[ad_1]
One of the biggest questions in global affairs is whether President Trump is chasing a grand bargain with Beijing’s Xi Jinping—and at what cost to the United States. So it’s good news that the Administration is showing that America won’t be bullied from defending its Pacific interests, with an arms sale to our friends in Taiwan.
The Defense Security Cooperation Agency has notified Congress of a $330 million potential arms sale for the island democracy. Items include spare parts for fighter jets and transport aircraft, as well as U.S. technical and logistics support. But more important than the details is that this marks the Administration’s first sale to Taiwan in Mr. Trump’s second term. Rumors had spread this year that Mr. Trump was withholding arms for Taiwan as he wooed Mr. Xi on a trade deal.
Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
[ad_2]
The Editorial Board
Source link
[ad_1]
Two years on, Israel’s war in Gaza might be finally drawing to a close. The conflict built an unprecedented arms pipeline from the U.S. to Israel that continues to flow, generating substantial business for big U.S. companies—including Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Caterpillar.
Sales of U.S. weapons to Israel have surged since October 2023, with Washington approving more than $32 billion in armaments, ammunition and other equipment to the Israeli military over that time, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of State Department disclosures.
Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
[ad_2]
Benoit Faucon
Source link
[ad_1]
Kyiv, Ukraine
If politics makes strange bedfellows, war sometimes makes strange career paths. In her 20s, Iryna Terekh was a “very artsy” architect who viewed the arms industry as “something destructive.” Now Ms. Terekh, 33, is chief technical officer and the public face of Fire Point, a Ukrainian defense company. She and her team developed the Flamingo, a long-range cruise missile that President Volodymyr Zelensky has called “our most successful missile.”
Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
[ad_2]
Jillian Kay Melchior
Source link
[ad_1]
Startups from Silicon Valley to Europe and beyond are racing to develop cheap, reliable systems to counter hostile drones.
[ad_2]
Bertrand Benoit
Source link
[ad_1]
Ahead of a potential meeting between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Beijing dropped a bombshell: China was further restricting access to the supplies that American companies need for computer chips, cars and other technology. The move gives China leverage ahead of expected trade talks with Washington.
Here’s what to know.
Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
[ad_2]
Stu Woo
Source link
[ad_1]
Russia, not long ago a rising military force in Africa, is now struggling to maintain its footprint on the continent.
The Kremlin’s new official guns-for-hire military force, the Africa Corps, has failed to replicate the financial success and political sway once held by Russia’s private Wagner Group mercenary outfit. And some of Wagner’s own African ventures have unraveled since 2023 when its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, rebelled against President Vladimir Putin and then died when an explosive device blew the wing off his plane at 28,000 feet.
Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
[ad_2]
Benoit Faucon
Source link
[ad_1]
Here are some of the biggest movers of the day:
Stock gainers:
Shares of Pinterest Inc.
PINS,
were gaining 4% after an Evercore ISI analyst moved to a bullish stance, cheering better advertising-market conditions and improvements made by Chief Executive Bill Ready, who is about a year into his stint.
[ad_2]
[ad_1]
This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/stock-market-movers-98396473
[ad_1]
Defense spending is on the rise around the globe. That’s good for Lockheed Martin’s business, but investors should still brace for a sales “miss” when the company reports first-quarter earnings on Tuesday morning.
Wall Street is looking for per-share earnings of $6.05 from $15 billion in sales. A year ago,
Lockheed
(ticker: LMT) reported per-share earnings of $6.44 from sales of just under $15 billion.
[ad_2]
[ad_1]
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A female shooter wielding two “assault-style” rifles and a pistol killed three students and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville on Monday in what marks the latest in a series of mass shootings in a country growing increasingly unnerved by bloodshed in schools.
The suspect also died after being shot by police following the violence at The Covenant School, a Presbyterian school for about 200 students from preschool through sixth grade. Police said the shooter was a 28-year-old woman from Nashville, after initially saying she appeared to be in her teens.
Authorities were working to identify her and whether she had a connection to the school.
The killings come as communities around the nation are reeling from a spate of school violence, including the massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, last year; a first grader who shot his teacher in Virginia; and a shooting last week in Denver that wounded two administrators.
President Joe Biden called on Congress again to pass his assault weapons ban in the wake of the Nashville shooting.
