White House Addresses Fragile Iran Truce

All eyes are on the very shaky Iran ceasefire, at a moment Tehran is already threatening to pull out due to heavy Israeli attacks on Lebanon. Iran says it has again halted Hormuz oil transit, and there's much that's still up in the air and uncertain. The briefing with press secretary Karoline Leavitt is expected to begin at 1300ET:

Washington and Tehran have just entered a two-week ceasefire, brokered by Pakistani mediation, aimed at negotiating a broader settlement following over a month of brutal conflict which has chiefly focused on an air war. Will it stick?

Both sides are readying for direct, face-to-face talks in Islamabad. Trump has previewed that Kushner, Witkoff, and maybe even Vice President J.D. Vance will be there. Trump has said these will happen "very soon". He told the NY Post on Wednesday:

"We'll have Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, JD — maybe JD, I don't know," Mr. Trump told the New York Post over the phone. "There's a question of safety, security."

One question is whether the two sides see eye to eye on the initial 'agreed upon' ten points. Even the basis for the current ceasefire has come under scrutiny and possible disagreement.

Earlier Wednesday morning, the NY Times stated:

A White House official says that the 10-point peace plan that Iran publicly released on Wednesday differs from the plan that Trump said was a “workable basis on which to negotiate.” The official declined to elaborate on the differences but said Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, was expected to clarify at a 1 p.m. briefing.

Leavitt is expected to address this pressing issue during the briefing, which promises to be a lively exchange with reporters.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/08/2026 - 13:00

Eric Swalwell About To Be Hit With 'Shocking' Number Of Sexual Harassment Allegations; Report

Authored by Debra Heine via American Greatness,

A “shocking” number of former female employees and interns are preparing to come forward to accuse Rep. Eric Swalwell (|D-Calif.) of sexual misconduct, according to a Democrat activist.

Cheyenne Hunt, a lawyer, former congressional candidate and executive director of the left-wing nonprofit Gen-Z for Change, revealed on X Sunday, that she has been working with a number of women who are in the process of sharing their accusations with major news outlets. Hunt said she knew of a separate and “much larger group” of women who are also currently in the process of sharing their stories.

Swalwell’s alleged inappropriate sexual behavior is said to be an “open secret” in Washington DC, as is his alleged practice of forcing underlings to sign nondisclosure agreements.

Hunt posted an initial video on Instagram in late March accusing Swalwell of having “a known history of being predatory towards women.”  She cited a woman who told her: “You know Eric Swalwell has slept with many of his interns and makes them all sign NDAs so they don’t speak up, right? And when I was 19 he tried hitting on me and sliding into my DMs and I have so many other friends that have similar experiences with him.”

Hunt said the allegation was “not an anomaly” but “part of a pattern.”

After that video was posted, she said a “pretty shocking” number of “credible” women came forward with more stories and she connected them “with the investigative reporting teams who have been working on breaking this for years.”

“Anyone who has been in DC for five minutes knows this,” said Democrat campaign advisor Bri Gillis on X. “It’s actually wild it took this long.”

Hunt said Gillis’ “sentiment” was “widely shared among folks” she’d spoken with.

“Not only are people unsurprised, but many of them have been able to send impacted women our way,” she wrote.

“I got involved because the first victim who approached me is a close friend, but when I saw that there were others who’s experiences fit the same pattern of manipulation and abuse of power, I knew I couldn’t stay silent,” Hunt wrote in her lengthy X thread.

Some of the allegations allegedly concern direct messages and Snapchat messages that range “from uncomfortable comments to potentially criminal conduct.”

Hunt claimed that Swalwell routinely targeted “employees, interns, and fans” and acted “as a mentor just to exploit that power.”

She added that the women have “secured pro bono legal representation” and are “in the process of sharing information with reporters and ensuring that they are physically and legally safe.”

“That process takes time,” she emphasized.

Hunt added that she knows Swalwell’s team “is aware of my video and the other creators talking about” the allegations, but she has not yet “been served with legal paperwork” or received a “cease and desist.”

Swalwell has been a member of the House since 2013 and was accused of having an affair with a suspected Chinese spy on his 2014 campaign staff.  U.S. Intel officials said at the time that his alleged relations with the spy were part of an extensive political intelligence operation run by China between 2011 and 2015. The Democrat reportedly severed ties with Fang Fang in 2015 after being briefed by U.S. intelligence officials. The alleged affair was made public in 2020.

Then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) booted Swalwell off the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) in January 2023, largely over the alleged affair.

“Eric Swalwell cannot get a security clearance in the public sector. Why would we ever give him a security clearance in the secrets to America? So, I will not allow him to be on Intel,” McCarthy said at the time.

The FBI, under Director Kash Patel, is reportedly preparing to release investigative files related to Swalwell’s past interactions with the spy Christine Fang (also known as Fang Fang).

New York City Council Member Vickie Paladino maintained on X that the media is complicit for keeping the profusion of allegations quiet.

“The thing about all these Eric Swalwell revelations is that ALL of them were known for years,” Paladino wrote. “But the media worked with the Democrat establishment to keep them quiet as long as Swalwell was useful.”

Now, because the California governor race has become a fiasco that might actually lead to a Republican winning unless a couple of Dems drop out to consolidate the vote, he needs to go. And like clockwork, here comes the orchestrated campaign of sexual harassment claims to end his career.

To be sure, Swalwell is garbage and deserves everything bad that’s coming to him. But it’s just amazing how the Democrats can just push a button and the machinery of the media and legal system just springs into action to eject someone from the party.

This is a guy who was caught sleeping with a Chinese spy for years, with actual evidence that he compromised national security in the process, and he remained completely protected and elevated as a major national figure. But as soon as the math stops working on the CA governor race, it all collapses underneath him.

Wild stuff.

X influencer “Bad Hombre” posted a graphic accusing Swalwell of being “a serial projector,” that is, someone who attributes his own unacceptable thoughts, feelings, flaws, impulses and behavior to other people.

Swalwell, incredibly, is the leading Democrat contender in the crowded race for California’s governor, with 13.7 percent of the vote in the RealClearPolitics poll average. Republican Steve Hilton currently leads the pack with 14.7 percent.

Third place contender, Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco (R), is now calling for Swalwell to drop out of California Governor’s race.

“He’s NOT going to survive this. This is not going to be good,” Bianco told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson. “He should probably just drop out and save his family.”

Swalwell’s press X account posted on Monday, “Has anyone checked in on Chad Bianco today?”

The sheriff replied: “Just praying for any and every female who’s ever had to be in the presence of Eric Swalwell.”

Update:

Swalwell’s campaign responded to Hunt’s allegations Tuesday evening, fiercely denying any sexual misconduct towards former staffers or interns.

“This false, outrageous rumor is being spread 27 days before an election begins by flailing opponents who have sadly teamed up with MAGA conspiracy theorists because they know Eric Swalwell is the frontrunner in this race,” Micah Beasley, a spokesperson for Swalwell, told the New York Post.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/08/2026 - 12:40



 

 

At The Money: Seeking Uncorrelated Returns (April 8, 2026)

Managed Futures generate returns that are not correlated with stocks or bonds. Investors who are looking for greater diversification can do so through ETFS that own futures on commodities, currencies, and interest rates.

Full transcript below.

~~~

About this week’s guest:

Andrew Beer is a hedge fund veteran and founder of Dynamic Beta Investments, a firm focused on hedge-fund replication strategies delivered through low-cost, liquid vehicles like ETFs and mutual funds. His ETF, DBi Managed Futures Strategy (DBMF) attempts to replicate pricier managed futures portfolios

For more info, see:

Firm website

Masters in Business

LinkedIn

~~~

 

Find all of the previous At the Money episodes here, and in the MiB feed on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, and Bloomberg. And find the entire musical playlist of all the songs I have used on At the Money on Spotify

 

 

 

At the Money with Barry Ritholtz
Guest: Andrew Beer, Founder of Dynamic Beta Investments April 8, 2026

 

TRANSCRIPT:

Barry Ritholtz: Lots of asset classes, promise uncorrelated returns, but very few deliver. One that does is managed futures. Sure they’re expensive and the trading is somewhat spiky. But when all correlations go to one, meaning everything is trading in lockstep, like we saw during the financial crisis or the first couple of months of COVID, managed futures seem to be the rare diversifier that works.

Barry Ritholtz: To help us unpack how to get additional diversification in your portfolio, let’s bring in Andrew Beer. He’s a hedge fund veteran and founder of Dynamic Beta Investments, a firm focused on hedge fund replication strategies delivered through low cost liquid vehicles like ETFs and mutual funds. His ETF DBI managed Future Strategy tries to replicate the premier managed futures portfolio. So Andrew, start us out with just the elevator pitch.

Barry Ritholtz: What problem does DBI manage future strategy — and that’s ETF, ticker DBMF — what does that solve for the traditional 60/40 investor?

Andrew Beer: Sure. So first of all, thank you very much for having me on. So diversification has changed a lot this decade. In the 2000s and 2010s, you really didn’t need anything other than stocks and bonds, but things have changed. You know, since inflation started to come back, stocks have tended to move up and down with bonds and did not protect in 2022.

Andrew Beer: And so what you see across the wealth management space is basically saying 60/40 worked for a long time, but now we need something else. And what is that something else? It’s generally something that has a low correlation to, ideally to both stocks and bonds and can also deliver positive performance when you need it the most. And so we looked — we were looking around for something like that about 10 years ago and we zeroed in on this space.

Andrew Beer: It’s a niche area of the overall hedge fund business, but it’s been around for 50 years. It’s battle tested through all sorts of market environments and you find something that actually meets those criteria — did well during the dot-com crisis, did well during the GFC, and then after we’d invested it, you know, it was up 20% during 2022. And from our perspective, it’s like, that’s great if you’re an institutional allocator, but how do we get the great benefits of this strategy and package it in a way that, you know, my sister or my cousin or something can put into their portfolios as well.

Barry Ritholtz: Really, really interesting. So since 2022, the asset class we’ve all been probably hearing the most about has been private credit, private debt, private equity. Hey, it’s a great diversifier — to be blunt.

Barry Ritholtz: I get the sense that debt and credit are gonna move if we have a recession, if markets sell off 20, 30%. Is there any reason to think that sort of diversifier is not gonna do the same thing?

Andrew Beer: So what’s interesting about it — there’s been a lot of debate about how these guys happen to make money during these big moments in the markets where it feels like nothing is working. And it’s funny because people talk about — sometimes people use a term called trend following or momentum associated with a strategy. To me, it’s totally wrong. When the strategy generates those kinds of returns, it’s because they’re early, contrarian, and right in a big way.

Andrew Beer: And so if you think about it, if somebody came to you and said, here’s a strategy — here was a person who had been buying gold below 3000, who was betting on rising interest rates as far back as September 2020, who saw in advance the rise in the dollar relative to the Japanese yen — these kind of big trades out there because the world is changing in some way. That’s what the strategy has historically been able to pick up on. And so I believe that structurally we are likely to see more of those things over the next several years. And this is one of those strategies that has proven its ability to reposition, to take advantage of those big changes in the world.

Barry Ritholtz: Really, really interesting. So you mentioned trend or momentum — define managed futures without Wall Street jargon. What does DBMF actually mean by exposure to trend?

Andrew Beer: Okay, so I’ll start with the definition of the strategy overall, which is basically what I mentioned — they’re trying to detect big changes in the world. The way I think about that as a hedge fund person is that somebody knows something — that the world is changing — and they’re acting on it with buying or selling different asset classes. Like if the world is changing in a big way, people tend to act on it with their portfolios. And so managed futures as a strategy will often look at lots and lots and lots of the price moves across lots and lots of different markets to pick up these kernels of information that something big is changing.

Andrew Beer: So if you take last year where our core strategy was up 14%, it was in part by being early in the fact that — the run at hot rate — it was continuing to have a long position in gold when gold went through its melt up. And so outside of — I think a lot of people in this space like to talk about how the sausage is made. Our view is actually what’s much more interesting for the end investor and for allocators is how does this actually help you and why should somebody looking at this in their portfolio be glad that it’s there?

Barry Ritholtz: Makes a lot of sense. I guess one of the things that make this space so interesting is, yeah, it’s a good diversifier, but most traditional investors don’t really pay attention to it. You’ve called managed futures the best diversifier no one buys.

Barry Ritholtz: Explain why that is.

Andrew Beer: Well, I’m convincing people — I’m changing hearts and minds one at a time. So a lot of the people in this space love to talk about the technical aspects. The underlying strategies are very, very technical. They’re quantitative models looking at derivative contracts on sometimes hundreds of underlying instruments.

Andrew Beer: And so it’s a little bit like they love to talk shop with each other about what they’re doing. Part of our success as a business is I don’t come at it from that direction. I come at it from the perspective of why will this make my portfolio better? By which I mean help to grow assets and help me sleep at night.

Andrew Beer: And so if you look at it, I’m making progress. When I got into the ETF space — this is in 2019 — there was only about 300 million. There’s maybe close to 5 billion today. Wow.

Andrew Beer: And in part, we’ve been really driving that — that this is something that — and I think if you look five years out from now, you sit down with an advisor and they’ll say, hey, what’s that three or 5% position there? And they’ll say it’s managed futures. It’s one of these strategies. And you’ll say, well, what’s it there for?

Andrew Beer: And they’ll say, well, look, every now and then, the world changes a lot and we want a nimble, flexible strategy that can take advantage of it in the way that the other 97% of your portfolio is not likely to.

Barry Ritholtz: So let me revisit that information in a slightly different question. Whenever I’m speaking to clients or potential clients, the question is always: we have this problem, how do we solve for this? So really the question I want to ask you is, what problem in the traditional managed future space convinced you that a replication-based ETF like DBMF really needed to exist? What’s the problem you’re solving for the average ETF investor?

