The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up, while the S&P 500 Index and Nasdaq Composite were down, as oil prices started to climb again, as the war in Iran continues.

In company news, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG) is considering acquiring Jefferies (JEF), the Financial Times reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Sumitomo holds a minority stake in the investment bank and has assembled a small group to be prepared to act should Jefferies' falling share price create an opportunity, the report said. Bloomberg later reported that SMFG has no immediate plans to acquire Jefferies, citing people familiar with the matter. Executives are not engaged in active acquisition talks and remain mindful of regulatory hurdles that could complicate an integration, the report said, citing the people. SMFG shares were up 1% around midday, while Jefferies shares were up 3.9%.

Janus Henderson Group (JHG) said Tuesday that Trian Fund Management and its affiliated funds and General Catalyst Fund Management and its affiliated funds have revised their acquisition offer to $52 per share in cash, a $3 all-cash price increase. In a separate press release, Trian and General Catalyst confirmed the amended definitive merger agreement with Janus and said it represents their best and final offer. Janus Henderson shares were up 2.5%.

KKR (KKR) and Future Standard's FS KKR Capital credit fund had its long-term issuer and senior unsecured ratings downgraded to 'Ba1' from 'Baa3' by Moody's Ratings Tuesday, with the outlook revised to stable from negative. The downgrade reflects continued asset quality challenges, weaker profitability and net asset value erosion relative to peers, Moody's said. KKR shares were down 0.7%.

Ares Management (ARES) said in a Tuesday regulatory filing that it is restricting withdrawals from its private credit fund, Ares Strategic Income Fund, to 5% of shares, or $524.5 million. The company also said it plans to repurchase 43.1% of the requested amounts and that it estimates that 11.6% of outstanding fund shares were tendered before the March 20 deadline. Ares shares were down 1.3%.

Amazon.com's (AMZN) self-driving unit Zoox said Tuesday that it will expand its robotaxi service in San Francisco and Las Vegas. Separately, Amazon-backed Anthropic's Claude has launched a new capability that allows users to send prompts from a smartphone to perform tasks on a computer. Lastly, Amazon Web Services is accelerating the development of artificial intelligence agents to automate tasks in its sales, business development units, among other areas, where it recently laid off hundreds of workers, The Information reported Tuesday, citing two people who have used the technology. Specifically, AWS has been working on an AI agent that aids its sales staff in providing customers with quick answers to technical questions, the people reportedly said. Shares of software companies fell on the AWS news, with Atlassian (TEAM) shares down 7.2%, HubSpot (HUBS) shares down 8.3%, UiPath (PATH) shares down 9.1%, Zscaler (ZS) shares down 5.3% and Gitlab (GTLB) shares down 5.6%. Amazon shares were down 1%.

Price: 41.08, Change: +1.53, Percent Change: +3.87