News & Updates
The latest news and updates from companies in the WLTH portfolio.
Amazon invests up to $25 billion in Anthropic to expand partnership By Investing.com
Investing.com -- Amazon on Monday said that it will invest $5 billion in AI company Anthropic immediately, with up to an additional $20 billion tied to commercial milestones. The investment expands the companies' existing partnership following Amazon's previous $8 billion investment in Anthropic. Under the expanded agreement, Anthropic has committed to spend more than $100 billion over the next ten years on Amazon Web Services technologies. Anthropic will secure up to 5 gigawatts of capacity using Amazon's Trainium chips to train and power its Claude AI models. The partnership includes access to Trainium2, Trainium3, Trainium4, and future chip generations. Anthropic will also utilize tens of millions of Amazon's Graviton CPU cores. The collaboration encompasses Trainium3 capacity expected to come online this year and expanded international inference capabilities in Asia and Europe, the company's statement said. Earlier this month, Jassy in a company shareholder letter had said that Amazon's custom chip business is growing rapidly, as large tech firms are starting to make their own chips to reduce dependence on chipmakers like Nvidia. The letter said that the business has doubled its annualized revenue run rate to over $20 billion, up from the $10 billion the company disclosed alongside its fourth-quarter results. Jassy had also hinted towards future chip sales to other firms by saying that "There's so much demand for our chips that it's quite possible we'll sell racks of them to third parties in the future". AWS customers will gain access to Anthropic's Claude Platform directly through their existing AWS accounts, eliminating the need for additional credentials or billing relationships. The platform will integrate with existing AWS access controls and monitoring systems. The companies have previously collaborated on Project Rainier, one of the world's largest AI compute clusters with nearly half a million Trainium2 chips. More than 100,000 customers currently run Anthropic's Claude models on AWS through Amazon Bedrock. "Anthropic's commitment to run its large language models on AWS Trainium for the next decade reflects the progress we've made together on custom silicon," said Andy Jassy, Amazon's CEO. Dario Amodei, Anthropic's CEO, stated that the collaboration will allow the company "to continue advancing AI research while delivering Claude to our customers, including the more than 100,000 building on AWS."
Airline Stocks Whipsaw as Hormuz Chaos Shows Oil Trend Matters More Than Price | Investing.com NG
Last Friday, Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz open to commercial shipping, prompting a sharp decline in oil prices and a surge in airline stocks. Alas, the relief lasted less than 24 hours. By Saturday, Iran's military had retaken strict control of the strait after its Revolutionary Guard Corps attacked two commercial vessels. The next day, the U.S. seized an Iranian-flagged cargo ship. Oil prices jumped 5% overnight into Monday as the ceasefire, set to expire on Wednesday, hangs by a thread. For a sector that's been whipsawed by geopolitics and fuel costs, the volatility is a reminder that the path forward won't be a straight line. But I believe the underlying investment case for airlines remains strong. This past week also brought news that United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby pitched the White House on a potential merger with American Airlines, only for American to publicly reject the idea last Friday, while Spirit Airlines is seeking emergency government aid to continue operating. How Shocks Reshape the Airline Industry First, let's talk about airline industry M&A, a topic I've discussed many times before. The history of the U.S. airline industry is really a history of consolidation driven by crisis. The pattern has been remarkably consistent. Historically, when an external shock has hit -- a recession, a war, an energy spike -- the weakest carriers have folded or been acquired, while the strongest have emerged leaner and more profitable. After deregulation in 1978, fare wars and overcapacity crushed margins and triggered the first wave of mergers through the 1980s. Later, the September 11 attacks killed TWA outright and forced US Airways into a merger with America West. The 2008 financial crisis gave us Delta-Northwest, United-Continental and Southwest-AirTran. By 2013, when American merged with US Airways, the modern "Big Three" structure was firmly in place. Today's five largest carriers -- Delta, American, United, Southwest and Alaska -- have absorbed more than 40 smaller since 1960. Now we may be starting to see it again as the war in Iran and closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sent jet fuel prices through the roof. Spirit Airlines, already in Chapter 11 for the second time in under a year, is reportedly on the verge of liquidation. Its previous merger attempts -- first with JetBlue, then with Frontier -- both fell apart. The low-cost carrier, already on shaky ground, simply couldn't absorb fuel at these prices. A United-American Merger Would Create the World's Largest Carrier Meanwhile, United's Scott Kirby reportedly pitched the most ambitious airline deal in a generation during a February 25 meeting with President Trump. A combined United-American merger would create the world's largest carrier, commanding roughly 40% of domestic capacity and generating over $100 billion in annual revenue. No question, the deal would face enormous antitrust scrutiny. Analysts have already identified nearly 300 overlapping routes that would likely require divestitures. So far, the White House has declined to take a position, which I take as neither encouragement nor discouragement. However, American Airlines shot the idea down late Friday, stating it's "not engaged with or interested in any discussions regarding a merger with United Airlines." I don't think that necessarily means the conversation is over, but for now, the deal appears to be on ice. Delta Shows How Pricing Power Beats Fuel Inflation What's changed since the last wave of consolidations is the business model itself. Many carriers have transformed themselves from transportation providers into sophisticated platforms built on premium products, loyalty programs, co-branded financial services and more. Just look at Delta's most recent earnings report. The carrier posted record first-quarter revenue of $14.2 billion, up more than 9% year-over-year, even as fuel costs surged dramatically. The Atlanta-based company projected fuel costs of $4.30 per gallon this quarter, up from $2.62 in the prior year's quarter, an increase that will add more than $2 billion in costs. And yet earnings grew more than 40% over the prior year. How did Delta manage this? Well, premium revenue climbed 14%. Loyalty revenue rose 13%. Its deal with American Express alone has exceeded $2 billion. Diversified, high-margin revenue streams now represent 62% of Delta's total revenue and are growing in the mid-teens. CEO Ed Bastian noted the company is also reducing capacity growth and moving to recapture higher fuel costs through pricing, which is exactly the kind of disciplined behavior I want to see. This is the "premiumization" model that industry analysts have been talking about, and it's working. Today's airlines are doing more than just selling seats. They're closer to consumer and financial services firms that also happen to fly airplanes. The Direction of Oil Matters More Than the Price Last week, considering higher fuel prices, I analyzed historical data going back to 2001, looking at the relationship between Brent crude oil prices and the NYSE Arca Global Airlines Index. What I found is that oil prices alone don't tell you much about where airline stocks are headed. Instead, what matters is the trend. When oil had been rising over the past four weeks, airline stocks returned an average of nearly 6% over the following year. Conversely, when oil had been falling for four weeks, they returned an average of almost 14%. The direction of oil, then, mattered about twice as much as its price. The most powerful setup was when oil was elevated (in the top 20% of its historical range) but had started to decline over the prior 13 weeks. In those instances, airline stocks returned an average of nearly 31% over the following 12 months, with positive outcomes roughly 84% of the time. Think about what happened on Friday. Iran's foreign minister announced the Strait of Hormuz is open to commercial vessels for the duration of the ceasefire. Crude dropped 11%, and airline stocks popped across the board. By Monday, though, after Iran reversed course and the U.S. seized a vessel, oil was back up 5%. A sustained decline in oil prices from elevated levels hasn't materialized yet, but the historical pattern remains intact. When it does arrive, and eventually it will, history suggests we could be entering one of the most favorable entry points for airline stocks in years. The key is to watch for the rollover in the oil trend, not reacting to any single headline. Global Travel Growth Is Still Outpacing the Economy It's worth pointing out that travel demand remains robust. The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) reported this week that the global sector hit a record $11.6 trillion GDP contribution in 2025, growing nearly 50% faster than the overall global economy. Here at home, the U.S. Travel Association estimates that larger tax refunds this year could pump an additional $5.1 billion into domestic leisure travel spending, with middle-income households driving the bulk of it. Granted, airfares were up about 15% year-over-year in March, but as Southwest CEO Bob Jordan told ABC News this week, fares haven't outpaced broader inflation since the pandemic. Consumers are still traveling. The risk has always been on the cost side, specifically fuel. The Hormuz reopening didn't hold, and the ceasefire's fate remains uncertain. But that's precisely the point I'm making: the airlines that have built premium, diversified revenue models are proving they can weather this kind of turbulence. When the fuel headwind eases, those carriers will be in the strongest position. *** Holdings may change daily. Holdings are reported as of the most recent quarter-end. The following securities mentioned in the article were held by one or more accounts managed by U.S. Global Investors as of (03/31/2026): United Airlines, American Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Frontier Group Holdings, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines, Alaska Air Group, JetBlue Airways, Frontier Group Holdings, Air France-KLM, Deutsche Lufthansa. The NYSE Arca Global Airline Index is a modified equal-dollar weighted index designed to track the performance of highly capitalized and liquid international passenger airline companies. All opinions expressed and data provided are subject to change without notice. Some of these opinions may not be appropriate to every investor. By clicking the link(s) above, you will be directed to a third-party website(s). U.S. Global Investors does not endorse all information supplied by this/these website(s) and is not responsible for its/their content.
Morningstar considers revamping index construction ahead of SpaceX IPO
PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island, April 20 (Reuters) - Investment research and analysis provider Morningstar Inc. is the latest index provider to consider revising its approach to designing its market indexes in light of SpaceX's outsize pending initial public offering. Elon Musk's space transportation and exploration business is on track to issue as much as $75 billion of stock in an initial public offering that could value the company at $1.75 trillion, making it by far the largest IPO ever recorded and raising unprecedented challenges for investors about how and whether to add it to their portfolios. Morningstar, eyeing not only the pending SpaceX launch but also other similarly mammoth deals from companies like Anthropic and OpenAI later this year, said it will introduce what it refers to as an alternative way to gauge liquidity of these "unicorns" immediately following their debuts. This would address what is known as the free float requirement, or the requirement that a new public company have a minimum number of shares publicly available for trading. Morningstar said its CRSP Market Indexes will "undergo enhancements to introduce an alternative liquidity screen", making it possible to add SpaceX and other giant IPOs to these benchmarks more rapidly. The funds that use the CRSP indexes as a portfolio benchmark include Vanguard's $607 billion Total Stock Market ETF. "Index providers must evolve eligibility rules to keep their benchmarks relevant to new market realities," a company spokesman said in an e-mail to Reuters. Morningstar is the latest firm to wrestle with how to deal with this year's crop of pending IPOs from market giants like SpaceX. Current guidelines were established when U.S. IPOs tended to be of smaller companies, often still unprofitable, with limited track records and revenue. Companies like SpaceX, however, are waiting until they are older or much larger to go public, and index and exchange executives say that requires a new approach on their part. Nasdaq plans to alter the rules governing the makeup of its Nasdaq-100 Index to allow companies meeting certain criteria to be added to the mix in a fast-track process. That would cut any delay in adding newly listed companies from several months to only 15 days, Nasdaq told Reuters. Separately, S&P Dow Jones Global Indices is contemplating adjusting its own rules regarding the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index and other products, according to a report from Bloomberg in mid-March. The current S&P rules require 10% of a company's stock to trade freely. A spokesperson for S&P Dow Jones Global Indices declined further comment.
Amazon invests $5B in Anthropic, eyes $20B more in AI race against Nvidia
Amazon's $5 billion investment in Anthropic, with the potential for $20 billion more, sharpens its position in the AI race. On Polymarket, the odds of NVIDIA being the largest company by market cap on June 30 sit at YES, unchanged from a week ago. Market reaction Amazon's move puts it in direct competition with NVIDIA in AI and cloud infrastructure. The June 30 market at YES reflects strong trader confidence in NVIDIA's current lead. But a combined $25 billion commitment to Anthropic could push Amazon's market valuation high enough to challenge NVIDIA's position. Why it matters Trade volume is at $34,414 in face value and $23,286 in actual USDC exchanged daily. Moving the odds by five points requires $32,498, which points to real institutional participation. The largest recent price move was a 1-point spike, suggesting stable trader expectations. What to watch Amazon's bet on Anthropic comes with a complication: Anthropic has refused to build military AI applications. This tension between Amazon's aggressive commercial strategy and Anthropic's ethical constraints could affect how the investment plays out. A YES share at pays $1 if NVIDIA holds the top spot, a return. Traders betting on Amazon to overtake NVIDIA need to believe its AI integration will outweigh both ethical and regulatory friction. Watch for further Amazon announcements and any shifts in U.S. military AI policy. Changes in Anthropic's stance on defense technology could move sentiment. API access
Amazon to invest up to $25 billion more in Anthropic; Claude developer to spend more than $100 billion on AWS AI technology
This is the latest edition of a frenetic dash for AI compute to power Claude, which is undergoing some problems of success. Anthropic is continuing its scramble to accumulate more computing power, and Amazon is only too happy to oblige. As part of an expanded pact, the e-commerce and cloud giant is poised to invest an additional $5 billion in the Claude developer now and up to $20 billion more in the future. Anthropic, for its part, aims to spend more than $100 billion on Amazon Web Services tech over the next decade. That totals 5 gigawatts of computing capacity, some of which is expected to come online this year. The outlays are said to include multiple generations of the Trainium chips and Gravitron CPUs. AWS has been Anthropic's primary cloud provider and an investor in the AI start-up turned private juggernaut since 2023. Before this news, Amazon held an $8 billion stake in Anthropic. This is the latest edition of a frenetic dash for AI compute to fuel Claude, which is undergoing some problems of success. As its tools have become increasingly popular (and allegedly, disturbingly powerful), users have bemoaned use limits and stealth token rationing in recent weeks, with rival OpenAI claiming that its competitive advantage is access to compute. Anthropic's computing crunch has helped rejuvenate the AI trade in recent weeks by testifying to downstream, end-user demand. In other words, the cacophony of complaints about Claude access is being viewed as evidence that the appetite for compute has meaningful breadth across businesses and isn't just an arms race among hyperscalers. In April alone, Anthropic reached an AI compute deal with CoreWeave and boosted its agreements with Google and Broadcom. ""Our users tell us Claude is increasingly essential to how they work, and we need to build the infrastructure to keep pace with rapidly growing demand," said Anthropic CEO and co-founder Dario Amodei in the press release. For Amazon, this marks an acceleration in its custom chip business (a subset of the AI trade that seems to be going from strength to strength as of late). Earlier this month, CEO Andy Jassy also said its custom chip business was "on fire" and had exceeded a $20 billion annual revenue run rate, doubling from the $10 billion reported earlier this year.