Andrew Beer: So I would start with the — actually I would first ask the broader question. What problem are we solving for people in their portfolios, right? The modern wealth management business, just like the institutional investment business, just like 60/40 portfolios, is based upon two fundamental ideas. One is diversification is a net positive, and two is have long-term views for your asset allocation models and don’t change them often.

Andrew Beer: It’s the latter part. And that has a generation of investors has not gotten head faked by liberation day and all these moves in the market because they’ve been trained: don’t panic and don’t overreact. And that works 80% of the time.

Barry Ritholtz: 80% isn’t bad, by the way.

Andrew Beer: 80% isn’t bad. Right. And which is why that should be 95% of your portfolio. 20% of the time the world changes. And by design they will be slow to adapt.

Andrew Beer: So where are we right now? Right? The US dollar is getting debased in some fashion, right? There is this potential loss of confidence in US assets at a time where everyone is massively overexposed to US assets that could play out over five or seven years.

Andrew Beer: But most allocators will not change until the horses have left the barn, so to speak. And that’s what it’s trying to solve from a portfolio perspective. What we were trying to solve is, it’s a great strategy, it’s just too damn expensive the way people run it. And it’s not just what are their management fees and incentive fees, it’s also, they run these Rube Goldberg-like portfolios that trade every day, hundreds of times a day.

Andrew Beer: And when we looked at it, we said, look, we love the signal that they’re picking up on. But if we can do that in a simple portfolio that is much more liquid, we can save hundreds of basis points of implementation cost and take more of the value and pass it back to clients.

Barry Ritholtz: So let’s talk about that a little bit and use some real life examples. How does either DBMF or funds like it — in the period before DBMF was trading — how does it behave in periods like the dot-com implosion or the GFC or COVID?

Andrew Beer: Well, I would say, so COVID was — when the strategy does the best is when I say the world is changing, and COVID was a very strange thing. The world changed in three weeks basically, and so it’s not really designed for that kind of a flash move, but still it preserved capital as a strategy during March when things were getting hammered. Where it thrives is periods like 2022 — inflation’s coming back. And I’ll tell you a great story. I wrote a paper on inflation coming back in early 2021, and I was talking about it to people all year long. And I said, if inflation comes back — and Powell came out and said it’s probably not coming back, it’s transitory or something. But I get to December and I’m sitting down with a guy who says, I totally agree with you, I think inflation is coming back.

Andrew Beer: And I said, how are you rebalancing your portfolio? And he said, I’m selling my stocks and buying bonds — because he was benchmarked to 60/40 and stocks had gone up more than bonds. So I think it’s important as allocators to recognize that there are gonna be times like this when the standard playbook that we have from an asset allocation perspective is not designed to pick up on that. And here’s a strategy.

Andrew Beer: So the overall strategy in 2022, when stocks and bonds were both down 15 to 20%, the strategy went up 20% overall. And by being a bit more efficient, we went up a bit more than that.

Barry Ritholtz: Really kind of interesting. So let’s talk about the managed futures ETF. What markets does it trade?

Barry Ritholtz: What positions does it hold? Like I typically think when I hear trend following, I think Michael Covel’s trend following book, and I think primarily of commodities — if you’re watching gold or silver these days — but it’s a little more broad than that. Tell us the assets DBMF actually trades.

Andrew Beer: Yeah, so what is extraordinarily irritating to people in the industry is that we do much better than them with only 10 instruments. And the 10 instruments that we trade are the biggest, most obvious instruments. So S&P 500 — this is all futures contracts, by the way.

Barry Ritholtz: Right. So the index, not individual stocks.

Andrew Beer: Exactly. So S&P 500, non-US developed markets, emerging markets for equities — that’s it. In fixed income, the second asset class is fixed income: two year, 10 year, 30 year Treasuries. In commodities, we only trade gold and oil.

Barry Ritholtz: Gold and oil. The assumption is other precious metals will track gold. Right. And oil is its own thing.

Barry Ritholtz: No agricultural products.

Andrew Beer: We don’t, because the markets — we don’t think — in other words, just the last category is in currencies. It’s the euro and the yen.

Barry Ritholtz: Yen, but not the dollar. Well —

Andrew Beer: Against the dollar.

Barry Ritholtz: I gotcha. All right.

Andrew Beer: So —

Barry Ritholtz: Always relative with currency.

Andrew Beer: Yeah. And so look, what our research showed early on is that — it’s like what’s the political expression? It’s the economy, stupid. It’s the big trade, stupid. In 2022, to be up 20%, you want to be long crude oil in February, you want to be short the yen when it goes from 110 to 160, and you want to be short Treasuries when interest rates go up.

Andrew Beer: And a lot of the narrative in the space, as you say, is exactly that. You know, like look at copper moves, look at the spike in copper, the palladium or other things. It sounds good if you’re an institutional investor who cares about this stuff, but it doesn’t — it’s not big enough to make an impact on the P&L. And so our research is very powerful and it basically showed that if these guys make 10, in theory as a hedge fund investor, you’re likely to get five. I can give you 10 with a simpler and much more efficient portfolio and give you eight or nine and put it into an ETF where you can see every single position every single day.

Andrew Beer: So the basic idea is I wanted to show that we could beat hedge funds at their own game, but do it in an ETF, which no one had ever done before.

Barry Ritholtz: So you don’t have the drag of two and twenty, the cost structure is a little less — or a whole lot less. Maybe it’s about what the typical ETF is. So this has turned out to be a very successful product. DBMF is now the largest managed futures ETF.

Barry Ritholtz: Couple of questions. At what point do you begin to run into capacity constraints for the strategy? Do you have any issues with liquidity or slippage or even market impact? Like how big can this get?

Andrew Beer: It was designed to get as big as we needed to get, really. Because of the instruments that we’re trading, these are the deepest and most liquid instruments that are traded globally. And we trade everything in the US, and so our market impact is essentially zero.

Andrew Beer: I came from — I had started a commodity business — and one of the things that I think people have overlooked is complexity often has a real cost. It sounds great to say I’m trading some esoteric market someplace. When things go bad, like in the week after liberation day, the people who are trading those markets are waiting to see your order come in.

Andrew Beer: That’s right. You are making their year on the days. And so look, I come from a school that simple, efficient is gonna win most of the time. And what we’ve shown is we can beat some of the most sophisticated hedge funds in the world with this by three or 400 basis points a year through efficiency.

Andrew Beer: But then I can also deliver it in something that my sister can own.

