The market started the week flattish, but grew to a 1% jump with tech rebounding after a SAAS sell-off last week. J.D. Vance and team failed to move the needle in Pakistan with Iranian negotiators on Saturday, and the world woke up to the new plan: if Iran is going to de facto blockade the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. might as well do it too.

The goal is to clear mines and keep Iranian oil exports down, regime oil is still shipping at a steady pace since the six-week war began, CNBC reported. About 15 navy warships were set in position to put a squeeze on shipping starting at 10 am ET, WSJ reported. To bears, it just looks like the U.S. is running low on options in dealing with a war we started.

But markets in the U.S. want to rally all the same, and futures climbed after Trump claimed Iran already wants to talk.

Economic data from the National Association of Realtors found March, the typical start to the spring sale season, had the lowest existing home sales since June. Bloomberg reported the 3.6% contraction showed a downtrend caused in part by heightened mortgage rates following the beginning of the Iran war.

$DELL ( ▲ 6.74% ) surged +6.7% on Monday to a record close of $189.79 on a report that Nvidia was pursuing a major PC maker acquisition, only to give back -3.4% in after-hours trading the moment Nvidia flatly denied it.

The RIP: $DELL +6.7% intraday to $189.79, a record high, -3.4% after hours. Dell holds 17% global PC market share per Gartner and projects ~$50B in AI server revenue in FY ending Jan 2027. $HPQ ( ▲ 5.31% ) jumped +5.3% on Monday to $19.23 on the same Nvidia acquisition rumor that lifted Dell, a move that made even less sense for HP, which lacks the AI server exposure that at least gave Dell's pop some narrative logic

The irony is Dell's AI server business, not its PC footprint, is what made it a plausible target. The legitimate bull case is the $50B AI server pipeline, which stands on its own without Nvidia owning the company. Watch whether the after-hours selloff bleeds into Tuesday's open. 🖥️

HP holds 19% global PC market share per Gartner, trailing only Lenovo's 27%.

HP is a PC and printing company with no meaningful AI infrastructure angle, making the rumor-driven rally particularly hollow. Without a real bid, HP's fundamentals don't justify Monday's pop. Holders should expect a full give-back at Tuesday's open barring any follow-on news. 🖨️

Nouveau Monde Graphite ($NMG) dropped a $297M equity financing package to push its Phase-2 Matawinie Mine to FID. The backing? Heavy hitters. Canada Growth Fund, Investissement Québec, and Eni, stacking $213M in private placement, plus an $84M bought deal to round out the equity side.

Add $335M in committed project debt, and the funding picture looks fully loaded, clearing the runway for construction.

Why traders should care: this is government backed capital plus a global energy major at the table, and a project tagged as national strategic interest as secure critical supply chains are front and center. Eni’s investment also comes with a potential 15,000 tpa offtake, tightening the commercial loop. Panasonic and Mitsui signaling support only adds fuel.

NMG placed the final financial brick before execution building what’s shaping up to be the largest graphite production in the G7.

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$GS fell -2.85% on Monday even after posting its second-highest quarterly revenue ever, a market verdict that the equities and banking blowout couldn't paper over a $910M fixed income miss. Investment banks are succeeding in profiting from volatile stock market swings as traders big and small try to swing trade, but underlying risks to corporate loans are freaking prices out.

The RIP: $GS -2.85%; EPS $17.55 vs. $16.49 estimate; revenue $17.23B vs. $16.97B expected. Equities +27% to $5.33B, beating by $420M. Investment banking climbed +48% to $2.84B, but fixed income fell -10% to $4.01B, missing by $910M. The real reason the stock fell, in a possible precursor to all the other financial giant reports dropping this week, was private credit.

The firm’s provision for credit losses: $315M vs. $150M estimate, the largest possible credit loss increase since 2020.

