1207 ET [Dow Jones]--Roblox announces Roblox Plus, a subscription plan giving users discounts on in-game and avatar items, access to free private servers, and no transaction fees on Robux transfers. The new paid tier costs $4.99 a month and will launch on April 30. Roblox says it will cover the marketplace discounts for creators, adding that eligible creators will get rewards from Plus users using their private servers. As part of the rollout, Roblox says it will stop offering new sign-ups for Roblox Premium, and that certain Premium benefits will be discontinued beginning on May 30. (elias.schisgall@wsj.com)

The estimated funding level of pension plans sponsored by S&P 1500 companies decreased by 3 percentage points in March to 104% as a result of a decrease in equity returns partially offset by an increase in discount rates, according to consulting firm Mercer LLC. As of the end of March, the plans' estimated aggregate surplus decreased by $46 billion, to $65 billion, compared with a $111 billion surplus at the end of February, Mercer said. "Equities fell throughout the month as the Middle East conflict led to a sharp rise in oil prices, however, interest rates bounced back to help soften the blow to pension-funded status," said Mercer partner Matt McDaniel. (jennifer.williams@wsj.com, @jenkayw)

1150 ET - CoreWeave is financing its data-center buildout through leverage, announcing $4.25 billion in senior note sales--later upsized to $5.25 billion--concurrently with an expanded cloud-computing agreement with Meta. The note sales are likely to bring CoreWeave's pro-forma debt to the mid-$30 billions if subscribed, Stifel analysts write in a note, presenting some near-term execution risks. "Success is likely to be defined by the company's ability to finance the building of and to operationalize massive clusters faster than its maturing debt wall," the analysts write, calling the stock a "show-me" story and sticking to the sidelines for now. "The story remains an execution race against a high cost of success in the near-term." (elias.schisgall@wsj.com)

1139 ET — CoreWeave's agreement to supply $21 billion in incremental cloud computing for Meta Platforms shows the company diversifying its customer base, Mizuho analysts write in a note. CoreWeave's reliance on Microsoft was a key concern during the company's IPO, but since then the company has signed deals collectively worth around $35 billion with Meta, around $22.4 billion with OpenAI, and $6.2 billion with Nvidia, not to mention a Friday agreement with Anthropic. Mizuho also sees potential for CoreWeave to expand its Meta and OpenAI partnerships. "CRWV has made clear progress in customer diversification, although large customers still drive 70%+ of backlog per our estimates and a few investors have shown hesitancy about OpenAI's ability to meet its commitments," the analysts write. (elias.schisgall@wsj.com)

The announcement of a multiyear partnership between Qualcomm Technologies and Snap's Specs subsidiary signals that Snap CEO Evan Spiegel is not looking for an exit ramp from the augmented-reality glasses business just yet. Shuttering or divesting from Specs was a central request of activist investor Irenic Capital Management, who late last month disclosed a roughly 2.5% stake in the company and triggered a jump in its share price. But Spiegel touts the partnership as providing a "strong foundation for the future of Specs," adding that "we believe the future of computing will be more human and grounded in the real world." Snap falls 2% to $4.85. (elias.schisgall@wsj.com)

1107 ET - Volumes of cryptocurrency trading on spot in March were the lowest since September 2024, says CoinDesk in a note. Volumes fell by nearly 16% from the prior month to $1.3 trillion. Derivative trading also fell, but by significantly less, says the firm. Derivative activity dropped by 3.2% to just less than $4 trillion. Weaker volume came as the outbreak of war in Iran made the investor appetite for cryptocurrencies very limited, They instead favored physical assets like oil. The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz remains a major source of tension between Iran and the U.S. Bitcoin is up 0.8% to over $73,000, according to LSEG, with ethereum and solana also posting gains. (kirk.maltais@wsj.com)

1020 ET — Fashion trends currently boosting Nike could be peaking, which could challenge growth, say Piper Sandler analysts Anna Andreeva and Noah Helfstein. Frequency metrics for athleisure are peaking and the space "is becoming more mature, with many brands looking similar and demand driven more by new entrants...as opposed to legacy players," the analysts say. Fashion footwear declines are also moderating and the "return of the dressy cycle could shift some of the demand from Athleisure." Nike is also a quarter away from lapping big gains in its running business, the analysts say. (nicholas.miller@wsj.com)

1017 ET — ServiceNow has been better-positioned within the AI era relative to other application software companies, but that positioning is weakening, UBS analysts say in a research note. While customers haven't been expressing a desire to fully replace ServiceNow, they have begun expressing desires to have AI models take over some of its work, the analysts say. That includes finding ways to manage a larger portion of the service management tickets currently handled by ServiceNow in a more agentic way. "Given that our confidence has weakened and we're hearing more anecdotes of non-AI apps software budget pressure, we're moving to a neutral rating," UBS says, downgrading the stock from buy and cutting its price target to $100 from $170. Shares are down 6.5%. (connor.hart@wsj.com)

1000 ET - Intel's announcement that it's joining Elon Musk's Terafab AI chip project lacked concrete numbers, but it has clear symbolic importance, says Benchmark analyst Cody Acree. "Given the nascency of the Terafab project, we would still caution investors to avoid over-annualizing near-term foundry revenue from Terafab alone," Acree says. "But at the stock level, we believe the signaling value matters." Acree says that the announcement serves as external validation that Intel has made enough progress on its 18A technology and manufacturing execution "to be taken seriously again in advanced-node conversations." (nicholas.miller@wsj.com)

0935 ET - The expansion of its partnership with Google shows that Intel is still squarely involved in the AI chip game, says Benchmark analyst Cody Acree, who raises the price target to $76 from $57. Even though Google already deploys a variety of chips including Nvidia GPUs and its own internal silicon, it is committing to multiple generations of Intel's Xeon CPUs. The partnership shows "that CPUs remain central in heterogeneous AI systems and that x86 still has a durable role inside hyperscale infrastructure," Acree says, adding that it's confirmation "the market is increasingly appreciating AI as a full-system architecture problem rather than a GPU-only story." (nicholas.miller@wsj.com)

0921 ET - Oil futures are little changed as traders head into the weekend with talks planned between the U.S. and Iran that could determine whether the Middle East cease-fire holds. "Traders have evacuated the market for the most part with $7 moves like yesterday seemingly happening with little participation from human traders other than what they need to do in terms of hedging or cleaning up positions to get even flatter," says Scott Shelton of TP ICAP. "Maybe after this weekend we get some clarity on whether or not Iran and U.S. are so far apart that they can't come to an agreement." WTI is off 0.2% at $97.66 a barrel and Brent is down 0.5% at $95.41. (anthony.harrup@wsj.com)
source: https://www.tradingview.com/news/DJN_DN20260410005867:0/