Barry Ritholtz: So to wrap up, people who are concerned about correlations just becoming one in any sort of crisis and want diversification should consider managed futures exposure. And the most efficient, least costly way to do that is through an ETF like DBMF, by Andrew Beer and DBI. I’m Barry Ritholtz, you’re listening to Bloomberg’s At the Money.

~~~

Find our entire music playlist for At the Money on Spotify.

 

The post At The Money: Seeking Uncorrelated Returns appeared first on The Big Picture.

US, Israel Insist Iran Ceasefire Doesn't Apply In Lebanon, Which Suffers Huge Airstrikes

Israel has made clear that it doesn't see the newly declared US-Iran ceasefire as applying to its war in Lebanon, where it is still trying to destroy Hezbollah. The White House too has made its stance clear that it doesn't apply, but President Trump has stated his intent to take care of a Lebanon ceasefire separately. 

The military has unleashed hell on Beirut, southern Lebanon, and the eastern Bekaa valley overnight and through Wednesday - with Beirut suffering some of the worst aerial bombardments of the war.

via Associated Press

Pakistan, however, has said that the ceasefire does extend to the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. But the Israeli military (IDF) is as usual letting the bombs do the talking, and is largely ignoring the diplomatic side of things.

Israel on Wednesday reportedly struck over 100 Hezbollah (and civilian) targets within a mere 10 minutes across Beirut, the south of the country, and Bekaa.

Viral images and videos have shown massive smoke plumes lingering above the densely populated Lebanese capital. The surprise attack on busy commercial locations unleashed panic in the streets - and a full casualty accounting has not been immediately forthcoming .

Below is an outline of some of the earlier reported attacks, via Al Jazeera:

• An air raid on a funeral in the the east Lebanon village of Shmestar killed at least 10 people.
• Six people were killed in one attack in Saida.
• Three people were killed in a strike in western Beirut.
• Three girls were killed in the coastal town of Adloun.
• At least two were killed in Douris in the Bekaa Valley.
• Casualties were reported in Kayfoun in Mount Lebanon.

⚡️Beirut now

Holy shit… pic.twitter.com/7hHquWxM2Y

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) April 8, 2026

Here's how the same regional outlet described it, noting that Lebanese TV has said the attacks have claimed "many lives":  "Israel has launched a surprise attack with dozens of air strikes across Lebanon, one of the largest military assaults in the history of the conflict." The report stated, "Air raids targeted residential buildings, mosques, vehicles and cemeteries across the country."

Lebanon’s Minister of Social Affairs, Haneed Sayed, told the Associated Press that the wide-ranging strikes mark a "very dangerous turning point."

She described: "These hits are now at the heart of Beirut… Half of the sheltered (internally displaced persons) are in Beirut in this area," she said, adding that she had just driven by the areas hit."

⚡️ Footage from the airstrikes on Beirut pic.twitter.com/HTDOdwFY33

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) April 8, 2026

Hezbollah did not immediately join the Iran war until weeks in following the late February start of Trump's Operation Epic Fury. However, by the middle it began sending a significant amount of rockets on northern Israel.

Importantly, President Trump has on Wednesday told PBS that his view is Lebanon is not part of the Iran ceasefire deal "because of Hezbollah" - but "that will get taken care of too". He called what's happening in Lebanon "a separate skirmish".

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/08/2026 - 11:40

Anthropic Withholds Latest Model After It Went Rogue In Testing; Launches "Project Glasswing" To Secure Critical Software

Still smarting from its embarrassing source code leak, Anthropic announced it will not release its latest frontier AI model, Mythos, to the public, saying the model is too powerful in ways that introduce elevated cybersecurity risk.

In internal testing, Anthropic said the model surfaced thousands of high‑severity “zero‑day” vulnerabilities (previously unknown flaws) across every major operating system and web browser, materially outperforming its prior flagship (CyberGym vulnerability reproduction: 83.1% vs. 66.6% for Opus 4.6).  

“Given the rate of AI progress, it will not be long before such capabilities proliferate, potentially beyond actors who are committed to deploying them safely.”

A zero-day vulnerability is a software bug that can be exploited before anyone with the ability to fix it even knows it exists. Finding and patching them has historically required rare, expensive human expertise, but AI could change the scale and speed of detection. 

Anthropic said the vulnerabilities it finds are “often subtle or difficult to detect.” Many of them are 10 or 20 years old, with the oldest found so far being a now-patched 27-year-old bug in OpenBSD — an operating system known primarily for its security, it added.  It also found a 16-year-old bug in the FFmpeg media processing library, a 17-year-old remote code execution vulnerability in the open-source FreeBSD operating system and numerous vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel.

Mythos Preview also identified several weaknesses in the world’s most popular cryptography libraries, algorithms and protocols, including TLS, AES-GCM and SSH. 

It added that web applications “contain a myriad of vulnerabilities,” ranging from cross-site scripting and SQL injection to domain-specific vulnerabilities such as cross-site request forgery, which is often used in phishing attacks. 

Lifecycle of a zero-day exploit. Source: PhoenixNAP

Anthropic claimed that 99% of the vulnerabilities it found have not yet been patched, “so it would be irresponsible for us to disclose details about them.

Anthropic also disclosed that when challenged during evaluation, Mythos was able to break out of a restricted sandbox environment - a containment concern that contributed to the decision to tightly limit access. Here are some other things Mythos did during testing, per Axios:

• Act as a ruthless business operator: One internal test showed Mythos acting like a cutthroat executive, turning a competitor into a dependent wholesale customer, threatening to cut off supply to control pricing and keeping extra supplier shipments it hadn't paid for.
• Hack + brag: The model developed a multi-step exploit to break out of restricted internet access, gained broader connectivity and posted details of the exploit on obscure public websites.
• Hide what it's doing: In rare cases (less than 0.001% of interactions), Mythos used a prohibited method to get an answer, then tried to "re-solve" it to avoid detection.
• Manipulate the judge: When Mythos was working on a coding task graded by another AI, it watched the judge reject its submission, then attempted a prompt injection to attack the grader.

 "These capabilities are so strong that we now need to prepare for security in a very different way than we have for the past few decades," Anthropic's Logan Graham told Axios,  expressing concern over what would happen if similar AI capabilities were used by bad actors.

So rather than pursuing a broad release, Anthropic is channeling the model into Project Glasswing, a defensive, coalition‑based effort aimed at identifying, responsibly disclosing, and patching critical software vulnerabilities before threat actors can exploit similar AI capabilities.

Glasswing includes 11 named launch tech partners (Amazon Web Services, Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, CrowdStrike, Google, JPMorgan, the Linux Foundation, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Palo Alto Networks...  yes JPMorgan is now viewed as a tech company) plus over 40 additional critical software organizations, and is supported by up to $100 million in usage credits and funding for open‑source security.

The initiative reflects Anthropic’s view that frontier‑AI cyber risks are systemic rather than firm‑specific, requiring coordinated action across the software ecosystem as AI accelerates vulnerability discovery and compresses response timelines.

The staggered release could be the blueprint for what future model releases look like as they get stronger and stronger: limiting access to select partners deemed secure enough to test world-bending systems.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/08/2026 - 11:20

Delta Air Lines Erases All 'Epic Fury' Losses As In-House Refinery Cushions Fuel Shock

Delta Air Lines soared in premarket trading on a combination of the U.S.-Iran ceasefire and stronger-than-expected first-quarter results, with the carrier's in-house refinery helping to lower the average jet fuel price for its fleet in the first quarter, making it appear to be one of the better-positioned carriers than most peers to withstand an energy shock.

Even without a ceasefire in the Middle East, Delta's first-quarter results only exemplified its strategic advantage over peers: its Trainer refinery in Pennsylvania, operated through its wholly owned subsidiary Monroe Energy, reduced the airline's fuel price by more than 2% during the quarter and is expected to provide a $300 million benefit in the second quarter.

"Delta is best positioned to navigate this environment, with a leading brand, strong financial foundation, and the benefit of our refinery," Delta CEO Ed Bastian wrote in the earnings release.

Bastian continued, "We delivered earnings that were more than 40% higher than last year, even with a significant increase in fuel costs and operational disruptions across the industry."

The airline expects second-quarter jet fuel expenses to top $2 billion at the forward curve.

Here's a snapshot of first-quarter earnings (courtesy of Bloomberg):

Adjusted EPS 64c vs. 45c y/y, estimate 57c (Bloomberg Consensus)

• Loss per share 44c vs. EPS 37c y/y

Adjusted revenue $14.20 billion, +9.4% y/y, estimate $14.08 billion

• Passenger revenue $12.30 billion, +7.2% y/y, estimate $12.28 billion

• Cargo revenue $226 million, +8.7% y/y, estimate $213.7 million

Passenger load factor 81.6% vs. 81.4% y/y, estimate 82.4%

Available seat miles 69.16 billion, +1.1% y/y, estimate 69.15 billion

Revenue passenger miles 56.47 billion, +1.4% y/y, estimate 56.96 billion

Adjusted net income $423 million, +45% y/y, estimate $372 million

Yield per passenger mile 21.78c, +5.6% y/y

"Demand remains strong, and we are taking actions to protect our margins and cash flow. This includes meaningfully reducing capacity growth, with a downward bias until the fuel environment improves, and moving quickly to recapture higher fuel costs. Delta is best positioned to navigate this environment," the CEO said.

Earnings outlook for the second quarter (courtesy of Bloomberg):

• Sees adjusted EPS of $1 to $1.50, estimate $1.45

• Sees adjusted total revenue up low teens y/y

• Sees adjusted operating margin of 6% to 8%

Shares of Delta jumped nearly 13% in premarket trading. Delta shares tumbled into a bear market last month during the U.S.-Iran conflict but have since rebounded from mid-March.

Related: 

• Airline Stocks Soar On Iran Ceasefire As IATA Sees "Positive" Tailwinds, But Warns Jet Fuel Crisis Will Persist

Delta is the only U.S. airline that operates a major refinery, and it appears Wall Street is rewarding the carrier for it.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/08/2026 - 10:40

Nobody Knows What Will Happen Next

By Michael Every and Bas van Geffen of Rabobank

Ceasefire

Yesterday, the US and Iran threatened to, respectively, “destroy Iranian civilisation” with “new tools” and other countries in the Gulf with old ones. Ahead of the 8PM deadline that Trump had set for “Bridge and Power Plant Day,” US and Israeli forces reportedly already destroyed some bridges and other infrastructure.

Washington and Tehran struck a last-minute, two-week ceasefire – provided that the Strait of Hormuz is fully reopened. Notably, this was after China leaned on Iran to listen to interlocutor Pakistan, according to the New York Times. That key intervention underlines the global nature of this war beyond energy and related exports, and how it is resolved.

Markets are trading this as a TACO Tuesday. Brent futures are down 14% at the time of writing, Asian equity markets rallied, and futures pricing suggests the same will happen when European and American markets open. And bets of near-term rate hikes evaporated as the truce ends days before major central banks next reconvene to recalibrate their policy stance. 10-year German Bund yields fell 18bp (!)on the open.

Yet, this short-term truce is not a peace deal, and is anyone willing to sail through the Strait as long as the conflict isn’t fully resolved? So, today’s reprieve will be followed by at least two weeks of extended uncertainty – and possibly longer, if both sides agree to extend the negotiations.

Moreover, there is a world of difference between Iran having blinked under US military threats, which would be a huge win for Trump and the US, and the US having blinked in the face of Iranian resistance and oil prices, which would be a massive 1956-style geostrategic defeat for Trump.

In the immediate aftermath of the ceasefire, both headlines and missiles kept flying. Iran hit Israel and a GCC energy site. The US said “an” Iranian 10-point plan is a “workable basis on which to negotiate” (might we have an intractable public version and a more pliable private one to save face?), while Iran’s foreign minister is “considering” the directly opposed 15-point US plan.

And, returning to shipping, Iran claimed it will still take tolls from Hormuz with Oman, adding that only 10-15 ships per day can pass, a tiny fraction of normal flows. Is that the “full reopening” of Hormuz that the US set as a precondition?

Subsequently, an unsubstantiated report claimed that Iran has agreed to most US conditions, including: a permanent commitment not to possess nuclear weapons; handing over enriched uranium to the IAEA; allowing the IAEA to monitor all nuclear infrastructure; a complete halt to uranium enrichment within Iran; reducing the range and number of missiles; immediately ceasing support for militias and proxies in the region; ceasing attacks on regional Gulf energy facilities; reopening the Strait of Hormuz immediately and unconditionally; the lifting of all sanctions imposed on Iran; eliminating the mechanism for reimposing UN sanctions; and US support for the Bushehr nuclear power plant, provided it is under direct American supervision.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council has stated, “The current negotiations are a national negotiation and a continuation of the field, and it is necessary for all people, elites, and political groups to trust and support this process, which is under the supervision of the Leader of the Revolution and the highest levels of the system, and to strictly avoid any divisive comments.”

Trump claimed “total and complete victory”, and posted that it’s a “big day for World Peace”, the US will be “helping with the traffic buildup in the Strait of Hormuz,” while Iran can “start reconstruction,” and the US will be “loading up with supplies of all kinds, and “just “hangin’ around” in order to make sure everything goes well,” where “This could be the Golden Age of the Middle East.”

So, the fog of war is still in place even if the fighting might have stopped for now. Nobody knows what will happen next, but the possible spectrum is clear:

• Best case: the war is over – though the related Israel-Hezbollah one in Lebanon is apparently not included, according to PM Netanyahu– and other related global tensions could even ease in tandem. (Because the US wins as Iran and others blink.)

• Good case: the war is over. (Because Iran blinked.)

• ‘Good’ case: the war is over. (Because Trump blinked. The knock-on effects aren’t something markets want to consider now, but they aren’t pretty for the dollar or GCC and western assets.)

• OK case: the war is paused and Hormuz reopens briefly to give the world economy some breathing room. (Because Iran US blinked.)

• Worst case: the ceasefire collapses and the war both continues and escalates to try to get us back to one side backing down - watch US military logistics closely.

In terms of our macro and market scenarios, the latest news leans towards our base case of fighting being over by mid-April with a slow Hormuz reopening – and on US terms. Obviously, if this pause instead leads to more fighting, we move towards our other, more damaging scenarios.

* * *

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/08/2026 - 10:20

Iran Gives Approved Hormuz Shippers "Few Seconds" To Submit Payment In Bitcoin

Iran plans to require shipping companies to pay transit tolls in Bitcoin for vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz, according to a Financial Times report.

As Micah Zimmerman reports for BitcoinMagazine.com, this links bitcoin to one of the world’s most critical energy corridors and current events.

The policy would apply to oil tankers seeking passage during a two-week ceasefire between Iran and the United States, announced after a shift in posture from Donald Trump. The arrangement aims to reopen a route that handles a large share of global oil flows while allowing Tehran to maintain control over access.

According to statements attributed to Iranian officials, shipping firms would receive a payment request prior to transit. Once approved, vessels would be given a short window to complete the transaction in bitcoin. The structure reflects an attempt to bypass traditional financial rails that remain constrained by sanctions, while preserving a mechanism for enforcement over passage.

