Wall Street and other global markets soared to fresh record highs this week as tech stocks rallied amid enthusiasm over AI. Billionaire American investor Paul Tudor Jones sees more room for the AI-fuelled bull market to run, while warning that the market downturn can be significant once it ends.

Big market crash coming?

Tudor said that markets have completed around 50 to 60% of the AI bull market, which now has another year or two to run. However, this comes with a warning. The market expert highlighted that while AI developments are still in their early stages, the ongoing times feel like the 1999 period – just before the dot-com share prices peaked in early 2000. Jones warned that once this ends, markets can see a strong crash, just like the one seen in the beginning of the century.

“Just imagine the stock market went up another 40%. The stock market GDP is going to probably be good lord 300%, 350%. You just know that there’ll be some … breathtaking kind of corrections,” he told CNBC.

Despite the caution, Jones said that he has made AI investments, without mentioning which AI stocks he purchased or when. “I am a macro trader, so I just buy baskets, and what I would simply say is, it’s a crazy, crazy time…I always love to find historical precedents,” he said. The American investor however highlighted that AI needs regulation by the government, as it can become dangerous to humanity if left unchecked.

Wall Street recorded strong gains earlier this week, with S&P 500 and Nasdaq surging to record highs as strong earnings from Advanced Micro Devices sparked a rally in chipmakers and other AI-related stocks. Japan’s Nikkei meanwhile skyrocketed 6% on Thursday to cross 63,000 for the first time ever. South Korea’s Kospi also hit an all-time high this week as an AI-powered rally in semiconductor stocks drove Samsung Electronics past the $1 trillion market-cap ‌barrier.
Back home, IT stocks saw a significant decline earlier this year as new AI innovations spooked investors about the nascent technology making India’s much-touted IT services companies obsolete. While analysts still argue the strengths and weaknesses of such worries, AI continues to evolve.
(With inputs from agencies)

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

India’s IPO pipeline has got a fresh boost, with market regulator Sebi clearing a clutch of public issues led by quick commerce player Zepto, setting the stage for one of the most closely watched new-age listings of 2026.The Aadit Palicha-led company, which recently converted itself into a public company from Zepto Private Limited to Zepto Limited, is preparing for a public market debut that could raise around $1.3 billion, or roughly Rs 11,000-12,000 crore, according to earlier ET reports.

If the issue goes through as planned, Zepto could become the youngest venture-backed Indian startup to hit the public markets, just four years after inception, at a time when investor appetite for consumer internet and platform businesses has returned after successful listings by companies such as Swiggy.

Zepto’s proposed fundraising is expected to include a sizeable fresh issue of around Rs 11,000 crore, along with an offer-for-sale by early investors, according to earlier reports.

The IPO comes at a critical time for India’s quick commerce battle, where Zepto is taking on listed rivals Eternal-owned Blinkit and Swiggy Instamart, besides newer entrants such as Flipkart Minutes and Amazon Now.
The listing will also significantly strengthen Zepto’s war chest. As of late last year, the company had around Rs 7,000 crore in cash, compared with roughly Rs 17,000-18,000 crore each with listed rivals Eternal and Swiggy.
Zepto had raised $450 million in October last year at a valuation of $7 billion, with the round including both primary and secondary transactions. Following that fundraise, the company sharply stepped up customer acquisition efforts, increasing discounts and removing platform fees in several markets as competition intensified.

The Bengaluru-based company had earlier shifted its domicile back to India from Singapore, a move increasingly seen among venture-backed startups preparing for domestic listings.

Investment bankers working on the issue include Morgan Stanley, Axis Capital, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, JM Financial, IIFL Securities and Motilal Oswal, according to earlier reports.

The proposed listing is expected in the July-September quarter of 2026, and could emerge as one of the biggest internet IPOs after Swiggy.