Anthropic's Mythos is a warning shot. Singapore's banking system needs to be ready
DeeperDive is a beta AI feature. Refer to full articles for the facts. When the US Treasury Secretary and the chair of the Federal Reserve convene an unscheduled meeting with Wall Street's most senior executives, markets pay attention. And when the catalyst is not a liquidity crisis or a sovereign default, but the capabilities of an artificial intelligence model that its own maker considers too dangerous to release publicly, the rest of the world's financial centres should pay attention too. On April 15, the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore issued an advisory to local organisations, urging them to strengthen their cybersecurity measures and patch critical vulnerabilities. The model in question is Claude Mythos Preview, announced by Anthropic in early April. The company says Mythos has discovered vulnerabilities in major browsers and operating systems, including weaknesses in foundational digital infrastructure. Rather than release the model broadly, Anthropic is reportedly offering it first to major technology and infrastructure firms so they can patch their systems before adversaries acquire similar capabilities. Reasonable people can debate whether Anthropic is overstating what Mythos can do. The company plainly has incentives to dramatise its own products. But for policymakers, the key issue is not whether every claim about this model is fully proven, but that the possibility was taken seriously by government officials and major financial institutions. This tells us something important: frontier AI is no longer just a story about productivity tools or consumer applications. It is becoming a question of critical infrastructure, cyber resilience and, potentially, financial stability. As a major financial hub and a regional base for global banks, Singapore needs to act early as it would not be insulated from a serious AI-driven cyber incident affecting international finance. If more powerful AI tools make it easier to find software weaknesses, automate attacks or exploit common digital systems used by many organisations, the effects will not stop at banks or regulators. They could reach the public in ordinary but increasingly costly ways. In Singapore, phishing scams involving fake DBS and POSB e-mails were reported in 2026, with at least 72 cases and losses of some $484,000. Already, scams led to $913 million in losses in Singapore in 2025. AI could make such attacks even more convincing, allowing criminals to mimic bank alerts, tailor scam messages and imitate the authorities with far greater realism. In a more serious scenario, a cyberattack on shared digital infrastructure could delay digital payments or disrupt access to banking services. Trust in finance is built in everyday transactions such as when a person expects a salary to arrive on time, a card payment to go through, or a banking app to open safely. To its credit, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has been among the more forward-looking regulators on AI governance. It has introduced frameworks to guide the responsible use of AI in finance, including the FEAT principles on fairness, ethics, accountability and transparency, and the Veritas initiative, which helps financial institutions test and assess their AI systems. Recent efforts like Project MindForge show that Singapore is also beginning to grapple with newer and more complex AI risks, so the nation is not starting from scratch. But the Mythos episode suggests that the next gap may lie elsewhere. Much of the existing policy framework, in Singapore and globally, has focused on how financial institutions use AI internally: model risk, fairness, explainability, and accountability. Those remain important concerns. Yet different threat vectors are now emerging: increasingly capable AI systems or AI agents developed outside the traditional financial sector, but potentially deployable against it. Banks and regulators already invest heavily in cybersecurity, but much of their defensive architecture has been built around known vulnerabilities, known signatures and adversaries operating within relatively familiar bounds. An AI system that can autonomously discover previously unknown weaknesses in widely used software represents a more demanding class of threat, especially in a financial system built on shared cloud, software and communications infrastructure. The challenge becomes sharper as finance itself becomes more automated. Stablecoins, tokenised assets, digital payment rails and software-mediated financial intermediation are expanding the role of code, automation and machine-speed execution. As autonomous AI agents increasingly participate in trading, treasury operations and on-chain finance, the speed of both innovation and disruption rises, while advances in quantum computing could over time threaten the cryptography that underpins digital finance. In such an environment, a vulnerability may not remain an isolated technical flaw. It can become a system-level event. That is why the next stage of financial governance cannot rely only on more rules or better compliance. It also requires better ways to test what could happen before a real crisis occurs. This is where what I call economic world models come in. These are simulation tools that go beyond testing a single bank's defences. They model how markets, institutions and people actually behave - how a shock at one firm spreads to others, how customers react when a payment app goes down, how attackers and defenders change tactics as incentives shift. Think of it as a flight simulator for the financial system: a safe environment to rehearse crises before they happen. This matters because financial shocks do not unfold like a machine part snapping without warning. They spread more like panic in a crowd, through watching, reacting and adjusting, and conventional cyber testing was not designed to capture that. Such tools have already been developed in prototypes at Nanyang Technological University, and Singapore is well placed to develop them further. A practical next step would be for MAS and its partners to use market-scale and agent-based simulations for risk monitoring and stress tests that go beyond today's cyber exercises, which focus mainly on whether a single firm can recover from a defined attack. The bigger question now is how disruption would ripple through payment rails, settlement systems such as MEPS+ and FAST, and the many regional banks and corporates that route transactions through Singapore. That matters because Singapore is not just another domestic market. It is a regional treasury, payments and clearing hub. MAS has described it as one of the world's top offshore renminbi centres, and DBS joined ICBC Singapore as an RMB clearing bank in December 2025. A serious disruption here could therefore spread well beyond Singapore into the wider region's trade and settlement flows. AI-driven shocks will not stop at borders and Singapore is in an ideal position to convene an open, cross-border simulation platform, bringing together banks, regulators, researchers and technology providers across the region to share scenarios and stress-test them together. In an AI era, watching for system-wide risks can no longer be siloed within each country. Even then, Singapore should build its own AI capability in this space rather than rely entirely on foreign-built systems. Local universities and research institutes already have strong foundations in AI and financial modelling. Multilingual AI models, scenario sandboxes and digital twins of the financial system should become part of the country's core governance infrastructure, as essential as its physical infrastructure. None of this requires accepting the most alarmist reading of what Mythos can do today. Healthy scepticism is entirely appropriate. But prudent governance does not wait for the worst case to be conclusively established. It responds when the direction of risk becomes clear. AI capability is beginning to intersect with financial infrastructure in ways that may be faster, more adaptive and harder to contain than before. For Singapore, the question is not only how banks should use AI responsibly, but how the country should prepare for a world in which more powerful AI may be used to test, probe or disrupt the systems that people rely on every day. That may sound abstract until something goes wrong. Then it becomes concrete very quickly. It could be a salary that does not arrive on time, a transfer that cannot be made, a bank account that has been compromised, or a customer who no longer trusts what appears on their mobile screen. In that sense, preparing for AI-related financial risk is not just a technical exercise or a regulatory concern. It is part of protecting the reliability on which modern economic life depends.