As The FT details, Hamid Hosseini, a spokesperson for Iran’s Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Products Exporters’ Union, told the FT on Wednesday that Iran wanted to collect tolling fees from any tanker passing and to assess each ship.

“Iran needs to monitor what goes in and out of the strait to ensure these two weeks aren’t used for transferring weapons,” said Hosseini, whose industry association works closely with the state.

“Everything can pass through, but the procedure will take time for each vessel, and Iran is not in a rush,” he added.

Decisions on the conditions for passing the strait are taken by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. Hosseini’s remarks suggest Iran will require any tankers to use the northerly route close to its coastline, raising questions over whether western or Gulf state-linked vessels will be willing to risk transit.

Hosseini said that each tanker must email authorities about its cargo, after which Iran will inform them of the toll to be paid in digital currencies.

He said that the tariff is $1 per barrel of oil, adding that empty tankers can pass freely.

“Once the email arrives and Iran completes its assessment, vessels are given a few seconds to pay in bitcoin, ensuring they can’t be traced or confiscated due to sanctions,” Hosseini added.

Bitcoin, Iran, and the Strait of Hormuz

The move places bitcoin at the center of a geopolitical flashpoint. Iran has faced restrictions on dollar-based settlement systems for years, limiting its ability to collect fees or process payments tied to maritime trade. By shifting to bitcoin, authorities seek a channel that operates outside conventional banking networks and offers resistance to seizure.

Shipping companies face a different calculation. Compliance may secure safe passage through a narrow waterway that links the Persian Gulf to global markets, but it introduces exposure to digital asset volatility, operational risk, and legal uncertainty tied to sanctions regimes. 

Markets have begun to react. Bitcoin rose above $72,500 following the ceasefire announcement, reversing earlier weakness tied to fears of escalation.

Currently bitcoin is trading near $73,000. The price move reflects a shift in risk sentiment as traders reassess the likelihood of supply disruptions and broader conflict.

The proposed toll system underscores how digital assets can intersect with state policy under pressure.

For Iran, bitcoin offers a tool to collect revenue and assert control without reliance on intermediaries.

For global shipping, it signals a potential change in how access to key infrastructure could be priced and enforced.

The ceasefire remains limited in scope and duration. Any breakdown in negotiations could halt transit or alter the payment framework, leaving companies exposed to sudden shifts in policy.

For now, the introduction of bitcoin as a toll mechanism marks a test case for cryptocurrency use in sovereign-controlled trade routes, with implications that extend beyond the region.

Unpalatable

Allowing Iran to continue to control the crucial waterway is likely to be highly unpalatable to Gulf states including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE.

It also raises questions for Opec+, the oil producers’ group, with analysts warning that handing Iran control of Hormuz could fundamentally alter the balance of power within the organisation by giving Tehran a potential veto over rival members’ exports.

Ali Shihabi, a commentator close to the Saudi royal court, said the kingdom would demand “unimpeded” access to global markets.

“Allowing Iran any form of control over the strait would be a red line,” Shihabi said. “The priority has to be unimpeded access through the strait.”

Several traders said they thought the situation in the coming days would resemble the system that has developed over the past fortnight, in which a handful of ships that have been approved by Iran are allowed to pass on a specific route.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/08/2026 - 10:00

ASP Isotopes Offers Helium Alternative As Qatar Export Crisis Looms

ASP Isotopes could provide timely relief for the global helium shortage.

In a new research note from Canaccord Genuity analyst George Gianarikas, he highlights the company’s Virginia Gas Project in South Africa as a potential new source of supply just as Qatar’s helium exports face major disruption.

The warning comes shortly after we reported on Qatar’s Ras Laffan complex damage and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which together threaten roughly one-third of global helium output. Helium remains essential for semiconductor manufacturing, MRI machines, aerospace systems, and quantum computing. It has no practical substitute in chip fabrication, where it cools wafers and detects microscopic leaks.

ASP Isotopes’ Virginia Gas Project stands out because of its unusually high helium concentrations. The 1,870 sq. km deposit averages 3.4% helium, with peaks reaching 12%. That compares with Qatar’s typical 0.01% and the U.S. average of 0.35%.

As we discussed last month, Phase 1 drilling wrapped up four months ahead of schedule in March 2026. Production is scheduled to begin in late 2026, delivering 58 MCF per day of helium alongside LNG. 

Phase 2, targeted for completion around 2030, would scale output to 895 MCF per day. Using conservative pricing of $380 per MCF, Canaccord estimates Phase 1 revenue near $20 million annually and Phase 2 above $285 million.

The project benefits from U.S. International Development Finance Corporation backing and is located in a geopolitically neutral jurisdiction.

ASP Isotopes now faces the standard execution challenges of moving from drilling to full commercial output, but the asset positions the company as one of the few near-term Western-aligned sources capable of adding meaningful new supply.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/08/2026 - 09:45

The post We Know the Media Is a Huge Problem: Anyone Want to Think About Fixing It? appeared first on CEPR.

Airline Stocks Soar On Iran Ceasefire As IATA Sees "Positive" Tailwinds, But Warns Jet Fuel Crisis Will Persist

Airline stocks are flying high in premarket trading in New York after the overnight ceasefire between the Trump administration and Tehran. The truce is a positive for the aviation industry, which has been locked in turbulence for six weeks, as surging jet fuel prices have crushed the margins of major carriers, forcing ticket and baggage price hikes and triggering travel chaos across the Gulf region.

"Even two weeks is a positive because we will see some flow of oil return," Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transport Association, told Bloomberg Television in an interview.

Walsh pointed out that even with a ceasefire underway, jet fuel prices "will remain elevated for some time."

"If crude has come down 16%, you like to think jet will come down by a similar figure, but it's still going to be a high price. That will mean higher ticket prices. It is inevitable," he warned.

Walsh also cautioned that jet fuel supply shortage risks remain elevated, with Asia seen as the most exposed region, followed by Africa and Europe. JPMorgan outlined "demand destruction" and how the energy shock spreads in a note here.

Even though WTI and Brent crude prices collapsed overnight, Walsh said normalization across the airline industry and energy markets will take time.

Delta Air Lines warned earlier that it expects to incur more than $2 billion in fuel costs through June, but noted that it has yet to change its full-year profit forecast because the outlook remains too murky.

Last week...

• Third-Order Effects Begin: U.S. Airlines Hike Bag Fees as Jet Fuel Prices Spike

Malaysia Airlines' Nasaruddin Bakar warned that "even if the war stops, it's going to take many, many more months for the price to stabilize."

Thai Airways CEO Chai Eamsiri pointed out, "This time is about the infrastructure that was destroyed. It will take some time to bring back all the supply, the facilities, the refineries, and the infrastructure."

"The Iran conflict has flipped the airline industry on its head, as fuel costs have more than doubled at a time when demand has improved," Melius analyst Conor Cunningham told clients.

Relief in airline stocks was evident in premarket trading in New York, with United Airlines up 11.5%, Delta Air Lines up 11%, and Southwest Airlines up 10%.

In mid-March, amid all the panic, UBS analyst Atul Maheswari asked: "Are we approaching a bottom for these airline stocks?" It appears so (well so far).

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/08/2026 - 08:45

US Futures, Global Stocks And Bonds Soar On Ceasefire Relief, Oil Plummets

US futures, global stocks and bonds are sharply higher while oil prices plunge the most in years as a wave of optimism swept through global markets after the US and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire in exchange for Tehran reopening the Strait of Hormuz: JPMorgan's Market Intel desk, which moves from Neutral to Tactically Bullish this morning, says to look for a re-risking in the very near-term albeit it with higher energy prices. As of 8:00am ET, S&P futures are 2.8% higher while emerging-market stocks rallied the most since 2022; Nasdaq gains 3.5% with Mag7 and Semis seeing significant bids as part of an ‘Everything Rally’ ex-Energy. Yet while the overwhelming mood in markets is relief, the same core challenges remain to find a resolution amenable to both countries and Goldman's Delta-One head says he is selling the rally. Brent plunged 16% to around $93 a barrel. Bonds surged, with 10Y tsy yields sliding 8bps to 4.23% while benchmark UK yields tumbled by 22 basis points. The dollar weakened to a one-month low. Gold and silver gain. The macro data focus today is on the Fed Minutes ahead of PCE and CPI releases later this week.

In premarket trading, Mag 7 stocks are all sharply higher: Meta +5%, Tesla +4.5%, Alphabet +4%, Nvidia +3.5%, Amazon +4%, Microsoft +3.3%, Apple +2%

• Gainers also include precious-metal miners and financial firms, while chemical and fertilizer names fall.
• Energy stocks fall due to the ceasefire: Exxon (XOM) -5.3%, Chevron (CVX) -4.3% and Venture Global (VG) -11%
• Airlines rally: United (UAL) +11%, Delta (DAL) +10%
• Aehr Test Systems (AEHR) climbs 8% after the semiconductor manufacturing company reported third-quarter results. The earnings prompted Craig-Hallum to raise its rating to buy, citing “improving business momentum and significant growth opportunities over multiple business segments.”
• Levi Strauss (LEVI) gains 9% after the apparel company boosted its adjusted earnings-per-share and revenue forecasts for the full year citing strong demand as the denim brand steers shoppers to its own stores and website.

In corporate news, Super Micro Computer launched an internal probe to investigate circumstances surrounding server sales to China. Elon Musk is seeking to have Sam Altman removed from his roles at OpenAI as part of his legal challenge to the company’s conversion to a for-profit company.

The ceasefire announcement came not long before a deadline Trump had set that threatened a major escalation of the war. “We have now stepped back off the edge of the precipice,” said Aviva’s Richard Saldanha. The rapid twists and turns of the war have led to a record intensity of stock trading, according to a measure of daily SPY ETF turnover.

Looking at overnight markets, the most dramatic moves were in oil markets. European natural gas futures posted their biggest decline in more than two years, shedding as much as 20%. Prices of refined fuels such as diesel and jet fuel — which had been the biggest threats to global inflation — also tumbled.

As part of the two-week truce, Iran said it will allow ships to sail through the Strait of Hormuz, easing the chokehold on energy supplies that have threatened to cripple the global economy and accelerate inflation. A potential snag comes from the FT which reports that Iran demands fees for ships passing through the strait and will ask payment for tolls in crypto payment. While many investors cautioned that there is still a wide gap in the negotiation demands of Iran and the US, the widespread view was that stocks have fallen so sharply in recent weeks that any de-escalation path would be enough to trigger a rebound. 

“This is also showing promising signs that we’ve dodged the worst-case scenario,” said Matthew Haupt, a fund manager at Wilson Asset Management in Sydney. “It’s a good result considering the alternatives, as it shows a willingness to get something done.”

The latest news has left the Trump Reversal Index — a gauge created by Bloomberg strategist Simon White that combines various macro indicators — back to not much higher than where it was before the war started.  Light positioning is also fueling Wednesday’s relief rally. Volatility-control funds’ allocations to US equities had recently fallen to 56%, the lowest since July, according to Barclays. 

What comes next will depend on five questions, according to Jennifer Welch, chief geoeconomics analyst at Bloomberg Economics. These include whether Iran fully reopens Hormuz and whether Israel sticks to the ceasefire. Hormuz will “never go back to the way it was before,” said Vital Knowledge’s Adam Crisafulli. “Iran’s ability to shut the waterway will embed a risk premium in the price of all commodities flowing through it for the foreseeable future.” More than 800 ships are currently trapped in the Persian Gulf.

In politics, US regulators unveiled a plan to overhaul rules intended to prevent money laundering. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer promoted the creation of a US-China board of trade, while downplaying the possibility of a similar group focused on bilateral investment.

Traders are now back to seeing a strong chance that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates this year. Swaps are signaling a 60% likelihood of a rate cut by the year-end, compared with almost no chance seen at the start of this week. Before the war started, they had priced in more than two reductions. 

Some of the world’s largest investment firms are betting the market turbulence is past its peak and are buying bonds and artificial-intelligence stocks, while selling the dollar. Kellie Wood at Schroders Plc snapped up short-dated bonds including Treasuries on Wednesday morning. Jupiter Asset Management Ltd. is considering doing the same alongside plans to sell the greenback. Allspring Global Investments is buying tech and defense stocks that are seen as insulated from energy shocks.

European stocks are soaring: the Estoxx 50 up more than 5% and the Stoxx 600 is up 4% alongside a 14% decline in Brent crude as  markets cheer news of the US and Iran agreeing to a two-week ceasefire, even if the truce is a “fragile” one. European equity sectors are mostly higher with outperformance in travel, IT and consumer discretionary. Airline stocks, which have been pummeled by concerns of skyrocketing energy prices, lead gains in Europe. EasyJet Plc and Deutsche Lufthansa AG both jumped more than 10%. Energy stocks post material losses.Here are the biggest movers Wednesday:

• European oil stocks plunge on an otherwise broadly risk-on day, with airlines and technology shares particularly strong after the US and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire, sending the crude price tumbling and other asset classes soaring. Luxury-goods stocks, miners and chemicals stocks also rise strongly
• Close Brothers shares surge as much as 23%, the most since August, as the lender said the estimated cost of the FCA’s motor finance redress proposal is broadly similar to its existing provision
• Gamma Communications shares soar as much as 15%, their biggest intraday gain on record, after the telecom services company said it’s in preliminary talks with a number of potential bidders
• Redcare Pharmacy shares rise as much as 16% after the German firm’s preliminary first-quarter figures reassured analysts. Shares in Swiss peer DocMorris gain as much as 9.9%
• Polish coal miners Bogdanka and JSW slump after the US and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire. The move is expected to ease the energy shock, denting bets on a broader return to coal-fired power in Europe
• Shares in Norway’s Yara fall as much as 13%, while Germany’s K+S drops as much as 13%, after the US and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire in exchange for Tehran reopening the Strait of Hormuz

Stocks in Dubai — a key target of Iranian attacks during the conflict — jumped 8.5%, the most since Dec. 2014. Pakistan equities were also among the top gainers, after the country emerged as a key mediator in the ceasefire.

Still, there were continued reports of hostilities, underscoring the fragility of the deal. The UAE said it responded to a missile threat as of early afternoon local time, while Kuwait’s army cited “intense” attacks from Iran throughout the morning. “Markets have been moving very quickly, setting us up for a relief rally,” said Neil Birrell, chief investment officer at Premier Miton Investors. “What will happen in the next few weeks — who knows? It’s hard to believe that this is a long-term resolution.”  

Asian stocks rose for a fourth straight day to a one-month high as oil prices tumbled after a two-week US-Iran ceasefire, easing fears of supply disruptions and inflation. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index gained 4.9%, led by heavyweight chipmakers including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Samsung Electronics Co. South Korea’s Kospi surged nearly 7%, leading gains in the region, while benchmarks in Japan and Taiwan advanced more than 3% each. Shares also advanced more than 3% in mainland China, Hong Kong and India. The Reserve Bank of India held key interest rates on Wednesday, striking a cautious tone as it monitors the impact of surging oil prices on the economy and pledges to curb any excessive currency moves.

