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Strategy buys $1.6B+ in bitcoin in two weeks

Tysons-based bought more than $1.6 billion worth of over the past two weeks, standing by its strategy despite fourth quarter losses.

From March 9 to March 15, the company, which is widely reported to be the world’s largest corporate bitcoin holder, acquired 22,337 bitcoin for approximately $1.57 billion, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Then, from March 16 to March 22, it acquired 1,031 bitcoins for approximately $76.6 million.

For last week’s bitcoin purchases, which averaged $74,326 per coin, Strategy used proceeds from shares it sold in that same period. The company, which rebranded from a little more than a year ago, also used sales from shares to pay for its purchases in the previous week, when it paid an average of $70,194 per bitcoin. In an SEC filing Monday, the company announced an up-to-$21 billion common stock at-the-market offering and a $21 billion at-the-market offering for preferred stock.

As of March 22, Strategy held 762,099 bitcoins purchased for $57.69 billion total. The average purchase price per bitcoin, including fees and expenses, was $75,694. As of 1:45 p.m. Wednesday, bitcoins were selling for $70,876.16 apiece, according to crypto exchange Coinbase, valuing Strategy’s total holdings at more than $54 billion.

The company’s investment strategy has been led by billionaire Executive Chairman Michael Saylor, who stepped down as CEO after the company’s August 2022 earnings report.

In February, Strategy reported a wider fourth quarter loss than in the previous year — losing $12.4 billion for the three months ended Dec. 31, 2025, compared with $670.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2024.

In January, the company bought about $2.13 billion worth of bitcoin in eight days despite volatility in the cryptocurrency market, Reuters reported.

On Wednesday afternoon, bitcoin was down slightly from a week ago, when coins were selling for $72,004.50. Bitcoin’s peak was on Oct. 6, 2025, when coins sold for $126,210.50 apiece, according to Coinbase.

As of 2:25 p.m. Wednesday, Strategy shares were trading for $138.23, up slightly from Tuesday’s close, when its shares traded for $136.25, but down slightly from the $140.46 it was trading for at market open Wednesday.

MicroStrategy announced its first bitcoin purchase in August 2020, saying it had converted $250 million from its cash holdings to more than 21,000 bitcoins, making it one of the first public companies to convert its cash treasury reserves into cryptocurrency as a store of value.

Longtime Richmond business leader dies at 77

SUMMARY:

John A. Luke Jr., a key figure in Richmond’s business community as the longtime chief executive of MeadWestvaco and its successor companies, died March 14 at his home in Vero Beach, Florida. He was 77.

Luke joined Westvaco in 1979, a paper and packaging company that traced its origins to a business founded by his family in the 1880s. He rose to chairman and CEO in 1992 and oversaw the company’s 2002 merger with the Mead Corp., forming MeadWestvaco.

He led the company through its 2015 merger with Rock-Tenn, creating WestRock, a global packaging company initially headquartered in Richmond with roughly $15 billion in annual revenue at the time and tens of thousands of employees worldwide. He later served as non-executive chairman of the combined company.

In 2024, WestRock — then headquartered in Georgia — merged with Irish company Smurfit Kappa to become global packaging company Smurfit WestRock.

Beyond his career, Luke had strong ties to , first joining VCU’s board of visitors in 2012 and reappointed to a second four-year term on the board in 2016. He also served as rector from 2015-17 and as acting rector in 2019.

“John was a perfect gentleman and a true professional,” VCU President Michael Rao said in a statement. “He was the model of civility and respectful behavior in all settings. He was incredibly supportive of leaders, particularly when leaders would need to make difficult decisions that may not have met the support of every person. John and his wife, Kathleen, have been longtime friends and advocates of VCU. Monica and I send our deepest sympathy to Kathleen and to the entire Luke family.”

Luke also served on numerous corporate and nonprofit boards, including FM Global, the Bank of New York Mellon, the Timken Co., the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Community Foundation serving Richmond and Central Virginia.

He was a member of the National Association of Manufacturers board from 2001 through 2016, serving as chair from 2005-06.

