program created for theaters, museums and other performing-arts venues opened on Friday — a first for the sector left in financial ruin when the pandemic hit.

• But the portal to apply for help closed after a few hours, with the SBA citing technical issues. No word yet on when it will reopen, further delaying aid.

The big question: Whether it's worth resuming shows with limited capacity. The costs to put on a show largely remain the same no matter the audience size.

• "Generally speaking, if a venue sells less than 70% of the house, they lose money on the show," says Doug Arthur, an analyst who covers concert company Live Nation at equity research firm Huber Research Partners.

What's happening: Plenty of live events are beginning to pencil in dates this year. The latest: SummerStage music festival in New York said today it will be returning.

• Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas is set for May, the festival's founder said last week — with details on safety protocols to come.

The other side: Rock band Rage Against the Machine pushed back its reunion tour to next year.

• And theater producers told The New York Times it's not "financially feasible" to reopen Broadway shows with restricted capacity.

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Get ready to hear a lot about corporate profits, as first-quarter earnings season begins this week.

Why it matters: Wall Street has high hopes as many companies put the worst of the pandemic behind them.

Check out the chart above: Analysts have ratcheted up profit expectations by a record amount, according to FactSet.

• Typically, they lower the bar as earnings season approaches.

What's next: The big banks are the first out of the gate, with JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo reporting quarterly results on Wednesday.

The expectation: More signs the banks are out of crisis mode and benefiting from the trading frenzy — a year after they began to set aside billions of dollars to prepare for a rush of bad loans (which hasn't materialized).

• Among the other big names reporting: Delta and PepsiCo, both on Thursday.

GameStop wrapped up its longest losing streak in a year, with shares falling to their lowest level in more than two weeks. (Yahoo Finance)

HSBC is reportedly barring users from buying shares of MicroStrategy — which has heavily invested in bitcoin — on its trading platform. (Reuters)

💲Microsoft is buying speech recognition software firm Nuance for almost $20 billion — its second biggest deal ever behind its LinkedIn acquisition. (Axios)

👀 Will Smith's "Emancipation" is the first to pull production from Georgia citing the state's voting law.

Regulators in China are getting serious with their anti-competitive crackdown — and they are taking aim at Jack Ma's empire, Axios' Hope King reports.

What's new: Chinese fintech giant Ant Group is shedding its cool tech image and stepping into a new identity as a financial holding company — the result of forced changes by Chinese regulators.

• They're calling on Ant to shrink some of its services to break up the “information monopoly” it has on up to 1 billion users in China. 
• It comes after Beijing fined Alibaba (Ant's sibling company) the equivalent of $2.8 billion for anti-competitive practices. (Shares jumped 6% today.)

Thought bubble from Axios' Felix Salmon: Financial startups generally avoid close regulatory oversight until they become systemically important, at which point regulators inevitably step in. That’s as true in China as it is anywhere else.

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Autonomous cars are coming to Dubai: Cruise, backed by General Motors and Honda, will be the city's exclusive provider for self-driving taxis.

• It'll start tests in 2023. No word on when it will be rolled out to the public.

Why it matters: It's the first time the autonomous vehicle upstart is expanding operations outside U.S. borders. Dubai said it wants 20% of trips to take place in autonomous vehicles by 2030.

• Cruise has been testing its cars in San Francisco — but hasn't said when it will offer a fleet of robotaxis in the U.S., CNBC reports.
• The financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

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