Trump 'Optimistic' An Iran Deal Within Reach, After First Non-Iranian Tanker Transits Hormuz Since Ceasefire Summary: 

• Bibi says pursuing Lebanon ceasefire after reports of Trump pressure. Over 250 killed and 1,000+ wounded in Lebanon from Wednesday surprise attack by Israel's military. UAE, Pakistan, and even EU (Kallas) condemn.

• Trump 'optimistic' a deal within reach (NBC). WH confirms Vice President Vance will lead Kushner-Witkoff delegation in Pakistan, seen as positive in Tehran and Islamabad.

• Trump warns of more military action if Iran doesn't uphold 'real' ceasefire deal, after disagreement over Lebanon truce status as part of deal.

• Despite some last-minute shots in Lebanon by Israel, bombs go largely silent across Gulf and Middle East.

• Hormuz Strait still effectively controlled by Iran: only a few vessels had passed on Wednesday. TASS reporting only 15 'vetted' tankers per day to be let through. Thursday sees first non-Iranian tanker pass since ceasefire.

//--> //--> Trump announces end of military operations against Iran by April 15th?
Yes 9% · No 92%
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Trump 'Optimistic' Iran Deal Within Reach, After 1st Non-Iranian Tanker Transits Hormuz Since Ceasefire

AFP has cited MarineTraffic monitor to report that the first non-Iranian tanker has transited the Strait of Hormuz since the ceasefire began.

Also per NBC, Trump says he is optimistic that an Iran peace deal is within reach, as Vance is set to head up the American side for Pakistan talks, scheduled for Saturday monring.

This marks the most direct signal yet from the US President himself that negotiations could have real momentum. He also told NBC that Tehran is "more agreeable than it shows in public." However, despite these 'positives' - the case of Israel-Lebanon fighting could derail a lasting peace:

Hezbollah MP says group rejects any direct talks between Lebanon, Israel

Bibi: We are Opening Direct Negotiations With Lebanon

Huge development per Axios:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: In light of Lebanon's repeated calls to open direct negotiations with Israel, I instructed the Cabinet yesterday to open direct negotiations with Lebanon as soon as possible. The negotiations will focus on disarming Hezbollah and establishing peaceful relations between Israel and Lebanon. Israel appreciates the Lebanese Prime Minister's call today to evacuate Beirut

This after NBC News just reported that President Trump has requested that Israel reduce its bombing of Lebanon. There are some caveats: a senior Israeli official has said the negotiations will begin in the "coming days" and is not yet happening. Also, per Newsquawk (and via "Now 14"), the negotiations will take place "under fire" - meaning there could be continued strikes unleashed on Lebanon.

Oil dumps and stocks spike on the news...

15 'Vetted' Vessels Per Day To Be Allowed Through Hormuz: TASS

The Associated Press has emphasized Thursday, "Iran's approval system for ships granted safe passage - after vetting by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps - remains unchanged despite US President Donald Trump’s demand for the strait to be reopened."

"Last week was the busiest week since the start of the war with 72 passages, still 90% below normal volumes, Lloyd’s said," the AP report continues. "Most of the vessels allowed through are connected to Iran, although some Indian vessels have gotten through with diplomatic intervention by the Indian government." There are currently few indicators revealing Iran's intent for what comes next, and it could be that much gets determined on whether Israel will cease its attacks on Lebanon. Tehran has threatened to renew its ballistic missile attacks of Israel's anti-Hezbollah actions and massive airstrikes on Beirut persist.

Russia, which is an ally of Iran, has in its media published Iranian sources saying that Iran will allow no more than 15 vessels per day through Hormuz. As for Iran's protocol for allowing passage, which reportedly could include up to a $2 million fee per vessel payable in cryptocurrency, Lloyd's list outlines the following on where things stand:

• Vessels transiting the chokepoint must coordinate with the IRGC Navy
• Iran's latest guidance explicitly warns of anti-ship mines in the main traffic zone of the strait
• IRGC Navy continues to vet all traffic passing through the strait on the basis of geopolitical affiliation

Optimism: Bombs Largely Go Quiet

Asia One journalist Anas Mallick writes that "To my understanding, By tomorrow, first break of light, is when both delegations of US and Iran will be in Islamabad to hold talks."