Zepto’s public market debut also comes amid a broader revival in India’s startup listing cycle. After a strong IPO market in 2025, several consumer internet and technology companies including PhonePe, Flipkart, Shadowfax, Shiprocket and Curefoods are also evaluating listings.

Apart from Zepto, Sebi has also cleared IPOs of Dhoot Transmission, Horizon Industrial Parks, Surgiwear, Crystal Crop Protection, and Hotel Polo Tower, adding further depth to the primary market pipeline.

Among them, Crystal Crop Protection, one of India’s larger crop solutions companies, and Horizon Industrial Parks, backed by institutional real estate capital, are expected to draw strong institutional attention.

SAN FRANCISCO — Anthropic’s popular AI assistant Claude faced significant disruptions Thursday, with thousands of users reporting elevated errors, login issues and failed generations across claude.ai and the API, marking the latest outage for the fast-growing artificial intelligence platform. While Anthropic’s status page showed partial recovery by late afternoon, many subscribers continued experiencing degraded performance during peak usage hours.

Downdetector and social media platforms including Reddit and X lit up with complaints beginning early Thursday, with reports peaking around mid-morning Pacific Time. Users described everything from “Internal Error” messages and extremely slow response times to complete inability to generate new conversations. The issues appeared most severe for Claude Opus and Sonnet models, though Claude Haiku also showed problems for some.

Anthropic’s official status page initially listed “elevated errors” on claude.ai and the API, later updating to note that a fix had been applied and success rates were returning to normal. However, many users continued reporting lingering problems well into the afternoon, suggesting the resolution was gradual rather than instantaneous.

Impact on Users and Businesses

The outage affected a wide range of users, from individual creators and students relying on Claude for writing and research to businesses integrated into workflows via the API. Developers reported broken automations, while content creators lost valuable time during peak productivity hours. Some paid Pro and Team users expressed particular frustration over the timing, noting that reliability has become a growing concern as Claude’s user base expands rapidly.

On Reddit’s r/ClaudeAI, threads filled with users sharing workarounds, complaining about lost progress on long conversations, and debating whether the issues stemmed from high demand or underlying infrastructure problems. Similar discussions appeared across tech forums, with many comparing the frequency of Claude outages to those of competitors like ChatGPT.

Anthropic’s Response

Anthropic has not yet issued a detailed public postmortem but updated its status dashboard throughout the day. The company typically attributes such incidents to “unprecedented demand” following major model releases or feature updates. In previous outages, Anthropic has offered usage credits to affected subscribers and promised infrastructure improvements.

This latest disruption follows a pattern of intermittent stability issues for Claude in 2026, even as the platform has seen massive growth in capabilities and user adoption. Analysts note that scaling frontier AI models while maintaining reliable service remains one of the biggest challenges facing companies like Anthropic.

Broader Context in AI Industry

The Claude outage highlights the growing pains of the generative AI sector. As millions increasingly rely on these tools for daily work, education and creativity, even brief downtime can cause significant disruption. Competitors including OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini have faced similar complaints in recent months, underscoring that no single AI provider has achieved perfect reliability at scale.

Industry experts suggest the frequency of outages may increase before it improves as companies race to deploy more powerful models without fully stress-testing infrastructure under real-world loads. Users are advised to maintain backup tools and avoid depending on any single AI platform for time-sensitive work.

What Users Can Do During Outages

While waiting for full restoration, affected users can try these common troubleshooting steps:

• Refresh the page or restart the app multiple times.
• Clear browser cache or try an incognito window.
• Switch between Wi-Fi and mobile data.
• Check Anthropic’s official status page for updates.
• Use alternative models (e.g., switch from Opus to Sonnet) if available.
• Save important conversations frequently to avoid data loss.

For API users, implementing retry logic and fallback mechanisms in code is recommended for production applications.

Looking Ahead

As Anthropic works to stabilize service, attention will likely turn to any post-incident review and potential capacity expansions. The company has shown responsiveness in past incidents, often following up with credits and transparency reports. However, repeated outages could push some enterprise customers to explore multi-AI strategies or more established providers.

