Financial Market News | Saturday Review

This was the week Wall Street printed strong earnings and still could not hold the gains.

Nine companies beat estimates. Nine stocks fell after. Even the lone exception was questioned within a day.

The quarters coming next will be built inside the blockade. A strong result from before it started does not say much about what comes after.

Here are the six things that actually drove the week.

We’ve found The Next Elon Musk… and what we believe to be the next Tesla.

It’s already racked up $26 billion in government contracts.

Peter Thiel just bet $1 Billion on it.

And you can get exposure — pre-IPO — through a 4-letter ticker symbol revealed in this free briefing.

Unlock the ticker now and get it completely free.

The beat-and-sell pattern ran all week without a break.

Tesla (TSLA) beat on free cash flow when analysts expected a loss. ServiceNow (NOW) beat both revenue and earnings lines. UnitedHealth (UNH) beat by more than 10%. American Express (AXP) posted its strongest spending growth in three years. D.R. Horton (DHI) beat estimates. American Airlines (AAL) had record first-quarter revenue. Southwest (LUV) had its best first quarter in years. In every case, the stock fell after.

UnitedHealth was the exception. Investors rewarded genuine margin improvement and cost control. Everything else got sold.

The pattern is now nine for nine. Investors are not pricing what happened in Q1. They are pricing what Q2 and Q3 look like. Those quarters land with doubled fuel costs, slower bookings in the Middle East, and no rate cuts on the way.

The Takeaway 

Until the blockade lifts or forward guidance starts moving up, strong quarters alone are not enough to hold a stock. The market is telling you that clearly and consistently.

This was the week the war stopped being only a fuel story.

ServiceNow beat earnings estimates and raised its full-year guidance. Its stock fell 13% anyway. The company said subscription revenue growth took a 75 basis point hit from delayed deal closings in the Middle East. Companies across the Gulf are not signing multi-year software contracts right now. Their physical infrastructure is under active military threat and deal timelines have slipped.

ServiceNow is the first major software company this earnings season to name the war as a direct, quantified drag on revenue.

The war moved from energy to logistics to airline fuel bills. This week it reached software bookings.

The Takeaway 

Watch what Salesforce (CRM), Microsoft (MSFT), and Oracle (ORCL) say about their Middle East revenue pipelines when they report. ServiceNow showed you exactly what to look for. If the Gulf is slowing software deal cycles, the impact will grow the longer the conflict continues.

Trump launched his next $1 trillion power play — linking America’s AI dominance with Saudi energy money and a single overlooked U.S. company in the middle.

This company was already wildly profitable, pulling in more cash than Hilton, AMD, and Chipotle.

Now it’s signed a multi-million-dollar deal with Palantir, trades for a tiny fraction of its true value, and even drew a public response from Trump when a foreign power tried to squeeze it with a new tax.

Go here now to find out how you can get in on this epic power play.

Every major U.S. airline reported this week. Every one cut guidance or withheld it entirely.

United (UAL) cut its full-year earnings forecast from $12 to $14 per share down to $7 to $11. Alaska (ALK) pulled its 2026 guidance entirely. Southwest (LUV) guided below consensus for Q2 and declined to update the full year. American Airlines (AAL) had record first-quarter revenue. Its full-year result is still roughly breakeven because $4 billion in extra fuel costs absorbed every dollar of that revenue gain. Record revenue. Near-zero annual profit. That is what doubled fuel prices look like applied to a large airline that cannot reprice tickets fast enough.

Different carriers. Same verdict.

The Takeaway 

The airline verdict is now complete across the industry. The war's fuel cost is a full-year problem, not a quarterly blip. Delta (DAL) is the last key data point.

For three months, one senator held the line.

Senator Thom Tillis said he would not vote to confirm Kevin Warsh as Fed chair until the Justice Department ended its probe into Jerome Powell. Tillis is retiring. He had nothing to lose by holding. His no vote deadlocked the Senate Banking Committee at 12 to 12. Warsh could not move forward.

