Good Morning Investors!!! President Trump’s deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz is front and center this morning, with markets still on edge after the US hit military targets on Iran’s Kharg Island and futures pointed lower before the open. Health insurers are also in focus after CMS finalized a better-than-expected Medicare Advantage payment update for 2027. In Asia, Samsung projected a record quarterly operating profit for the company, helped by strong AI-driven memory demand.
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Key Market Drivers
The clock is ticking: Trump’s 8 p.m. deadline puts every market on edge President Trump set tonight as his “final” deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that funnels roughly a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil supply. Iran sent a formal 10-point response through Pakistan that rules out any temporary ceasefire and instead demands a permanent end to hostilities, a safe passage protocol for the strait, reconstruction commitments, and the lifting of sanctions. Trump ramped up threats Monday, saying “the entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night.” Talks are still alive, but Iran’s rejection of a temporary deal has narrowed the path to a quick resolution. The S&P 500 rose Monday for a fourth straight session, all on hopes of a last-minute deal. But the mood shifted overnight with most major market futures heading a bit lower, as traders came to grips with just how hard this deadline really is. The market’s binary tonight: a deal could send oil sharply lower and stocks higher, while an escalation could do the opposite. The national average gasoline price hit $4.11 a gallon on Sunday, up from $2.98 before the war began, so this one is already showing up in Americans’ wallets. What to watch: 8 p.m. ET tonight. Any statement before then from the White House or Iranian state media could move markets sharply intraday. Oil prices are your leading indicator.  Brent Crude Oil 4-7-2026 Health insurers just got a surprise gift from Washington The Trump administration finalized a 2.48% average increase in 2027 Medicare Advantage payments, which CMS said would add more than $13 billion to plan payments next year. CMS also said the effective increase is 4.98% when expected risk-score trend is included. That was a clear relief versus the 0.09% increase floated in January, and it pushed the sector higher late Monday and into Tuesday premarket trading. Medicare Advantage is the version of Medicare run by private insurers for seniors, so higher payment rates can directly affect margins. What to watch: whether the early gains hold after the open, and whether analysts update 2027 profit assumptions for UnitedHealth, Humana, and CVS Health. The US Medicare program’s finalized 2.48% rate caused shares of UnitedHealth Group to rise roughly 10%, Humana to surge about 13%, and CVS Health to gain around 8% in after-hours trading Monday. The outcome continues a recent pattern where final Medicare Advantage rates are adjusted upward from initial proposals: for 2026, CMS ultimately set a final average increase of 5.06% after initially proposing just 2.2%. There is a lesson hiding in that pattern for investors: the first number out of Washington is often not the final number. The move eases intense investor concerns about margin pressure in the lucrative Medicare Advantage sector and provides a more stable outlook for insurer profitability next year. What to watch: Whether the after-hours gains hold at Tuesday’s open. Also keep an eye on analyst upgrades for UNH, HUM, and CVS as the regulatory cloud has, at least partially, cleared. Samsung just posted the biggest quarterly profit in corporate history, and AI chip demand built it Samsung Electronics said first-quarter operating profit likely reached 57.2 trillion won on revenue of 133 trillion won, far above analyst estimates and a record for the company. That nearly triples Samsung’s previous quarterly operating-profit record of 20 trillion won set in the fourth quarter of 2025. It also means first-quarter profit alone topped Samsung’s full-year 2025 operating profit. For US investors, the read-through is straightforward: AI memory demand remains strong, which matters for the broader chip group heading into earnings season. Explosive growth in demand for AI server memory is cited as the key driver, pushing up prices for both AI semiconductors like high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and conventional DRAM, as Samsung and other chipmakers devoted significant production lines to HBM manufacturing, creating a seller’s market. HBM (think of it as the super-fast memory that sits right next to an AI processor) is essential for the data centers powering large AI models. Samsung is one of only three companies in the world that manufacture advanced HBM chips. For US investors, this result is a warm-up signal: if Samsung’s chip business is this profitable, the same wave of AI demand is hitting Nvidia, Micron, and the US semiconductor sector heading into earnings season. What