Welcome to Markets Desk, your midday read on the stories moving markets and the world.
The most consequential headline right now is out of the Middle East. President Trump confirmed the United States carried out what he called minor strikes on Iran, with Iranian media reporting two missiles struck Qeshm Island near the Strait of Hormuz. That's sitting directly at the throat of global oil supply, and traders are watching the Strait closely for any disruption to crude flows.
Pivoting to energy of a different kind, Jensen Huang of Nvidia is warning that artificial intelligence infrastructure will require roughly one thousand times more power than today's systems. That sounds like a gift for nuclear plays like Oklo and NuScale, but analysts are flagging a critical mismatch — those companies can't scale fast enough to meet near-term data center timelines, leaving their valuations exposed despite the bullish narrative.
And in domestic resources, the Smackover formation straddling Arkansas and Louisiana is drawing serious attention as a potential answer to America's lithium problem. Big Oil operators are already staking positions in what geologists call a genuine freak of subsurface chemistry — brine deposits that could meaningfully reduce U.S. dependence on Chinese lithium supply as electric vehicle and battery storage demand accelerates toward four million metric tons annually by twenty thirty five.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
