The price of Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, rose above $115 a barrel as America and Israel continued their bombing campaign against Iran. The price of natural gas also climbed: the Dutch TTF price, the benchmark price for the fuel in Europe, hit €72 ($83) per megawatt hour, up from around €30 before the war. Prices increased sharply after Iranian missiles hit Ras Laffan, an industrial complex in Qatar that boasts the world’s biggest liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant. QatarEnergy, which runs the plant, said the strike caused “extensive damage”. Ras Laffan produces a fifth of the world’s LNG.
Airlines warned that soaring fuel prices were pushing up their costs. The bosses of Delta, United and American Airlines, three big American carriers, each said that their company’s costs had risen by around $400m in March alone. SAS, Scandinavia’s biggest airline, is reducing its services. The price of jet fuel traded in Europe and in Singapore, Asia’s main hub, has more than doubled since the start of the war.
The Federal Reserve left its main interest rate unchanged, between 3.5-3.75%. Traders are increasingly betting that America’s central bank, which last cut rates in December, will keep them on hold until the end of the year, amid fears that rising energy costs could fuel inflation. Other central banks signalled caution on account of the war in the Gulf. The Bank of Japan held rates steady. Earlier the Reserve Bank of Australia lifted them by 0.25 percentage points, to 4.1%.
Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s boss, gave a bullish presentation at the chipmaking titan’s annual developer conference. He predicted that the company would sell $1trn-worth of artificial-intelligence (AI) kit by the end of 2027. Mr Huang unveiled a specialised chip, built using technology from a startup called Groq, for “inference” (the stage where AI models answer questions from users). Nvidia is eager to show that it is branching out into new products: after a blistering rally last year, the company’s share price has fallen since the start of 2026, as investors fear the AI boom will not last.
Arizona’s attorney-general accused Kalshi, a prediction market, of “running an illegal gambling operation”. Kalshi denied the charges. The company argues that its contracts, which pay out depending on the outcome of an event, should be regulated as derivatives, rather than falling under gambling laws. Arizona is the first state to bring a criminal case against Kalshi.
UniCredit made a €35bn ($40bn) bid for Commerzbank, a smaller German rival. Andrea Orcel, the Italian bank’s boss, said the lowball offer (pricing Commerzbank’s shares at just 4% above their market value) would allow UniCredit to raise its stake in the lender. UniCredit hopes the offer will revive talks over its planned takeover of the bank. Commerzbank and Germany’s government both oppose the bid.
BHP, the world’s biggest miner, named Brandon Craig as its next boss. He will take over on July 1st. The company veteran, who ran the Australian firm’s operations in Latin America, will replace Mike Henry. Mr Henry oversaw several unsuccessful attempts to buy BHP’s rival, Anglo American, during his six years in charge. Mr Craig wants to double down on copper—which overtook iron ore to become the firm’s most profitable metal last year—and deepen BHP’s operations in the Americas.
Tencent, China’s most valuable company, reported a 13% increase in revenue in the final quarter of last year, compared to the same period in 2024. The maker of WeChat, China’s biggest social-media app, has been working on integrating “agentic” AI services into its products, which allow users to automate tasks such as hailing rides and ordering food. In December it hired Yao Shunyu of OpenAI, a leading American lab, as its chief AI scientist.
JD.com, a Chinese e-commerce giant, launched its online marketplace in Europe for the first time. Joybuy, which stocks products from big brands like Apple, aims to challenge Amazon. It hopes that offering same-day delivery deals to around 15m households on the continent will help it gain an edge on its American rival, which dominates e-commerce in Europe and America.
The share price of Swarmer, a Texas-based company that develops AI software for co-ordinating military drones, rose by more than 1,000% following its initial public offering on the Nasdaq on March 17th. Ukraine’s armed forces have used the company’s wares since 2024. The Trump administration has recently sped up the rush to develop American drone tech. Last year it all but banned imports of Chinese-made drones for national-security reasons.