US stocks dragged down lower for the year as Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz continued to pressure global oil markets 

Cross-asset implied vol stress hit April 'Liberation Day' levels

Brent and WTI futures shot up to ~$100/bbl

Fed, ECB, BoE, BOJ, Australia, China, Canada, Switzerland, and others are set to announce rate decisions this week with traders eying crucial forward guidance from officials

Euro hit a seven-month low versus dollar

Hungarian forint is down 4% MTD as the worst performing EM FX since the Iran war

What we're watching this week:  

Full calendar here

Oil is having a crypto moment

Trade event contracts on Polymarket, the world's largest prediction market

Peter Thiel lectures about Antichrist in Rome (FT)

US, Iran continue strikes as Trump mulls possibility of deal (BBG)

Pentagon sees Iran war lasting up to six weeks (BBG)

Hedge funds eye exotic options to play huge cross-asset swings (BBG)

Hedge funds are the most bullish on oil since Covid (BBG)

Oil turmoil rattles $134B commodity curve carry trade (BBG)

US oil groups are set for a $63B windfall from Iran war disruption (FT)

Gulf states lose $15B in energy revenues since start of war (FT)

US Q4 GDP growth was revised down to 0.7% (CNBC)

US job openings broadly picked up while layoffs fell (BBG)

US and Mexico launch review of trade deal with Canada (FT)

Exchanges oppose US Treasury intervention in oil futures market (RT)

Private credit fears and war darken outlook for US financial stocks (BBG)

China consumer spending is at an all-time low (BBG)

Retail traders are piling into oil bets (FT)

Uber co-founder Kalanick launched Atoms in specialized robotics push (RT)

Musk fired more xAI co-founders as AI coding effort falters (FT)

Meta plans to cut 20% of staff (RT)

Meta delayed launch of Avocado AI model on performance concerns (NYT)

China's ByteDance gets access to top Nvidia AI chips (WSJ)

Financier who offered 'guaranteed' high yields pleaded guilty to fraud (WSJ)

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Women's tournament bracket ⛹️‍♀️

Set up your account

Pick a username – it'll show up on the leaderboard, so choose wisely

Fill in your bracket before noon March 19 when the games tip off

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Glencore hopes rising coal prices will bring Rio Tinto back to the table for talks to merge and form a $240B mining giant

US will receive a $10B fee for brokering the $14B TikTok US deal

Film producer Steve Tisch and his two siblings are transferring their $10.3B stake in MLB team New York Giants to trusts for their children

Fertitta Entertainment is in talks to buy casino operator Caesars Entertainment at a $31.5B valuation, including $25B debt

Bain Capital agreed to acquire Australian investment manager Perpetual's wealth management arm for $350M

Indian edtech startup upGrad will acquire rival Unacademy in an all-stock deal

India scrapped two bids it received for a majority stake in $10B-listed IDBI Bank citing valuation concerns

French insurer Carac acquired a 30% stake in impact investment firm RAISE

Israeli AI infrastructure firm Vast Data raised $1B at a $30B valuation

Chinese AI startup Moonshot AI is seeking to raise $1B at an $18B valuation

Blockchain firm Ripple Labs plans to buyback $750M of shares at a $50B valuation

Chinese AI video startup AIsphere raised a $300M Series C at an over $1B valuation led by CDH Investments

Grafana Labs, an observability and data visualization company, raised a $250M funding round from eleven investors

Axiom, an AI startup focused on mathematical verification, raised a $200M Series A at a $1.6B+ valuation led by Menlo Ventures

StairMed, a Chinese brain-computer interface (BCI) developer, raised a $73M round led by Alibaba

MetaComp, a Singapore-based Web2.5 payments and digital wealth platform provider, raised a $35M Pre-A+ round from Alibaba and Spark Venture

Matter, an advanced manufacturing startup, raised a $20M seed round

SoftBank-backed Japanese digital payment firm PayPay is open to a dual listing in Japan after its $880M US IPO

The $650M India IPO of state-owned Raajmarg Infra Investment Trust is 14x oversubscribed

Biotech AI startup Earendil Labs is considering a $500M Hong Kong IPO

PE firm Star Capital plans to raise $345M in a Germany IPO of defense tech group VINCORION 

Danish drugmaker Leo Pharma invited banks to pitch for an IPO

London Stock Exchange Group is seeking to sell $3B of high-grade US bonds 

Indian conglomerate Shapoorji Pallonji Group aims to raise $1B in its first dollar bond sale to refinance local debt

Brookfield is seeking an $800M loan to back its proposed LBO of air cargo specialist World Freight Co.

Peyton Manning-backed women's soccer team Denver Summit FC raised $40M in a private bond sale

Creditors of struggling UK utility Thames Water including Elliott and Silver Point pitched an improved rescue offer with $4.4B in equity, $4.3B in new debt, and up to 30% haircuts to secure investment grade ratings

Struggling Chinese property developer Fantasia unveiled a sweeping $4.7B offshore debt restructuring, including plans to issue ​new equity, convertible bonds, and long-dated notes

Spirit Airlines will shrink its fleet to one‑third of pre‑bankruptcy size under its Chapter 11 restructuring 

Ticket reseller Vivid Seats' $390M term loan sank to ~30¢ after a poor Q4 earnings, down from mid-50¢ in November

European PE firm Triton Partners raised $6.3B for sixth flagship MM PE fund

LVMH-backed PE firm L Catterton plans to invest $313M in five Japanese consumer businesses over the next three years

A Blue Owl private credit BDC is urging investors to reject activist Saba Capital's share purchase offer at a 33% discount to NAV

Bitcoin investor offers Nevis residents $100/month if libertarian city in Caribbean is approved

Read Travis Kalanick's manifesto on his return to startups…this time with a vision in robotics. He never left…

Sam Ro published another banger as usual, reminding all that there's no investing without some anxiety.

Ben Carlson shared some historical (and somewhat counterintuitive) data on how higher oil prices impact stock market returns.

Bloomberg followed four traders through the recent oil surge to get an idea of the pressure from the trading floor. What's at stake? Losing $1M in 2 seconds.

WSJ published a short primer on what private credit investors need to know about the industry's turmoil.

NYT's latest DealBook newsletter dives into PE's private credit problem.

FT published an interesting piece on the slow death of English boarding schools.

As well as the slow death of Japanese vending machines…