Good evening and welcome to Markets Desk, your close-of-day read on what moved markets and why.
Evercore's Mark Mahaney is out with a bold call on Meta, naming it a top large-cap long idea with a price target of eight hundred twenty dollars. Mahaney's thesis centers on AI-driven advertising momentum and what he sees as a valuation that hasn't fully caught up to the company's earnings power. That's a meaningful premium to where shares are trading now.
Shifting to the macro risk picture, the Financial Times is reporting that Iran has been actively expanding its military posture across the Middle East, raising the temperature with Washington considerably. Markets have been watching the region closely, as any escalation carries direct implications for oil supply chains, risk appetite, and safe-haven flows into Treasuries and gold.
And on Capitol Hill, a new bill is taking aim at a troubling trend. The FBI is reporting a fifty-nine percent surge in financial fraud losses targeting seniors, with scams increasingly involving cryptocurrency but also touching more conventional holdings. Lawmakers are pushing legislation to give older Americans stronger legal tools to fight back, and the scale of those losses is drawing rare bipartisan attention.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
