What a difference a day makes. Tuesday’s eleventh-hour, two-week ceasefire deal led to both the US and Iran claiming a W on Wednesday, which sent markets into party mode and led to oil dropping well below $100/barrel:

• The S&P 500 closed up 2.5% while the Dow jumped 2.8%, the largest one-day percentage point gain since last April. The Nasdaq and the Russell 2000 also got similar bumps.
• Commercial airlines, which were just scrambling to offset eye-watering jet-fuel prices, also rose, including Southwest Airlines (+6.7%), United (+7.9%), and Delta (+3.8%).

By yesterday afternoon, however, geopolitical confusion and tension began simmering again, as the ceasefire looked increasingly brittle.

Unlimited Strait talk

Not long after the collective sigh of relief was exhaled yesterday, Israel struck Beirut, killing at least 182 people, and said that Lebanon was not part of the ceasefire deal due to Hezbollah:

• Pakistan, which has served as mediator, said Lebanon was part of the ceasefire deal it helped broker.
• Iran called Israel’s attacks on Lebanon a “grave violation” of the ceasefire agreement.
• Vice President JD Vance said the Israel–Lebanon situation was a “legitimate misunderstanding” that could be cleared up.

Running parallel to this—a series of mixed messages over what’s going on with the Strait of Hormuz:

• In his message on Tuesday announcing the ceasefire, President Trump said the pact with Iran hinged on its “agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz.”
• After Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, Iran disputed reports that the Strait of Hormuz was open.
• As of this morning, media outlets reported there was little evidence that the Strait had reopened and even suggested that Iran had put new sea mines in the waterway.

Looking ahead…experts are warning that the Wall Street rally might be a little early. The enthusiasm may get curbed when markets open today.—MM

Meta releases first AI model from its “superintelligence” lab. Here’s a Meta software announcement that really has legs. The new model, called Muse Spark, will power Meta’s AI chatbot and provide features within it. In an announcement, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg framed the development as making good on the founding promise of Meta Superintelligence Labs: “putting personal superintelligence in everyone’s hands.” The company’s internal benchmarks showed it outscoring xAI’s Grok on most metrics and Google’s Gemini on some, while being competitive with models from OpenAI and Anthropic. The lab was assembled nine months ago with a multibillion-dollar investment that secured Alexandr Wang, the former Scale AI CEO, to lead the team.

Federal Reserve is in wait-and-see mode over Iran war, according to March minutes. The notes from the Fed’s last meetings, held on March 17 and 18, revealed that “most participants commented that it was too early to know how developments in the Middle East would affect the US economy,” although many expected inflation to continue moving toward its 2% target. The consensus of the Federal Open Market Committee remains unchanged that just one interest rate cut will happen this year. Some Fed watchers, however, hold out hope that if a perdurable ceasefire in the Iran war takes hold, there will be additional rate cuts.

Jeff Shell steps down as Paramount’s president after alleged SEC violations. Paramount’s board of directors said in a statement that Shell was stepping down to focus on the lawsuit that R.J. Cipriani brought against him last month, accusing Shell of leaking corporate secrets. Shell denies the claim, and Paramount has called Cipriani’s accusations “baseless.” Shell was a top lieutenant of Paramount CEO David Ellison, who appointed him president after the Skydance–Paramount merger closed. Shell held the job for eight months. His departure comes amid Paramount’s next big project: closing the Warner Bros. Discovery deal.—HVL

The New York Times reported yesterday that the true identity of mysterious Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto was British cryptographer and entrepreneur Adam Back. Hours later, Back told the BBC that The Gray Lady had the wrong guy, adding a new chapter to the 17-year mystery of the pseudonym.

The NYT investigation began with a reporter watching Back in a documentary about Satoshi’s identity in which he had “shifty eyes,” much like most men you see on a subway train. That led to interviews with Back and an analysis of similar communications from Back and Satoshi that reduced more than 34,000 suspects down to one—Back.

Back responded by flat-out disputing some of the facts in the NYT piece, saying other evidence was “a combination of coincidence and similar phrases from people with similar experience and interests.”

Does Satoshi’s identity matter? Crypto Banksy has an estimated $78 billion in their wallet, but as one analyst told Morningstar, as long as that person doesn’t dump it all into the market or isn’t linked to a government, it may not matter beyond satisfying curiosity.

The price of Bitcoin climbed above $72,600 yesterday morning but dropped to ~$71,300 later in the afternoon.—DL

After spending about a month in the red, shares of Levi Strauss jumped back into positive territory for the year yesterday, following a strong earnings report that also noted a major milestone: For the first time, direct-to-consumer sales accounted for more than half of the company’s quarterly revenue.

High-rise, not distressed: Overall revenue last quarter increased 14% from the same time last year, buoyed by Levi’s store and website sales, but also by wholesale revenue. That trend even grew in the US, where Levi’s severed some retail partnerships as it leaned harder into DTC.

Working in Levi’s favor:

• The company offset tariff pressure by raising prices, which accounted for roughly half of its growth without steering away customers, according to its CFO.
• It lost some dead weight by selling its struggling khaki brand, Dockers, last month.
• Levi’s has also benefited from the popularity of ’90s styles like jorts and a resurgence of country trends (hat tip to Beyoncé).

Another pop culture bump: The company’s CEO said Levi’s saw a 25% spike in sales of its 517 jeans, which were a wardrobe staple for Carolyn Bessette and featured in the FX series Love Story about her and JFK Jr. The show premiered about two weeks before Levi’s quarter ended, meaning viewers wasted no time smashing that “Order” button.—ML

A new monument has been erected to honor someone the public has no problem accepting as both a rat and a hero all at once.

That someone is Magawa, the African giant pouched rat who sniffed out 100 land mines for the nonprofit Apopo, which trains and deploys the rodents to detect the explosives so that they can be safely cleared. Magawa died in 2022, but in his five-year career for the nonprofit, he distinguished himself as one of the best to ever do it. According to the Washington Post:

• He could search an area the size of a tennis court in 20 minutes by himself. It would take a human several days.
• The little guy cleared 1.52 million square feet of land, equivalent to ~26 football fields.
• He detected “dozens” of land mines during his tenure.

Magawa retired in 2021 and mentored some other rats for his encore career. The statue has been placed in Cambodia, where Magawa completed his life’s work. The nation has a goal to be land mine free by 2030. An estimated 6 million land mines remain there, according to Apopo.—HVL