In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index is down 0.8% with the greenback lower versus all major peers. The kiwi is one of the better G-10 performers following the hawkish hold from the RBNZ.  

In rates, global bond yields are materially lower with German and UK 2-year borrowing costs down 22bps and 25bps respectively as traders scale back ECB and BOE hike bets. The US curve is in bull-steepening mode with traders pricing a circa 50% chance of a Fed rate cut by year-end. Treasury futures trade near session highs reached following gap higher at the Asia open, with oil benchmarks down more than 10% and stocks surging after US and Iran set a two-week ceasefire and Tehran pledged to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. US yields are lower by 3bp-6bp across a steeper curve as long-end tenors lag front-end and belly; 10-year is lower by more than 6bp near 4.23%. Swap spreads leg higher as demand pours in for cash Treasuries, with long-end spreads wider by nearly 3bp. The US session includes 10-year note reopening; demand was strong for Tuesday’s 3-year new issue.  Treasury’s $39 billion 10-year note reopening has WI yield near 4.24%, about 2bp cheaper than last month’s auction, which tailed by 0.7bp; auction cycle concludes Thursday with $22 billion 30-year reopening

In commodities, WTI crude oil futures are down about 16% near session lows; their biggest drop since the covid crash; Brent crude fell as much as 16% and European natural gas futures posted their biggest decline in more than two years despite uncertainty about how quickly transit through Hormuz can resume. Precious metals are gaining, with spot gold and silver up 1.7% and 5.3% respectively. Bitcoin has added 3.2%. 

Looking at today's calendar, the US economic data calendar is blank; Fed speaker slate includes San Francisco’s Daly at 1:05pm, and FOMC releases minutes of March meeting at 2pm.

Market Snapshot

• S&P 500 mini +2.7%
• Nasdaq 100 mini +3.5%
• Russell 2000 mini +3.8%
• Stoxx Europe 600 +3.8%
• DAX +4.7%
• CAC 40 +4.2%
• 10-year Treasury yield -6 basis points at 4.23%
• VIX -5.5 points at 20.26
• Bloomberg Dollar Index -0.8% at 1200.59
• euro +0.8% at $1.1685
• WTI crude -15.9% at $95.04/barrel

Top Overnight News

• Oil headed for the biggest drop in six years and global equities surged after the US and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire in exchange for Tehran reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Donald Trump said the US will help relieve Hormuz traffic with more than 800 vessels still trapped in the Persian Gulf. Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel supports the ceasefire but said it doesn’t include Hezbollah in Lebanon. BBG
• Kuwait said it’s dealing with “intense” Iranian attacks this morning and some Arab states reported continued attacks. BBG
• NATO chief Mark Rutte meets Trump today, hoping to temper the president’s anger that alliance members have refused to help. But Rutte’s own allies are questioning whether his deferential approach is appropriate, or even working, according to people familiar. BBG
• Chinese imports into the US haven’t dropped as much as the headline numbers might suggest as companies slash the value of their shipments “using tactics ranging from legal accounting tricks to outright fraud.” NYT
• The RBI held rates at 5.25% in its first policy decision since the Middle East crisis erupted. The RBNZ left its benchmark rate at 2.25%. BBG
• Japanese workers’ wages adjusted for inflation rose at the fastest pace since 2021, backing the case for the Bank of Japan to consider a rate hike as soon as this month. Real wages increased 1.9% from a year earlier in February, marking a second straight monthly gain, the labor ministry reported Wednesday. Economists had forecast a 1.3% increase. BBG
• The Treasury Department wants to talk to state insurance commissioners about the private loans piling up in insurers’ portfolios. Those state regulators have been keeping some of their thoughts to themselves.
• Moody's Ratings has cut its outlook on a $36-billion Blue Owl fund to "negative" from "stable" on Tuesday, citing redemption requests that were "significantly higher" than peers in the first quarter. RTRS
• In Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election, the Democratic-backed candidate sailed to a nearly 20-point landslide victory Tuesday in a battleground Trump carried less than two years ago. Meanwhile, a Georgia Democrat slashed Trump’s margin of victory by two thirds in the state’s reddest district despite losing the election — the most significant overperformance the party has seen across all seven House special elections so far this cycle. Politico

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

APAC stocks rallied with markets euphoric and relieved after US President Trump announced a two-week ceasefire between the US and Iran in the final hours before his Tuesday evening deadline. The ceasefire was proposed by Pakistan and is subject to the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran was said to have agreed to, while the US and Iran are set to conduct talks on Friday in Islamabad. Furthermore, Israel and Lebanon were reported to be part of the ceasefire, although Israeli PM Netanyahu later denied that Lebanon was included. ASX 200 advanced with the gains led by outperformance in gold miners and tech, while energy was at the other end of the spectrum amid the slump in oil prices. Nikkei 225 rose above the 56,000 level with sentiment in Japan boosted by the lower oil prices, while participants also digested the firmer-than-expected wages data. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp joined in on the widespread risk-on mood amid the US-Iran ceasefire and as Hong Kong participants returned to the market following a five-day closure.

Top Asian News

• Japanese Eco Watchers Survey Current (Mar) 42.2 vs. Exp. 47.9 (Prev. 48.9).
• Japanese Eco Watchers Survey Outlook (Mar) 38.7 (Prev. 50.0).
• Japanese Current Account (Feb) 3.933B vs. Exp. 3549B (Prev. 941.6B).
• Japanese Labour Cash Earnings (Feb) 3.3% vs Exp. 2.7% (Prev. 3.0%).

European bourses (STOXX 600 +3.7%) have expressed relief from the announcement of a two-week Iran ceasefire, with all indices gaining by over 2%. European sectors are entirely in the green, ex. Energy and Utilities. Cyclicals benefit the most, with Travel and Leisure, Technology and Consumer Products and Services topping the pile.

Top European News

• German Factory Orders MoM (Feb) M/M 0.9% vs. Exp. 2% (Prev. -11.1%).
• French Balance of Trade (Feb) -5.8B vs. Exp. -2.3B (Prev. -1.8B).
• French Imports (Feb) 57.8B (Prev. 55.3B).
• French Exports (Feb) 52.0B (Prev. 53.4B).
• EU Retail Sales MoM (Feb) M/M -0.2% vs. Exp. -0.2% (Prev. -0.1%).
• EU Retail Sales YoY (Feb) Y/Y 1.7% vs. Exp. 1.6% (Prev. 2%).

FX

• FX markets began the session firmly risk-on as the US and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire, clearing a path for the "re-open" of the Hormuz Strait. Unsurprisingly, the Buck has been knocked with DXY -0.7%, as it loses its favour as the preferred hedge against energy with Brent crude below the USD 100/bbl mark. In a note this morning, Jefferies set out three potential future scenarios: 1) a narrow diplomatic Off-Ramp, centred on reopening the Strait of Hormuz under a face-saving framework for Iran, 2) frozen conflict, where the ceasefire is extended or repeatedly renewed without a formal peace agreement, with oil trading below crisis peaks but above pre-war levels. 3) escalation resumes: triggering renewed disruption fears, pushing oil prices higher, and driving a sharp risk-off move in global markets.
• NZD is the clear outperformer against the USD, helped by both the positive Middle East development and remarks in RBNZ's post-meeting presser, where Governor Breman said the MPC discussed the possibility of raising rates in April and May meetings, and the "Frequency of rate hikes could be every meeting or every second meeting" Despite the Kiwi's strength, AUD/USD has also been helped alongside risk sentiment and a rebound in precious metals.
• GBP is relieved by the slump in crude prices, with Cable +1% at the time of writing. Markets are still expecting c. 30bps of hiking for the BoE, a pullback of the same magnitude since Tuesday's close. The Cable rally stalled just above the 1.3440 mark; EUR/GBP has recently fallen just below its 200 DMA, and beneath the 0.87 mark – next up, 50 DMA at 0.8687.

Fixed Income

• Global fixed benchmarks are soaring this morning, with upside facilitated by the announcement of a two-week ceasefire between the US and Iran, which has helped to pressure the crude complex. As a whole, bonds are stronger, and a clear curve steepening bias is seen across the complex.
• USTs are currently trading at session highs, holding at the top end of a 111-05+ to 111-21 range. US paper moved higher on the announcement itself, and then gradually strolled to peaks as the session progressed. European price action has been fairly muted, with the benchmark ultimately trading sideways. From a yield perspective, the 2yr yield now resides around 3.719% (vs Tuesday's close at 3.80%) and well below the peaks from the Iranian conflict at 4.027%. Geopols aside, focus today will turn to the FOMC Minutes of the March confab, where the Bank left rates unchanged at 3.50-3.75%, with no change to forward guidance, balance sheet plans or implementation guidance. A US 10yr auction is also due.
• Bunds and Gilts follow the above, and currently reside at highs. The former is higher by over 175 ticks and within a 125.74 to 126.45 range, whilst UK paper extends gains of over 230 ticks, in an 89.70 to 90.18 range. Europe and UK fixed income has been considerably pressured since the start of the Iranian war, given their high dependence on external energy. For now, some short term reprieve across assets – and this has been reflected in market pricing, with only 2bps worth of hikes priced in for the ECB’s April meeting (vs 12bps pre-ceasefire); however, the long-term outlook remains uncertain, with markets still pricing in 45bps worth of hikes by year-end. From a yield perspective, the UK 2yr yield sank at the open, bottoming at 4.044% (vs post-Iran war peak at 4.712%); GE 2yr yield now hovers around the 2.50% mark.

Commodities

• The US and Iran have agreed in principle to a two-week ceasefire, brokered with support from Pakistan, under which the US will suspend bombing, and Iran will allow controlled reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump described the move as a “double-sided ceasefire,” saying most major disputes have already been resolved and that a broader peace agreement is close. Iran has accepted the pause, with its leadership approving negotiations set to begin in Islamabad, where both sides aim to finalise terms based on a 10-point proposal submitted by Tehran.
• The ceasefire remains conditional and fragile. Iran stated it will halt military responses only if attacks stop, while warning it remains ready to retaliate if provoked. The arrangement includes limited safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz under Iranian coordination, a critical step given the severe disruption to global shipping and energy flows. Israel has signalled support for the temporary pause, though there is conflicting information over whether Lebanon is included.
• However, it is worth noting recent reporting suggests that explosions were heard at Iran's Lavan refinery, and other reports suggest that explosions were also heard at Iran's Siri Island - details are light at this stage. But some may begin to question whether the ceasefire has already been violated.
• Energy prices plummeted. Crude futures both tumbled beneath the USD 100/bbl level following the announcement of a two-week US-Iran ceasefire within a couple of hours prior to President Trump's deadline. WTI May'26 resides towards the bottom of a USD 91.70-96.27/bbl and Brent Jun'26 towards the foot of a USD 91.05-109.19/bbl range. Dutch TTF slipped to under EUR 45/MWh.
• Spot gold rose above USD 4,850/oz before paring gains slightly to trade around the middle of a USD 4,713-4,858/oz range. Spot silver topped its 100 DMA (USD 76.11/oz) and resides near the top of a USD 73.38-77.65/oz parameter.
• Copper climbed to a three-week high, and aluminium also advanced as easing concerns over global growth lifted sentiment. 3M LME copper trades towards the top end of a USD 12,550.00-12,743.90/t range.
• China has reportedly given additional crude import quotas to independent refiners to maintain fuel production at the mandated 2025 levels.
• Abu Dhabi's media office announces that three people were injured after debris from air defence interception sparked fires at the Habshan gas complex, operations have been suspended temporarily.
• IATA chief said if Hormuz Strait were to reopen, it will still take a period of months to get where jet fuel supply needs to be.

Central Banks

• RBNZ keeps the OCR at 2.25%, as expected, while it stated in the near term inflation, is expected to increase and economic recovery to weaken, while committee is focused on ensuring that inflation returns at a 2% target midpoint over the medium-term.
• RBNZ Governor Breman said in online post-meeting press conference that the decision to hold rates was a consensus, adds discussed raising rates at today's meeting but were not close to hiking. We were not close to hiking rates today and there were no strong advocates for a hike today. If oil prices keep falling our inflation forecast would be on the high side. Frequency of rate hikes could be every meeting or every second meeting, it depends.
• Fed Vice Chair Jefferson (voter) said sees downside risks to employment and upside risks to inflation, while he is cautious on the economic outlook and noted uncertainty is elevated. Current policy rate is well-positioned to respond and rate is broadly in range of neutral. US labour market is roughly in balance and susceptible to adverse shocks. US inflation remains above the central bank's targets and warns that persistent elevated energy prices can weigh in consumer and business spending.
• ECB's Dolenc said that if the Iran war drags on, it will be very bad for inflation and growth.
• RBI keeps Repurchase Rate unchanged at 5.25%, as expected, with the decision unanimous and it maintains a neutral stance.
• ASB Bank now sees RBNZ raising rates in September and December of this year vs prev. forecast of a December hike.

Geopolitics

• US President Trump announced he is to suspend the bombing of Iran for two weeks, subject to Iran opening up the Strait of Hormuz, while he stated that this will be a double-sided ceasefire. Trump said the reason for doing so is that they have already met and exceeded all military objectives, and are very far along with a definitive agreement concerning long-term peace with Iran, and peace in the Middle East. Furthermore, he confirmed they received a 10-point proposal from Iran, and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate, while he stated that almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the US and Iran, although a two-week period will allow the agreement to be finalised and consummated.
• US President Trump posted "A big day for World Peace! Iran wants it to happen, they’ve had enough! Likewise, so has everyone else! The United States of America will be helping with the traffic buildup in the Strait of Hormuz. There will be lots of positive action! Big money will be made. Iran can start the reconstruction process...this could be the Golden Age of the Middle East!!!"
• US President Trump tells AFP that Iran deal is complete and comprehensive victory for the US, also said Iran uranium will be perfectly taken care of and that he believes China got Iran to negotiate.
• Iranian Press SNN notes of a potential ceasefire violation, highlighting several explosions that occurred in Siri and Lavan islands. Furthermore, Iran’s National Security Council says within a few hours, if firing does not stop in southern Lebanon, the air and missile unit will bomb Tel Aviv.
• Iran said negotiations with the US will be held in Islamabad to finalise details, with the aim of confirming Iran's battlefield achievements politically within maximum of 15 days, with talks to begin April 10th and may be extended if both sides agree. Talks with the US do not mean of the war, according to Iranian media. The safe passage through Hormuz is possible for two weeks and Foreign Minister Araghchi said their forces will halt operations if attacks on Iran cease.
• Pakistan's President invites US and Iran delegates to Islamabad on Friday, while reported also noted that EU envoys Witkoff, Kushner and VP Vance is expected to attend US-Iran talks.
• US official said ceasefire will begin this evening, but they believe it may take some time for orders to reach Revolutionary Guard units at the field level.
• Iran and Oman reportedly will be allowed to charge for passage in the Strait of Hormuz as part of a ceasefire.
• Israel's Ynet cites security sources stating that Iran ceasefire will also include Lebanon.
• Iran's Supreme Leader instructed negotiators to seek a truce, according to Axios.
• Iran's permanent ambassador to the UN said Iran categorically rejects any temporary ceasefire, while he stated that any solution to the end of the conflict must guarantee a definitive and irreversible anti-aggression and establish a just and lasting peace.
• The US will insist on removing nuclear materials from Iran, Al Hadath reported citing Israeli officials via Haaretz.
• White House official said Iran ceasefire takes effect once the Strait of Hormuz is reopened.
• Senior White House official said Israel is part of the 2-week ceasefire, according to CNN. Israel agrees to suspend bombing while talks are ongoing.
• Omani Transport Minister said no fees can be imposed on the Strait of Hormuz according to the signed agreements.