“As our board chair, John’s passion for the strength and success of manufacturing was matched only by his steady focus on credible and durable solutions,” NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons said in a statement. “Thoughtful and considerate, he knew how to ask the right questions — and hard questions — of policymakers.”

Luke served as an officer in the Air Force during the Vietnam War and was awarded the Bronze Star for meritorious service. According to his , he left active duty as first lieutenant in 1974.

He had a bachelor’s degree from  Lawrence University and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

He is survived by his wife, Kathleen, his two siblings, three children and five grandchildren. A memorial service will be held March 26 at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Richmond.

Bobe to leave Danville economic development for regional foundation

SUMMARY:

After more than 16 years of working for the City of Danville, Corrie Teague Bobe is stepping down to work at the Danville Regional Foundation, City Manager Ken Larking confirmed Wednesday.

Larking announced Bobe as the city’s director of economic development in 2020. A few years later, tourism was added to her purview. Bobe’s last day will be April 14, according to Larking.

“She’s had a tremendous amount of accomplishment,” Larking said. “So, it’s really hard to pin it down to one particular thing.”

During Bobe’s tenure, opened its $800 million casino and resort in Danville. It was the third permanent casino to open in the state.

Other economic wins Bobe helped to secure include Arlington County rocket subsidiary Avio USA‘s $500 million, 860,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Southern Virginia Multimodal Park announced in February, and Tennessee-based Microporous‘ $1.3 billion battery separator manufacturing facility under construction at the Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill, announced in November 2024.

A marketing management graduate of Virginia Tech, Bobe joined Danville as a marketing and research manager for the economic development office in 2009. When Larking joined Danville in 2013 as a deputy city manager, he worked on the revitalization of the city’s with Bobe, who by then had been promoted to economic development project manager.

“A lot of the River District redevelopment and encouragement of new businesses … she played a huge role in all of that,” Larking said.

In 2023, the River District Association announced the city’s downtown area had leveraged $52 million in public investment to attract $310 million in private investment, creating more than 150 businesses and the addition of over 1,200 residential spaces.

Today, Bobe leads nine full-time employees. “She deserves credit in unseen and very visible ways for the success that we’ve seen,” Larking said.

Bobe was one of 45 women recognized in 2025 for Virginia Business’ Women in Leadership Awards, which celebrates top women executives for their overall professional accomplishments, civic engagement, mentorship and breaking glass ceilings.

“Each and every day, Bobe leads with empathy and creativity,” Hannah Barker, marketing and communications coordinator for Danville’s office of economic development and tourism, wrote last year in her nomination of Bobe. “She is devoted to improving lives and building brighter futures for each small business owner, resident, family, entrepreneur and
visitor.”

At the Danville Regional Foundation, Bobe will be the director of economic development and regional collaboration. She starts May 4.

“We’ve had so many great announcements over the past 10 years,” Bobe said. “And the region as a whole is and will continue to be impacted by these wonderful pieces of momentum, and they felt it necessary to have someone within the foundation to help, on a regional level, …  partner with the communities throughout the region on these larger issues that come along with transformational growth. This includes workforce, other pieces of really important infrastructure. So, this was a great transition to a broader role where I could take all of the experience and relationships and expand to assist larger number of communities.”

Danville Regional Foundation President and CEO Clark Casteel said the foundation created the position following a “mutual conversation” with Bobe.

After a company makes an economic development announcement — Casteel pointed out when describing Bobe’s role — there’s plenty of work left to be done.

“The win is what we build from them,” he said. “And so, like every other community across this state and others, we’ve got some significant challenges around workforce pathways and housing and other things that Corrie has been intimately involved in and talked to all these companies about their workforce development needs and the housing needs in the region, and so creating this kind of civic infrastructure that turns these investments into opportunity for every family to live here that’s what Corrie is going to be working on.”

The nonprofit’s mission is to develop, promote and support impactful activities and programs that address the health, education and well-being of  residents in the Dan River region, which encompasses Danville, and Caswell County, North Carolina. The foundation was created in 2005 and later endowed with $200 million from the Danville Regional Health System from the proceeds of the sale of Danville Regional Medical Center to Tennessee-based Lifepoint Health. 

