Luke Vargas

Dave, appreciate you stopping by.

Thank you so much for the update.

Thanks for having me.

Coming up, the day's top business stories as SpaceX angles to get an early invite to Wall Street's most exclusive indexes.

That and more after the break.

Not content to simply IPO this year, we're exclusively reporting that SpaceX is pushing for an early inclusion in indexes like the S&P 500 or NASDAQ 100 after its listing.

Typically, companies have to wait several months to a year to prove their post-IPO stability and liquidity in order to enter those indexes.

This week, the Nasdaq shared proposals to update how it lets companies into the Nasdaq 100, including one that would allow especially large companies to join within 15 trading days.

At their current valuations, SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic would all qualify.

So why the rush?

I asked Journal Finance Editor Alex Frankos.

Right.

That argument makes sense, Alex.

But I imagine there's probably reasons why the indexes might not want to go along with this.

And let's spin through some headlines coming across markets this morning, starting with Danish shipping giant Maersk, which is cutting a thousand jobs to slash costs as it forecasts a sharp drop in earnings.

Oil major Shell is keeping the buyback train rolling, returning three and a half billion dollars to shareholders in spite of weaker prices.

Chinese search engine Baidu, meanwhile, is getting into the buyback game for the first time, to the tune of $5 billion.

And Europe's largest steelmaker, ArcelorMittal, said that EU efforts to protect the industry from Chinese competition should help it to capture market share in the coming years.

Its stock is up today more than 3%.

And that's it for What's News for this Thursday morning.