MARKET WRAPS
STOCKS: Stocks slid, with the S&P 500 closing down 6.8% from its recent peak, as oil futures tested recent highs, exacerbating fears about the economic implications of war in Iran.
TREASURYS: Treasury yields added to recent gains, and the policy-sensitive two-year yield completed its sharpest three-week increase since 2023.
FOREX: The U.S. dollar strengthened against rivals alongside inflation expectations.
COMMODITIES: Brent oil futures rose 3.3% to $112.19 a barrel, capping an 8.8% gain for the week. U.S.-traded oil futures rose 2.3% to $98.32, cutting their losses for the week to 39 cents, and hovering near multiyear highs.
HEADLINES
Tech Exec Accused of Smuggling High-End Nvidia Chips to China
Employees of a U.S. server maker helped smuggle machines with high-end Nvidia chips to China and used dummy devices to deceive an American inspector, according to a U.S. indictment unsealed Thursday.
The server maker, Super Micro Computer, said it placed co-founder and Senior Vice President Yih-Shyan "Wally" Liaw on leave after learning of his alleged role in the scheme involving billions of dollars of servers. Super Micro said it placed a second employee on leave and fired a contractor.
Shares of Super Micro were down 26% when the market opened Friday.
UBS Secures Bank License for Its Campaign to Expand U.S. Wealth Arm
UBS received a license to offer full-service banking in the U.S., part of a plan to tap rich Americans for their deposits and investments, and extend its reach in the world's biggest wealth market.
The national bank charter, approved by U.S. regulators Friday, should help the Swiss bank expand beyond its traditional clientele of the superrich into a pool of affluent and not-quite-ultrawealthy clients.
The Americas are already UBS's biggest region for wealth management, accounting for around half of invested assets and revenue. But the region has a much higher cost base, and scaling up in banking is a way to gather more deposits and make the region more profitable.
CBS News to End Storied Radio Broadcast, Lay Off 6% of Staff
CBS News is ending its radio service as part of broader layoffs while Editor in Chief Bari Weiss looks to reshape the storied network.
All positions on the CBS News Radio team are being eliminated and the service will end on May 22, according to an email that Weiss and CBS News President Tom Cibrowski sent to staff on Friday and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
"A shift in radio station programming strategies, coupled with challenging economic realities, has made it impossible to continue the service," the email said. "We are sharing this announcement now to fulfill our commitments to our radio partners and affiliates, which require advance notice of the service's conclusion."
Why Mayo and Soap No Longer Mix for Unilever
Do food and toiletries belong in the same place? For almost 100 years, the answer for consumer-goods behemoth Unilever was yes. Not anymore.
Unilever said Friday it was in talks with spice maker McCormick about a sale of its food business, which includes Hellmann's mayonnaise and Knorr stock cubes. News of a potential deal, which could be valued at tens of billions of dollars, confirmed an earlier Wall Street Journal report.
A sale would mark the biggest portfolio shake-up for Unilever since it was created nearly a century ago through the merger of Dutch group Margarine Unie and British soap maker Lever Bros. It would also be the company's most significant move yet to shed slower-growing food brands and push deeper into health and hygiene products.
FAT Brands CEO Departs as Restaurant Empire Unravels
FAT Brands founder Andrew Wiederhorn is stepping down as chief executive of the restaurant company after a bankruptcy judge on Thursday approved a deal with creditors for his removal.
The ruling granted a win to FAT Brands' lenders who have tried for months to force out Wiederhorn after the company issued shares following the bankruptcy filing without obtaining court approval.
Under the agreement between the lenders and the company, Wiederhorn's family members, eight of whom were employed by FAT Brands when the company filed for chapter 11 in January, will leave the company. The board, aside from its special committee members, will resign.
OpenAI Plans Launch of Desktop 'Superapp' to Refocus, Simplify User Experience
OpenAI is planning to unify its ChatGPT app, coding platform Codex and browser into a desktop "superapp," a step to simplify the user experience and continue with efforts to focus on engineering and business customers.
Chief of Applications Fidji Simo will oversee the change and focus on helping the company's sales team market the new product. OpenAI President Greg Brockman, who currently leads the company's computing efforts, will help Simo oversee the product revamp and related organization changes, an OpenAI spokeswoman said.
The strategy change marks a major shift from last year, when OpenAI launched a series of stand-alone products that didn't always resonate with users and sometimes created a lack of focus within the company. OpenAI executives are hoping that unifying its products under one app will allow it to streamline resources as it seeks to beat back the success of its rival Anthropic.
