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Thursday, February 19, 2026

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Dow surges to a second straight record high as Bessent says a Strait of Hormuz deal could come within days

The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 1,035 points Tuesday to a record high for the second straight session, driven by strong earnings and a drop in oil prices after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz could come "today or tomorrow." WTI crude slid 5% to around $76 a barrel. The S&P 500 reached its first record high since June, and Palantir surged 29% after its CEO called second-quarter results "otherworldly."

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		OpenAI tops 1 billion users after cutting prices on two AI models. Efficiency gains allowed OpenAI to drop rates on two GPT-5.6 systems by up to 80%. The reductions follow industry-wide unease over AI costs. Over 2 million businesses use OpenAI's tools, bu it still lost $38.5 billion in 2025.

		Tesla is considering spinning off its China operations. Tesla is reportedly weighing options to separate its China business as it prepares for a potential merger with SpaceX. CEO Elon Musk denied the report as false. Tesla's Shanghai plant builds over half its vehicles worldwide.

		Anthropic says Claude breached real-world systems in April. A misconfiguration allowed the company's AI models to gain unauthorized access to three organizations during cybersecurity evaluations with a third-party testing partner. Anthropic has since stopped cyber evaluations.

		Amazon will give customers part of its $600 million tariff refund. The company said refunds were limited because it stockpiled inventory ahead of tariffs and is not the importer of record for most goods in its store. A Supreme Court ruling voided President Donald Trump's import taxes in February.

		Google backs a $15 billion loan for Anthropic's next data center. In return for guaranteeing debt with its strong credit, Google is set to take about a 20% stake in the project. Nexus Data Centers is in talks to build the Texas site, powered by an on-site 1.6-gigawatt gas plant.

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News Alert﻿

Dow surges to a second straight record high as Bessent says a Strait of Hormuz deal could come within days

Travel like you have a trust fund﻿

Here's what you need to know

News Alert

Travel like you have a trust fund