Editor

Musk’s X back up after brief outage hits US users, Downdetector shows

(Reuters) – Social media platform X on Friday recovered after a short outage that impacted thousands of users in the U.S., according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com. The disruptions eased around 3:10 p.m. ET, according to Downdetector, which tracks outages by collating status reports from various sources. There were more than 53,000 incidents of people reporting issues with the Elon Musk-owned platform as of 2:46 p.m. ET. Downdetector’s numbers are based on user-submitted reports. The … Read more…

Exclusive-Blackstone evaluates taking a stake in US TikTok spinoff

By Dawn Chmielewski, Katie Paul and Kane Wu (Reuters) – Private equity firm Blackstone is evaluating taking a small minority investment in TikTok’s U.S. operations, according to two people familiar with the matter. Blackstone is discussing joining ByteDance’s existing non-Chinese shareholders, led by Susquehanna International Group and General Atlantic, in a bid for TikTok’s U.S. business. The group has emerged as front-runners. Their proposal entails spinning off TikTok’s U.S. operations into a separate entity and … Read more…

Trump pardoned BitMEX co-founders, White House official says

(Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump has pardoned the three co-founders of cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, a White House official said on Friday. CNBC was the first to report earlier in the day that on Thursday, Trump granted pardons to Benjamin Delo, Arthur Hayes and Samuel Reed, who had pled guilty to money-laundering charges. The pardons come at a time of optimism in the crypto industry about looser regulation under Trump, who courted crypto donors during … Read more…

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Consumer Confidence Shrinks – by Justin Vaughn

(Justin Vaughn, Editor, Options Trading Report) The week ending March 15 was yet another roller-coaster ride of peaks and valleys. After a week of drifting, sliding backwards, and then gaining, the indexes eked out small gains. Investors and traders, beleaguered by the imposing of more tariffs and retaliatory tariffs, are reacting less severely, more rationally. The week was “tariff-calm,” with the administration seemingly on ‘tariff-hold,’ with the market in quiet mode. After the Reserver held … Read more…

Walgreen to pay more than $2.85 million to settle US overbilling charges

(Reuters) -Walgreen will pay more than $2.85 million to settle whistleblower allegations that the pharmacy overbilled Medicaid programs in Georgia and Massachusetts for generic medications, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Thursday. The settlement partially resolves claims against the Walgreens Boots Alliance unit brought under the federal, Georgia and Massachusetts False Claims Act. Walgreen pharmacies were accused of having from 2008 to 2023 submitted elevated “usual and customary” prices for some generic medications to … Read more…

Trump’s SEC pick pledges ‘rational’ crypto regulations

(Reuters) – Paul Atkins, President Donald Trump’s pick to run the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, pledged on Wednesday that regulations under his leadership would benefit the crypto sector and prevent politics from “stifling” capital formation, according to prepared testimony made public by the Senate. “A top priority of my chairmanship will be to work with my fellow Commissioners and Congress to provide a firm regulatory foundation for digital assets through a rational, coherent, and … Read more…

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Nvidia-backed CoreWeave plans to downsize US IPO, source says

By Echo Wang (Reuters) -CoreWeave plans to reduce the size of its U.S. initial public offering and price its shares below the indicated range, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday, dampening expectations that the listing would boost investor appetite for IPOs. The Nvidia-backed cloud services provider is now looking to sell 37.5 million shares, 23.5% less than originally planned, and price them at $40 apiece, well below even the low end … Read more…

Trade war’s impact on growth extremely detrimental, ECB says

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – A trade war with the United States could have a fleeting impact on euro zone inflation but a far more detrimental effect on economic growth, European Central Bank Vice President Luis de Guindos said on Thursday. The euro zone’s growth has been stagnating just above zero for the past two years and there is little sign of any meaningful recovery, even if the risk of a recession seems to have declined. “We … Read more…

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X to report first annual ad revenue growth since Musk’s takeover, data shows

By Jaspreet Singh (Reuters) – Elon Musk-owned social media platform X is poised for the company’s first year of advertising revenue growth since its acquisition by the billionaire in 2022, data from research firm Emarketer showed on Wednesday. Brands are returning to X at a time when Musk’s influence has grown in the Trump administration, with the Tesla CEO’s key role in the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency. In 2025, X’s U.S. ad revenue is … Read more…

Trump tariffs loom over Britain’s debt-laden economy

By Kate Holton and William James LONDON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump emerged as one of the biggest threats hanging over the British economy on Wednesday, when the country’s fiscal watchdog said slow growth and a heavy debt burden made it especially vulnerable to his proposed tariffs. Finance minister Rachel Reeves delivered a politically unpopular cut to the welfare budget and other reductions in her spending plans, all to keep the economy on track … Read more…

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