People pass near a billboard showing the closure of the Strait of Hormuz over President Donald Trump’s face with a message reading “At the Breaking Point” in Tehran, May 2, 2026. A lot has to happen before the roughly 1,500 ships stranded in the Persian Gulf can start moving through the narrow and vital strait, which carried one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas before the war with Iran. (Arash Khamooshi/Polaris for The New York Times) By JENNY GROSS When the Strait of Hormuz

After a long weekend in ⁠the United States and many other countries, markets returned ready to cheer signs that an Iran peace plan ​was near agreement, with world crude prices falling nearly 7% to below $100 per barrel on Monday. The peace plan under discussion would reportedly include a 60-day ceasefire extension and ‌an eventual reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. ‌But doubts over how soon a final text could be agreed were exacerbated by news overnight of fresh U.S. military

The eBay headquarters in San José, Calif., Jan. 28, 2024. The company that pioneered the online marketplace has weathered highs and lows since the 1990s and in recent years has managed to find its footing again, but may now have a hostile takeover to navigate. (Ian Bates/The New York Times) By KIM BHASIN EBay, once Silicon Valley’s face of the e-commerce revolution, has found itself at a bizarre and unexpected crossroads. The company that pioneered the online marketplace has

Stocks surged and the U.S. dollar and oil prices ⁠slid ⁠on Monday as the prospect of a deal to end ⁠the Iran war buoyed risk appetite, although a lack of clarity over when the Strait of Hormuz would open kept enthusiasm in ​check. The nearly three-month-long conflict in the Middle East has driven energy prices sharply higher and reshaped the global rates outlook, as inflation concerns intensify following Tehran’s effective shutdown of the key strait. U.S. President Donald Tr

The Meta headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., Jan. 29, 2024. ​Meta told employees in April 2026 that it would carry out mass layoffs on May 20, as the Silicon Valley giant tries to transform into an AI-first company. (Ian C. Bates/The New York Times) By ELI TAN, KALLEY HUANG and MIKE ISAAC For the last month, employees at Meta have been on edge. In April, they were told that 8,000 of them, or 10% of the workforce, would be laid off on May 20 as Meta remade itself for the artif

Global equity funds recorded the ⁠first ⁠weekly outflow in nine ⁠weeks in the week through May 20, as investors ​turned cautious over inflation and a rise in long-term borrowing costs to nearly ‌two-decade highs. According to LSEG Lipper ‌data, investors liquidated a net $6.13 billion of global equity funds during ⁠the week, ⁠logging their first weekly net sales since mid-March, when they ​had withdrawn a net $21.87 billion. The 30-year U.S. Treasury yield climbed to 5.201% o

Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index closed slightly higher after ⁠Thursday’s ⁠choppy session as oil prices finished lower and investors hoped ⁠for a Middle East peace deal even as the U.S. and Iran appeared to take directly opposing stances over Tehran’s uranium stockpile ​and control of the Strait of Hormuz. After spending the morning in the red, stocks clawed their way back to gains in afternoon trading while oil prices shifted from a rally to a decline as ‌investors mon

The headquarters in Washington of the internal Revenue Service on Feb. 25, 2025. President Donald Trump, two of his sons and his family business had argued in a lawsuit that the IRS should have done more to prevent a former contractor from leaking tax information. (Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times) By RUSS BUETTNER A tax audit that President Donald Trump has been fighting since his peak earning days as a television celebrity was most likely wiped away in this week’s settlement

Wall Street’s main indexes rallied on Wednesday, rebounding ⁠from ⁠a three-day selloff with a boost from chip stocks, ⁠which rose ahead of Nvidia’s quarterly results. Shares in leading artificial intelligence chipmaker Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, rose ​1.8% ahead of its quarterly results, due after the closing bell. Investors will crunch the numbers for signs that appetite for AI infrastructure remains strong enough to support lofty valuations across ‌the techn

Elon Musk arrives for the second day of his testimony in his trial against OpenAI at the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Courthouse in Oakland, Calif., April 29, 2026. Musk on Monday, May 18, 2026, lost his lawsuit accusing OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman, of breaching the company’s founding contract. (Jason Henry/The New York Times) By DAVID STREITFELD and NATALLIE ROCHA Elon Musk lost his bid to derail OpenAI. Few will feel sorry for him. Unless you are a corporate chi