• Iraq's Islamic Resistance suspends operations for two weeks.
• Hezbollah will announce formal position on ceasefire and response to Israeli PM's assertion that Lebanon is not included, according to sources.
• New wave of Iranian missiles fired towards Israel.
• Israeli military official said Israel is still striking Iran, according to CNN.
• Several explosions reported at Iran’s Sirri Island on Wednesday morning; source of explosions unknown, Mehr News reported.
• Explosions heard at the Lavan oil refinery (50k BPD) in Iran, Mehr reported; origin of the explosion is not known.
• Bahrain sounds missile alert hours after the US and Iran ceasefire agreement, according to AP.
• N12 noted reported of explosion in Kermanshah northwestern Iran.
• IDF said it identified missiles launched from Iran towards Israel.
• Iran's Supreme Security Council said fingers are on the trigger and as soon as the enemy makes the slightest mistake, it will be answered with full force.
• Maritime Shipping Data shows traffic in the Strait of Hormuz remains light and limited, Arab News reported.

US Event Calendar

• 7:00 am: United States Apr 3 MBA Mortgage Applications, prior -10.4%
• 1:05 pm: United States Fed’s Daly Gives Keynote Remarks
• 2:00 pm: United States FOMC Meeting Minutes

DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

Markets are seeing a sharp rebound overnight following news that the US and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire. Trump posted that following a request by Pakistan, he agreed to suspend attacks against Iran for two weeks subject to Iran agreeing to “the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz”. He claimed that the US had already met its military objectives and called the 10-point proposal received from Iran a “workable basis on which to negotiate”. Tehran accepted the ceasefire proposal “if attacks against Iran are halted”. Foreign Minister Araghchi also announced that, in response to Trump’s “acceptance of the general framework of Iran’s 10-point proposal”, safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz will be possible for two weeks “via coordination with Iran’s armed forces and with due consideration to technical limitations”. The AP has reported that the plan will allow Iran and Oman to charge fees for transits through the Strait. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Sharif has invited US and Iran for talks in Islamabad on Friday (April 10) to negotiate a “conclusive agreement”.

Investors will be breathing a big sigh of relief that an offramp out of the war is being taken even as there’ll be various elements to watch to see whether this leads to sustained de-escalation. Will the ceasefire hold? We saw some strikes by Israel and Iran overnight though these may have been in the works before the conditional ceasefire. We’ve also seen conflicting commentary on whether the ceasefire will extend to Israel’s action in Lebanon. Can talks lead to a permanent cessation of hostilities? Trump’s comment last night that “Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to” suggests a lower bar for agreement, but Iran’s reported 10-point plan includes elements such as the lifting of all sanctions and Iran controlling the Strait of Hormuz that have previously been unacceptable to the US and allies. Those points also do not restrict Iran’s enriched uranium, which Trump suggested would be "perfectly taken care of" as he claimed a “total and complete victory" in an interview to AFP late last night. And in his latest post overnight, Trump appeared keen to lean into the prospects for full resolution, claiming “a big day for World Peace” and that the US “will be helping with the traffic buildup in the Strait of Hormuz”.

Indeed, the most important question for markets will be to what extent does shipping via Hormuz pick up in the coming days. For now, oil prices have plunged on the ceasefire news, with Brent crude down -13.51% to $94.51/bbl this morning as I type, its lowest intra-day level in four weeks. It had been at nearly $110/bbl before the news of Pakistan’s ceasefire proposal began to emerge but then fell as low as $91/bbl as the ceasefire was confirmed early in the Asian session before recovering slightly. WTI is similarly down -14.92% to $96.10/bbl.

In turn, risk assets are seeing a sharp rally. S&P 500 futures are up +2.48%, which leaves them less than 2% below the levels on February 27 before the Iran strikes began and +6.8% up from their closing low on Mach 30. NASDAQ futures are +3.15%, while those on Euro STOXX 50 are +5.42% higher after a weak session yesterday. Asian equities are also rallying strongly, with the KOSPI (+7.26%) and the Nikkei (+5.26%) at the forefront. The Hang Seng (+2.82%) is advancing after the holiday, while the CSI (+2.76%) and the Shanghai Composite (+1.92%) are also seeing solid gains in mainland China, as is the S&P/ASX 200 (+2.71%) in Australia.

On the fixed income side, 2yr (-6.8bps to 3.72%) and 10yr (-5.2bps to 4.24%) Treasuries are seeing a sizeable rally, with 10yr JGBs (-4.9bps) posting a similar advance. Fed funds futures are now pricing 14bps of Fed cuts by December, up from zero when Europe went home yesterday. And in FX, the dollar index is down -0.92%, while gold is +2.00% higher.

Earlier yesterday, markets had traded cautiously amidst worsening headlines, including Trump’s social media post that a “whole civilization will die tonight” unless “something revolutionarily” happens on Iran’s side, as well as news of increased strikes by the US, Israel and Iran across the Middle East. US markets then saw a recovery late in yesterday’s session as news broke that the US and Iran were considering Pakistan’s ceasefire proposal. That helped the S&P 500 recover to +0.08% by the close, having been -1.2% down earlier in the session, while 2yr (-6.1bps) and 10yr (-3.8bps) Treasury yields rallied late yesterday, having been a few basis points higher on the day at the European close.

European markets had closed near the session lows yesterday, with the STOXX 600 falling back -1.01%. The more externally-sensitive DAX (-1.06%) led the declines, while the FTSE 100 (-0.84%), CAC 40 (-0.67%) and FTSEMIB (-0.47%) were also all in the red. European bonds also saw a significant sell-off with yields on 10yr bunds rising +9.1bps to 3.08%, just 1bps below the post-2011 high they had reached on March 27. Yields on 10yr BTPs (+11.6bps) and OATs (+10.0bps) saw a larger sell-off amid the risk-off mood.

Over in the UK, 10yr gilts (+7.1bps to 4.90%) saw a slightly more modest sell-off as the final UK March services PMI was revised down from 51.2 to 50.5. That marked a sharper decline than seen in the euro area, where the final services PMI was revised a touch higher, from 50.1 to 50.2. Within the euro area data, there was a notable divergence between resilience in Spain (53.3 vs 51.9 previous, 50.6 expected) and a marked decline in Italy (48.8 vs 52.3 prev., 50.9 exp), which might reflect the fact that while both countries have adopted fiscal measures to reduce the costs of the energy shock, the scale of the Spanish response has been significantly larger.

When it comes to yesterday’s US data, the highlight was the latest weekly ADP employment numbers, which showed private job gains pick up to +26k on average for the four weeks ending on March 21. That marked the strongest print since ADP started publishing the weekly data last year and equates to over 100k in monthly job gains. So that added to the easing labour market concerns after the strong March payrolls reports on Friday. US February durable goods orders also looked solid, with ex-transport orders up +0.8% MoM (vs. +0.5% expected) and core shipments up +0.9% (vs. +0.4% exp.). Meanwhile, NY Fed 1-yr inflation expectations series jumped from +3.00% to +3.42% in March, though this was a touch below consensus (+3.50%) and below the levels it reached after the Liberation Day tariffs last spring (3.63%). We also got comments from NY Fed President Williams, who was relatively sanguine yesterday when he said that that the war might add a tenth or two to core inflation, and that the story around underlying inflation was not much changed.

Finally, in other overnight news the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) maintained its cash rate at 2.25% as expected. The RBNZ’s Monetary Policy Committee noted a significant shift in the economic outlook amid higher energy prices, which are expected to push short-term inflation up while slowing economic activity. The yield on the 2yr government note is -4.2bps lower this morning, though this is mostly matching the move in Treasuries.

To the day ahead now, we’ll have UK March Construction PMI, Germany February factory orders, March construction PMI, France February trade balance, current account balance, Eurozone February PPI and retail sales. We’ll also get the March FOMC minutes

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/08/2026 - 08:26

A Pause To Negotiate A Deal? Some Caveats...

Authored by Peter Tchir via Academy Securities,

Basically we wound up at the better end of our “base case” in yesterday’s Spaghetti Western, and you could argue we made it all the way into our best case of “ceasefire” (I’m reluctant to label it that, as you will see, but it is touching on that end).

I do think we are far from a “real deal”.

In any case, markets are responding according as both sides send people to Pakistan to negotiate a deal.

Stocks are up strongly across the globe, with Europe and Asia leading the way (they were hit hardest by the conflict). 

Bonds too are having an incredibly strong day (once again led by Europe).

Crude oil is falling like a rock, as shipping is potentially set to resume.

One reason stocks didn’t seem to respond much last week to rising spot oil prices was because later month contracts hadn’t risen much.

For now, the August WTI contract is basically where we were on March 23rd, the Monday that began the “deal is on the way” theater, which will temper how much further the stock market can rally.

Any “Ceasefire” Should Benefit the U.S. the Most

While we don’t know the specific status of each country, it seems fair to argue that the U.S. can do more to bolster its position – politically and military, than Iran can during a pause. A win for the U.S. and markets.

It will be interesting to see what develops on the “coalition” side of the equation. There has been reporting/wild speculation (difficult to tell the difference sometimes) that China was involved in bringing Iran to the deal. That could be interesting if true, and if China really wants to play a role.

Some “Caveats”

I suspect that how markets and voters respond, will influence what comes next. Two things show up as “immediate” question marks around the negotiations:

• The U.S. acceptance is “subject to” Iran opening the Strait. Iran has agreed to control shipping through the Strait. Both sides are “vague” enough that this could be acceptable enough to keep the negotiations going. Though it is pretty clear, that the first “walk away” moment, is likely to come from either side regarding how open the Strait really is.

• Vance (who will be leading the U.S. team) has already brought up the need for Iran to “negotiate in good faith”. Since the conflict started while “technical negotiations” were ongoing, this is another signal that the U.S. needs progress.

• The “Supreme Leader” who until last night, allegedly sending slips of paper with instructions to runners to deal with the negotiations, had been largely MIA (with many reporting severe wounds and questions about his power).

• Israel reportedly has agreed to cease attacks as well. Israel is largely aligned with the U.S. and largely dependent on U.S. forces in the region, but largely is not the same as totally.

These are just some of the things that could cause some breakdown in talks.

Everyone’s a Winner…

Both Iran and the U.S. are claiming this to be a major victory.

While it is all evolving rapidly, the U.S. has a multipoint plan. Iran has a multipoint plan.

 Very few of the points align.

Clearly this is why they are sitting down at the table.

Both sides have clearly read the “Art of the Deal” and are approaching negotiations from a maximalist point of view.

How serious either side is on each of their points remains to be seen. Given where we were yesterday morning, it would seem that the U.S. is likely to be the first to use the threat of ending the ceasefire to get maximum leverage.

Just this morning, the President announced “working with Iran” to dig up the nuclear materials. That seems like progress as ensuring Iran cannot attain nuclear weapons should be a key goal of the administration (and the world).

Bottom Line

This played out at the “optimistic” end of our spectrum of outcomes. A very pleasant surprise.

From here the devil (almost literally) will be in the details. I don’t expect smooth sailing, but market reaction will be muted in either direction, but especially to the downside, now that both sides seem willing to play ball. Though who wouldn’t play ball when you think your demands might be met, for a one-sided victory?

I do think public reaction, domestically, will influence how tough the U.S. negotiates versus trying to declare victory and move on.

Hopefully we see significant transit through the Strait.

On the negative side of things (there always has to be a negative), it is unclear how much damage has already been done to the global economy and supply chain, and how quickly that can be rectified (especially if traffic is limited).

Now we can get back to affordability (which got better with the pause, but is still an issue), private credit, etc.

Lot of comparisons to the post Liberation Day, TACO, rally. That just doesn’t seem correct.

Stocks were never in freefall like they were then.

We have not moved too far from the highs on many major indices. So, yes, the rally overnight can continue, but the comparisons to post Liberation Day, tariff walkback, rally isn’t realistic.

Good luck and am glad we aren’t waking up to the smoking rubble of a society (which never seemed likely but was in the back of everyone’s mind).

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/08/2026 - 08:25

Shares Of Infrastructure Developer Erupt On Gulf Energy Reconstruction Prospects

The two-week U.S.-Iran ceasefire looks more like a pause in the six-week conflict than a long-lasting agreement, with language so broad and vague that it remains unclear who conceded what. The one clear point is that Iran's reported willingness to allow vessel transits through the Strait of Hormuz was enough to send crude prices tumbling from triple-digit territory and spark a global relief rally across equities and bonds.

Everyone is breathing a sigh of relief on Wednesday morning, and traders are already identifying the companies best positioned to reap massive rewards from rebuilding damaged oil and gas infrastructure across the Gulf.

Shares of Chiyoda Corporation in Tokyo jumped 15.5% as traders assessed that the developer and builder of large-scale industrial infrastructure might be one of the major players in rebuilding damaged Gulf energy assets.

Chiyoda is a project developer and builder of industrial infrastructure, including:

• LNG and natural gas processing plants, one of its flagship niches

• Oil refining and petrochemical facilities

• Energy infrastructure and environmental systems

"Fundamentally, if the Strait of Hormuz is reopened, the next step is reconstruction demand for petrochemical plants, desalination plants, and other facilities," Kazuhiro Sasaki, head of research at Phillip Securities, wrote in a note.

On Tuesday, International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol told French newspaper Le Figaro that more than 75 energy sites across the Gulf region have been attacked, with about a third severely damaged, suggesting tens of billions of dollars in repairs.

Neil Newman, head of strategy at Astris Advisory Japan, wrote in a note, "It is relatively straightforward to identify the countries where reconstruction will be needed, determine the types of projects required, and match these directly to relevant Japanese companies."

A Chiyoda spokesperson was quoted by Bloomberg as saying, "Based on the situation so far, we are considering the resumption of on-site work for the LNG project in Qatar."

One of the most notably damaged energy assets in the Gulf region was Qatar's Ras Laffan LNG facility, where repairs could take up to five years and cost billions of dollars. Bloomberg noted that Chiyoda receives about 46% of its revenue from Qatar.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/08/2026 - 07:20

My mid-week morning train WFH reads:

• How Trump Took the U.S. to War With Iran: Maggie Haberman reconstructs the Situation Room deliberations that led to war. Trump overruled his vice president and ignored pessimistic intelligence assessments—a pattern that should surprise nobody. (New York Times) see also U.S. and Iran agree to 2-week ceasefire. And on TACO Tuesday no less! (NPR)

• The American Gas Exporter That Pulls In Billions During Energy Shocks: Venture Global is set to benefit from the tightening global natural-gas market. (Wall Street Journal)

• Misreading the tea leaves: It is said that “the market” no longer expects rate cuts in 2026 and increasingly views Fed hikes as a possibility. That seems odd. For the past two years, the Fed has been unwilling to slow demand growth to levels necessary to hit its inflation target. But now that same institution will hike rates into an exogenous supply shock, exacerbating its drag on economic activity? That’d mark quite an inversion of the adage that one should control the things you can and accept those you cannot. (Carlyle)

• The Ridiculously Nerdy Intel Bet That Could Rake in Billions: Advanced chip packaging is suddenly at the center of the AI boom. Intel is going all in. (Wired)