On Friday afternoon, the DOJ announced it was closing the investigation. A federal judge had already ruled there was essentially zero evidence of criminal wrongdoing and that the grand jury subpoenas were improper. The probe is done. The blockage is gone.

Powell's term expires May 15. Warsh testified Tuesday. He called the Fed an institution that had lost its way. He said it had not earned its independence. A Republican senator warned him that his AI productivity arguments might be hype. The confirmation path is now clearer.

The Takeaway 

The single structural obstacle to Warsh's confirmation was removed Friday. Watch whether Tillis issues a public statement of support before Monday. That confirms the May 15 transition is on track.

If you have any money in the stock market, you may want to pay attention.

New research points to a massive market-moving event that could send hundreds of popular stocks into a sudden free fall.

Holding the wrong stocks when this hits could erase years of gains.

That’s why analysts have now identified a list of stocks investors may want to avoid as this event unfolds.

If you want to see what’s coming — and which stocks could be most at risk —

Click here to get the full details before it’s too late.

The week opened with the UAE raising the idea of settling oil revenues in Chinese yuan rather than dollars. It closed with data pointing the opposite direction.

SWIFT published its March figures showing the dollar's share of global trade rose to a record 51.1%. The yuan's share was 3.1%. The war is producing dollar demand, not reducing it. Risk-off flows, oil settlement mechanics, and safe-haven buying are all pushing the dollar higher at the same moment Gulf states are under revenue pressure from the blockade.

The UAE's leverage is real. Its oil revenues are constrained. Its dollar reserves are large but not replenishing while Hormuz stays closed. The yuan comment reflects genuine financial pressure. But the structural data shows the dollar's position getting stronger under the same war the UAE is using as leverage.

Both are true. They point in opposite directions.

The Takeaway 

The UAE threat is political pressure. The SWIFT data is financial reality. Watch whether Treasury provides the swap line the UAE requested. That answer reveals which force is actually winning the standoff.

SpaceX filed its S-1 this week.

The company is targeting a $75 billion raise at a $1.75 trillion valuation. The S-1 claims a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion. More than 90% of that figure comes from AI. SpaceX is telling Wall Street explicitly that it is an AI company that also has rockets, not the other way around.

The filing also revealed a $20 billion bridge loan taken out last month. That loan refinanced five debt facilities tied to Musk's other companies, including X and xAI. If the loan is not repaid through other sources within six months of the IPO, SpaceX must use the IPO proceeds to cover it. A portion of what investors put in is already committed before the deal closes.

xAI, which SpaceX now owns, lost $6.4 billion in 2025. That loss alone exceeded Starlink's entire operating profit for the year. One source told Reuters directly that if you value only what you can see, you are nowhere near $1.75 trillion.

The Takeaway 

The bridge loan means the effective raise is smaller than the headline number suggests. The market claims require execution on timelines SpaceX has not yet defined. Watch whether the lender syndicate gets named in the public filing. That detail tells you who this deal was really built for.

Marc Lichtenfeld, one of the most trusted voices in income investing, is on the streets of South Florida showing random people something on his phone. One by one, you can see their reactions change almost instantly.

What are they looking at?

Proof of what Marc calls the biggest legal scam in America, one that affects 95% of Americans and has been running for decades.

Marc uncovered the whole thing and isn’t staying quiet about it.

Click here to see what made these people so angry.

This was not a normal earnings week.

Results were strong across the board. The market sold them anyway. Because the numbers describe a quarter already gone.

The blockade continued. The war showed up in software revenue for the first time. Airlines absorbed $4 billion in fuel costs and came out near breakeven. The Fed succession moved from stuck to unstuck in a single Friday afternoon.

The surface held. The structure shifted.

The same pattern has now run for two straight weeks. Records appear. Beats arrive. Selling follows. Until the blockade lifts, guidance moves up, or the Fed gets a confirmed chair who can speak to the current moment, the pattern is likely to continue.

The week ahead brings the Fed rate meeting and another round of earnings. The results will almost certainly be strong. Watch what happens after.