to watch: How US chip stocks, including Nvidia and Micron, react at Tuesday’s open to this read-through from Asia. Samsung’s detailed divisional earnings call is due later this month. Jobs smashed expectations, and now the Fed is frozen in place Released Friday while US markets were closed for Good Friday, the March jobs report hit like a bucket of cold water on anyone hoping for a rate cut soon. Nonfarm payrolls rose 178,000 in March, a reversal from the 133,000 decline in February and well above the Dow Jones consensus estimate of 59,000. The unemployment rate edged down to 4.3%, while wages rose just 0.2% for the month and 3.5% from a year ago, the lowest annual wage gain since May 2021. Strong jobs plus cooling wages is actually a decent combination: it means employers are hiring without the kind of wage-driven inflation that would force the Fed’s hand upward. The problem is oil. With Brent crude hovering around $110 a barrel and gas at the pump already above $4, the Consumer Price Index (CPI, the government’s monthly inflation scorecard) for March is likely to look uncomfortably warm. With inflation above the Fed’s target and energy prices surging due to the Iran war, markets expect little movement from the central bank this year. Following the jobs report, futures pointed to virtually no probability of a move at the April 28–29 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting and a 77.5% probability the Fed will stay on hold through the end of 2026, according to CME FedWatch. The Fed sits in a box: too much inflation to cut, too much uncertainty to hike. The result is a central bank that is, for now, just watching. Citigroup now expects Fed cuts later in 2026, while Wells Fargo Investment Institute no longer expects any cuts this year due to inflation and geopolitical pressures. What to watch: March Consumer Price Index (CPI), due this Friday, April 10, at 8:30 a.m. ET. Given the surge in energy prices since February’s reading, this print carries extra weight for the Fed’s summer outlook. |
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Fertilizers and Crop Nutrients
Every market conversation right now starts with oil. But the second-order story quietly building underneath it is food. The Strait of Hormuz is not just an energy chokepoint. According to Argus global head of fertilizer pricing Sarah Marlow, the region accounts for almost 50% of all globally traded sulfur, around a third of globally traded urea, and close to 25% of globally traded ammonia. Spring planting season in the Northern Hemisphere is beginning right now. Those two facts arriving at the same time have created a genuine supply crisis in crop nutrients.
Analysts told CNBC that FOB granular urea in Egypt, a bellwether for nitrogen fertilizers, has jumped to around $700 per metric ton, up from $400 to $490 before the war began. Oxford Economics’ Alpine Macro noted that urea and ammonia prices have surged by around 50% and 20%, respectively, since the war began. Farmers in the Northern Hemisphere are due to begin fertilizing their fields, meaning the supply constraint has landed squarely in the middle of peak seasonal demand. When crop nutrients get scarce at planting time, food prices follow months later.
The relevant exchange traded fund (ETF) here is the VanEck Agribusiness ETF (MOO), which tracks the MVIS Global Agribusiness Index and holds companies that generate at least 50% of revenues from agri-chemicals, fertilizers, seeds, farm equipment, and related businesses. MOO has net assets of approximately $582 million and returned 15.42% in 2025. In January 2026 alone, the ETF returned 10.7% as the fertilizer trade began pricing in geopolitical risk well ahead of the war’s escalation.
CF Industries Holdings (CF):
CF Industries describes its mission as providing clean energy to feed and fuel the world, operating the world’s largest ammonia production network. What truly sets CF apart right now is its feedstock advantage: it buys natural gas at domestic Henry Hub prices, which are a fraction of what European producers pay. That cost gap has become a massive margin advantage in a world where energy prices are surging. CF reported full-year 2025 net earnings of $1.46 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $2.89 billion. CF Industries is up roughly 65% year to date, largely because its domestic natural gas advantage insulates it from the sulfur and ammonia inflation squeezing peers.
Nutrien Ltd. (NTR):
Created in 2018 through the merger of PotashCorp and Agrium, Nutrien is the world’s largest fertilizer producer by capacity, with a roughly 20% global market share in potash. It is also the largest agricultural retailer in North America and Australia, selling fertilizers, crop chemicals, seeds, and services directly to farm customers. That diversified model provides earnings stability that pure-play producers lack. In 2025, Nutrien’s revenue was $25.95 billion, up 3.73% year over year, while earnings rose 236%. Jefferies cited the “nitrogen chain fly-up” and projected that Nutrien’s EBITDA could reach $7.0 billion in 2026.