Amazon Stock Jumps On Expanded Deal With Anthropic - Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN)
Amazon.com stock is showing positive momentum. What's ahead for AMZN stock? Amazon Expands Collaboration With Anthropic Amazon announced Anthropic is committed to spending more than $100 billion on Amazon Web Services technology over the next 10 years to secure five gigawatts (GW) of capacity to train and power the company's advanced AI models. The deal includes Trainium3 capacity, which is expected to come online this year. Separately, Amazon bolstered its investment in Anthropic with $5 billion invested and up to an additional $20 billion tied to commercial milestones. The investment adds to the $8 billion Amazon previously invested in Anthropic in 2024. "Our custom AI silicon offers high performance at significantly lower cost for customers, which is why it's in such hot demand," said Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon. "Anthropic's commitment to run its large language models on AWS Trainium for the next decade reflects the progress we've made together on custom silicon, as we continue delivering the technology and infrastructure our customers need to build with generative AI." The commitment includes Trainium2, Trainium3, Trainium4 and the ability to purchase future generations of Trainium as they become available. Additionally, AWS customers will be able to access the full Anthropic-native Claude console from within AWS. AMZN Shares Climb After The Close AMZN Price Action: Amazon shares were up 2.55% in after-hours, trading at $254.60 at the time of publication on Monday, per Benzinga Pro. Image: Shutterstock.com Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.
Aave could face up to $230m in losses after Kelp DAO bridge exploit triggers DeFi chaos
The report outlines two possible outcomes, around $123 million in losses if damage is shared across all rsETH, or up to $230 million if confined to Layer 2s, with the final impact depending on how Kelp DAO allocates the shortfall. The Kelp DAO and LayerZero bridge exploit that occurred over the weekend has left lending protocol Aave facing potential losses of up to $230 million, depending on how the situation is resolved. The incident, according to a report from Aave Labs and service provider LlamaRisk published on the Aave governance forum, centers on rsETH, a liquid restaking token issued by KelpDAO. To move rsETH between blockchains, the protocol relies on a bridge mechanism that locks tokens on one chain while issuing corresponding copies on another. An attacker exploited that setup by forging a transfer message that appeared valid. The system approved the transfer even though the tokens were never taken out of the sending chain, meaning new tokens were effectively created without backing, releasing 116,500 rsETH from the Ethereum-side bridge. Rather than selling the assets on the open market, the attacker deposited 89,567 rsETH into Aave as collateral and borrowed roughly $190 million in ETH and related assets across Ethereum and Arbitrum, according to the report. This left Aave exposed to collateral whose backing may be significantly impaired. Aave Labs said it moved quickly to contain the risk. Within hours, the protocol froze rsETH markets across its deployments, set loan-to-value ratios to zero, and halted new borrowing against the asset. The outcome now depends largely on how Kelp handles the shortfall. If losses are spread across all rsETH holders, the token would face an estimated 15% depegging (meaning the value of the staked tokens would not match the value of actual ETH), resulting in about $124 million in bad debt for Aave. If losses are instead isolated to Layer 2 networks, the impact would be far more severe, with bad debt rising to roughly $230 million and concentrated on networks such as Arbitrum and Mantle. The exploit stemmed from weaknesses in how Kelp verified cross-chain messages using LayerZero. By manipulating this process, the attacker was able to make certain assets appear fully backed when they were not, allowing them to extract value from the system. LayerZero itself was not directly hacked, but its messaging layer exposed flawed assumptions in how Kelp validated cross-chain data. The incident raised concerns that some positions on Aave were backed by collateral that was mispriced or no longer fully backed, increasing the risk of undercollateralized loans. In response, users moved to reduce exposure. Around $6 billion in total value locked was withdrawn from Aave following the incident, reflecting a broad pullback as participants reacted to the uncertainty. The episode highlighted its indirect exposure to external systems. The impact was felt through increased collateral risk, pressure on lending positions, and a sharp decline in deposits as users reassessed the safety of interconnected DeFi infrastructure. The report said its DAO treasury holds approximately $181 million in assets and that discussions are underway with ecosystem participants to address potential losses. Kelp has not yet outlined how it plans to allocate losses, leaving Aave's ultimate exposure uncertain as the situation continues to evolve.
Airline Stocks Whipsaw as Hormuz Chaos Shows Oil Trend Matters More Than Price | Investing.com ZA
Last Friday, Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz open to commercial shipping, prompting a sharp decline in oil prices and a surge in airline stocks. Alas, the relief lasted less than 24 hours. By Saturday, Iran's military had retaken strict control of the strait after its Revolutionary Guard Corps attacked two commercial vessels. The next day, the U.S. seized an Iranian-flagged cargo ship. Oil prices jumped 5% overnight into Monday as the ceasefire, set to expire on Wednesday, hangs by a thread. For a sector that's been whipsawed by geopolitics and fuel costs, the volatility is a reminder that the path forward won't be a straight line. But I believe the underlying investment case for airlines remains strong. This past week also brought news that United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby pitched the White House on a potential merger with American Airlines, only for American to publicly reject the idea last Friday, while Spirit Airlines is seeking emergency government aid to continue operating. How Shocks Reshape the Airline Industry First, let's talk about airline industry M&A, a topic I've discussed many times before. The history of the U.S. airline industry is really a history of consolidation driven by crisis. The pattern has been remarkably consistent. Historically, when an external shock has hit -- a recession, a war, an energy spike -- the weakest carriers have folded or been acquired, while the strongest have emerged leaner and more profitable. After deregulation in 1978, fare wars and overcapacity crushed margins and triggered the first wave of mergers through the 1980s. Later, the September 11 attacks killed TWA outright and forced US Airways into a merger with America West. The 2008 financial crisis gave us Delta-Northwest, United-Continental and Southwest-AirTran. By 2013, when American merged with US Airways, the modern "Big Three" structure was firmly in place. Today's five largest carriers -- Delta, American, United, Southwest and Alaska -- have absorbed more than 40 smaller since 1960. Now we may be starting to see it again as the war in Iran and closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sent jet fuel prices through the roof. Spirit Airlines, already in Chapter 11 for the second time in under a year, is reportedly on the verge of liquidation. Its previous merger attempts -- first with JetBlue, then with Frontier -- both fell apart. The low-cost carrier, already on shaky ground, simply couldn't absorb fuel at these prices. A United-American Merger Would Create the World's Largest Carrier Meanwhile, United's Scott Kirby reportedly pitched the most ambitious airline deal in a generation during a February 25 meeting with President Trump. A combined United-American merger would create the world's largest carrier, commanding roughly 40% of domestic capacity and generating over $100 billion in annual revenue. No question, the deal would face enormous antitrust scrutiny. Analysts have already identified nearly 300 overlapping routes that would likely require divestitures. So far, the White House has declined to take a position, which I take as neither encouragement nor discouragement. However, American Airlines shot the idea down late