Recently, the foundation partnered with the Danville-Pittsylvania Regional Industrial Facility Authority to pay $18.15 million for the North Campus of the financially strapped , with plans to lease it to the school to provide it with liquidity.

“We’re trying to be useful. That’s how we think about our work,” Casteel said. “The work with Averett ….  it’s going to be absolutely critical that we have a four-year university in this region to serve all of these great companies that are locating here.”

Oil falls as reports of 15-point proposal spurs ceasefire hopes

Summary:
  • dropped about 5% after the U.S. sent a 15-point ceasefire proposal.
  • Iran denied direct talks and claimed the U.S. is negotiating with itself.
  • Oil shipments through the have largely halted, disrupting global supply.

LONDON, March 25 (Reuters) – Oil prices sank about 5% on Wednesday after reports the United States had sent Iran a 15-point proposal aimed at ending the war, prompting talk of progress toward a ceasefire and despite and Iran exchanging airstrikes.

futures was down $6.08, or 5.82%, to $98.41 a barrel by 1200 GMT, off a session low of $97.57. U.S. crude futures were down $5.09, or 5.51%, at $87.26, off a low of $86.72.

Both benchmarks rose nearly 5% on Tuesday, before paring gains in volatile post-settlement trading.

“The latest 15-point plan proposed by the U.S. administration still has to be reviewed and responded to, but considering the disruption timeline, it appears a faster and smoother resolution is being explored,” said Rystad analyst Janiv Shah.

“The elevated state appears to be the new norm for the oil market considering where the supply and demand balances and loss in fundamentals lies, but the rhetoric is heavily geopolitically driven.”

Iran has denied that direct talks had taken place and an Iranian military spokesman said the United States is negotiating with itself, according to state media.

If Iran remains a threat to Hormuz the world could face years of $100-$150 per barrel oil, Larry Fink, head of Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager, told the BBC. “We will have global recession,” Fink said, when asked if oil stays at $150.

OIL SHIPMENTS VIA HORMUZ LARGELY HALTED

Phillip Nova’s senior market analyst Priyanka Sachdeva said Middle East developments would remain the “dominant price driver” keeping oil prices moving in a wide range in the near term.

The war has all but halted shipments of oil and liquefied natural gas through the Strait, which typically carries about one-fifth of the world’s gas and crude supply. The International Energy Agency has called it the biggest-ever .

The result is a daily loss of around 20 million barrels crude, meaning after 25 days a loss of some 500 million barrels, or 5 full days, of global supply.

“The market outlook remains tight notwithstanding the prospects of a war off-ramp,” said Saul Kavonic, head of energy research at MST Marquee.

He said that even if flows through the strait resume, “it’s not clear all shut-in production will resume until there is more clarity on the durability of a ceasefire.”

Iran has told the United Nations Security Council and the International Maritime Organization that “non-hostile vessels” may transit the Strait of Hormuz if they coordinate with Iranian authorities, according to a note seen by Reuters on Tuesday.

To offset the Hormuz disruptions, oil exports from Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Yanbu port rose to nearly 4 million barrels per day last week, a sharp increase from before the war broke out, shipping data showed.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Baltic ports of Primorsk and Ust-Luga, major export terminals, suspended crude oil and oil products loadings on Wednesday after Ukrainian drone attacks sparked a blaze which could be seen from Finland, two sources told Reuters.

It was one of the largest strikes against Russia’s oil export facilities in the four-year war and will add to the uncertainty on the global oil market.

(Reporting by Seher Dareen in London, Yuka Obayashi in Tokyo and Trixie Yap in Singapore; editing by Jamie Freed, Bernadette Baum and Jason Neely)

 

SpaceX aims to file for IPO as soon as this week

March 24 (Reuters) – is aiming to file its prospectus with regulators later this week or next week, The Information reported on Tuesday, citing a person with direct knowledge of the plans.