Blue Origin Formally Enters Race to Develop Data Centers in Space
Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is seeking permission to deploy nearly 52,000 satellites capable of handling artificial-intelligence computing into orbit.
The company said in a filing Thursday that its solar-powered AI satellites would complement terrestrial data centers, operating in an environment that would be free from snarls that have complicated the development of facilities on the ground.
"By adding compute capacity to orbit, the constellation will expand total industry capacity and introduce new sources of clean power for compute workloads," the company said in a filing Thursday with the Federal Communications Commission.
TALKING POINT How Keeping Private Credit Safe Became Iowa's Problem
When Blue Owl executives sold $1.4 billion in private loans last month so that individual investors could cash out of one of its big funds, a slice of the debt suddenly became Doug Ommen's problem.
As Iowa's insurance commissioner, Ommen is arguably the most important regulator for an industry that has become a financial pipeline for the private-credit boom.
More life-insurance money is parked in Iowa than any other state, and a larger share is managed by private equity firms like Apollo and its rivals than anywhere else. It is Ommen's job to make sure those investments are as safe as advertised-a task with higher stakes than ever as the private-credit sector comes under new pressure.
Ommen is himself responsible for reviewing the investment portfolio of Athene, the world's top seller of annuities-and a unit of Apollo. And his deputy leads a national task force on how to vet private, hard-to-value assets.
"We are oftentimes in the middle of a lot of these changes that are taking place," Ommen said.
This marriage between insurers and private assets is entering a critical stage. Retail investors have yanked their money from several major private-credit funds. Deep-pocketed pensions and endowments are scrutinizing their private debt holdings, too, worried in part about the funds' exposure to software companies that could be hurt by the artificial-intelligence boom. Private debt managers say their investments are doing well and that the redemptions are an overreaction to a handful of blowups in the wider credit markets.
Ommen and other state commissioners stand watch at the nexus between those same private deals and a third source of investment dollars: Americans who buy life insurance policies and annuities.
--Heather Gillers
Expected Major Events for Monday
05:00/JPN: Feb Convenience Store Sales
12:30/US: Feb Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI)
14:00/US: Jan Construction Spending - Construction Put in Place
14:00/US: 4Q Quarterly Financial Report - Retail Trade
14:00/US: 4Q Quarterly Financial Report - Industry
23:30/JPN: Feb CPI (Nation), CPI ex-food (Nation)
All times in GMT. Powered by Onclusive and Dow Jones.
Expected Earnings for Monday
ACT Energy Technologies Ltd (ACX.T) is expected to report for 4Q.
Annexon Inc $(ANNX)$ is expected to report $-0.32 for 4Q.
Caledonia Mining Corp PLC (CAL-T,CMCL) is expected to report for 4Q.
Cyclerion Therapeutics Inc $(CYCN)$ is expected to report for 4Q.
Diamedica Therapeutics Inc (DMA-V,DMAC) is expected to report $-0.20 for 4Q.
Dundee Corp - Class A (DC.A.T,DDEJF) is expected to report for 4Q.
Energy Focus Inc $(EFOI)$ is expected to report for 4Q.
Exicure Inc $(XCUR)$ is expected to report for 4Q.
Genie Energy Ltd $(GNE)$ is expected to report $0.07 for 4Q.
Intellinetics Inc $(INLX)$ is expected to report for 4Q.
LanzaTech Global Inc (LNZA) is expected to report for 4Q.
Liberty Gold Corp (LGD.T,PLGTF) is expected to report for 4Q.
Lithium Argentina AG (LAR.T) is expected to report for 4Q.
Lument Finance Trust Inc (LFT) is expected to report $0.10 for 4Q.
Mannatech Inc $(MTEX)$ is expected to report for 4Q.
Microbot Medical Inc (MBOT) is expected to report for 4Q.
New Fortress Energy Inc (NFE) is expected to report $-0.47 for 4Q.
PAVmed Inc $(PAVM)$ is expected to report for 4Q.
Quarterhill Inc (QTRH,QTRH.T) is expected to report for 4Q.
Reliv International Inc (RELV) is expected to report for 4Q.
SKYX Platforms Corp (SKYX) is expected to report $-0.07 for 4Q.
Solana Co (HSDT) is expected to report for 4Q.
T1 Energy Inc (TE) is expected to report $0.05 for 4Q.
TaoWeave Inc (TWAV) is expected to report for 4Q.
TruBridge Inc $(TBRG)$ is expected to report $0.26 for 4Q.
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March 20, 2026 16:42 ET (20:42 GMT)
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