For now, Claude users are advised to monitor the status page and remain patient as engineers address the underlying issues. The incident serves as another reminder of how central — and sometimes fragile — AI tools have become in modern workflows. As demand continues to surge, reliability will remain a critical factor determining which platforms earn long-term user loyalty.

Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX) reported a consolidated net profit at Rs 530 crore for the March-ended quarter versus Rs 135 crore in the year ago period, implying a 291% YoY surge. The profit after tax (PAT) is attributable to the owners of the company.

The company’s revenue from operations in Q4FY26 increased by 205% to Rs 889 crore versus Rs 291 crore posted by the company in the corresponding quarter of the previous financial year.

The company’s board also recommended a final dividend of Rs 8 per equity share for the financial year ended March 31, 2026.

The bottom line grew 32% sequentially versus Rs 401 crore in Q3FY26 while the topline also grew 34% quarter-on-quarter compared to Rs 666 crore posted in the October-December quarter of FY26.

India’s largest non-agri commodity exchange incurred expenses of Rs 242 crore in Q4FY26 versus Rs 192 crore in Q3FY26 and Rs 153 crore in the corresponding quarter of the last financial year. The expenses in the quarter under review grew 26% QoQ and Rs 58% YoY.

The expenses were made on employee benefits, product license fee and finance cost, among other things.

Reds10 said the move would add to its strengths in the industrialised construction centre

An investment group has taken a stake in fast-growing East Yorkshire steel fabrication specialist ESL Fabrication Engineers (ESL). The investment by Reds10 is said to strengthen its industrialised construction model by bringing critical steel fabrication in-house, enhancing delivery strength and support the business’s next phase of growth.

The companies’ factory locations are geographically complementary, with Reds10 manufacturing all at its building off‑site in Driffield, and ESL’s purpose‑built facility just 20 miles away in Hull.

Founded in 2010 by father and son Paul and Gareth Thompson, ESL specialises in the comprehensive delivery of steel fabrication across the UK, from manufacture and installation to repair and maintenance works. The business has grown steadily since its inception, growing its turnover to £7m in 2026, and now employs just under 50 people from its purpose-built factory facility in Kingston upon Hull.

ESL will become part of the recently established Reds10 Group, alongside Reds10 and its eight sister companies. The creation of Reds10 Group brings a family of businesses together under one roof to further drive the wholesale industrialisation of design, production and construction, with AI integrated at every stage.

Paul Ruddick, chief executive of Reds10 Group, said: “Having worked with ESL for several years, we’ve seen first‑hand the consistent quality of their service and their ambition for excellence and growth, values that closely align with our own. Bringing steel fabrication into the Reds10 Group adds a critical piece of the jigsaw as we launch our next phase of strategic growth to exploit advancing technologies, while integrating AI at every level of the business.”

Gareth Thompson, co-founder and managing director of ESL said: “We’ve come a long way since ESL’s inception in 2010 and our partnership with Reds10 feels like a natural next step that will bring clear benefits to both businesses. This marks an exciting next phase in our evolution, and we look forward to building on the strong working relationship we’ve developed with Reds10 in recent years and maximising the opportunities ahead.”

The partnership comes after Reds10 reported financial results for the 2024/25 with revenue of £144.7m. The company has set out an ambitious plan to grow its revenue to £500m and is targeting an expansion into the healthcare sector, as well as the affordable housing and temporary accommodation sectors.

Reds10 manufactures all its buildings off-site at its advanced construction facility in Driffield, where it has five factories totalling 300,000 sq ft.

OKLAHOMA CITY — Luka Doncic continues to recover from a Grade 2 left hamstring strain with no clear return date in sight for the Los Angeles Lakers’ Western Conference semifinals series against the Oklahoma City Thunder, leaving LeBron James to shoulder the load in what has become an increasingly difficult matchup for the injury-depleted squad.