There's some optimism regarding the US-Iran ceasefire holding, as it's been relatively quiet in the Middle East overnight into Thursday, despite Israel getting some final shots on Lebanon in. On this, Iran's president has made clear Tehran's position that Israel's renewed incursion into Lebanon and against Hezbollah violates the ceasefire, warning that these actions could make talks moot before they even begin.

Reuters observes, "Even as the U.S. and Iran seek to cement a ceasefire, Israel is seizing more territory from its neighbors in preparation for a long, drawn-out conflict across the Middle East. Israel's creation of 'buffer zones' in Gaza, Syria and now Lebanon reflects a strategic shift after the attacks of October 7, 2023, one that puts the country in a semi-permanent state of war."

Still, Gulf countries like the UAE have stated that no air threats have been detected or are inbound in the past hours, which is a rare positive development. There has been a decline in Iranian attacks across Arab states in the Persian Gulf region. Also, Israeli society has begun to return to normalcy, with emergency and shelter in place measures lifted across most parts of the country, and Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv having resumed operations as of midnight.

The reality of who actually controls the Hormuz Strait, told in one awkward WH press exchange:

Q: As of today, who controls the Strait of Hormuz?

LEAVITT: We expect that the strait will be opened immediately

Q: Who controls the strait right now?

LEAVITT: *refuses to answer* pic.twitter.com/eqDzxLTRAP

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 8, 2026

Over 250 Killed In Lebanon on Single Day

But the reality remains that on Wednesday - the first day of the fragile ceasefire - a mere few tankers were allowed passage through the Strait of Hormuz before Iran shut down traffic again, citing the heavy Israeli attacks on Lebanon, which were the largest and deadliest of the war to date.

Sky News reports that at least 254 people were killed by the Israeli strikes across Lebanon on Wednesday, citing government health authorities. In Beirut alone, at least 91 people were killed, amid ongoing rescue efforts and treatment of the wounded in area hospitals. Over 1,000 Lebanese were wounded and injured. The Lebanese government has declared a day of mourning.

Trump To Renew Attacks if Tehran Fails in 'Real' Ceasefire Deal, Oil Rises

Meanwhile President Trump in a Truth Social message issued overnight says that "all US ships, aircraft, and military personnel" will remain in place around Iran until the "real agreement" on a ceasefire "is fully complied with" - warning of more US military action to come if not.

The renewed threats have pushed WTI back above $100...

Here's president Trump's full Truth Social statement wherein he warns that the shooting can start again "bigger, better, and stronger than anyone has ever seen before":

Iran's leadership has meanwhile been insistent on Lebanon being part of the Iran ceasefire, and has on this basis accused Washington of already violating at least three clauses of the ten point plan. It too has serious cards to play - especially while still de facto controlling Hormuz, and with the ability to renew attacks on energy sites in Gulf states.

pic.twitter.com/itR0mAo03m

— محمدباقر قالیباف | MB Ghalibaf (@mb_ghalibaf) April 9, 2026

Iran on Lebanon Violations: 'Choose War or Ceasefire, You Can't Have Both'

Iran's deputy foreign minister Saeed Khatibzadeh has told CBS News Israel's attacks on Lebanon Wednesday were "a grave violation" of the ceasefire agreement, and emphasized the US must choose "between war and ceasefire - you cannot have it both at the same time."

"You cannot ask for a ceasefire and then accept terms and conditions, accept areas the ceasefire is applied to, and name Lebanon, exactly Lebanon in that, and then your ally just start a massacre," Khatibzadeh said. 

Netanyahu's message has remained that Israel can strike Hezbollah whenever and "wherever" it chooses. "In Beirut, we eliminated Ali Youssef Kharshi, the personal secretary of Hezbollah terror organization Secretary-General Naim Qassem and one of the people closest to him. At the same time, overnight, the IDF struck a series of terror infrastructures in southern Lebanon: crossings used to transfer thousands of weapons, rockets, and launchers, as well as weapons depots, launchers, and Hezbollah headquarters," Netanyahu said.

⚡️ The Israeli airstrike on Al-Basta, Lebanon pic.twitter.com/Zh1YNF529S

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) April 8, 2026

"Our message is clear: Whoever acts against Israeli civilians will be struck. We will continue to strike Hezbollah wherever required, until we restore full security to the residents of the north."

Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Saar: "In the last 40 days, Hezbollah has fired approximately 6,500 missiles, rockets, and drones at Israel."

Pakistan Welcomes Vance Heading up US Delegation

WH Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt made clear Wednesday that Vice President JD Vance will head up talks for the US side in Pakistan, leading Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. Tehran had previously expressed its disdain for the latter two, accusing them of lying and being deceptive the first go-round before Iran suffered surprise US-Israeli attack. The pair are also accused of lacking technical know-how when it comes to talking about the nuclear issue.

Al Jazeera also freshly reports that the choice of Vance heading the US delegation is "being viewed very positively in Pakistan." Pakistan’s former Ambassador to the UN Maleeha Lodhi says, "Politicians know the art of the possible, and therefore I think it’s a good decision by the Trump administration to have Vance lead the talks."

Vance has stressed that Trump is "impatient to make progress" with Iran and warned that if Iranian officials don't engage in good faith "they're going to find out that President Trump is not one to mess around with." The US has clamed Iran 'begged' for ceasefire while Tehran insists it was the other way around.

More Geopolitical Headlines

via Newsquawk...

• US President Donald Trump posted: "All U.S. Ships, Aircraft, and Military Personnel....will remain in place in, and around, Iran, until such time as the REAL AGREEMENT reached is fully complied with".
• US President Donald Trump posted: "NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN. REMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!".
• The Trump administration is considering a plan to penalize NATO members viewed as unhelpful during the Iran war by relocating US troops to more supportive countries, with potential base closures in Europe, including in Spain or Germany, according to WSJ.
• NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte told President Trump that most European nations provided support.
• US officials stated they do not rule out resuming fighting in Iran and confirmed Trump will not offer major concessions to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, warning Iran’s demands could trigger renewed conflict.
• Iran’s deputy foreign minister stated that the speaker of parliament will lead Iran’s delegation in upcoming talks, with communication continuing through Pakistan, according to Al Jazeera.
• Iran’s ambassador to Pakistan stated the delegation will arrive in Islamabad on Thursday night for “serious talks” based on Iran’s 10-point proposal.
• The IRGC Navy announced alternative shipping routes to bypass potential sea mines, according to ISNA.
• The IRGC stated that shipping through the Strait of Hormuz slowed sharply and then stopped following what it described as an Israeli ceasefire violation in Lebanon, according to CNN.
• Iranian lawmaker Ibrahim Azizi stated: "Once again, you have proven that you do not know the meaning of a ceasefire" and "Only fire will discipline you...so wait for it".
• Saudi Arabia and Iran discussed de-escalation during a call, according to SPA.
• A Pakistani Foreign Ministry source indicated the US has backed away from including Lebanon in the ceasefire with Iran, according to Al Arabiya.
• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated Israel will continue striking Hezbollah, with the IDF targeting infrastructure in southern Lebanon overnight.
• Israel’s Ministry of Energy ordered the resumption of operations at the Karish gas platform after a shutdown during the war, according to Channel 12.
• Hezbollah stated its attacks on Israel will continue until aggression stops and launched rockets citing ceasefire violations, according to Fars News Agency.
• A missile was fired from Lebanon into northern Israel, according to Fars News Agency.
• Israeli strikes in Lebanon continued despite the ceasefire with Iran, according to Anadolu Agency.
• French President Emmanuel Macron spoke with Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian and US President Donald Trump, stating their decision to accept the ceasefire was the best course of action.
• Russia launched 119 drones at Ukraine overnight, according to Ukrainian media.

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Tyler Durden Thu, 04/09/2026 - 13:20

GOP Blocks Congressional Democrats Attempt At Iran War Powers Vote

(Update 1245ET): House Republicans thwarted Democrats’ attempt to unanimously restrict President Donald Trump’s war powers in Iran, declining to recognize the lawmaker who sought to offer it during a pro forma session Thursday.

As Bloomberg reports, the forced-adoption attempt was destined to fail, but it previewed Democrats’ focus on rebuking the war in Iran when the chamber returns to session next week. Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) asked for unanimous consent to advance the Iran war powers resolution during a pro forma, or ceremonial, session held during the congressional recess.

Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), who was presiding, didn’t acknowledge Ivey to speak.