Advisers involved in the preparation expect the -led company could attempt to raise more than $75 billion in what would likely be one of the largest IPOs in history, according to the report. The individual investor allocation could exceed 20%, although the final structure is still being determined.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report, and SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.

The potential listing comes at a time of surging investor enthusiasm for the space sector, driven by falling launch costs, expanding satellite networks and growing interest in data center infrastructure in orbit.

Shares of companies including Rocket Lab, Planet Labs and AST SpaceMobile were up between 3% and 4% in premarket trading on Wednesday. Tesla’s stock was up about 1.7% before the bell.

A SpaceX listing could pull in Tesla’s retail investor base alongside traditional space investors, unlocking a new wave of capital into next-generation aerospace and companies.

SpaceX, founded in 2002, is the largest private space company in the United States and conducts more launches annually than any other company globally, making it a bellwether for the .

Its reusable and Starship program have reshaped launch economics, while its has become a dominant force in space-based broadband.

The company’s IPO ambitions are also tied to its longer-term vision of building orbital infrastructure, including data centers in space, a concept gaining traction as demand for AI computing grows.

SpaceX acquired Musk’s xAI last month in a transaction that valued SpaceX at $1 trillion, and xAI at $250 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter.

 (Reporting by Angela Christy and Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona and Krishna Chandra Eluri)

 

Pentagon says it will ramp up war supplies with BAE Systems, other govcons

Summary:

WASHINGTON, March 25 (Reuters) – The Pentagon said on Wednesday it had reached framework agreements with Falls Church-based BAE Systems and Maryland-based Lockheed Martin as well as Phoenix-based Honeywell Aerospace to boost production of munitions as part of a push to put the U.S. military on a “.”

The announcements come more than three weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump and launched a war on . They also follow Trump’s meeting earlier this month with executives from seven defense contractors as the Pentagon sought to replenish weapons stocks depleted by U.S. strikes on Iran and other recent military operations.

The Pentagon also plans to send thousands of airborne troops to the Gulf to give Trump more options to order a ground assault, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

Under the agreements, Honeywell Aerospace will “surge production of critical components for America’s munitions stockpile,” as part of a $500 million multi-year investment, the Pentagon said.

BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin will also quadruple production of seekers for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor, while a new framework agreement with Lockheed will accelerate production of its Precision Strike Missile, the Pentagon added.

Honeywell said the agreement would support increased output of navigation systems, missile steering actuators and electronic warfare products used across U.S. military platforms.

Honeywell Aerospace CEO Jim Currier said the company was ready to help meet the urgent demand.

Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet also said the company was “working closely with the Department of War and the U.S. Army to scale production to meet operational demand.”

Trump in January signed an executive order directing officials to identify contractors deemed to be underperforming on government contracts while continuing to return profits to shareholders. His administration has also stepped up pressure on defense companies to prioritize production over shareholder payouts.

“We discussed production and production schedules,” Trump said of the earlier meeting, which included executives from Lockheed Martin, RTX, BAE Systems, Boeing, Honeywell Aerospace, L3Harris Technologies and Northrop Grumman .

The United States has drawn down billions of dollars worth of weapons from its stockpiles since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and during Israel’s military operations in Gaza, including artillery systems, ammunition and anti-tank missiles.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Abhinav Parmar; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Tasim Zahid)

Meta boosts top executives’ pay with stock options as AI race heats up

Summary:

March 24 (Reuters) – Meta Platforms has offered top executives stock options that could pay out hundreds of millions of dollars and are tied to lifting its valuation six-fold to more than $9 trillion, in a bid to retain talent and spur aggressive growth in the AI era.

The options are the social media giant’s first for its top brass and require steep stock milestones. They suggest Big Tech is rethinking incentives as it pours hundreds of billions of dollars into data centers and departs from its long-standing reluctance to raise debt to gain an edge in the .

Meta’s stock will have to rise at least 88.2% from Tuesday’s closing price of $592.92 to $1,116.08 to unlock the lowest-priced tranche of stock options.

A more than six-fold jump would be needed to unlock the most aggressive tranche, requiring the company’s shares to rise as high as $3,727.12, regulatory filings late on Tuesday showed.

