5 Things to Watch on
April 9, 2026

Stocks are down more than -0.2% today as investors digest a fragile Middle East ceasefire alongside a batch of economic data that offers little comfort. February's core PCE, the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, came in at +0.4% MoM, a tick above consensus, leaving inflation a full percentage point above the Fed's +2% target before oil prices spiked on the regional conflict. Fed minutes warned that progress toward the +2% goal could be slower than expected, with participants flagging that an oil shock on top of tariff-driven price pressures risked pushing inflation higher in a stagflationary direction before the existing pressure had even cleared.

CoreWeave (CRWV) is up +8% in premarket trading after announcing an expanded long-term agreement with Meta Platforms (META) to provide AI cloud capacity through December 2032, valued at roughly $21B. The deal extends an existing partnership first struck last year at up to $14.2B through 2031, and will support META's inference workloads across multiple locations, including early deployments of Nvidia's (NVDA) Vera Rubin platform. CRWV has been diversifying beyond its largest client, Microsoft (MSFT), with a separate OpenAI contract now totaling ~$22.4B.

Eli Lilly (LLY) is expanding availability of its newly approved oral weight loss drug Foundayo to U.S. retail pharmacies and Amazon (AMZN) Pharmacy nationwide, intensifying competition with Novo Nordisk (NVO), which launched its rival Wegovy pill earlier this year. Foundayo is priced at $149 per month for cash-paying patients, with insurance pricing starting as low as $25 per month, and manufacturer coupons applied automatically at checkout. NVO has countered with a subscription program offering discounted multi-month supplies through telehealth.

OpenAI is pausing its Stargate AI infrastructure project in the UK as it tightens spending ahead of a potential public listing. The UK effort, announced last year with Nvidia (NVDA) and data center developer Nscale, joins a pattern of pullbacks including shuttering its Sora video app and scrapping a Texas data center expansion with Oracle (ORCL). OpenAI cited energy costs and regulatory conditions as hurdles, a blow to the UK government's ambitions to be a global AI hub.

Tesla (TSLA) is flat in premarket trading amid reports it is developing a smaller, lower-cost electric SUV, still in early stages. ARK Invest separately purchased ~$28M worth of TSLA across April 6 to 8, its first buy since early February, as shares sit –14% this month and –24% YTD ahead of Q1 earnings on April 22.