

A court-appointed co-lead counsel is pursuing fraud claims against Ramaco Resources Inc. (NASDAQ: METC) on behalf of anyone who acquired the coal-and-critical-minerals developer's securities across a roughly 12-week window that closed in late October 2025, according to a Sept. 21 statement from Lowey Dannenberg P.C. "As lead counsel, we are actively pursuing this case on behalf of the class, and we are looking for investors who bought in Ramaco's Secondary Offering," Vincent R. Cappucci Jr., an attorney at Lowey Dannenberg, said. The White Plains, New York-based firm said it holds the co-lead counsel role in the matter. The case, In re Ramaco Resources, Inc. Securities Litigation, No. 1:26-cv-00846-ER, is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. It centers on Ramaco's Brook Mine project in Sheridan, Wyoming, which the company described to investors as a commercially and technologically feasible source of rare earth elements and critical minerals, particularly scandium. Lowey is separately soliciting investors and entities that acquired Ramaco common stock in the company's Aug. 7, 2025 secondary public offering, a cohort the firm is treating as a distinct group within the class. The complaint's specific alleged misstatements, the damages sought and the number of shares covered have not yet been disclosed in the firm's notice. Ramaco has denied wrongdoing, and the allegations in the pending lawsuit have not been proven. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the filing. Ramaco's Brook Mine has been the centerpiece of its effort to reposition itself beyond metallurgical coal. The company has told investors the Wyoming site holds rare earth and critical mineral deposits, with scandium as the flagship element — a claim that underpins the growth narrative attached to the stock. Any legal challenge to the feasibility or commercial characterization of that project goes directly to the valuation case management has presented. The litigation adds a legal-cost and disclosure overhang to a Nasdaq-listed small-cap issuer whose equity story rests on a single development asset. Securities class actions of this type typically carry defense costs that scale with the size of the certified class, and they can constrain management's flexibility on capital allocation and forward guidance while discovery runs. Insurance and director-liability exposure is a further consideration, though no figures have been disclosed. For holders, the immediate signal is negative until the scope of the allegations is quantified: the class period spans roughly 12 weeks, and the Aug. 7, 2025 secondary offering gives plaintiffs a defined set of purchasers with a documented offering price. Investors should watch for the amended complaint and any motion-to-dismiss schedule in the Southern District of New York docket, which will establish the specific statements at issue and the first real measure of the case's materiality. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.

The Trump administration has proposed putting $5 billion into a new fund to rebuild Gulf energy infrastructure wrecked in the seven-month Iran war and to cut the region's reliance on the Strait of Hormuz for moving oil and gas, according to U.S. and Middle Eastern officials and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The plan remains under discussion with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, with no financing structure, recipient list or timetable disclosed. "The administration needs to repair both Gulf infrastructure and confidence in the U.S. partnership," said Bilal Saab, a Middle East security specialist cited in the reporting, adding that Gulf leaders "can blame Iran for its aggression and simultaneously blame Washington for starting a war without an adequate plan to protect the region." The scale of the damage explains the urgency. Satellite imagery from Planet Labs PBC in July showed smoke rising from Saudi Aramco's Abqaiq oil-processing facility, one of the world's largest crude stabilization plants. Saudi Arabia has cancelled crude cargoes after a pipeline closure and projected it could restore only half of that pipeline's capacity within days. Brent crude traded near $110 a barrel when the conflict's first-quarter damage was assessed, and front-month crude futures were quoted at $95.50, down 4.79%, in the most recent session. The IMF's April 2026 World Economic Outlook cut global growth to 3.1% for 2026 from 3.4% in 2025, with emerging markets slowing to 3.9% from 4.4% and the euro area to 1.1% from 1.4%. Global headline inflation was revised up 52 basis points to 4.4%, and world trade volume growth is projected to fall to 2.8% in 2026 from 5.1% in 2025. The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly a fifth of global oil trade, and the war's near-closure of the waterway turned an energy story into a broader industrial one. West Asia supplies ammonia and nitrogen for synthetic fertilizers, Iran ranks among the largest methanol exporters, and Qatar produces about 35% of the world's helium, a critical input for semiconductor manufacturing. Rerouting those flows away from Hormuz is the fund's stated purpose, which would redirect tanker demand, insurance costs and pipeline investment across the Gulf. ## What $5 billion actually buys Five billion dollars is seed capital, not a reconstruction budget. Rebuilding refineries, processing trains and cross-country pipelines damaged across seven months of strikes would run into the tens of billions, and the proposal's own framing — "kickstart" — concedes that private and sovereign capital must follow. The open questions are who underwrites the fund, who controls disbursement, and what Washington asks in return. Gulf states that watched their own energy infrastructure become a battlefield have reason to be wary of putting the U.S. in charge of the rebuild, particularly when the war's expansion is partly attributed to Washington. For markets, the proposal does not yet remove the geopolitical risk premium embedded in crude. Traders will want to see which countries sign on, how the fund is capitalized and how quickly projects can be permitted and built. The last time a Gulf supply shock of comparable magnitude hit — Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait — it took a multinational coalition and roughly nine months of military operations before crude prices normalized, and the infrastructure rebuild ran for years afterward. The near-term read-through is narrower than the headline suggests. Energy infrastructure and construction contractors with Gulf exposure, pipeline and tanker operators positioned on alternative routes, and helium and methanol supply chains stand to benefit if the fund converts into signed contracts. Oil's own reaction depends on whether the fund is read as a supply-restoration signal or as confirmation that the disruption is deep enough to require a U.S. Treasury backstop. The next data points are the participants list and any formal capitalization announcement, neither of which has been disclosed. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.