At that level, Meta would have a market value of more than $9 trillion, much higher than Nvidia – currently the world’s most valuable company with a valuation of $4.257 trillion.

Meta must meet the price targets by February 14, 2028, for the options to vest. If unsuccessful, Meta executives’ unvested options would become available to them in installments through August 15, 2030. The options will expire in March 2031 if they are unexercised.

Tesla has offered similar options to CEO that will pay out around $1 trillion if some operational targets are hit.

Meta’s plan does not include its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.

CFO Susan Li, technology head Andrew Bosworth, product chief Chris Cox, operations boss Javier Olivan, President Dina Powell McCormick and Chief Legal Officer Curtis Mahoney are eligible for the options, the regulatory filings showed.

All executives except McCormick and Mahoney, who joined Meta in January, will also receive an increase in worth a total $170 million at last close, which vest quarterly. Chief Accounting Officer Aaron Anderson will only receive restricted stock.

The company has offered huge pay packages, some worth hundreds of millions of dollars over the years, to court top AI researchers to a new .

A Meta spokesperson said the pay packages represent a “big bet” and that they “will not be realized unless Meta achieves massive future success, benefiting all of our shareholders.”

(Reporting by Mrinmay Dey and Chris Thomas in Mexico City, Katie Paul in New York, Shubham Kalia, Shivani Tanna and Gursimran Kaur in Bengaluru; Editing by Jacqueline Wong, Thomas Derpinghaus and Maju Samuel)

 

NASA cancels Northrop Grumman, Lanteris space station in multibillion-dollar expansion

Summary:

WASHINGTON, March 24 (Reuters) – NASA announced on Tuesday it has canceled plans to deploy a space station in lunar orbit and will instead use components from the project to build a $20 billion base on the moon’s surface, while also planning to send a nuclear-powered spacecraft to Mars.

U.S. space agency chief Jared Isaacman, an appointee of President Donald Trump who took charge at NASA in December, announced an unprecedented array of changes to the Artemis moon program that would expand humanity’s footprint in space, as the U.S. pushes to return to the moon before China sends its astronauts there around 2030.

The plans for the moon base included an aim to send more robotic landers, deploy a fleet of drones and lay the groundwork for using nuclear power on the lunar surface in the next few years.

“This revised step-by-step approach to learn, build muscle memory, bring down risk, and gain confidence is exactly how NASA achieved the near impossible in the 1960s,” Isaacman said, referring to the U.S. Apollo program.

NUCLEAR-POWERED

NASA also disclosed plans to launch a spacecraft called Space Reactor 1 Freedom to Mars before the end of 2028 in a mission it said would demonstrate advanced nuclear electric propulsion in deep space. NASA called this a major step forward in bringing nuclear power and propulsion from the laboratory to space. NASA said the spacecraft, once it reaches Earth’s planetary neighbor, will deploy helicopters for exploring Mars.

The Lunar Gateway station, largely already built with contractors Northrop Grumman and Intuitive Machines subsidiary Lanteris Space Systems, was meant to be a space station in a lunar orbit.

“It should not really surprise anyone that we are pausing Gateway in its current form and focusing on infrastructure that supports sustained operations on the lunar surface,” Isaacman told a crowd of foreign delegates, companies and members of Congress at a day-long event at NASA’s headquarters in Washington.

Repurposing Lunar Gateway to create a base on the moon’s surface – a difficult undertaking – leaves uncertain the future roles of Japan, Canada and the in the Artemis program, three key NASA partners that had agreed to provide components for the orbital station.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman speaks during the rollout of NASA's next-generation moon rocket in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., January 17, 2026. REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman speaks during the rollout of NASA’s next-generation moon rocket in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., January 17, 2026. REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo

“Despite some of the very real hardware and schedule challenges, we can repurpose equipment and international partner commitments to support surface and other program objectives,” Isaacman said.

European Space Agency chief Josef Aschbacher, who attended the event, told Reuters he will study the new plans and continue talking to NASA about them.

