Good afternoon and welcome to Markets Desk.
Risk appetite is surging today after the United States and Iran reached a peace agreement, sending the S and P five hundred up more than one and a half percent, the Nasdaq one hundred climbing nearly three percent, with chip stocks leading the charge as geopolitical tension premiums unwind across the board.
Staying in tech, Anthropic's legal clash with the federal government is drawing fresh attention to AI infrastructure spending, with analysts suggesting a court outcome favoring broader access could accelerate the buildout of data centers and semiconductor demand well beyond the current handful of dominant players.
Shifting to media, Fox is acquiring Roku in a deal that would combine Tubi and The Roku Channel into a free, ad-supported streaming force with combined television viewership that exceeds Netflix. Lachlan Murdoch is making a clear bet that audiences fatigued by subscription costs are migrating toward free, advertiser-funded platforms.
And over at the Federal Reserve, incoming chair Kevin Warsh appears to be operating in a political honeymoon with President Trump, giving him unusual room to reshape the institution that Trump spent years publicly attacking. How Warsh navigates that dynamic will matter enormously for rate expectations ahead.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