Coinbase Global began letting eligible US retail customers request shares in initial public offerings at the offer price, starting with smart-ring maker Oura this week, pushing the exchange into primary equity distribution. The service runs through Coinbase Capital Markets, the company's FINRA-registered broker-dealer, which joins offerings as a best-efforts selling-group member rather than an underwriter. Orders are aggregated and routed through clearing partner Apex Clearing Corporation, and Coinbase said it holds no inventory and takes no side of a trade. "You can now participate in IPOs on Coinbase," the company said in a blog post announcing the rollout. Customers reach active deals through a new IPOs page inside the Coinbase app, fund the account to cover the requested shares, then submit a conditional offer to buy once the issuer publishes an expected price range. Requests can be edited or cancelled while the book is open, though a price move beyond a set threshold requires resubmission. Allocations depend on underwriter supply and total customer demand, so orders may be filled in full, in part, or not at all, with shares booked at the IPO price and tradable once public trading opens. The allocation method favors holders. Selling allocated IPO shares within 30 days can bar a customer from IPO participation for the following 60 days, and repeated early selling draws smaller and less frequent allocations. Coinbase said it will add offerings as selling-group allocations become available, and the rollout lands ahead of an anticipated Anthropic listing that reports have pegged at a valuation of as much as $2 trillion. COIN rose more than 4% on Monday to about $204, according to TradingView data, extending a one-month gain of more than 13%. The advance came as Bitcoin climbed above $86,000 for the first time since January, lifting crypto-linked equities including Robinhood, BitMine Immersion Technologies, Strategy and Circle. Bitcoin traded at $86,051.78 as of 17:54 UTC, up 6.13% over 24 hours, per CoinMarketCap. The IPO feature extends a build-out that already includes stocks, ETFs and options, plus pre-IPO perpetual futures launched earlier this year for eligible non-US customers — contracts that give synthetic exposure without company ownership. Coinbase has also sought regulatory approval for equity perpetuals. The strategy, which the company calls the Everything Exchange, aims to keep users trading on one platform across asset classes rather than sending them to a traditional brokerage for equity exposure. For Coinbase, the economics hinge on engagement rather than underwriting fees, since the broker-dealer acts as an agent and earns no spread on the shares themselves. IPO allocations give retail users a reason to fund accounts and hold balances ahead of a listing, deepening the deposit base that supports trading revenue. The approach also puts Coinbase in direct competition with incumbent brokerages that have historically controlled retail access to hot offerings, and with Robinhood, which has built its own push into event-driven retail products. The broader market backdrop remains uneven. A Senate cloture vote on the CLARITY Act failed, leaving the proposed US digital-asset framework stalled, even as Bitcoin's move above $86,000 pulled crypto equities higher. Coinbase's next test is whether Oura's offering draws enough customer demand to justify a pipeline of follow-on deals; the company has not disclosed how many offerings it expects to add or the size of its selling-group allocations.