Oil Above $111, Tesla Below Expectations, and a Stock Market That Cannot Catch a Break

Thursday opened ugly, recovered steadily, and closed just slightly lower on a session that had the VIX above 25 and the Dow on a 600-point round trip.

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Oil jumped over 11% and posted one of its biggest single-day gains since the Covid rebound, settling above $111 after Trump said the U.S. would continue striking Iran "extremely hard" over the next two to three weeks.

Stocks briefly turned positive after Iranian state media reported that Iran and Oman were developing a plan to monitor traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, giving the market just enough to hold onto before closing slightly lower. The week ends with the major indexes down slightly, oil well above $100, and the jobs report dropping Friday morning while markets are closed for Good Friday.

Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS) just completed its acquisition of Innovator Capital Management, adding 171 ETFs and roughly $31 billion in assets to its platform. Goldman now manages about 240 ETFs globally with $90 billion in total ETF assets.

The deal cost around $2 billion. Goldman Sachs used to be the bank that served billionaires and institutions. Moves like this say it wants everyone else, too.

A Market Most People Have Never Heard Of

Defined outcome ETFs are a category worth roughly $70 to $80 billion and growing faster than traditional ETFs. Goldman just acquired the company that helped pioneer the space. First mover advantage bought at scale.

You hear about index funds and passive investing constantly. This is the opposite end of the spectrum, actively managed products designed for people who want smarter risk management, not just market exposure.

Goldman Gets Closer to Main Street

Every acquisition like this pulls Goldman further from its exclusive Wall Street image and closer to the everyday investor. ETFs are accessible, affordable, and increasingly how regular people build wealth.

Notice the direction Goldman keeps moving. Away from serving only the ultra-wealthy and toward products that you could buy through any brokerage account. That shift is deliberate, and this deal makes it impossible to ignore.

Coinbase Global (NASDAQ: COIN) just received conditional approval from U.S. banking regulators for a national trust company charter. If fully approved, Coinbase would operate as a federally regulated custodian. That means it could legally hold assets for major institutions under the same rules that govern traditional banks.

Why This Changes the Game

Big institutions want to hold crypto, but most of them need a custodian with federal oversight before their compliance teams say yes. Until now, Coinbase operated under a patchwork of state-level licenses. A national charter changes that entirely.

One federal framework replaces dozens of state-by-state headaches. You remove that regulatory friction, and suddenly the world's biggest pools of money have a clear path onto the platform.

New Products, New Revenue

Full approval would unlock business lines Coinbase had not previously been able to touch. Tokenized securities. Stablecoins. Institutional custody at a level that competes directly with traditional financial firms.

A federal trust charter is not as exciting as a new coin listing. But it matters infinitely more. This is the regulatory stamp that separates a crypto company from a financial institution.

You watch Coinbase go from exchange to custodian to potential bank, and the trajectory becomes impossible to dismiss. The company is not waiting for crypto to be accepted by traditional finance. It is becoming traditional finance, one approval at a time.

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Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX) is shifting all U.S. store employees to weekly pay starting in August. Tips are expanding to cover mobile orders and app purchases for the first time. A new bonus program launches in July that rewards baristas for hitting sales and service targets. Every change applies across the company's massive U.S. store network.

The Union Pressure Is Real

About 5% of Starbucks stores are unionized. Bargaining talks stalled and recently resumed. The union has pushed for better staffing, predictable schedules, and higher pay. Proxy advisory groups have warned that unresolved labor disputes carry financial and reputational risk.

Starbucks just answered with a benefits package that covers every store, unionized or not. You do not roll out company-wide pay upgrades by accident while contract negotiations are pending.

Retention Is the Real Battle

The coffee industry has brutal turnover. Training new baristas is expensive, and inconsistent service drives customers away. Weekly pay, expanded tips, and performance bonuses all target the same goal. Keep experienced workers from leaving.

Half a billion dollars has already gone toward better staffing during peak hours since the turnaround began. This latest round adds another layer. Your morning latte depends on the person making it actually wanting to be there. 

You can renovate every store and redesign every menu. The turnaround only works if the workforce buys in, and Starbucks just spent real money making sure they do.

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Sky Quarry [SKYQ] $5.10 (+101.38%)

Sky Quarry operates the only refinery in Nevada, and the company picked Thursday, of all days, to issue a statement highlighting just how strategically valuable that makes them.

With Brent crude surging past $110, two major California refineries totaling nearly 290,000 barrels per day of capacity closing permanently, and the Strait of Hormuz still largely shut, owning the only refinery in a fuel-import-dependent state like Nevada is suddenly a very different conversation than it was a year ago.

The 100%-plus move was fueled by the oil surge itself, the Nasdaq delisting overhang clearing after the company regained minimum bid compliance, and retail traders connecting the dots between the war trade and domestic refining infrastructure all at once.

Sidus Space [SIDU] $3.09 (+47.14%)

Sidus Space builds and operates small satellites for commercial and government customers and has been one of the war trade's more consistent beneficiaries, as demand for satellite-based surveillance and communications over the Middle East theater has driven real institutional interest in names across the defense and space infrastructure sector.

Thursday's 44% move on nearly 6x average volume, with a Strong Buy rating attached, tells you this was not just retail momentum chasing a theme but real conviction behind the geopolitical thesis that made Sidus worth watching in the first place.

Swarmer [SWMR] $67.00 (+44.65%)

Swarmer is a drone software company that has now appeared in this newsletter more days than not since going public, and Thursday's 45% jump continues a run that has made it one of the most actively watched IPO stories of the past two weeks.

The war in Iran keeps the drone technology thesis front and center in every market conversation, and on a day when oil surged and geopolitical tension ran high, a drone software company with a $446 million market cap and a story that directly overlaps with the conflict narrative is going to move.

Volume ran at 1.5x average, which, for Swarmer, is actually a measured session.

PMGC Holdings [ELAB] $6.20 (-55.71%)

ELAB has now appeared in this newsletter on the winners' side and the losers' side in the same week, which tells you everything about what kind of stock this is.

The drop on Thursday was the hangover from Wednesday's 133% spike, which itself was triggered by the company filing a prospectus to issue $4.5 million in new shares to an investor at 88 cents on the dollar of recent trading prices.

When dilution is the catalyst for a rally, the selloff that follows tends to be just as violent, and Thursday delivered exactly that. The move is real. The company behind it is hanging on by a thread.

System1 [SST] $3.57 (-31.57%)

SST is a digital advertising platform that went up 172% last Thursday with essentially no news and is now down 28% on Thursday, which is the kind of round trip that happens when momentum trades in thin-float names run out of buyers.

The company's fundamentals have not changed: revenue is down more than 20% year over year, it has flagged a going concern risk in its annual filings, institutional investors have been exiting in size for quarters, and its debt matures in 2027 with no clear path to refinancing. 

AngioDynamics [ANGO] $10.31 (-13.65%)

AngioDynamics makes medical devices for treating vascular disease and cancer, and the stock fell hard after reporting quarterly results that missed revenue estimates and gave guidance pointing to continued headwinds from hospital budget tightening and procedure volume that hasn't recovered to pre-war levels.

At a $429 million market cap with a Strong Buy rating going in, there was real institutional ownership counting on a cleaner print, and volume running at nearly 2x average tells you the exit on Thursday was purposeful rather than panic-driven.

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That's it for today! Please, write us back, and let us know what you think of the Closing Bell Roundup. We're always eager to hear feedback!

Thanks for reading. I'll see you at the next open! 

Best Regards,
— Adam G.
Elite Trade Club

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