The Weekender

Last week may have been short on the calendar, but it felt like it lasted a month.

Markets didn’t exactly set the world on fire — aside from another round of short-covering in wheat and soybean oil doing what soybean oil does — but a barrage of DC headlines kept the market on edge all week.

So in honor of the chaos, today’s Weekender is written in headlines.

Because that’s what shaped every twist and turn — and left heads spinning into Friday’s close and beyond.

Bayer agreed to a proposed $7.25 billion nationwide settlement to resolve most remaining U.S. lawsuits alleging Roundup caused non-Hodgkin lymphoma, pending court approval.

The litigation dates back to 2015, after the WHO’s cancer research arm labeled glyphosate “probably carcinogenic.” Bayer inherited the liability when it acquired Monsanto for $63 billion in 2018 — when Bayer stock was trading above €120.

Today, shares sit near €43… for a market cap near €42.9 billion ($50B).

In other words, the entire company is now worth less than what it paid for Monsanto in 2018.

Roughly 200,000 claims have been filed since 2015, with mixed verdicts and several multibillion-dollar jury awards. Monsanto litigation has already cost Bayer $10B+, with potentially billions more still at risk.

The proposed settlement would fund payouts over up to 21 years, with compensation varying by exposure level and age at diagnosis.

Late Wednesday — just one day after Bayer proposed a $7.25B settlement tied to Roundup litigation — the Trump administration issued an executive order invoking the Defense Production Act to boost domestic production of phosphorus and glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup.