Good morning and welcome to Markets Desk, your morning read on what's moving.
In the commodity pits, cattle traders are bracing for a volatile open after a confirmed screwworm case rattled the complex on Wednesday. Live cattle futures already shed between one dollar five and two dollars forty-two on the session, with open interest falling nearly two thousand contracts. Cash trade has been creeping higher, touching two fifty-six Wednesday afternoon, but the screwworm headline introduces a genuine supply risk that traders haven't fully priced in yet.
Shifting to energy, a quiet but consequential shift is underway at U.S. refineries that could push gasoline prices sharply higher this summer. With refinery capacity increasingly oriented toward jet fuel demand over gasoline output, at least one analyst is warning that five-dollar-a-gallon gas could arrive as early as July or August. That's a meaningful inflation pressure point heading into peak driving season.
And in tech, Anthropic has confidentially filed for an IPO, targeting a valuation of one trillion dollars or higher. That figure carries enormous weight for Amazon and Google, both of which have poured billions into the AI company. The S-one registration will be the first real transparency into how those bets are performing, and the market will be watching closely.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