The Mosaic Company (MOS):
Mosaic is the complicated one. As one of the world’s largest phosphate producers, it benefits from higher fertilizer prices, but it is also a major buyer of sulfur, which is now one of the most disrupted commodities on the planet. Mosaic’s CFO stated directly on the Q4 earnings call that every $10 increase in sulfur prices adds approximately $10 million of quarterly expense, and guided for a roughly $250 million headwind to Q1 2026 adjusted EBITDA (EBITDA, a measure of operating profit before interest, taxes, and other charges). Mosaic is rated a hold by some analysts, with 2025 revenue rising 9% to $12.1 billion and net income tripling, but long-term debt jumping 27% to $4.25 billion. Mosaic is a useful reminder that “fertilizer stocks are up” is too simple. The same war can create a winner and a headache in the same sector.
InvestorsGrow Takeaway:
The key macro indicator for this industry is the urea-to-corn price ratio, which tracks how much crop value a farmer must give up to buy fertilizer. If that ratio keeps rising, farmers may cut applications or shift acreage, which can pressure yields later on. The cleaner way to frame the market risk is simple: if supply disruption persists, fertilizer prices stay supported; if the Strait reopens and flows normalize, this trade can unwind quickly.
AppLovin Corporation (NASDAQ: APP)
Think of AppLovin as the air traffic control tower for mobile advertising. It uses artificial intelligence (AI) to decide, in milliseconds, which ad to show which person inside which app, then charges advertisers only when it works. AppLovin makes technologies that help businesses of every size connect to their ideal customers, providing end-to-end software and AI solutions to reach, monetize, and grow their global audiences.
AppLovin was Monday’s top gainer in the S&P 500. Wells Fargo raised its price target for AppLovin to $560 from $543, while maintaining an Overweight rating, citing improving industry checks and a favorable setup heading into the Q1 2026 earnings report. AppLovin closed at $412.68 on April 6, 2026, up 6.81%.
In the last year, AppLovin shares hit a 52-week high of $745.61 and a 52-week low of $200.50, a range that tells you investors have strong conviction about the business but considerable disagreement about what it is worth. From late November 2025 to late February 2026, AppLovin decreased by roughly 33%, declining from its peak of nearly $734 in December. Monday’s pop suggests buyers are stepping back in ahead of what they expect to be a strong Q1 report.
The engine behind the stock is a product called Axon, AppLovin’s AI-powered ad optimization platform. Axon reaches over a billion users every day across mobile apps and connected TV, using a proprietary AI engine for real-time ad optimization, making it one of the most influential platforms in mobile and performance advertising. Competitors like Meta Platforms and Alphabet dominate digital advertising broadly, but AppLovin has carved out a dominant position in mobile gaming ads and is now moving aggressively into e-commerce. Management estimates the non-gaming addressable market is five to ten times the size of gaming, which is why Wall Street is paying close attention to every update on that expansion.
The number that stops analysts in their tracks is AppLovin’s adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, a measure of operating profitability) margin. Adjusted EBITDA for Q4 2025 hit $1.4 billion, up 82% year-over-year, representing an 84% margin. Most technology companies would celebrate a 30% margin. An 84% margin at this scale means nearly every new dollar of revenue flows almost entirely to the bottom line, and that is what makes the growth story so compelling to investors. Full-year 2025 free cash flow was $3.95 billion, up 91% year-over-year.
AppLovin is scheduled to report Q1 2026 earnings on May 13, 2026, after the close, and the company’s own guidance calls for Q1 revenue of $1.745 to $1.775 billion with an adjusted EBITDA margin near 84%. AppLovin is extending its AI-powered Axon ad engine from gaming into web-based e-commerce, with self-serve access targeted for general availability in the first half of 2026. If that launch arrives on schedule and advertisers adopt it quickly, it could be the next leg of growth. If adoption is slow, expect the stock to give back some of Monday’s gains.
InvestorsGrow Takeaway:
AppLovin is essentially a bet that AI-optimized advertising is a winner-take-most business, and that AppLovin’s head start in mobile will translate into dominance in e-commerce and connected TV. The upside is real: revenue grew 70% in 2025 to $5.48 billion, and earnings more than doubled, rising 111%, which is a rare combination at any company, let alone one with a multi-billion-dollar revenue base. The risks deserve equal attention. A Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) probe involving AppLovin is “still active and ongoing,” the regulator confirmed in February 2026. Insider selling has totaled over $169 million in the last 90 days, which is worth monitoring. For new investors, AppLovin is a useful case study in how AI can create extraordinary profitability, and in why regulatory and insider signals always deserve a seat at the table alongside the earnings numbers.
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