Darkside of the Moon
CLOSING BELL
Happy Thursday, Friday
The market initially was deep red Thursday, after Trump made a prime-time address Wednesday night to say the war in Iran will be over soon, but that he would send them back to the Stone Age. 🗿
Oil prices popped 13%, but by the end of the day, the market eked by with flat performance.
Trump has maintained that the U.S. drills a ton of oil, and should be unconcerned with traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, though he overlooks the globally priced reality of the world’s most vital fuel commodity.
Equities turned around later in the day when Iran’s foreign minister said the country was working with Oman to manage traffic through the strait.
A year after Lib Day, U.S. trade is still going in the opposite direction. Thursday numbers showed the trade deficit between imports and exports climbed 5% in Feb to $57.3B.
Since the start of the war in February, oil prices are up 50%, and jet fuel and other downstream by-products are up 100%. It was the steepest one day jump in oil prices since 2020, according to WSJ. Right now, four brave astronauts are on their way to the moon, for the first time since before I was born. Godspeed!
The market is closed tomorrow, for Good Friday, Enjoy the time off!
AFTER THE BELL
Tesla’s Core Business Is Running Out of Runway
Musk’s EV giant posted its second consecutive quarterly delivery miss Thursday, and the stock fell $TSLA ( ▼ 5.42% ) . 1,052,000 Stocktwits watchers were tracking the damage in real time as the gap between Tesla’s current business and its future vision got harder to ignore.
The RIP: Q1 2026 deliveries 358,023 vs. 370,000 estimate; production 408,386, leaving more than 50,000 vehicles built but undelivered; Model 3 and Y made up 97% of total; Model S and X discontinued;. Stock down -15% year-to-date, -22% from December highs; Q1 earnings call April 22.
Wedbush’s Dan Ives called the number “quite underwhelming.” Holders going into April 22 should focus on automotive gross margins, which will show how much the Model Y refresh and missing federal tax credits are squeezing the core business, and any update on Cybercab production timing, because that is the only catalyst left that justifies the current multiple. $RIVN ( ▲ 3.08% ) and $GM ( ▼ 3.33% ) are absorbing EV share while Tesla waits for the next act. 🚗
AI NEWS
Extra Extra, Read All About It: OpenAI Just Bought Its Own Cheerleaders 📰
The $852B valuation ChatGPT maker bought TBPN, the Silicon Valley talk show that Zuckerberg, Nadella, and Altman have all used to show off how down to earth they are. It’s an alternative to Bloomberg and CNBC, and the buy out raises an obvious question about what editorial independence means when your landlord is the story. Just ask Sherwood Media, subsidiary and writer of Robinhood’s newsletters. 👀
The RIP: TBPN acquisition closed Thursday, April 2; terms undisclosed; TBPN generated approximately $5M in ad revenue in 2025 and was on track for $30M+ in 2026; shows average 70,000 viewers per episode across platforms; launched October 2024, began daily three-hour livestreams March 2025; 11-person staff; TBPN will report to Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer; advertising business being wound down under new ownership.
The editorial independence pledge is claiming a lot for a show that will now report to OpenAI’s global affairs chief and help with the company’s communications and marketing. 📺
MACRO NEWS
Private Credit’s Worst Week
Blue Owl became the poster child for private credit panic Thursday after investors tried to pull $5.4B out of two funds simultaneously, and the market punished the entire sector indiscriminately, sending Blackstone, Apollo, and KKR to valuations not seen since 2023 despite having minimal actual exposure to the software lending that started this mess.
The RIP: Blue Owl Credit Income received redemption requests for 21.9% of its $36B fund in Q1; Blue Owl Technology Income received requests for 40.7%; both funds capped redemptions at 5%. $OWL shares fell to a record intraday low, down -40%+ year-to-date; Blackstone down -28% YTD; Apollo at 12x, KKR at 14x;
There’s been more than $11B pulled from private credit funds over the past two quarters industry-wide. The problem, at least for writers at The Information, is that Blackstone, Apollo, and KKR are being sold as if they are Blue Owl, which they are not. Compared with total AUM, Blackstone said in a letter only about 7% of its $1.2T war chest is hurt by software sell off. For Apollo, its under 2% of $940B, and KKR said it was approximately 7% too.
