April 7th Pre-Market

Good Morning

Everything today comes down to 8 p.m. Trump's Iran deadline is here and overnight strikes on Kharg Island tell me this one might actually be different. We have seen him extend these deadlines before, but the rhetoric this morning was genuinely unsettling.

Health insurers are ripping on a Medicare Advantage reversal and Ackman is trying to buy Universal Music for $63 billion because apparently one crisis at a time is boring.

Let’s dig in...

Today's Big Picture

1. Trump's Iran Deadline Arrives Tonight at 8 PM ET T

he U.S. struck military targets on Iran's Kharg Island overnight, sparing oil infrastructure for now. Trump posted this morning that "a whole civilization will die tonight." Negotiators say a deal before the deadline is unlikely, but Trump has extended this deadline multiple times before. I'm watching whether he extends again or escalates.

2. Health Insurers Rally on Medicare Advantage Payment Hike

CMS finalized 2027 Medicare Advantage payments at an average increase well above the flat rate proposed in January. Humana $HUM, UnitedHealth $UNH, and CVS Health $CVS are all sharply higher in premarket. This reversal wipes out months of insurer weakness tied to that original proposal.

3. Ackman Bids to Buy Universal Music Group for $63 Billion Pershing Square 

proposed a cash-and-stock deal to acquire Universal Music Group and relist it on the NYSE. UMG shares in Amsterdam are up big. The deal hinges on whether dominant shareholders Bolloré, Vivendi, and Tencent play ball.

Market Overview

Today’s Sponsor

Every headline satisfies an opinion. Except ours.

Remember when the news was about what happened, not how to feel about it? 1440's Daily Digest is bringing that back. Every morning, they sift through 100+ sources to deliver a concise, unbiased briefing — no pundits, no paywalls, no politics. Just the facts, all in five minutes. For free.

Read the newsletter trusted by 4.5 million fact-seekers.

Stock Spotlight (pre-market)

Broadcom $AVGO ( ▼ 0.04% )  
is higher in premarket. The company signed a deal to develop and supply custom AI chips for Google, plus an expanded agreement giving Anthropic access to about 3.5 gigawatts of computing capacity from Google's AI processors. Two major AI partnerships announced the same day. That's not incremental news, that's a strategic shift.

Humana $HUM ( ▲ 2.71% )  
is leading health insurers higher in premarket. CMS finalized 2027 Medicare Advantage payments at an average increase of 2.48, or over $13 billion in additional payments. That's a massive reversal from January's proposal that kept rates flat.

UnitedHealth $UNH ( ▲ 1.48% )  
is up in premarket on the same CMS decision. The January flat-rate proposal had been hanging over this entire group for months. Today that overhang is gone. Managed care is the best-performing pocket of the market this morning.

Casey's General Stores $CASY ( ▲ 0.59% )  
is being added to the S&P 500 on Thursday, replacing Hologic $HOLX after Blackstone and TPG completed their acquisition. Shares are up slightly so far.

Apple $AAPL ( ▲ 1.15% )  
is lower in premarket. Nikkei reported engineering problems during early test production of the foldable iPhone. Worst case, first shipments could slip by months.

Exxon Mobil $XOM ( ▲ 1.67% )  
is ticking higher with crude above $114 ahead of Trump's 8 p.m. deadline. Oil has settled at its highest level since June 2022. If the deadline passes without a deal, energy names have more room to run. If Trump extends again, expect a giveback.

What to Watch

Fed's Goolsbee and Vice Chair Jefferson (12:35 PM ET / Afternoon) 
Two Fed speakers in one session, heading into PCE Thursday and CPI Friday. Goolsbee has been the most dovish voice on the board. Jefferson tends to stay measured. If either one flags oil-driven inflation as a concern, rate cut expectations shift before the data even lands.

PCE and CPI (Thursday and Friday) 
Not today's trade, but the options market is already positioning. Thursday brings the Fed's preferred inflation gauge and Friday brings CPI. A hot pair of prints combined with $115 oil and the rate cut conversation is dead for the summer.

Mag 7 Valuation Setup 
JPMorgan's Matejka flagged that Mag 7 stocks are hovering near fresh relative lows versus the S&P 500. Goldman's Oppenheimer noted that tech hyperscaler valuations have fallen to roughly in line with the broader market. That hasn't happened in years. Not a catalyst today, but it's the kind of setup that matters when the geopolitical fog clears.

Have a good day 🙂

- John

Today’s Sponsor

Wall Street Just Named the Most Crowded Trades of 2026

AI stocks. Metals. Crypto.

Surprise, surprise; gold crashed 16%. Silver plunged 34%. Bitcoin dropped to 1 year lows.

All supposedly "uncorrelated" assets moving in lockstep largely because of overleveraged margin.

JPM strategists warn that the same leverage is still a risk.

Those markets may be recovering now, but cascading liquidations could trigger quickly across several asset classes simultaneously.

So much for diversifying away risk, right?

But get this–

70,819 everyday investors have allocated $1.3 billion fractionally across 500+ exclusive investments. 

Not real estate or PE… Blue-chip art. Sounds crazy, right?

Now it’s easy to invest in art featuring legends like Banksy, Basquiat, and Picasso, thanks to Masterworks.

They do the heavy lifting from acquisition to sale, so you can diversify with the strategy typically limited to the ultra-wealthy.

(Past sales delivered net returns like 14.6%, 17.6%, and 17.8% on works held longer than a year.)*

Our subscribers skip the waitlist

_{*Investing involves risk.  Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Important Reg A disclosures: masterworks.com/cd}