“It’s heartbreaking, a family’s worst nightmare,” he said.
First lady Jill Biden also spoke about the slayings on Monday.
“I am truly without words. And our children deserve better,” she said during a National League of Cities conference in Washington. “We stand – all of us, we stand – with Nashville in prayer.”
The tragedy unfolded over roughly 14 minutes. Police received the initial call about an active shooter at 10:13 a.m.
Officers began clearing the first story of the school when they heard gunshots coming from the second level, police spokesperson Don Aaron said during a news briefing.
Two officers from a five-member team opened fire in response, fatally shooting the suspect at 10:27 a.m., Aaron said. He said there were no police officers present or assigned to the school at the time of the shooting because it is a church-run school.
The Covenant School’s victims were pronounced dead at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. One officer had a hand wound from cut glass.
Other students walked to safety Monday, holding hands as they left their school surrounded by police cars, to a nearby church to be reunited with their parents.
“In a tragic morning, Nashville joined the dreaded, long list of communities to experience a school shooting,” Mayor John Cooper wrote on Twitter. “My heart goes out to the families of the victims. Our entire city stands with you.”
Jozen Reodica heard the police sirens and fire trucks blaring from outside her office building nearby. As her building was placed under lockdown, she took out her phone and recorded the chaos.
“I thought I would just see this on TV,” she said. “And right now, it’s real.”
On WTVF TV, reporter Hannah McDonald said that her mother-in-law works at the front desk at The Covenant School. The woman had stepped outside for a break Monday morning and was coming back when she heard gunshots, McDonald said during a live broadcast. The reporter said she has not been able to speak with her mother-in-law but said her husband had.
The Covenant School was founded as a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church in 2001, according to the school’s website. The school is located in the affluent Green Hills neighborhood just south of downtown Nashville, situated close to the city’s top universities and home to the famed Bluebird Café – a beloved spot for musicians and song writers.
The grade school has roughly 50 staff members. The school’s website features the motto “Shepherding Hearts, Empowering Minds, Celebrating Childhood.”
Top legislative leaders announced Monday that the GOP-dominant Statehouse would meet briefly later in the evening and delay taking up any legislation.
Republican Gov. Bill Lee said he was “closely monitoring” the situation, while Democratic state Rep. Bob Freeman, whose district includes The Covenant School, called Monday’s shooting an “unimaginable tragedy.”
“I live around the corner from Covenant and pass by it often. I have friends who attend both church and school there,” Freeman said in a statement. “I have also visited the church in the past. It tears my heart apart to see this.”
Nashville has seen its share of mass violence in recent years.
On Christmas Day 2020, a recreational vehicle was intentionally detonated in the heart of Music City’s historic downtown, killing the bomber, injuring three others and forcing more than 60 businesses to close.
A man shot and killed four people at a Nashville Waffle House in April 2018. He was sentenced in February 2022 to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
In September 2017, a masked gunman opened fire at the Burnette Chapel Church of Christ, walking silently down the aisle as he shot unsuspecting congregants. One person was killed and seven others were wounded. The gunman was sentenced in 2019 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
[ad_2]
[ad_1]
Is the banking crisis over? Well, famous last words and all that, but in the early hours of Monday things are looking better: no bank collapsed over the weekend, SVB has a new owner, and even Deutsche Bank
DBK,
shares are trading higher.
Or maybe not. There’s still the issue of commercial property, which accounts for 40% of all loans made by banks outside the top 25 by assets, according to Capital Economics.
“In a worst case scenario it’s possible that a ‘doom loop’ develops between smaller banks and commercial property, in which concerns about the health of these banks leads to deposit flight, which causes banks to call in commercial real estate loans, which then accelerates a downturn in a sector that forms a key part of its asset base, which intensifies concerns about the health of the banks and thus completes the vicious cycle,” the firm warns.
And Thomas Simons, money market economist at Jefferies, says there’s another worry on the horizon: the looming end of the student loan repayment moratorium.
Student loan payments will have to resume by the end of August, or possibly earlier depending on a Supreme Court decision, meaning 45 million people will have to start paying loans again.
Citing New York Fed data, he says the average student loan payment for a borrower not in deferment was $393 per month — about 1% of spending, depending on which metric is used. “This may sound like a modest hit, but the impact on income is very similar to the tax increases associated with ‘The Fiscal Cliff’ of 2013, which was followed by a noticeable slowdown in consumption,” he says.