Holders of $BX, $APO, and $KKR should watch the Treasury Department’s upcoming meeting with regulators on private credit risks as the next catalyst. The outcome determines whether 401k inclusion for private credit accelerates or stalls. 💰
IPO NEWS
The Pre-IPO Access Trade Just Got Its First Crash Course
Fundrise listed its Innovation Fund on the NYSE on March 19 under $VCX ( ▼ 1.74% ) and gave retail investors their ‘first real shot’ at owning private tech giants including SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI. The security then immediately demonstrated exactly how dangerous a tiny float and unlimited retail enthusiasm can be.
The RIP: $VCX hit a 52-week high hit $575 on March 25, but fell -31% Thursday March 27 and -34% Friday March 28; currently trading near $115. Fund AUM $650M+. Top seven holdings, OpenAI, SpaceX, Anthropic, Databricks, Anduril, Ramp, and Stripe, represent approximately 75% of portfolio.
The volatile launch of the fund was made even spicier after SpaceX confirmed confidential IPO filing Thursday, targeting listing as early as June 2026 at valuation up to $1.75T.
The SpaceX IPO filing is the single most important catalyst for $VCX holders between now and September. SpaceX is one of the fund’s largest positions and a public listing at $1.75T, or even higher if rumors from Thursday could be believed. Retail holders trading $VCX today are essentially making a bet that the SpaceX IPO hype between now and June keeps the premium elevated long enough to matter, and that the lockup expiration doesn’t crater it before they can exit. $DXYZ and $ARKVX carry the same SpaceX exposure. 🚀
MACRO NEWS
Houston, We Have Lift Off 🚀
NASA launched the Artemis II mission Wednesday, April 1, from Kennedy Space Center, sending four astronauts on a 10-day journey around the moon aboard the Orion capsule atop the 322-foot Space Launch System rocket. It’s the most significant human spaceflight milestone in more than half a century, and the first time we may see what’s on the other side of our most prominent heavenly body.
The RIP: 6:35 PM ET from Cape Canaveral with a crew of four: Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, Victor Glover, and Canadian Jeremy Hansen. As of Thursday morning Orion orbiting Earth at 46,000 miles, roughly 184x higher than the International Space Station; translunar injection burn Thursday to send crew toward the moon; lunar flyby targeted for Monday, April 6; crew will surpass the all-time human distance record of 248,655 miles set during Apollo 13 in 1970;
Pacific Ocean splashdown targeted for Friday, April 10; mission sets stage for moon landing as early as 2028 and eventual lunar base for Mars missions.
The crew makes history on multiple fronts: Glover becomes the first Black man to travel near the moon, Koch the first woman, and Hansen the first Canadian.
Towers and Fiber Catch the SpaceX Halo: The satellite and telecom infrastructure names caught a broad bid after the moon shot mission launched, and news of SpaceX’s IPO filing. From towers to undersea fiber to low-earth orbit satellites, space is getting interesting.
The RIP: $SBAC up +19% Thursday, April 2; $CIEN up +8%; $GSAT up on elevated volume with 51,000 Stocktwits watchers; $SATS active with 4,000 watchers; SpaceX confirmed confidential IPO filing Thursday per CNBC, targeting listing as early as June 2026 at a valuation up to $1.75T; Starlink currently serves over 4 million subscribers globally and competes directly with legacy satellite players. 🛰️
TRENDING STOCKS
Pops & Drops
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$INTC ( ▲ 4.89% ) Intel: climbed +5% after chip names extended Tuesday’s memory reversal rally
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$LITE ( ▲ 8.14% ) Lumentum: active with 9,000 watchers on optical networking momentum tied to AI infrastructure demand
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$ENPH ( ▼ 8.78% ) Enphase: watched by 49,000 retail investors as solar names tracked energy sector volatility
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$RIG ( ▲ 1.39% ) Transocean: watched by 25,000 as offshore drilling names held amid oil price uncertainty ahead of April 6
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$GSAT ( ▲ 13.43% ) Globalstar: 51,000 watchers catching the SpaceX IPO halo trade
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$VELO ( ▲ 23.62% ) Velo3D: 7,000 watchers, small-cap industrial 3D printing name with no specific catalyst
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$KELYB ( ▲ 19.94% ) Kelly Services: 1,000 watchers, staffing name tracking labor market data ahead of Friday jobs report
Links That Don’t Suck 🌐
📈 Level up with daily market insights and actionable trade ideas for less than $2/month *
😨 DHS shutdown: Senate advances deal to fund agency with TSA, waits on House
🛍️ Grocery shock on the horizon for approaching U.S. elections as Iran war drags on
📺️ Pam Bondi out as attorney general, Trump says
👀 NASA shares 1st images of Earth from Artemis II’s Orion. Take a look
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