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MARKETS

Nasdaq

21,840.95

+1.16%

S&P

6,575.32

+0.72%

Dow

46,565.74

+0.48%

10-Year

4.319%

+1.0 bps

Bitcoin

$68,338.69

+0.66%

Intel

$48.03

+8.84%

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*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 5:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean.

Markets: Like Appalachian Trail hikers, stocks kept climbing for another day yesterday, as President Trump signaled that the war in Iran may end soon. He said Tuesday night that US involvement might end in two or three weeks.
Stock spotlight: Intel jumped after saying it is repurchasing a stake in one of its chip plants in Ireland from Apollo, a sign that the company’s turnaround is making progress.

TO THE MOON

SpaceX is preparing to launch world’s biggest IPO

Sundry Photography/Getty Images

Elon Musk’s combination ~~Pizza Hut and Taco Bell~~ aerospace and AI company filed initial paperwork to go public as soon as June, Bloomberg reported yesterday, in a potentially record-shattering listing.

SpaceX wants to raise $75 billion at a $1.75 trillion valuation, according to Bloomberg, a gargantuan goal that would tower over all past public offerings. For context:

The current IPO record holder is Saudi Aramco, which generated $29 billion from its 2019 debut.
Last year, the US IPO market raised $44 billion all together…from 202 company listings.

If SpaceX hits its target, it would become one of the ten most valuable publicly traded companies, ahead of Meta and Tesla, but behind the rest of the Mag 7, whose individual profits are 10x greater or more than SpaceX’s. Still, Musk’s stake could make him the world’s first trillionaire.

IPO details are under wraps, for now: SpaceX submitted a confidential filing, per Bloomberg. The number of shares, share price, and other information will be announced later, with one untraditional detail expected: Up to 30% of IPO shares could reportedly be reserved for individual investors—triple the norm—potentially signaling that SpaceX wants hefty participation from retail traders, a group that has embraced Musk’s Tesla (*cough* r/WallStreetBets).

What else does SpaceX want from the IPO?

Funding for data centers in space, a base on the moon, and an “insane flight rate” for its developmental Starship rocket, the company said in a recent internal memo.

Two birds, one IPO: xAI—the money-burning startup that houses Grok and X—was acquired by SpaceX last month, so this IPO could propel Musk’s AI business to the public markets before OpenAI and Anthropic, which are both expected to IPO as early as this year.

Looking ahead…after its IPO, SpaceX will be able to join Nasdaq’s main index after 15 days of trading, instead of three months, due to a rule change effective May 1. Meanwhile, banks expect this to be a big year for IPOs overall.—ML

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WORLD

Tour de headlines

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Artemis II heads for the moon after successful launch. The 10-day NASA test flight successfully lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, FL, at 6:35pm Eastern yesterday with four astronauts aboard, marking the agency’s first deep-space crewed flight in over 50 years. Artemis II is expected to send its crew farther into space than any humans have gone before, potentially breaking the record of 248,655 miles set by Apollo 13. The journey will take the crew around the moon and back, but not on the lunar surface. The next attempt to land on the moon—Artemis IV—is not expected to take place until 2028. However, the Artemis II crew is scheduled to reach the vicinity of the moon on Monday.—HVL

In prime-time address, Trump does not provide end date for war. In a nearly 20-minute speech last night, the president sought to explain why “Operation Epic Fury is necessary for the safety of America and the security of the free world,” he said, focusing on what an “intolerable threat” it would be to the global order for Iran to get a nuclear weapon. Trump said the US would hit Iran “extremely hard over the next two to three weeks,” which caused oil prices to rise after the address. Despite threatening to remove the US from NATO earlier in the day, Trump did not mention the alliance at all in his speech, but did say that countries of the world that depend on gas shipments coming through the Strait of Hormuz ought to “grab it and cherish it.”—HVL

Trump’s limits on birthright citizenship face SCOTUS skepticism. The Supreme Court appears poised to strike down an executive order that President Trump signed on the first day of his present term. The order would end birthright citizenship for babies born in the US to parents who are in the country temporarily or unlawfully, upending the longstanding common interpretation of the 14th Amendment. During oral arguments yesterday, the justices asked pointed questions of the government lawyer defending the order (which lower courts have blocked), expressing concerns about its legal basis and practicality. President Trump—who attended part of the oral arguments, in a first for a sitting US president—said on Truth Social afterward that the US is “the only Country in the World STUPID enough to allow ‘Birthright’ Citizenship!”—AR

JUST BLEW IT

Nike just can’t do it in China

Nick Iluzada

Nike’s turnaround has hit a huge wall in China—and that’s anything but great for shareholders. The company’s earnings call this week revealed that sales in China fell for the seventh consecutive quarter, and that they’re expected to remain weak for the rest of the year.

The company’s shares crashed by ~15% in response to its bleak outlook in China, even though Nike’s fiscal Q3 earnings and revenue beat expectations.

The recovery remains in progress

CEO Elliott Hill was brought on board in 2024 to return Nike to its glory days by refocusing the brand on sports. Some progress has been made, as revenue in North America grew for a second straight quarter. But overseas problems had Hill venting in an all-hands meeting that “I’m so tired, and I know you are too, of talking about fixing this business,” according to Bloomberg:

In China, consumers are pulling back as they look for bargains during tough economic times—but other foreign brands aren’t being hit as hard as Nike.
Nike CFO Matthew Friend blamed the conflict in the Middle East as a disruptor to shopping patterns in the region, as well as in Europe and Africa.

Nike also cited US tariffs eating into the company’s bottom line.

Looking ahead…the company is expecting continued growth in North America and plans to offer longer-term guidance to investors this fall.—DL

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SHOW ME THE MONEY

Is grad school worth it? Survey says...it depends!

Joseph Prezioso/Getty Images

Here’s something to send to your friends who keep saying they are thinking about grad school after two cocktails.

While graduate degrees in medicine, law, and pharmacy have high returns on investment, secondary degrees in fields including social work and psychology can actually yield negative returns, according to a new study released this week by the Postsecondary Education & Economics Research Center at American University.

The researchers examined income before and after grad school for 800,000 students who attended public universities in Texas between 1992 and 2019. They factored in the cost of programs and how much pay they missed out on by being in school:

Adjusted returns for individuals with a pharmacy doctorate earned 68% more, while those with a graduate degree in clinical psychology had a −5% return on investment.
Doctors and lawyers saw a significant jump in adjusted returns, with 173% and 41%, respectively.
MBA earners earned a 13% adjusted return on average.

Big picture: Lists that show only post-degree earnings can be deceiving, as the cost of attending graduate school has ballooned in recent decades. The researchers acknowledged that some people choose to pursue grad school for reasons other than pay bumps, like getting a special certification, building out their networks, or longing to use the word pedagogy more.—MM

STAT

Prime number: And then there were 2

Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk

Novo Nordisk’s CEO was probably bummed to learn this wasn’t his staff pulling an April Fool’s prank: Yesterday, the FDA approved Eli Lilly’s GLP-1 pill, Foundayo, making it the second option on the market after Novo’s Wegovy pill. The pill is slated for sale as soon as Monday. That opens up a new frontier in the battle to dominate the weight loss drug market. And Lilly is expected to have the advantage, according to the Wall Street Journal:

Analysts predict that Foundayo will generate ~$21 billion in global sales by 2030, while Wegovy will generate $4 billion, per the intelligence firm Evaluate.
Lilly is so sure of demand that it has almost $1.5 billion worth of pills ready to ship.

But…while Lilly’s injectable Zepbound gained popularity after studies showed it led to more weight loss than the Wegovy shot, Lilly won’t have the same bragging rights for pills. On average, patients on Wegovy lost 16.6% of their body weight over 64 weeks in a trial, compared with 12.4% for those taking Foundayo over 72 weeks, something Novo’s CEO told the WSJ “has to matter.”—AR

NEWS

What else is brewing

The partial government shutdown may be over soon, after Republican congressional leaders announced a deal to accept a Senate compromise to fund the Department of Homeland Security without ICE and Border Patrol, while fast-tracking a separate bill with money for immigration enforcement.
President Trump suggested he was considering pulling the US out of NATO, calling the alliance a “paper tiger.”
Anthropic accidentally leaked its internal source code for its popular Claude Code tool.
Hasbro has been hacked, and the toymaker said that it might take several weeks for the company to recover from the cyberattack.
Hershey said it would go back to recipes that use more chocolate for Reese’s products after the peanut butter cup inventor’s grandson Brad Reese publicly complained about the cost-cutting changes—proof that sometimes complaining on social media does work.
Megan Thee Stallion plans to return to her role in Moulin Rouge! The Musical on Broadway tomorrow after falling ill mid-performance on Tuesday and being hospitalized.

RECS

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Dine al fresco: The world’s top spots for a picnic.

Watch: What it’s like to date AI.

Have something sweet: The most popular Easter candy in every US state.

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PLAY

Brew Mini: Your sample clue of the day is “Montana from Pennsylvania.” Play the Mini here.

Three Headlines and a Lie

Three of these headlines are real and one is faker than a “short” group-trip-related Google form. Can you spot the odd one out?

Austin coffee shop names trash cans after landlords to shame them about rent increases
Heirs to Bic pen fortune seek painting they say chauffeur stole
He joked about turning his dogs into billboards. Business is booming
Three women yanked off plane, arrested at Miami airport after refusing to pay extra baggage fee

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ANSWER

We made up the one about the landlord-shaming trash cans.

Word of the Day

Today’s Word of the Day is: pedagogy, meaning “the method and practice of teaching.” Thanks to Kathy Cooney from Avon Lake, OH, for a suggestion we learned something from. Submit another Word of the Day here.

✢ A Note From Pendulum

*Based on preclinical studies. Not intended for weight loss.

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