Friday, stating it's "not engaged with or interested in any discussions regarding a merger with United Airlines." I don't think that necessarily means the conversation is over, but for now, the deal appears to be on ice. Delta Shows How Pricing Power Beats Fuel Inflation What's changed since the last wave of consolidations is the business model itself. Many carriers have transformed themselves from transportation providers into sophisticated platforms built on premium products, loyalty programs, co-branded financial services and more. Just look at Delta's most recent earnings report. The carrier posted record first-quarter revenue of $14.2 billion, up more than 9% year-over-year, even as fuel costs surged dramatically. The Atlanta-based company projected fuel costs of $4.30 per gallon this quarter, up from $2.62 in the prior year's quarter, an increase that will add more than $2 billion in costs. And yet earnings grew more than 40% over the prior year. How did Delta manage this? Well, premium revenue climbed 14%. Loyalty revenue rose 13%. Its deal with American Express alone has exceeded $2 billion. Diversified, high-margin revenue streams now represent 62% of Delta's total revenue and are growing in the mid-teens. CEO Ed Bastian noted the company is also reducing capacity growth and moving to recapture higher fuel costs through pricing, which is exactly the kind of disciplined behavior I want to see. This is the "premiumization" model that industry analysts have been talking about, and it's working. Today's airlines are doing more than just selling seats. They're closer to consumer and financial services firms that also happen to fly airplanes. The Direction of Oil Matters More Than the Price Last week, considering higher fuel prices, I analyzed historical data going back to 2001, looking at the relationship between Brent crude oil prices and the NYSE Arca Global Airlines Index. What I found is that oil prices alone don't tell you much about where airline stocks are headed. Instead, what matters is the trend. When oil had been rising over the past four weeks, airline stocks returned an average of nearly 6% over the following year. Conversely, when oil had been falling for four weeks, they returned an average of almost 14%. The direction of oil, then, mattered about twice as much as its price. The most powerful setup was when oil was elevated (in the top 20% of its historical range) but had started to decline over the prior 13 weeks. In those instances, airline stocks returned an average of nearly 31% over the following 12 months, with positive outcomes roughly 84% of the time. Think about what happened on Friday. Iran's foreign minister announced the Strait of Hormuz is open to commercial vessels for the duration of the ceasefire. Crude dropped 11%, and airline stocks popped across the board. By Monday, though, after Iran reversed course and the U.S. seized a vessel, oil was back up 5%. A sustained decline in oil prices from elevated levels hasn't materialized yet, but the historical pattern remains intact. When it does arrive, and eventually it will, history suggests we could be entering one of the most favorable entry points for airline stocks in years. The key is to watch for the rollover in the oil trend, not reacting to any single headline. Global Travel Growth Is Still Outpacing the Economy It's worth pointing out that travel demand remains robust. The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) reported this week that the global sector hit a record $11.6 trillion GDP contribution in 2025, growing nearly 50% faster than the overall global economy. Here at home, the U.S. Travel Association estimates that larger tax refunds this year could pump an additional $5.1 billion into domestic leisure travel spending, with middle-income households driving the bulk of it. Granted, airfares were up about 15% year-over-year in March, but as Southwest CEO Bob Jordan told ABC News this week, fares haven't outpaced broader inflation since the pandemic. Consumers are still traveling. The risk has always been on the cost side, specifically fuel. The Hormuz reopening didn't hold, and the ceasefire's fate remains uncertain. But that's precisely the point I'm making: the airlines that have built premium, diversified revenue models are proving they can weather this kind of turbulence. When the fuel headwind eases, those carriers will be in the strongest position. *** Holdings may change daily. Holdings are reported as of the most recent quarter-end. The following securities mentioned in the article were held by one or more accounts managed by U.S. Global Investors as of (03/31/2026): United Airlines, American Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Frontier Group Holdings, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines, Alaska Air Group, JetBlue Airways, Frontier Group Holdings, Air France-KLM, Deutsche Lufthansa. The NYSE Arca Global Airline Index is a modified equal-dollar weighted index designed to track the performance of highly capitalized and liquid international passenger airline companies. All opinions expressed and data provided are subject to change without notice. Some of these opinions may not be appropriate to every investor. By clicking the link(s) above, you will be directed to a third-party website(s). U.S. Global Investors does not endorse all information supplied by this/these website(s) and is not responsible for its/their content.
Index Providers Prepare For A Potential SpaceX Mega-IPO
Morningstar, Nasdaq, and others are weighing faster index-inclusion rules for giant new listings -- changes that could reshape benchmarks used by funds like Vanguard's Total Stock Market ETF. Index providers are rewriting the rulebook for mega-IPOs, so huge new listings can enter major benchmarks much faster than before. What does this mean? Big indexes aren't just scoreboards anymore - they steer trillions of dollars in passive funds, so inclusion rules can create real buying pressure. Providers have typically waited for enough "free float" (shares available to trade) and liquidity, so index funds aren't forced to chase scarce stock. But today's private giants can list at sky-high valuations with a small initial float, which clashes with old eligibility tests. Morningstar says its CRSP indexes will use an "alternative liquidity screen" to judge t..
SpaceX Steals Spotlight From KKR, Triton With One Deal - Vodafone Group (NASDAQ:VOD)
SpaceX Steals Spotlight From KKR, Triton, And Partners Group With One Deal Global private equity exit volume decreased by 6.25% in the first quarter (Q1). The three-month period tallied 720 transactions. That's down from 768 in Q1 2025. Aggregate transaction value, however, surged to $311 billion. Elon Musk's $250 billion deal between SpaceX and xAI, the top quarter's top transaction, made up about 80% of the total value. Musk's record-setting merger has redefined global M&A; the previous record stood for more than two decades, dating back to Vodafone's (NASDAQ:VOD) $203 billion takeover of Germany's Mannesmann in 2000. The second largest exit in Q1 2026 was the deal to sell InPost SA. PPF Group NV, Advent Global Opportunities Management LLC, and AI Prime & Cy SCA sold the e-commerce platform for $10.61 billion. A consortium including Advent International Lp, FedEx Corp., PPF Group, and A&R Investment Ltd. is acquiring the business. Other large deals that took place in Q1 include: Triton also sold its materials business, Ramudden Global AB, for $2.92 billion, while Apollo Global sold U.S.-based metal container plants of Anheuser-Busch InBev for $2.9 billion. The IPO market has been "slow to pick up," even though the market saw a gradual recovery in 2025, said Victoria Chernykh, vice president of private equity at Preqin. "IPO markets have not broadly reopened, removing an historically important exit route," said Chernykh. Sales to strategic buyers during the first quarter reached $270.81 billion, skewed by the outsized SpaceX transaction. Secondary buyouts totaled $39.06 billion, and IPO exits were valued at $1.32 billion, the report stated. The IT sector saw the highest number of exits (198) in the year, followed by industrials (123) and healthcare (87). "Exits are more resilient in AI-adjacent and digital infrastructure-linked businesses, where strategic demand is emerging," Chernykh said. "Additionally, small and midmarket buyouts benefit from broader buyer pools and financing flexibility." Photo: Shutterstock Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.