Doncic, who suffered the injury on April 2 in the regular-season finale against these same Thunder, told reporters Wednesday that doctors initially gave him an eight-week recovery timeline. At roughly five weeks post-injury, he has begun running but has not yet been cleared for full contact or 5-on-5 work. The Lakers have officially ruled him out for Game 2 on Thursday night, and most reports suggest he is unlikely to play at all in this series.

“I’m just doing everything I can,” Doncic said. “Every day I’m doing stuff I’m supposed to do. The doctor said eight weeks at the beginning of the first MRI. So I’m just going day by day and I feel better every day.” He traveled to Spain for specialized PRP injections shortly after the injury, a decision that extended his time away from the team but was approved by Lakers medical staff.

LeBron’s Heroic Effort Falls Short in Game 1

Without their superstar acquisition, the Lakers dropped Game 1 by a lopsided 108-90 score on Tuesday night. LeBron James delivered another vintage performance with 27 points on efficient shooting, but the supporting cast struggled to keep pace with Oklahoma City’s depth, athleticism and defensive intensity. Austin Reaves added 21 points, while Rui Hachimura provided a spark off the bench, but turnovers and a sluggish third quarter proved decisive.

The Thunder, the top seed in the West and defending champions, exploited the Lakers’ weaknesses without Doncic. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the young, athletic OKC roster controlled the tempo, forced turnovers and dominated in transition. Coach Mark Daigneault’s squad looked every bit the favorite, even without playing at maximum effort across the board.

Can LeBron Carry Lakers to Even One Win?

The central question hanging over the series is whether James, at 41 years old and in his 23rd NBA season, can engineer even one victory against a superior Thunder team without his primary co-star. James has defied age throughout the playoffs, but the talent gap feels glaring. The Lakers advanced past the Houston Rockets in the first round without Doncic, but Oklahoma City presents a far more formidable challenge with elite defense, depth and home-court advantage.

Analysts and former players have been blunt. Many give the Lakers minimal chance in the series without Doncic’s playmaking, scoring and gravity. “We’re not talking about the intangibles that LeBron comes with,” one commentator noted, acknowledging James’ greatness but highlighting the overwhelming roster disadvantage. Even with James posting strong individual numbers, the supporting cast has been overmatched in key areas.

Coach JJ Redick has emphasized patience and a “next man up” mentality. Reaves has returned from his own injury and provided scoring, but the Lakers miss Doncic’s ability to create for others and control the pace. The Thunder’s length and switching defense have made life difficult for the remaining Lakers ball-handlers.

Injury Timeline and Recovery Outlook

Doncic’s recovery has been methodical. He has progressed to running and on-court shooting but remains far from playoff intensity. An eight-week timeline from early April would push potential availability into late May, possibly in time for a hypothetical conference finals if the Lakers can somehow extend this series. Most insiders view a return during the Thunder series as highly optimistic.

The Lakers have been cautious, prioritizing long-term health over a desperate push. Re-injury risks could jeopardize not only this postseason but future seasons as well. James has shouldered heavy minutes, but even his legendary durability has limits in a best-of-seven against a younger, deeper opponent.

Series Outlook and Broader Implications

Oklahoma City took a commanding 1-0 lead with a dominant Game 1 performance. The series shifts to Los Angeles for Games 3 and 4, where home energy could help, but the Thunder remain heavy favorites. Without Doncic, the Lakers must find ways to increase three-point volume and defensive intensity to have any chance of stealing games.

For LeBron James, the situation adds another chapter to his storied playoff legacy. At an age when most players have retired, he continues carrying franchises deep into the postseason. Whether he can drag this current Lakers roster to even one victory against the Thunder remains the compelling narrative of the series.

The basketball world watches closely. James’ effort, combined with the team’s resilience without their second superstar, offers a compelling underdog story even if the odds remain steep. As Game 2 approaches, all eyes remain on whether LeBron and company can find answers against a Thunder team built for sustained contention.