Lunar Gateway was designed to serve as both a research platform and a transfer station that astronauts would use to board the moon landers before descending to the lunar surface. NASA’s current plans call for landing astronauts on the moon’s surface in 2028.

The changes made by Isaacman in recent weeks on the flagship U.S. moon program are reshaping billions of dollars’ worth of contracts under the Artemis umbrella, sending companies scrambling to accommodate the extra U.S. urgency as China makes progress toward its own planned 2030 moon landing.

PROJECTS BEHIND SCHEDULE

Central to the Artemis program is its astronaut lunar lander program, with ‘s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ both racing to develop moon landers for NASA. The two companies, each targeting an initial crewed landing on the moon in 2028, have fallen behind schedule.

Isaacman and other senior NASA officials on Tuesday made little mention of the two companies’ plans to accelerate development of their landers to meet a 2028 astronaut landing deadline. But NASA’s acting associate administrator Lori Glaze suggested the companies want to dock with the Orion astronaut capsule in a different orbit between Earth and the moon than planned, before ferrying the astronauts to the surface.

Glaze said “SpaceX has been considering alternatives of their current Starship design” for the moon lander, “while implementing a more streamlined approach to try and speed things up and pull things forward.”

NASA’s inspector general this month said SpaceX, tapped in 2021 for the first astronaut moon lander under the program, is two years behind schedule, while the company and Blue Origin face a list of complex engineering challenges before they can fly humans.

But as part of the agency’s Artemis shakeup, Glaze said it would use whichever lander is ready first instead of sticking to a pre-determined order of mission assignments.

The Artemis program, begun in 2017 during Trump’s first term as president, envisions regular lunar missions as NASA’s long-awaited follow-up to its first moon missions in the Apollo program that ended in 1972.

(Reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Andrew Heavens, Jan Harvey and Lincoln Feast.)

Wall Street falls amid Middle East tensions and rising interest rates

Summary:
  • indexes declined on March 24 amid fears of Middle East conflict and rising interest rates.
  • rose following a weak 2-year note auction, pressuring equity markets.
  • Energy sector gained while communication services and technology sectors led losses in the S&P 500.

March 24 (Reuters) – Wall Street indexes fell in Tuesday’s volatile session as investors swayed between fears of rising and hopes for a resolution to the U.S.-Israeli war on as U.S. President Trump claimed there were talks even as reports suggested that more American troops were headed to the Middle East.

U.S. Treasury yields extended gains after a weak auction of 2-year Treasury notes, also adding pressure to equity markets.

Indexes regained some ground after Trump told reporters that the United States was talking to “the right people” in Iran in order to reach an agreement to end hostilities and that Iran has agreed they will never have nuclear weapons. But reports the would send thousands of more troops from the elite 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East caused some concerns.

Wall Street indexes on Monday had marked their biggest one-day gain since February 6 ]as oil prices fell after Trump had postponed strikes against Iranian power plants and announced talks with Iran even as Tehran denied negotiations with the U.S. But energy prices rose on Tuesday with crude oil futures settling up more than 4%.

“Stocks are trying to find their footing as investors are keeping one eye on social media and the other eye on every headline. We’re very short-term oriented,” said Carol Schleif, chief market strategist, BMO Private Wealth.

“Markets are trying to hold onto the optimism they had yesterday. They’re so ready to move beyond war talk even if it’s not 100% settled,” said Schleif but she added, “There’s a lot of nervousness. People are watching oil and watching interest rates and worrying do we go higher for longer on both energy and interest rates because that could start negatively impacting growth.”

Kevin Gordon, head of macro research & at the Schwab Center for Financial Research in New York also pointed to a “double whammy” higher oil prices and higher rates as a “stagflationary backdrop, which, needless to say, is not a positive backdrop for the stock market.”

According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 lost 24.62 points, or 0.36%, to end at 6,557.19 points, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 184.86 points, or 0.84%, to 21,762.77. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 87.24 points, or 0.19%, to 46,121.23.

Among the 11 S&P 500 major industry sectors, energy led gains during the session while communication services and technology were leading losses.