SpaceX Competitors: 8 SpaceX Rivals to Watch Before the IPO - WTOP News
A combination of major headlines, technological advancements and money-making opportunities has Wall Street buzzing about the space race. In particular,... A combination of major headlines, technological advancements and money-making opportunities has Wall Street buzzing about the space race. In particular, the imminent initial public offering of Elon Musk's SpaceX may be the most highly anticipated IPO of the 2020s. SpaceX is expected to raise between $40 billion and $80 billion and achieve a valuation of more than $1 trillion. [Sign up for stock news with our Invested newsletter.] SpaceX is currently the market leader in space transportation, but it's far from the only company and organization reaching for the stars. Here are eight of the biggest space technology competitors that investors should watch ahead of the SpaceX IPO: Blue Origin is an American aerospace manufacturer started by Amazon founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos in 2000. Ars Technica ranked Blue Origin as the No. 2 U.S. rocket company of 2025 behind only SpaceX. Blue Origin may be best known for taking Katy Perry and other celebrities into space, but it also made history in 2025 by successfully launching a test payload on its massive New Glenn rocket. In addition, Blue Origin completed nine launches of its smaller New Shepard rocket last year. Blue Origin is not yet public, but an IPO could be coming E-commerce and cloud services giant Amazon is also one of SpaceX's biggest competitors. The company's Amazon Leo project, formerly called "Project Kuiper," plans to take on SpaceX's Starlink. As of early 2026, Starlink reportedly had more than 10,000 active satellites providing internet and mobile phone services to more than 10 million global subscribers. Leo currently has only about 200 satellites, but it plans to have thousands in orbit by 2028. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy recently said Leo already has commitments from Delta Air Lines Inc. (DAL), JetBlue Airways Corp. (JBLU), AT&T Inc. (T) and several other major companies to use Leo's service once it adds more satellites. United Launch Alliance United Launch Alliance is a U.S. aerospace company formed in 2006 as a joint venture between Boeing Co. (BA) and Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT). The company has a track record of 150 consecutive successful launches, and it aims to achieve unprecedented results with its new Vulcan rocket family. After completing just six launches in 2025, ULA said in February that it plans to accelerate activity in 2026 and complete 20 to 25 launches this year. In April, the ULA's Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) was used to successfully propel the NASA Artemis II astronauts into high-Earth orbit. Rocket Lab Corp. (RKLB) Rocket Lab is a leading U.S. aerospace manufacturer and launch service provider that was the second-most active U.S. launch company behind SpaceX in 2025, successfully completing 21 launches. Last year marked a record year for Electron and HASTE rocket launches. Rocket Lab hasn't had a failed launch since 2023 as it continues to develop its medium-lift, partially reusable Neutron launch vehicle. Rocket Lab is hoping to complete Neutron's first launch by the end of 2026. The company entered the year with a $1.85 billion backlog, and it plans to recognize 37% of that backlog by 2027. Arianespace Arianespace is a French aerospace company and is the leading European launch services provider. U.S. investors can buy shares of Arianespace parent companies Airbus SE (OTC: EADSY) and Safran SA (OTC: SAFRY). In 1981, Arianespace made history by signing the world's first-ever commercial space flight contract with GTE Spacenet. Today, the company has successfully delivered more than 1,100 satellites to space. In 2025, Arianespace completed seven launches of its Ariane 6 and Vega-C vehicles. In late April, Arianespace will launch another 32 Amazon Leo satellites into space in the second part of a series of 18 launches to deploy Amazon's constellation. Eutelsat OneWeb Eutelsat OneWeb is a satellite internet provider created by the 2023 merger of France's Eutelsat and Britain's OneWeb. The company operates a unique fleet of 31 geostationary (GEO) satellites and more than 600 low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites. The company says this hybrid system enables resilient, secure and seamless connectivity across land, air and sea for government, telecom and enterprise customers. In January 2026, Eutelsat announced a deal with Airbus to build another 340 OneWeb LEO satellites, suggesting the company is planning an aggressive expansion phase. U.S. investors can buy shares of Eutelsat Communications (OTC: EUTLF) on the over-the-counter market. AST SpaceMobile Inc. (ASTS) AST SpaceMobile is a satellite-to-smartphone telecommunications company. Unlike satellite-designated phones, smartphone users can connect directly to AST's "BlueBird" satellites using standard smartphones under contract with AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone and other carriers. AST plans to have between 45 and 60 satellites in orbit by the end of 2026, a far cry from Starlink's roughly 10,000 satellites. However, AST's satellites are roughly 35 to 40 times larger than Starlink's satellites, giving them a stronger signal, greater precision and better interference management. The goal is for AST's combination of powerful satellites and fixed-cell technology on Earth to provide unmatched bandwidth. Northrop Grumman Corp. (NOC) Northrop Grumman is one of the world's largest weapons and military technology producers. The company's Space Systems business provides end-to-end space and launch systems and services for national security, civil and commercial customers. Northrop's military space capabilities allow operators to detect, track and respond to emerging threats. Northrop Grumman also manufactured the twin solid rocket booster used for the recent Artemis II launch. SpaceX has a more commercial focus than Northrop, but Northrop Grumman has beaten out SpaceX for key U.S. Department of Defense contracts in the past. The two companies have also collaborated on multiple government projects.
Amazon - Amazon and Anthropic expand strategic collaboration
Amazon.com, Inc. is one of the world leaders in on-line distribution of products to the general public. The group also operates a marketplace activity, allowing individuals and distribution companies to conduct their purchase and selling transactions for goods and services. The activity is organized around three families of products and services: - electronic and computer products: toys, cameras, computers, laptops and peripherals, TVs, stereo systems, readers, wireless communication products, etc. Amazon.com also offers kitchen and garden equipment, clothing, beauty products, etc.; - cultural products: books, musical products, video games and DVDs; - other: primarily Internet interface and application development services. Net sales break down by source of income between sales of services (58.7%) and sales of products (41.3%). Net sales are distributed geographically as follows: the United States (68.3%), Germany (6.4%), United Kingdom (6%), Japan (4.3%) and others (15%).
Morningstar considers revamping index construction ahead of SpaceX IPO
PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island, April 20 (Reuters) - Investment research and analysis provider Morningstar Inc. is the latest index provider to consider revising its approach to designing its market indexes in light of SpaceX's outsize pending initial public offering. Elon Musk's space transportation and exploration business is on track to issue as much as $75 billion of stock in an initial public offering that could value the company at $1.75 trillion, making it by far the largest IPO ever recorded and raising unprecedented challenges for investors about how and whether to add it to their portfolios. Morningstar, eyeing not only the pending SpaceX launch but also other similarly mammoth deals from companies like Anthropic and OpenAI later this year, said it will introduce what it refers to as an alternative way to gauge liquidity of these "unicorns" immediately following their debuts. This would address what is known as the free float requirement, or the requirement that a new public company have a minimum number of shares publicly available for trading. Morningstar said its CRSP Market Indexes will "undergo enhancements to introduce an alternative liquidity screen", making it possible to add SpaceX and other giant IPOs to these benchmarks more rapidly. The funds that use the CRSP indexes as a portfolio benchmark include Vanguard's $607 billion Total Stock Market ETF. "Index providers must evolve eligibility rules to keep their benchmarks relevant to new market realities," a company spokesman said in an e-mail to Reuters. Morningstar is the latest firm to wrestle with how to deal with this year's crop of pending IPOs from market giants like SpaceX. Current guidelines were established when U.S. IPOs tended to be of smaller companies, often still unprofitable, with limited track records and revenue. Companies like SpaceX, however, are waiting until they are older or much larger to go public, and index and exchange executives say that requires a new approach on their part. Nasdaq plans to alter the rules governing the makeup of its Nasdaq-100 Index to allow companies meeting certain criteria to be added to the mix in a fast-track process. That would cut any delay in adding newly listed companies from several months to only 15 days, Nasdaq told Reuters. Separately, S&P Dow Jones Global Indices is contemplating adjusting its own rules regarding the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index and other products, according to a report from Bloomberg in mid-March. The current S&P rules require 10% of a company's stock to trade freely. A spokesperson for S&P Dow Jones Global Indices declined further comment. Not all investors welcome these moves, however. "The fact that some of these indexes may be lowering their standards in order to include exposure to the explosion of big growth IPOs that nobody wants to miss out on owning, is concerning," said Mark Malek, chief investment officer at Siebert Financial. "Size isn't everything. I look to these index providers to make sure that the stocks they include meet some kind of standard, and I'm not sure that some of the proposed changes will allow for that." (Reporting by Suzanne McGee in Providence, Rhode Island; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
Amazon invests up to $25 billion in Anthropic to expand partnership By Investing.com
Investing.com -- Amazon on Monday said that it will invest $5 billion in AI company Anthropic immediately, with up to an additional $20 billion tied to commercial milestones. The investment expands the companies' existing partnership following Amazon's previous $8 billion investment in Anthropic. Under the expanded agreement, Anthropic has committed to spend more than $100 billion over the next ten years on Amazon Web Services technologies. Anthropic will secure up to 5 gigawatts of capacity using Amazon's Trainium chips to train and power its Claude AI models. The partnership includes access to Trainium2, Trainium3, Trainium4, and future chip generations. Anthropic will also utilize tens of millions of Amazon's Graviton CPU cores. The collaboration encompasses Trainium3 capacity expected to come online this year and expanded international inference capabilities in Asia and Europe, the company's statement said. Earlier this month, Jassy in a company shareholder letter had said that Amazon's custom chip business is growing rapidly, as large tech firms are starting to make their own chips to reduce dependence on chipmakers like Nvidia. The letter said that the business has doubled its annualized revenue run rate to over $20 billion, up from the $10 billion the company disclosed alongside its fourth-quarter results. Jassy had also hinted towards future chip sales to other firms by saying that "There's so much demand for our chips that it's quite possible we'll sell racks of them to third parties in the future". AWS customers will gain access to Anthropic's Claude Platform directly through their existing AWS accounts, eliminating the need for additional credentials or billing relationships. The platform will integrate with existing AWS access controls and monitoring systems. The companies have previously collaborated on Project Rainier, one of the world's largest AI compute clusters with nearly half a million Trainium2 chips. More than 100,000 customers currently run Anthropic's Claude models on AWS through Amazon Bedrock. "Anthropic's commitment to run its large language models on AWS Trainium for the next decade reflects the progress we've made together on custom silicon," said Andy Jassy, Amazon's CEO. Dario Amodei, Anthropic's CEO, stated that the collaboration will allow the company "to continue advancing AI research while delivering Claude to our customers, including the more than 100,000 building on AWS."
Anthropic initial public offering rush raises red flags for retail investors
Artificial intelligence firm Anthropic is racing at light speed toward a possible initial public offering that promises to offer us all a slice of AI's future. Based on what we have seen publicly so far about the leadership of CEO Dario Amodei, serious questions have been raised about the company's long-term viability post-IPO and whether retail investors will be hurt after Mr. Amodei and his rich liberal pals cash in. Anthropic bills itself as a safety-oriented AI company, and the implication is clear: The other guys are barreling ahead at any cost, but not Anthropic. Yet the good public relations around the company's claims is starting to fade against a slew of worrisome headlines about Mr. Amodei's behavior and about his woke large-language model, Claude. The New York Times reported that Anthropic's latest version, Mythos, poses such a significant cybersecurity risk that Anthropic can't release it to the public until the companies that ensure AI safety have time to shore up defenses for the websites we all rely on every day. Anthropic never seemed to have a legitimate customer in mind (unless you count hackers, criminals and terrorists) for a model that "loves" hacking so much that it reportedly emailed a researcher eating a sandwich in the park just to brag about bypassing guardrails. The firm built the tool anyway and then, like the obnoxious villain Syndrome in "The Incredibles," patted itself on the back for solving the security nightmare it had created. Gee, thanks, guys. I guess I'll make my lunch at home for a while so I can keep an eye on my laptop. In a recent blistering piece, the New York Post reports that shareholders think Mr. Amodei "cannot control his emotions." The reporter quotes one shareholder as saying Mr. Amodei is "blinded by his own love of self and intelligence and those around him who are like, 'Yes, you are God.'" Let's not forget Mr. Amodei's public relations blitz over the company's fight with the Pentagon. After winning a defense contract, Anthropic declared it couldn't allow the Pentagon to use Claude for illegal purposes (even though the Pentagon isn't supposed to break the law in the first place). Despite seeming to enjoy adoration from the left for feuding with the Trump administration, Mr. Amodei sued to keep the Pentagon contract. When OpenAI decided to engage with the Pentagon, Mr. Amodei made headlines yet again by injecting his personal feud with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman into his blistering message to staff on Slack. As any rational CEO could predict, Mr. Amodei's Slack screed leaked. The New York Post's anonymous Anthropic shareholder laments in the article, "Any normal CEO would know that like, f -- -, I'm risking a lot by saying this all in writing." The Post story appeared within days of The Wall Street Journal's chronicling of Mr. Amodei's past shouting matches with former colleagues at OpenAI, and Business Insider's reporting that Anthropic's Slack policies are so wild that "people just argue with Dario" on them. In March, Anthropic accidentally leaked the source code for its AI. The firm also accidentally posted its internal documents in a publicly accessible data cache. Let's be honest: If this happened in any other industry, the CEO would be out on his keister. That's before we even get to the concerns around the Anthropic IPO. Time and again, these high-profile tech CEOs -- such as Elizabeth Holmes, Travis Kalanick and Adam Neumann -- fly too close to the sun, boosted by liberal journalists, lax regulatory oversight and early investors wanting to cash out quickly. Are we sure that Mr. Amodei's massive cash burn, debt and lack of profitability will just sort themselves out on his watch in time to give the retail investor any return? The Pentagon bashing shrinks Anthropic's total addressable market. This destroys shareholder value over the medium term and all but guarantees that when the dust settles, while Dario and his venture capitalist backers walk away rich, retail investors are the ones left holding the bag. None of this is to say that I personally am an AI doomer. Quite the opposite; emerging AI software is promising and will have thousands of positive use cases, and it's still barely sunrise on the gleaming frontier of new AI hardware that U.S. firms are building. I'm also a student of U.S. economic and political history. When you're months away from an IPO and the headlines are all feuds and falling-outs, leaks and breaches, shouting and Slacking, fearmongering and fundraising, well, something is off. AI could be a driving economic force in the U.S., but I don't think we need this guy's hands on the wheel.