• Private equity buyouts slump as AI fears and war dent dealmaking Groups agreed acquisitions worth $172bn in three months to March, a 36% fall from previous quarter. (Financial Times)

• Salem’s Lot: Gulf War update; a US fossil fuel reliance fever dream: The US Air Force has flown over 13,000 missions in Iran, striking over 12,000 targets. Iranian drone and missile strikes have declined by 90%-95% since the war began, and interception rates by Gulf countries is reported at 90%+. Retired Air Force Brigadier General Cantwell: “The fact that there have not been more fighter jets lost in Iran is a testament to the capabilities of US forces. That this hasn’t happened until now is an absolute miracle.” (Eye on the Market)

• In Parks and on Rooftops, Urban Beekeeping Takes Flight: Raising honeybees in the city has emerged as a popular sustainability practice — and a big business. But hives can also leave native pollinators in a sticky fix. (CityLab)

• ‘This Was the Real Thing’: Meet the Woman Who Alerts the World When an Asteroid Could Hit: A profile of the UN official responsible for warning humanity about asteroid impacts. The most important job nobody’s heard of. (The Guardian)

• ‘An Operational Success and a Huge Strategic Failure’ Perhaps the most apt description of Trump’s policy toward Iran is an “incoherent maze” — a phrase Pete Hegseth applied in 2016 to Barack Obama’s foreign policy. Lost in his own labyrinth, Trump granted sanctions relief to Iran even as he bombed it, and careened from threatening war crimes unless Iran opened the strait to suggesting that the strait wasn’t our concern. (New York Times) see also The Mythology of Pete Hegseth: Garrett Graff dismantles the mythology Hegseth has built around himself as the Iran War’s cheerleader-in-chief. The alternate history he’s selling is dangerous. (Doomsday Scenario)

• Maga stands by Trump on Iran — for now: On the streets of small-town Georgia, the president’s base is backing the war as swing voters waver.  (Financial Times)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with Songyee Yoon, founder and managing partner of Principal Venture Partners, an AI-focused investment firm established in 2024, and since 2025 a member of the board of directors of HP.

These Cities and States Are Taking Aim at Data Centers

Source: Wall Street Journal

 

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The post 10 Wednesday AM Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

Evidence Points To Ukraine Being Behind TurkStream Attempted Sabotage (To No One's Surprise)

Via Remix News,

Secret service documents allegedly prove that the Ukrainians planned to blow up the Turkish and Blue Stream pipelines years ago, permanently cutting Europe off from cheap Russian gas, reports Magyar Nemzet, citing a report out of Ellenpont.

However, Serbia’s intelligence chief is denying that Ukrainians were the perpetrators, instead claiming that they had reports of a possible attack planned by a certain migrant gang group of radical muslims but had not considered it legitimate intel.

However, this same chief also does not rule out that Ukraine was the contractor behind the scheme.

The Serbian section of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline was set on fire in a sabotage operation on Sunday.

Since this pipeline supplies Hungary with gas, blowing up the pipeline would have put the country’s gas supply at risk.

The portal also reported that, in response to the explosives found near the TurkStream pipeline in Serbia last weekend, a presenter on one of Zelensky’s propaganda TV stations stated: “If the Ukrainians want to blow up the Turkish Stream, they will blow it up.”

President Zelensky has been accused by Budapest of openly interfering in the Hungarian elections by creating an energy crisis to help opposition leader Péter Magyar. Kyiv wants to cut Hungary off from all Russian oil, and they are counting on Magyar’s Tisza Party to do this.

Since January, Kyiv has refused to reopen the Druzhba after a Russian attack, with Hungary and Slovakia claiming Zelensky is keeping the pipeline closed on purpose. Back in August last year, after a Ukrainian attack on part of the pipeline in Russia, the section was repaired quickly, and Hungary’s foreign minister made it clear that they expected no further attacks on such vital energy infrastructure.

In September 2022, when the Ukrainians destroyed Nord Stream, they were allegedly planning a double attack, writes Magyar Nemet, with the other target being the TurkStream.

“This pipeline is essential for Hungary’s natural gas supply, as 56 percent, or more than half, of the natural gas in our system comes through the Turkish Stream pipeline,” wrote Hungarian Foreign Minister Szijjártó after the incident.

Calling the situation “extremely serious,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said, “We are currently under a Ukrainian gas blockade, but we can make up for the loss from the south. If this umbilical cord is cut, the Hungarian economy will come to a standstill.”

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/08/2026 - 06:30

US, Iran, Israel Agree To 2-Week Ceasefire; Tehran Will Allow Safe Passage Via Hormuz For Two Weeks Summary: 

• President Trump agrees to a two-week ceasefire with Iran, conditional on them "agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz"

• Iran accepts Pakistan's two-week ceasefire proposal, with the deal approved by the New Supreme Leader; Iran also says safe passage via Hormuz "Possible" for two weeks

• Israel has reportedly agreed to suspend bombing while talks are ongoing.

*  *  *

President Trump, Iran Agree To 2-Week Ceasefire

Building on the conversations leaked all day, it appears President Trump has withdrawn his threat to end Iranian civilization as they know it...

Based on conversations with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir, of Pakistan, and wherein they requested that I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran, and subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks.

This will be a double sided CEASEFIRE!

The reason for doing so is that we have already met and exceeded all Military objectives, and are very far along with a definitive Agreement concerning Long-term PEACE with Iran, and PEACE in the Middle East.

We received a 10 point proposal from Iran, and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate.

Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two week period will allow the Agreement to be finalized and consummated.

On behalf of the United States of America, as President, and also representing the Countries of the Middle East, it is an Honor to have this Long-term problem close to resolution.

Thank you for your attention to this matter!

President DONALD J. TRUMP

Additionally, CNN reports that Israel has agree to suspend bombing while talks are ongoing.

Alayna Treene (@alaynatreene)

Israel is a part of the two-week ceasefire Trump agreed to just an hour and a half before his deadline, a senior White House official tells CNN.

Israel has agreed to also suspend its bombing campaign while negotiations continue, the official said.

And the most important variable, Iran, is also on the same page, and accepts Pakistan's two-week ceasefire proposal with the deal approved by the New Supreme Leaders, according to Iran's Foreign Minster, Aragchi.

More importantly, Iran has said that safe passage via Hormuz "possible" for two weeks.

Talks between the US and Iran will start on Friday, although Iran was quick to note that it will engage in talks with complete distrust.  

* * * 

The reaction is as you would expect.

Oil plunged (WTI -16%)...

Stocks spiked (S&P Futs +2%)...

Gold ($4800) and Bitcoin ($72500) are soaring.

Treasury yields and the dollar are tumbling.

...well it wouldn't be Tuesday without TACOs.

Last Ditch Peace Effort by Pakistan Prime Minister

With just hours until Trump's self declared deadline wherein he said a "whole civilization will die tonight" - Pakistan's leader and host of mediation efforts, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, has tried to introduce a last minute olive branch, hoping that the US will avoid its decimation campaign:

I earnestly request President Trump to extend the deadline for two weeks. Pakistan, in all sincerity, requests the Iranian brothers to open Strait of Hormuz for a corresponding period of two weeks as a goodwill gesture. We also urge all warring parties to observe a ceasefire everywhere for two weeks to allow diplomacy to achieve conclusive termination of war, in the interest of long-term peace and stability in the region.

Will Trump latch on to this plea and last minute effort of good will? The sides are aware of the proposal:

TEHRAN IS POSITIVELY REVIEWING PAKISTAN’S REQUEST FOR A TWO-WEEK CEASEFIRE: SENIOR IRANIAN OFFICIAL

TRUMP IS AWARE OF PAKISTAN'S PROPOSAL: AXIOS CITING LEAVITT

Diplomatic efforts for peaceful settlement of the ongoing war in the Middle East are progressing steadily, strongly and powerfully with the potential to lead to substantive results in near future. To allow diplomacy to run its course, I earnestly request President Trump to extend…

— Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) April 7, 2026

In the meantime, some fresh statements via state Tasnim:

• "If Trump wants to fall into a hole with his madness, we have prepared a black hole for him from which it will be  impossible for him to get out", Tasnim reports citing an Iranian military source
• "Have prepared good surprises for Trump's possible madness; One of them is the addition of Aramco oil facilities, Yanba oil facilities and the Fujairah pipeline to Iran's goals, and in case of Trump's crime, Iran will not hesitate to impose heavy costs on America and its partners."
• “Trump thinks that with these threats the strait will be opened and the price of oil will go down! He doesn't know that if he carries out his threat, he will have to wait for the oil price of $200 in the coming days."

Axios Cites 'Glimmer' of Progress as Trump Deadline Looms

More from Axios' Barak Ravid, though we should note that it's increasingly difficult to know what has legitimacy:

Progress has been made in the past 24 hours in the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, though reaching a ceasefire deal by President Trump's 8pm ET deadline still looks like a long shot, according to a U.S. official, an Israeli official and two other sources with knowledge of the talks.

• A U.S. official said the thinking in the White House has shifted from "can we get there?" to "can we get there by 8 o'clock tonight?"

These wild headline swings (and in markets) concerning positive or negative signs on the status of indirect negotiations have been going for weeks at this point. 

WH Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt thinks it's assuring to inform the public that only Trump knows "where things stand and what he will do," adding: "The Iranian regime has until 8PM Eastern Time to meet the moment and make a deal with the United States."

Russia, China Veto Hormuz Strait Resolution at UNSC

On Tuesday a UN Security Council resolution on opening the Strait of Hormuz failed due to Russia and China vetoing it. It was drafted by Bahrain and authorized countries to use military force if necessary to open the strait for the free flow of shipping and commerce.

The resolution garnered 11 votes in favor, but permanent veto-wielding members China and Russia blocked it by registering no votes. This comes after days of pressure from Gulf countries to restore free passage in the strait, amid Trump's Operation Epic Fury. Russia complained that the UN res would damage "very fragile truce negotiations" by given broad allowance to use military force to reopen the waterway.

Tehran Times Reverses in Astounding Correction, Now Says Talks Are Not Closed

The NY Times had also said it only within the last hour, based on the initial headline out of Tehran, that all backchannel talks were suspended.

Tehran Times deleted this post from 2 hours ago saying all communication with US has closed.

Trump Hints at Possible Deadline Extension

In a call with FOX's Bret Baier, Trump says 8 PM deadline today "could change if negotiations move forward, but sticking to deadline for now." And yet Tehran has said it has suspended all back channel negotiations. TACO Tuesday? 

TRUMP TELLS FOX NEWS IF NEGOTIATIONS ADVANCE AND THERE IS SOMETHING TANGIBLE WE MIGHT EXTEND THE DEADLINE: AL ARABIYA

Meanwhile, per news wires and CNN:

The Israeli military is on standby and ready to launch strikes on Iran ahead of US President Trump’s deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, an Israeli security source tells CNN. The Israeli security source said plans have been prepared for a combined US-lsraeli operation with full military coordination pending a green light from Trump.

Iran: All Diplomatic Channels With US Have Ceased

"Iran has closed all diplomatic and indirect channels of communication with the US," Tehran Times has reported. The publication says that "Any and all message exchanges have also been suspended."

The Tehran Times is seen as tied to the hardline factions of the government, and calls itself the "voice of the Islamic Revolution" - but is not directly state-owned per se.

The NY Times also confirms "Iran has stopped negotiating with the US and it told Pakistan that it will not continue ceasefire talks."

Meanwhile President Masoud Pezeshkian has praised the willingness of "14 million" Iranian citizens to "sacrifice" by taking to the streets, seeking to protect power plants and other sensitive vital infrastructure, as the US-Israeli bombs rain down. US conservative MSM publications have decried this as a form of "human shields". 

'Human chains' seen on some bridges...

Iranians form human shield at Kazeroun power plant ahead of Trump’s threatened strikes. pic.twitter.com/Le2VcEpPQv

— Aditya Raj Kaul (@AdityaRajKaul) April 7, 2026

And apparently at nuclear sites...

JUST IN:

Iranians are gathering on bridges and around power plants, forming human chains after threats of US and Israeli strikes on Iran's civilian infrastructure. pic.twitter.com/DrGFZlfP0E

— Current Report (@Currentreport1) April 7, 2026

WH Trying to Manufacture 'Mission Accomplished'? Vance Says Objectives Completed

Vice President JD Vance has said that "very shortly" this war will be "completed" in a Tuesday morning statement. He stated specifically that the military objectives have been accomplished, adding there are "two pathways" - and that optimistically this will involve "lots of negotiations" - but with a deadline of 8pm ET. The US is "confident it will get an Iran response."

The below is from Hala Jaber, a longtime Sunday Times journalist and veteran Middle East war correspondent:

Trump is scrambling behind the scenes for a ceasefire with Iran, according to claims emerging via Fars News Agency. Allegations point to urgent outreach through multiple governments & intelligence channels. Citing what it describes as an “informed source,” the report claims the U.S. has been pushing for a ceasefire via backchannels, using countries it believes have credibility with Tehran.

According to the same account, Iran received calls from five heads of government & eight intelligence agencies, all seeking to open a path toward a ceasefire. It further claims Washington is considering reshaping its negotiation team, including removing Witkoff due to his ties to Netanyahu’s circle & replacing him with Vance to lead a more serious track. The urgency, the source says, is driven by mounting military & economic pressure, including fears of surging fuel prices. If true, it would mark a stark contrast to the public posture.

"I hope they make the right response," says @VP on Iran.

"They've got to know, we've got tools in our toolkit that we so far haven't decided to use. @POTUS can decide to use them, and he will decide to use them if the Iranians don't change their course of conduct." pic.twitter.com/UUiQ5SdEO5

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) April 7, 2026

Trump: A Whole Civilization Will Die Tonight

Trump seems to be openly announcing plans for genocide - saying he's going to annihilate an entire civilization. What else do you call this? "A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will," he threatened in a Tuesday Truth Social Post. "However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?" - he continued.

Meanwhile, according to The Associated Press:

Airstrikes pounded Tehran on Tuesday, and Iranian officials urged young people to form human chains to protect power plants, hours before the expiration of U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest deadline for the Islamic Republic to reopen the crucial Strait of Hormuz or face punishing strikes on its infrastructure.

Kharg Island Bombed (Again)

Kharg Island is being bombed again on Tuesday, with a senior US officials telling Fox's Jennifer Griffin that the "U.S. hit dozens of military targets on Kharg Island overnight." Per the fresh reporting the targets included bunkers, a radar station, and ammunition storage.

However, the same officials described that landing docks were not intentionally targeted - that they only would have been struck if Iranians fired something from next to them. This development has led to speculation that this could be another round of softening operations to prepare for some kind of US Marine or special forces seizure.

This send oil back to the highs...

This would without doubt be very high risk, with the potential for significant US casualties. More from Griffin:

The strikes on Kharg Island were carried out solely by the US, not  Israel, I am told. “This is a message to the Iranians,” a senior US official told me.

Axios cites a US official to say the strikes on Kharg island were not directed at oil infrastructure, but were "re-strikes" on military targets that were hit previously.