Granted, pandemic savings have acted as a buffer for inflation. But roughly half of that is now gone, and those savings were concentrated in wealthier households anyway. “Households still have roughly half of the excess savings from the pandemic sitting on their balance sheets, but there is less cushion to absorb a substantial increase in outlays.,” he says.
Student loan delinquency rates are basically zero at the moment — how can you be late when you don’t have to make payments — but those for autos, mortages and credit cards have picked up lately.
“The strain imposed on household balance sheets by the resumption of student loan payments could cause demand for loans to pick up, but only from borrowers who are having a harder time servicing their debt,” he says.
“Declining loan demand was already a profitability risk for small and regional banks prior to the recent emergence of stress and deposit flight. Risks have clearly increased over the last month, and they will increase further as household credit quality deteriorates,” he concludes.
Simons didn’t even mention that the student-loan cliff coincides with another worry, the looming debt-ceiling issue. The Bipartisan Policy Center last month said the day when the federal government can no longer meet all its obligations will likely arrive in summer or early fall.
U.S. stock futures
ES00,
NQ00,
were pointing higher, following the second straight week of gains for the S&P 500
SPX,
The yield on the 10-year Treasury climbed to 3.46%.
For more market updates plus actionable trade ideas for stocks, options and crypto, subscribe to MarketDiem by Investor’s Business Daily.
First Citizens Bank
FCNCA,
is buying $72 billion of assets from the fallen Silicon Valley Bank at a $16.5 billion discount, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. announced, as the deposit-insurance fund is set to take a $20 billion loss. Investors cheered the deal, as First Citizens’ stock jumped 24%.
The news lifted regional banks including First Republic Bank
FRC,
in premarket trade.
Fed Gov. Philip Jefferson is speaking at 5 p.m. on the transmission and implementation of monetary policy. Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari told the “Face the Nation” program said the stress in the financial sector brings the U.S. closer to a recession.
Parts of Twitter’s source code leaked online.
McDonald’s
MCD,
closed its stores in Israel, part of a broader shutdown that has clamped outgoing flights in protest of new judicial rules advanced by the ruling coalition.
Novartis
NVS,
shares rallied as the drugmaker reported positive trial data on a breast-cancer drug.
An interesting dive into Signature Bank from The American Prospect, which asks whether the bank was a failure or a patsy.
Thousands of retirees have their savings frozen while legal battles rage around the empire of financier Greg Lindberg.
The president of the United Auto Workers was ousted in favor of a candidate who wants a harder line with automakers.
There were the most active stock-market tickers as of 6 a.m. Eastern.
| Ticker | Security name |
|
TSLA, |
Tesla |
|
FRC, |
First Republic |
|
GME, |
GameStop |
|
BBBY, |
Bed Bath & Beyond |
|
AMC, |
AMC Entertainment |
|
MULN, |
Mullen Automotive |
|
TRKA, |
Troika Media |
|
AAPL, |
Apple |
|
APE, |
AMC Entertainment preferreds |
|
NVDA, |
Nvidia |
This chart captures the deposit outflows from small banks to large banks, covering data through March 15 that the Fed released after the close on Friday. Jeroen Blokland, who authors The Market Routine blog, says small bank woes increase the chance of a recession. “Contrary to 2022, markets may be right and [Fed Chair Jerome] Powell wrong on interest rates. Unfortunately, one look at earnings expectations reveals that markets are not pricing a recession at this point. I remain cautious about equities and other risky assets like real estate and high yield bonds,” he says.
Tech fortunes may have dropped after the pandemic, but not demand for Crocs
CROX,
The French won’t let a little revolution get in the way of a nice glass of red wine.
The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei recreated a Monet — using Lego.
Need to Know starts early and is updated until the opening bell, but sign up here to get it delivered once to your email box. The emailed version will be sent out at about 7:30 a.m. Eastern.
Listen to the Best New Ideas in Money podcast with MarketWatch reporter Charles Passy and economist Stephanie Kelton.
[ad_2]
[ad_1]
[ad_1]
President Joe Biden said on Saturday that he ordered U.S. officials to shoot down the suspected Chinese spy balloon earlier this week and that national-security leaders decided the best time for the operation was when the the object was over water.
