5 Things to Watch on
March 12, 2026

U.S. equity markets are down over -0.7% in premarket trading as the escalating U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict sends global oil markets into unprecedented turmoil. Closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20M barrels flowed daily, has slashed supply by an estimated 8M bpd and shuttered roughly 10M bpd of Gulf output, prompting the IEA to declare the largest supply disruption in history. Iran has warned crude could hit $200/bbl.

Shares of Ares Management (ARES), KKR (KKR), Blackstone (BX), and Apollo (APO) are all down -25% or more this year as JPMorgan (JPM) reduces exposure to private credit and marks down loans held as collateral. Investor anxiety has been compounded by the Blue Owl (OWL) redemption gate concerns and limited sector transparency. Bank of America's (BAC) contrarian announcement to commit $25B of its own capital to private credit lending has done little to calm nerves, with traders drawing comparisons to ill-timed crisis-era bets.

Palantir (PLTR) and Nvidia (NVDA) announced a joint reference architecture delivering a complete, production-ready AI data center from hardware procurement to application deployment, built on NVDA's Blackwell Ultra systems and Spectrum-X networking. The offering targets enterprises with data sovereignty requirements, latency-sensitive workloads, and distributed infrastructure needs, giving customers full control over their data, AI models, and applications without relying on public cloud. The partnership builds on both companies' existing government and enterprise deployments, with PLTR's full software suite including AIP, Foundry, and Apollo running natively on the validated stack.

Uber (UBER), Nissan (NSANY), and AI autonomous driving startup Wayve have signed an agreement to develop and deploy robotaxis, integrating Wayve's AI system into Nissan's LEAF EV and making it available through UBER's ride-hailing platform. A Tokyo pilot is planned for late 2026 with a safety operator in the car, marking UBER's first AV partnership in Japan as part of a broader rollout to over ten cities including London. The deal comes on the heels of Wayve's $1.2B Series D round valuing it at $8.6B, with backing from Microsoft (MSFT), Nvidia (NVDA), and UBER.

India is developing a revamped smartphone manufacturing incentive program that would tie government subsidies to exports and the use of domestically produced components, replacing the current PLI program expiring March 31. The new scheme would benefit major players like Apple (AAPL), Samsung (SSNLF), and contract manufacturer Foxconn (FXCOF), with incentives tiered based on domestic value addition and maximum subsidies offered to exported devices that meet higher localization thresholds.