NOW: U.S. airstrikes targeting shelters and defensive facilities on Iran's Kharg Island. pic.twitter.com/k1pauNpb6A

— Clash Report (@clashreport) April 7, 2026

Bridges, Power Plants, Tit-For-Tat Warning

President Trump has been warning of the "complete demolition" of Iran’s power plants and bridges in a matter of hours - so by Tuesday's end - if the Strait of Hormuz is not fully reopened by his deadline. Qatar's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Majed al-Ansari, is urging some last minute diplomatic action, warning, "We are close to the point where the situation in the region could spiral out of control." There have meanwhile been reports of more Iranian attacks on Qatar. "There are no winners if this war continues," he said.

But Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is not backing down, having on Tuesday claimed responsibility for attacks on petrochemical facilities in Saudi Arabia’s Jubail region, stating the strikes were retaliation for earlier Israeli attacks on its Shiraz petrochemical facility.

Iranian officials have repeatedly warned that any strikes on Iranian power plants and bridges would trigger reciprocal attacks on regional infrastructure. The IRGC stated it targeted American companies in Jubail with missiles and drones, including Sadra, ExxonMobil, and Dark Chemical.

Images posted online show damage to a highway bridge between the northwestern Iranian cities of Hashtroud and Tabriz, following apparent Israeli strikes.

It also stated that a petrochemical complex in Juaymah belonging to the US company Shourdan Phillips was struck with medium-range missiles and drones.

Israeli Attacks on Iran Rail, Infrastructure Have Already Begun

Iran's Mehr News Agency is reporting attacks on Iran's rail system, including an Israeli strike hit the Yahya Abad railway bridge in the city of Kashan, in central Iran. The Deputy Governor of Isfahan has said that the strike killed two people.

The attack came after the IDF issued a warning telling Iranians against using trains for their "safety" until 9pm local time (17:30 GMT).

The governor of Mashhad has already announced the immediate suspension of all rail services departing the city amid the Israeli threat. It's being reported as a precautionary measure that will remain in effect "until further notice". Apparently this rail operation is being done only by the Israeli side of the bombing campaign.

More on Iran's 10-Point Response to US Ceasefire Plan

Iran has delivered its highly anticipated "10-point" response to the US' "15-point peace plan." Iran's 10-point plan includes, according to a paraphrase:

1. Guarantee that Iran will not be attacked again

2. Permanent end to the war, not just a ceasefire

3. End to Israeli strikes in Lebanon

4. Lifting of all US sanctions on Iran

5. End to all regional fighting against Iranian allies

6. In return, Iran would open the Strait of Hormuz

7. Iran would impose a Hormuz fee of $2 million per ship

8. Iran would split these fees with Oman

9. Iran to provide rules for safe passage through Hormuz

10. Iran to use Hormuz fees for reconstruction instead of reparations

Importantly, Tehran has dropped its demand for full war reconstruction reparations to be paid directly by the United States, providing a potential window to reach actual compromise with Washington.

75 Gulf Energy Assets Damaged In U.S.-Iran War As Supply Shock Intensifies

International Energy Agency (IEA) Executive Director Fatih Birol was interviewed by the French newspaper Le Figaro earlier on Tuesday and warned that the Gulf energy shock "is more severe than those of 1973, 1979, and 2022 combined" because it is affecting oil, gas, food, fertilizers, petrochemicals, helium, and global trade all at once.

Birol said in the interview that more than 75 energy sites across the Gulf region have been attacked, with about a third severely damaged, suggesting tens of billions of dollars in repairs and a prolonged disruption of some energy flows, further tightening global supplies and compounding the disruption at the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint.

The newspaper asked Birol, "How quickly can Gulf production recover?"

He responded:

"We are monitoring energy infrastructure in real time—fields, refineries, terminals. Seventy-five facilities have been attacked and damaged, more than a third severely. Repairs will take a long time. Countries like Saudi Arabia may recover faster due to strong engineering capabilities and financial resources, but elsewhere, such as Iraq, the situation is far worse. About 15 million people depend on oil and gas revenues there, and the country has lost two-thirds of its oil income, approaching economic paralysis. It will take a long time for the Middle East—previously a reliable energy hub—to recover."

Cherry-picking the most important parts of the interview:

Le Figaro asked: Who will suffer the most?

Birol responded: The global economy will suffer. Of course, European countries will struggle, as will Japan, Australia, and others. But developing countries will be the most affected due to high oil, gas, and food prices, and accelerating inflation. Their economic growth will be heavily impacted. I fear many developing countries will see their external debt rise significantly. That is why I am pessimistic—this crisis stems not from energy itself, but from geopolitics.

Le Figaro asked: Which countries are most exposed to shortages?

Birol responded: Import-dependent countries are most exposed: in Asia—South Korea, Japan, but especially Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. African countries will also be heavily affected, as developing nations have limited financial flexibility.

Le Figaro asked: How quickly can Gulf production recover?

Birol responded: We are monitoring energy infrastructure in real time—fields, refineries, terminals. Seventy-five facilities have been attacked and damaged, more than a third severely. Repairs will take a long time. Countries like Saudi Arabia may recover faster due to strong engineering capabilities and financial resources, but elsewhere, such as Iraq, the situation is far worse. About 15 million people depend on oil and gas revenues there, and the country has lost two-thirds of its oil income, approaching economic paralysis. It will take a long time for the Middle East—previously a reliable energy hub—to recover.

Le Figaro asked: How significant is the drop in Gulf oil production?

Birol responded: Enormous. These countries are producing just over half of pre-war levels. As for natural gas, exports have stopped entirely. March was already difficult, but April will be worse. If the Strait remains closed throughout April, we will lose twice as much crude and refined products as in March. We are entering a "black April." In the Northern Hemisphere, April usually marks spring—but now it may feel like the beginning of winter.

Birol has painted a bleak outlook for energy markets and the global economy for weeks in various interviews. 

However, emerging through the fog of war, the U.S. appears poised to be a net beneficiary of the chaos across the Gulf, with energy flows expected to remain disrupted for some time.

• Qatar Dethroned As 'LNG King' As U.S. Seizes Throne, Reshaping Future Of Gas

• Wyoming's Helium Empire Ascends As Qatar Gas Goes Flat

A reminder to readers of JPMorgan's note last week, mapping how the energy shock dominoes begin to fall. Read it here.

* * *

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/08/2026 - 06:25

These Consumer Goods Could Be First To Vanish As "Supply Shock" Disrupts Asian Factories

Goldman analysts warned that the petrochemical supply shock sweeping across Asia is now morphing into a full-blown COGS shock, hitting a range of industries with factories across the region. The immediate consequence is that manufacturers - from sofa makers to apparel producers - are being forced to dial back production and, in some cases, idle plants altogether as soaring petrochemical-linked input costs drive up the price of plastics and other key materials.

In the note "Petrochemical Supply Shock Begins Idling Asian Factories", we laid out earlier on Tuesday how the shock is unfolding.

Now, we focus on industries where the COGS shock is already forcing "surging input costs," which are reducing manufacturing lines or idling plants and leading to possible shortages.

"With key raw materials and inputs such as PTA, Caprolactam, polyester, and polyamide up on average 29%, the implied COGS increase amounts to c. +17%," Goldman analyst Georgina Fraser wrote in a note.

Fraser warned, "For a textile manufacturer operating with margins of ~5–15%, it is reasonable to assume that a cost shock of this magnitude could render operations uneconomic, leading to production standstills."

Fraser outlined that the industries most affected by the COGS shock are:

• Furniture & bedding → costs up ~21%

• Consumer goods → 20%

• Healthcare equipment → ~19%

• Textiles/apparel → ~17%

"Even an imminent end to the conflict would not fully unwind the supply chain disruption already in motion," she warned.

The note cited new indications that India's textile production has "collectively moved to restrict operations to a single 12-hour shift per day."

Taken together, the message is clear: supply-chain snarls may soon erupt across Asia (first outlined here). Reducing production lines and idling plants increases the risk of shortages across a broad range of Asian-produced consumer goods, from T-shirts to furniture.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/08/2026 - 05:45

Berlin Targets Entrepreneurs: Apprenticeships, Punishment, And Social Decay

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

The German capital is hardly a hospitable place for entrepreneurs or founders. Ambitious individuals who aim to build a career outside the state subsidy system and establish their own livelihoods encounter, in this strangest of European capitals, an atmosphere of contempt and hostility.

Berlin politics, regardless of who is currently in power, fosters a culture of societal division. Parties spare no effort in masking the jointly caused economic and social distortions in the city with an endless media spectacle.

Unemployment rises—naturally, the entrepreneurs are blamed. Rents are unaffordable—it has, of course, nothing to do with open borders or mass immigration. Responsibility lies with the greed of landlords, who have elevated exploitation to their fundamental operating principle. In Berlin, apprenticeship positions are now scarce. Naturally, entrepreneurs are also blamed in this case. It could never be because politics, with its green ideological zeal, may have let the economy derail years ago.

To underline once again that Berlin is by no means willing to take responsibility for the visible crisis and instead prefers to put entrepreneurs in the pillory, the Berlin Senate has passed a corresponding law. Companies that fail to provide sufficient apprenticeship positions will be financially squeezed in the future.

Under the quaint title “Apprenticeship Promotion Fund Act” (AusbFFG), the all-knowing Berlin bureaucracy—yes, the same people who take six months to issue a new passport—will determine how many apprenticeship slots each company must offer.

The law was passed on March 26 and is set to take effect on January 1, 2028. Until then, the top economists and social-state engineers of the Red City Hall plan to complete the detailed calculations still required to determine the exact apprenticeship quota. The measure is based on each company’s gross wage sum.

In the eyes of typical Berlin socialists—and that includes all parties except the AfD—the economy is a monocausal monolith animated only by greed and profiteering, allowing the rule to be applied indiscriminately across all companies and sectors.

Naive, childish, maximally hostile: politics seeks conflict with entrepreneurs and investors because it knows that resentment in society always leaves a smoldering ember somewhere, which can be quickly fanned into a larger fire by the media. Berlin also knows very well that the country is heading for mass unemployment and that, should criticism or social unrest arise, a suitable lightning rod must always be at hand. Media-savvy tactics: debates on inheritance tax, the housing crisis, and the apprenticeship market are already being used to plant the narrative of the greedy failing entrepreneur in people’s minds.

It is shabby, socially destabilizing, but hardly surprising: socialist rot, indeed. This unreflective hatred, the agitation against the middle class and high achievers, forms socialism’s typical power source—resentment, cheap envy of others’ success. When this behavior is institutionalized in politics, it is a clear indicator of advanced societal and economic decay.

Berlin is long bankrupt. The neglect manifest across much of the city has become a visible hallmark of the unteachable nature of German socialists. Beyond Germany’s borders, one can study the societal decay of the country through its capital. A victim of Europe’s postmodern cultural rift, visible wherever open-border policies erode traditional cultural ferment, and where state bureaucracy thrives as the last line of defense for an impotent state apparatus that fears those whose social standing allows them to offer justified criticism of the visible rot in the community.

Certainly: the entrepreneurs, the self-employed, and investors are needed, only to have their financial resources extracted and the socialist experiment carried forward. That apprentices were chosen as vehicles for this plunder and media leverage comes as no surprise.

The political assault on entrepreneurs is now carried out on every possible level. The tighter the fiscal situation, the more aggressively politics lashes out. The logic is simple: those who do not follow the prescribed recipes and rules of politics—whether in training or emissions—are sanctioned. The complexity of the economy, differences in sectors, location, or individual businesses are ignored.

The gross wage sum becomes a moral metric, and the entrepreneur a prisoner of a political formula meticulously crafted in one of the countless party-state working groups.

Nowhere is this decay of German society more visible than in its parasitic capital, which hangs off the hinterland. The so-called Berlin political elite no longer claims to represent a societal engine of modernization and inspiration. Were it bold enough to present itself as a stabilizer of meritocratic values of performance and seriousness, it would be met only with biting mockery. Berlin remains Berlin, and its fundamental principle of rule is, quite Caesar-like: divida et impera—divide and rule, seek enemies that can be politically and media-wise exploited to distract from one’s own failures.

* * * 

About the author: Thomas Kolbe is a German graduate economist. For over 25 years, he has worked as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/08/2026 - 05:00

Kraken Robotics Demos Next-Gen Tech For Maritime And Defense Operations

At a time when waterways like the Strait of Hormuz have occupied almost every headline and have been the impetus behind a good portion of the ongoing conflict in Iran, Kraken Robotics has successfully completed a new demonstration of its autonomous mine countermeasure technology, highlighting the growing role of unmanned systems in maritime security.

The company announced that its KATFISH towed synthetic aperture sonar system, along with its autonomous launch and recovery system (LARS), was fully integrated and tested aboard SEFINE’s RD-22 unmanned surface vessel. The demonstration was carried out in partnership with SEFINE SISAM, the company’s Strategic Unmanned Systems Research Center, during the first quarter of 2026 off the coast of İstanbul, Türkiye.

The trial showcased how autonomous platforms can be used to detect and classify underwater threats more efficiently. According to Kraken Robotics, the exercise focused on identifying mine-like objects and monitoring critical subsea infrastructure—capabilities that are becoming increasingly important as global attention turns to protecting maritime routes and underwater assets.

Bernard Mills, Kraken’s Executive Vice President of Defence, said the demonstration reflects the urgent need for advanced tools to secure key waterways. He noted that combining SEFINE’s multi-role unmanned surface vessel with Kraken’s sonar and launch system allows navies to deploy high-performance mine countermeasure technologies more quickly and with greater flexibility.

During the test, the KATFISH system delivered high-resolution sonar imagery with precision down to 3 by 3 centimeters, scanning areas up to 200 meters on each side. The data was transmitted live to an onshore command center, where operators used SEFINE SISAM’s mission planning software to analyze and classify potential threats in real time.

The event drew representatives from multiple navies and government organizations, underscoring international interest in next-generation autonomous defence systems.

This latest demonstration builds on earlier trials conducted in November 2025, when the same KATFISH and LARS setup was deployed from a Royal Navy ARCIMS unmanned surface vessel. Together, these successful integrations mark a significant step toward more agile, modular, and cost-effective solutions for modern mine countermeasure operations.

Kraken Robotics develops advanced subsea technologies, including 3D imaging sensors, robotic systems, and power solutions designed to operate safely and efficiently in challenging ocean environments. Its portfolio—featuring synthetic aperture sonar, sub-bottom imaging, LiDAR, and high-density pressure-tolerant batteries—supports applications in ocean safety, infrastructure inspection, and subsea energy storage.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/08/2026 - 04:15