“They successfully took it down, and I want to compliment our aviators who did it,” Biden said after getting off Air Force One en route to Camp David.
Fighter jets shot down the giant white balloon off the Carolina coast after it apparently traversed sensitive military sites across North America, prompting the postponement of a high-level U.S. diplomatic trip to China and becoming the latest flashpoint in the prevailing tense tone between Washington and Beijing.
“ In preparation for the operation, the Federal Aviation Administration temporarily closed airspace over the Carolina coastline, including the Charleston and Myrtle Beach airports in South Carolina and the Wilmington airport in North Carolina. ”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that Biden approved the shoot-down on Wednesday, saying it should be done “as soon as the mission could be accomplished without undue risk to American lives under the balloon’s path.”
Austin said that, due to the size and altitude of the balloon, which was floating at an altitude of about 60,000 feet, the military had determined that taking it down over land would pose an undue risk to people on the ground.
The balloon was observed Saturday morning over the Carolinas as it approached the Atlantic coast.
In preparation for the operation, the Federal Aviation Administration temporarily closed airspace over the Carolina coastline, including the Charleston and Myrtle Beach airports in South Carolina and the Wilmington airport in North Carolina. The FAA rerouted air traffic from the area and warned of delays as a result of the flight restrictions.
An operation was underway in U.S. territorial waters in the Atlantic Ocean to recover debris from the balloon, which had been estimated to be about the size of three school buses. CNN reported that, according to a senior military source, Navy divers and unmanned vessels were among the assets deployed for the recovery effort, primarily, according to the source, in 47-foot-deep water.
The balloon was downed by Air Force fighter aircraft, according to two officials who were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity. CNN reported having been informed that a single missile fired by one of the U.S. jets had brought the balloon down.
Television footage showed a small explosion, followed by the balloon descending toward the water. U.S. military jets were seen flying in the vicinity and ships were deployed in the water to mount the recovery operation.
A South Carolina man posted video that appeared to capture the event as it unfolded. He told CNN he was a social-studies teacher and that his fiancée had recommended he point his camera at the object in advance of its downing.
Officials were aiming to time the operation so they could recover as much of the debris as possible before it sinks into the ocean. The Pentagon had previously estimated that any debris field would be substantial.
The balloon was first spotted over Montana, which is home to one of America’s three nuclear-missile silo fields at Malmstrom Air Force Base.
Biden had explored ordering the downing of the balloon over land when he was first briefed on it Tuesday, but Pentagon officials advised against that course of action, warning that the potential risk to people on the ground outweighed an assessment of potential Chinese intelligence gains.
The public disclosure of the balloon’s travels this week prompted the cancellation of a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Beijing that had been scheduled for Sunday for talks aimed at reducing U.S.-China tensions.
The Chinese government on Saturday sought to play down that cancellation. “In actuality, the U.S. and China have never announced any visit, the U.S. making any such announcement is their own business, and we respect that,” China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement Saturday morning.
China has continued to claim that the balloon was merely a weather research “airship” that had been blown off course. The Pentagon rejected that claim out of hand — as well as China’s contention that it was not being used for surveillance and had only limited navigational ability.
The Pentagon also acknowledged reports of a second balloon flying over Latin America. “We now assess it is another Chinese surveillance balloon,” Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a question about the second balloon.
Blinken, who had been due to depart Washington for Beijing late Friday, said he had told senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in a phone call that sending the balloon over the U.S. was “an irresponsible act and that [China’s] decision to take this action on the eve of my visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions that we were prepared to have.”
Uncensored reactions on the Chinese internet mirrored the official government stance that the U.S. was overhyping the situation. Some used it as a chance to poke fun at U.S. defenses, saying it couldn’t even defend against a balloon, and nationalist influencers leapt to use the news to mock the U.S.
Republican politicians in the U.S. sought to characterize Biden’s and the Pentagon’s decision to monitor the balloon until it reached a location where it could be safely targeted militarily as kowtowing to the Chinese.
China has denied any claims of spying and said it was a civilian-use balloon intended for meteorology research. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs emphasized that the balloon’s journey was out of its control and urged the U.S. not to “smear” it based on an isolated balloon incident.
MarketWatch contributed.
[ad_2]