Amazon to Invest an Additional $5 Billion in Anthropic
Amazon.com Inc. is investing an additional $5 billion in Anthropic PBC, with a plan to expand that investment to as much as $20 billion over time, the companies said.Bloomberg Terminal Anthropic, which makes the Claude chatbot and coding tool, plans to spend more than $100 billion over the next ten years on Amazon's cloud technologies and chips. Amazon is one of Anthropic's biggest backers.
Morningstar considers revamping index construction ahead of SpaceX IPO
PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island, April 20 (Reuters) - Investment research and analysis provider Morningstar Inc. (MORN.O), opens new tab is the latest index provider to consider revising its approach to designing its market indexes in light of SpaceX's outsize pending initial public offering. Elon Musk's space transportation and exploration business is on track to issue as much as $75 billion of stock in an initial public offering that could value the company at $1.75 trillion, making it by far the largest IPO ever recorded and raising unprecedented challenges for investors about how and whether to add it to their portfolios. Morningstar, eyeing not only the pending SpaceX launch but also other similarly mammoth deals from companies like Anthropic and OpenAI later this year, said it will introduce what it refers to as an alternative way to gauge liquidity of these "unicorns" immediately following their debuts. This would address what is known as the free float requirement, or the requirement that a new public company have a minimum number of shares publicly available for trading. Morningstar said its CRSP Market Indexes will "undergo enhancements to introduce an alternative liquidity screen", making it possible to add SpaceX and other giant IPOs to these benchmarks more rapidly. The funds that use the CRSP indexes as a portfolio benchmark include Vanguard's $607 billion Total Stock Market ETF. "Index providers must evolve eligibility rules to keep their benchmarks relevant to new market realities," a company spokesman said in an e-mail to Reuters. Morningstar is the latest firm to wrestle with how to deal with this year's crop of pending IPOs from market giants like SpaceX. Current guidelines were established when U.S. IPOs tended to be of smaller companies, often still unprofitable, with limited track records and revenue. Companies like SpaceX, however, are waiting until they are older or much larger to go public, and index and exchange executives say that requires a new approach on their part. Nasdaq (NDAQ.O), opens new tab plans to alter the rules governing the makeup of its Nasdaq-100 Index to allow companies meeting certain criteria to be added to the mix in a fast-track process. That would cut any delay in adding newly listed companies from several months to only 15 days, Nasdaq told Reuters. Separately, S&P Dow Jones Global Indices is contemplating adjusting its own rules regarding the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index and other products, according to a report from Bloomberg in mid-March. The current S&P rules require 10% of a company's stock to trade freely. A spokesperson for S&P Dow Jones Global Indices declined further comment. Not all investors welcome these moves, however. "The fact that some of these indexes may be lowering their standards in order to include exposure to the explosion of big growth IPOs that nobody wants to miss out on owning, is concerning," said Mark Malek, chief investment officer at Siebert Financial. "Size isn't everything. I look to these index providers to make sure that the stocks they include meet some kind of standard, and I'm not sure that some of the proposed changes will allow for that." Reporting by Suzanne McGee in Providence, Rhode Island; Editing by Daniel Wallis Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
Amazon to invest up to another $25 billion in Anthropic as part of AI infrastructure deal
Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, speaking with CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 20, 2026. Amazon has agreed to invest up to $25 billion in Anthropic, on top of the $8 billion that it's poured into the artificial intelligence startup in recent years, as part of an expanded agreement to build out AI infrastructure. In the announcement on Monday, Anthropic said it's committed to spend more than $100 billion on Amazon Web Services technologies over the next 10 years, including current and future generations of Trainium, Amazon's custom AI chips. Anthropic said it's secured up to 5 gigawatts of capacity for training and deploying its Claude AI models. "Anthropic's commitment to run its large language models on AWS Trainium for the next decade reflects the progress we've made together on custom silicon, as we continue delivering the technology and infrastructure our customers need to build with generative AI," Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement. Amazon's investment includes $5 billion into Anthropic now, with up to $20 billion in the future tied to "certain commercial milestones," according to a release. The initial investment is at Anthropic's latest valuation of $380 billion. Anthropic said in the release that it will bring nearly 1 gigawatt total of Trainium2 and Trainium3 capacity online by the end of the year. With all of the major hyperscalers competing to build out AI capacity as quickly as possible, Amazon said in February that it expects to shell out roughly $200 billion this year on capital expenditures, mostly on AI infrastructure.
Morningstar considers revamping index construction ahead of SpaceX IPO
PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island, April 20 (Reuters) - Investment research and analysis provider Morningstar Inc. is the latest index provider to consider revising its approach to designing its market indexes in light of SpaceX's outsize pending initial public offering. Elon Musk's space transportation and exploration business is on track to issue as much as $75 billion of stock in an initial public offering that could value the company at $1.75 trillion, making it by far the largest IPO ever recorded and raising unprecedented challenges for investors about how and whether to add it to their portfolios. Morningstar, eyeing not only the pending SpaceX launch but also other similarly mammoth deals from companies like Anthropic and OpenAI later this year, said it will introduce what it refers to as an alternative way to gauge liquidity of these "unicorns" immediately following their debuts. This would address what is known as the free float requirement, or the requirement that a new public company have a minimum number of shares publicly available for trading. Morningstar said its CRSP Market Indexes will "undergo enhancements to introduce an alternative liquidity screen", making it possible to add SpaceX and other giant IPOs to these benchmarks more rapidly. The funds that use the CRSP indexes as a portfolio benchmark include Vanguard's $607 billion Total Stock Market ETF. "Index providers must evolve eligibility rules to keep their benchmarks relevant to new market realities," a company spokesman said in an e-mail to Reuters. Morningstar is the latest firm to wrestle with how to deal with this year's crop of pending IPOs from market giants like SpaceX. Current guidelines were established when U.S. IPOs tended to be of smaller companies, often still unprofitable, with limited track records and revenue. Companies like SpaceX, however, are waiting until they are older or much larger to go public, and index and exchange executives say that requires a new approach on their part. Nasdaq plans to alter the rules governing the makeup of its Nasdaq-100 Index to allow companies meeting certain criteria to be added to the mix in a fast-track process. That would cut any delay in adding newly listed companies from several months to only 15 days, Nasdaq told Reuters. Separately, S&P Dow Jones Global Indices is contemplating adjusting its own rules regarding the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index and other products, according to a report from Bloomberg in mid-March. The current S&P rules require 10% of a company's stock to trade freely. A spokesperson for S&P Dow Jones Global Indices declined further comment.