Meanwhile, concerns resurfaced after a report that limited redemptions at 5% at its private credit fund, along with Apollo Global Management, as withdrawal requests surged.

Earlier a survey showed U.S. business activity slowed to an 11-month low in March as the raised prices for energy products and other inputs.

Higher oil prices have revived inflation jitters and complicated the interest rate outlook for central banks. The U.S. struck a hawkish tone last week, projecting only one reduction in 2026.

Traders are no longer pricing in any rate cuts this year, compared with two reductions expected before the Middle East conflict erupted. Expectations for hikes nudged higher amid escalating tensions last week, but were quickly unwound after Trump’s comments on Monday, according to CME’s FedWatch Tool.

Among individual movers, shares of Jefferies rose after the Financial Times reported that Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group is working on plans for a possible takeover of the investment bank.

Shares in cosmetics maker Estee Lauder tumbled after it said it was in talks for a potential merger with Spanish beauty group Puig Brands.

Barclays lifted its 2026 year-end target for the S&P 500 index to 7,650 from 7,400, citing stronger earnings expectations that outweigh macro risks like Middle East tensions, AI-driven disruption and stress in private credit.

(Reporting by Sinéad Carew in New York, Purvi Agarwal and Twesha Dikshit in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips, Maju Samuel and Aurora Ellis)

 

Three Virginia biz schools rank in top 25 of Poets&Quants’ 2026 list

SUMMARY:

Six Virginia business schools placed among the the top 110 business schools in Poets&Quants’ 2026 rankings of undergraduate business schools released Monday. Of these Virginia schools, three were in the top 25.

Poets&Quants for Undergrads, an online publication and forum focused on business schools, ranks institutions across three categories: admissions standards, academic experience and career outcomes. The final ranking is determined by combining the index scores from each category to produce an overall final raw score.

For the eighth time in the past 10 years, the No. 1 school nationally was the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

The University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce ranked second overall, rising two spots from last year. The program also placed first in academic experience and second in admission standards.

“Being ranked No. 2 nationally and recognized as the top U.S. public undergraduate business program is deeply gratifying,” interim Dean Amanda Cowen said in a statement. “We are especially proud of our No. 1 ranking in academic experience — a holistic assessment that considers everything from teaching quality and faculty accessibility to experiential learning, mentorship and alumni engagement.”

At No. 17 overall, the ‘s of Business was Virginia’s second highest-ranked program, holding steady from last year. This is the fifth consecutive year Robins has been among the top 20 schools.

“I am delighted that this year’s rankings recognize Robins’ commitment to providing a challenging, career-focused education with real-world impact,” Mickey Quiñones, dean of the business school, said in a statement. “At Robins, we are preparing students to think broadly, act boldly and graduate as human-centered, globally minded and technology-enabled leaders ready to make a difference in the world.”

The third highest-ranking business school in Virginia was was William & Mary‘s , ranked 24th overall — down from 20th last year.

The fourth place Virginia school was the Luter School of Business at No. 76. CNU didn’t place on the overall list last year.

The fifth highest-ranking Virginia school was at No. 88. And lastly, the came in 92nd place overall, down eight spots from last year.

According to Poets&Quants, admissions standards data was collected directly from schools through an institutional survey, administered between October 2025 and January 2026.

Metrics in the publication’s admissions category include acceptance rate of the incoming class, six-year graduation rate, average SAT/ACT scores, average high school GPA and the percent of the incoming class that are female, international, underrepresented minorities and first-generation college students. It removed a metric measuring the percentage of incoming students who were in the top 10% of their high school classes.

The academic experience data comes from an alumni survey conducted between October 2025 and January 2026. This year’s publication surveyed students from the class of 2023 (students graduating between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023) from every school that the publication ranked. Surveys were sent to 53,272 alumni from all 110 of the ranked business programs, and Poets&Quants got 6,061 responses.

Poets&Quants used an average of two years of career data for the class of 2024 and class of 2025 to obtain metrics related to career outcomes. Those measurements included the percent of job-seeking students who secured full-time employment within 90 days of graduation, the average total first-year compensation and the percent of students who had business-focused internships before their senior year.