Morning highlights: oil rises after collapse, hedge funds have their best month since 2020

Oil prices rose after collapsing the previous day - amid ongoing tensions between the U.S. and Iran. Warner Bros. Discovery increased its loss by 6.5 times, including due to a fine after the breakdown of the deal with Netflix. About these and other topics - in our review of key events by the morning of Ma. 7.

Oil prices rose: Brent futures rose to about $102 per barrel, WTI - to $95 amid ongoing tensions between the United States and Iran, writes CNBC. Despite reports of the proximity of a peace agreement, President Donald Trump threatened to intensify strikes if Tehran does not agree to a deal. The talks remain volatile, with Iran studying the proposals and a key objective of the parties remaining the full opening of the Strait of Hormuz to restore oil supplies.

Hedge funds posted a 5% gain in April - the highest since November 2020 - thanks to strong gains in tech stocks, the Financial Times reports. Alphabet added about a third of its value, Intel more than doubled its capitalization, AMD soared 74%,. Nasdaq jumped by 15.3%, S&P 500 - by 10.4% amid strong reporting and truce in the Middle East. Funds actively built up positions and leverage, especially in large tech companies, the newspaper points out.

The rise was a sharp reversal after a weak March, when macro funds were hurt by shifting rate expectations following a rally in oil prices and fears of high inflation.

Warner Bros. Discovery in the first quarter had a net loss of $2.9 billion compared to $453 million a year earlier. The reason was, among other things, the penalty paid to it in the amount of $2.8 billion after the collapse of the deal with Netflix and costs associated with restructuring, reports CNBC. Warner Bros. revenue fell 1% to $8.89 billion, but EBITDA rose 5% to $2.2 billion, with total debt of $33.4 billion.

Streaming remained the growth driver: the segment's revenue jumped 9% to $2.89 billion thanks to the expansion of HBO Max and the growth of the advertising model. The company has passed the 140 million subscriber mark and expects to reach 150 million by the end of the year.

Anthropic is shifting its focus from corporate clients to the mass audience, improving the quality and speed of the Claude chatbot: response time has been reduced from 5-6 seconds to about one, Bloomberg writes. The company is actively developing scenarios for everyday tasks - from health to travel - and promotes the product as an alternative to ChatGPT without advertising.

The growth of interest in the product was supported by, among other things, advertising on the Super Bowl and the conflict with the Pentagon. As a result, Claude became the second most popular free app in the US App Store. In March, registrations quadrupled since the beginning of the year to more than 1 million per day.

Aircraft manufacturer Airbus has received an order from AirAsia for 150 A220-300 airplanes worth about $19 billion, with an option to expand to 300 airliners when a more spacious version of the A220-500 is launched, the Financial Times reports. The deal was the largest commercial aircraft order in Canadian history and maintains Airbus' production base in Quebec.

For Airbus, it's a chance to accelerate the A220 program to breakeven by ramping up production, which is planned to increase to 12-13 aircraft per month by 2026-2028. However, significant discounts for AirAsia add to the pressure on margins and require a rapid ramp-up of production.

SoftBank shares jumped more than 18%, posting their best gain since 2020, amid strong post-holiday gains in Japanese tech companies, CNBC reported. Advantest shares added nearly 8%, Tokyo Electron more than 9% and Renesas nearly 14%. The Nikkei index soared 5.9%, reaching a record high.

The driver was, among other things, a rally in U.S. AI stocks, including a jump in AMD, Arm and Super Micro Computer quotes, as well as optimism around demand for data center infrastructure.

- Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose 1.5 percent, while mainland China's CSI 300 Index gained 0.3 percent.

- In South Korea, the Kospi index was up 0.2%, while the Kosdaq was down 0.8%.

- Australia's S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.8 percent.

- Futures on the S&P 500 and futures on the Nasdaq Composite were virtually unchanged. Exchange contracts on the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 0.1%.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor