Midday Fly By: Health insurers get ‘positive surprise’ from CMS

The major averages were lower near noon, erasing yesterday’s gains amid fading hopes of an imminent end to the U.S.-Iran war and oil prices surpassing $117 per barrel. President Trump has established an 8:00 pm ET deadline for the two sides to reach an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, otherwise the U.S. will attack Iran’s power plants and bridges. Trump’s recent comments include the president saying on Truth Social, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” 

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Get caught up quickly on the top news and calls moving stocks with these five Top Five lists.

1. STOCK NEWS:

• The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid released its 2027 Medicare Advantage payments, with policies project to result in a (AVGO) and Alphabet (GOOGL) entered into a long-term supply agreement
• Pershing Square proposed to(UMGNF)
• Apple’s (AAPL) foldable iPhone has encountered setbacks, Nikkei Asia reports
• Organogenesis (ORGO) said it met the primary endpoint in its PuraPly study

2. WALL STREET CALLS:

• Arm (ARM) downgraded to Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley
• Rosenblatt (ANET) on increased confidence in XPO strategy
• Barrington (FUBO) to Outperform on updated financial outlook
• Citi (WING) to Buy into potential sales rebound
• Rocket Lab (RKLB) upgraded to Outperform at Citizens

3. AROUND THE WEB:

• Amazon (AMZN) has rebuffed requests from its wholesale suppliers for increased payments to cover higher costs, prompting some to pull items from the company’s site, Information reports
• The families behind Puig and Estee Lauder (EL) are set to meet in New York this week to negotiate the terms of a potential combination of their beauty businesses with the goal of announcing an agreement in the coming weeks, Expansion says
• Ulta Beauty (ULTA) CEO Kecia Steelman said GLP-1 users are purchasing hair and skincare products to combat the side effects of the weight loss treatments, Business Insiders reports
• Delta Air Lines (DAL) has hiked its fee for checked bags by $10 for tickets bought starting Wednesday, following similar moves by United (UAL) and JetBlue (JBLU) amid a surge in jet fuel expenses this year, CNBC says
• Anthropic plans to invest $200M in a new venture with private equity firms that looks to sell AI tools to their portfolio companies amid a push for business customers, WSJ reports

4. MOVERS:

• Patterson-UTI (PTEN) gains after reporting 90 drilling rigs operating in the U.S. in March
• Perrigo (PRGO) increases in New York after a rumor was highlighted in Ben Harrington’s Betaville blog
• Mach Natural (MNR) declines after announcing a 9M share offering
• Redwire (RDW) lower after expanding its European footprint with a new office in the United Kingdom
• Suzano (SUZ) falls in New York after BofA downgraded the stock to Neutral

5. EARNINGS/GUIDANCE:

• Precigen (PGEN) provided guidance for Q1
• Samsung (SSNLF) reported preliminary Q1 results
• Neuronetics (STIM) backed its guidance for Q1 and FY26
• RPM International (RPM) is expected to report Q3 results on April 8
• Levi Strauss (LEVI) is expected to report Q1 results on April 7

INDEXES:

Near midday, the Dow was down 0.81%, or 377.95, to 46,291.93, the Nasdaq was down 1.10%, or 241.75, to 21,754.59, and the S&P 500 was down 0.81%, or 53.79, to 6,558.04.