The selloff tells you everything: the market is more focused on the near-doubling of loan loss provisions and the fixed income blowup than the record equities quarter. Wells Fargo's Mike Mayo flagged the credit provision spike as a signal worth watching, and rightly so. Holders should monitor Q2 advisory revenue closely, as CEO David Solomon explicitly warned the unresolved Iran conflict could become a headwind for deals and IPOs through Q3. 🏦

The legacy cloud giant led the S&P 500 on Monday as $ORCL ( ▲ 12.7% ) surged +13%, the downbeat name turning green after the cloud software provider presented its AI tools at a conference. After five consecutive months of declines, the stock found its footing as management demonstrated how "next-generation" AI is being deployed to manage complex power grids and water systems.

The RIP: $ORCL shares climbed to $155.64 on Monday, rebounding from a 20% year-to-date slump. The company reported that its "Opower" AI platform saved residential utility customers $369M in 2025, while expanding its "Aconex" project management suite to reduce errors in multi-billion dollar capital infrastructure projects. Despite the rally, shares remain 53% below their record high of $328.33 set on Sept. 10, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

Holders should watch whether these vertical-specific AI gains can offset the broader decelerating growth trend that plagued the stock earlier this year. While the utility sector provides a defensive moat, the primary risk remains the massive valuation gap created during the late 2025 sell-off. Stocktwits watchlist adds for $ORCL spiked 68% on Monday as retail sentiment pivoted from "extreme fear" to "neutral" during the afternoon session. Investors should monitor $SAP and $MSFT for similar utility-grade AI announcements, as Oracle’s success suggests a new spending cycle in industrial software. ☁️

Now it’s execution time. With financing lined up for the Matawinie Mine, Nouveau Monde Graphite ($NMG) is shifting full focus to construction ready execution. Offtakes already cover ~75% of production with Panasonic Energy, the Government of Canada, and Traxys, with now an option for Eni.

More than 50% of CAPEX is secured, on budget, with a solid delivery bench like Pomerleau, Metso, ABB, Manawan Fournier, and Beauce Atlas. Engineering well advanced, permits are in hand, and site prep is done. Integrated team = tightening cost control, de risking timelines, and speeding decisions. It’s the kind of setup governments want behind nationally designated projects, and investors want behind billion dollar builds.

Downstream, a newly acquired brownfield site in Bécancour fast tracks active anode material deployment, aligning mine ramp up with battery demand. Upstream + Downstream = Margin.

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Macro: IEA Monthly Report (5:00 AM ET), ADP Employment Change Weekly (8:15 AM ET), Core PPI (MoM) (Mar) (8:30 AM ET), Fed Vice Chair Barr Speaks (12:45 PM ET), API Weekly Crude Oil Stock (4:30 PM ET). 📊

Pre-Market Earnings: $JPM JPMorgan Chase, $WFC Wells Fargo, $JNJ Johnson & Johnson, $C Citigroup, $ABT Abbott Laboratories, +4 more. ☀️

JPMorgan's Bellwether Moment: $JPM reports Tuesday morning as the most-watched print of the season, with GS setting a mixed tone, strong equities and banking, ugly fixed income, and a credit provision spike that has everyone looking at the biggest bank in America for confirmation or contradiction. Estimate: $5.46 EPS.

After-Market Earnings: $BMNR, $SPWR, $STI Solidion Technology Inc, $MSPR MSP Recovery Inc - Ordinary Shares - Class A, $SURG Surgepays Inc, +2 more. 🌙

P.S. You can listen to all of these earnings calls on Stocktwits.

😨 UK ‘not supporting’ U.S. Iran blockade as France’s Macron confirms ‘multinational’ talks on the Strait of Hormuz

🏠 Prices are beginning to rise faster than Americans' wages

🔥 Report: FBI raids Texas home of man suspected of firebombing Sam Altman’s S.F. mansion

📺 Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán ousted after 'painful' election result, ending 16 years in power

🧠 Fluoride in drinking water has no effect on IQ or brain function, long-term study shows

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