Democrats can try to force a full House vote on the resolution next week when lawmakers return to Washington.

At least two of the four members of their party who opposed a similar resolution a month ago have said they plan to support it now.

*  *  *

As Nathan Worcester detailed earlier via The Epoch Times, Congressional Democrats will try to place guardrails on the Iran war when the floor is briefly open during a two-week break for Easter.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) speaks during a press conferece on Capitol Hill in Washington on Feb. 9, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) detailed his intentions in an April 8 letter to colleagues.

During an April 9 session that would normally be a formality, Democrats will seek to advance a War Powers Resolution on Iran through unanimous consent. It’s a maneuver that House Republicans can easily block.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) also announced that the Senate would take a vote on a War Powers Resolution related to Iran.

“The War Powers Act will cease hostilities and require the administration to get an AUMF before going to war after the hostilities cease,” Schumer said of the proposal.

The Democrats’ calls to pursue votes for restricting the president’s war powers come a day after President Donald Trump announced he was suspending attacks in Operation Epic Fury, on the condition that Iran reopens the Hormuz Strait to unimpeded maritime traffic.

Multiple parties have accused one another of violating the two-week ceasefire. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, whose country helped mediate the brief interruption in fighting, has called on the combatant nations “to exercise restraint and respect the ceasefire for two weeks.”

In his April 8 letter, Jeffries described the present ceasefire as “woefully insufficient.”

“We have demanded that the House come back into session immediately in order to vote on our resolution to permanently end the war in the Middle East,” he wrote.

A War Powers Resolution would mandate congressional authorization of U.S. involvement in the war.

A previous attempt to constrain the president’s actions failed in the House on March 5.

Almost all Republicans opposed that resolution, which drew the support of all but four Democrats in the lower chamber.

The Senate equivalent was shot down on March 4. That vote also mostly fell along party lines. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) broke with his party to support the measure, while Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) crossed the aisle to oppose it.

Ongoing two-week breaks in the House and Senate have been punctuated by pro-forma sessions. Those brief assemblies of only a few members are held as a formality so the chambers technically remain in session.

On the Senate side, the meetings keep the individual breaks short enough that the president cannot make recess appointments.

The sessions are also how lawmakers avoid adjourning for longer than three days. Under Article I of the Constitution, anything longer would take an agreement between the House and Senate.

The Easter break of 2026 has already witnessed some minor drama during sessions where little is typically expected to happen.

Earlier in April, the House did not take up a Senate-passed bill that would partly fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Some Republicans have resisted the DHS deal, which excludes immigration enforcement and border funding.

House and Senate Republican leaders have vowed to fund those areas for multiple years through a separate, party-line budget vote.

Joseph Lord contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/09/2026 - 12:45

White House Says Cuban Regime Is "Bound To Fall"

Authored by Travis Gillmore via The Epoch Times,

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt addressed the situation in Cuba, where the population of nearly 10 million are impacted by rolling blackouts and instability, during a press briefing April 8.

She further clarified President Donald Trump’s recent statement that “Cuba is next,” after the U.S. military successfully detained former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores Maduro before striking Iran in coordination with Israel.

“I think when President Trump said that and he later clarified after making that statement that he meant the Cuban regime is bound to fall,” Leavitt said in response to a question from The Epoch Times.

“The country is very weak. They’re in a very weak position economically, obviously, and financially.”

Cuba relied on Venezuela for much of its energy resources, but that supply dried up after the United States took control of the region’s oil industry following Maduro’s capture. A fuel crisis is threatening the nation, with scarce resources available, and nationwide power outages affecting homes and businesses.

Outdated energy infrastructure and a failure to maintain electricity grids are contributing to hardships, according to the U.S. State Department.

“The Cuban people are fed up with their government, as they should be,” Leavitt said.

She offered no policy updates but said administration officials are collaborating across departments to identify diplomatic solutions.

“These talks and discussions continue to happen at the highest level of our government,” Leavitt said.

Cuba has faced embargos and economic pressure from the United States since Fidel Castro led a communist revolution in 1959 toppled Fulgencio Batista, who led the island nation with U.S. support after taking power through a coup in 1952.

President Barack Obama eased some sanctions in a normalization process, but Trump began reversing those policies during his first term.

Since taking office for a second time, Trump has ramped up criticism against the Cuban regime.

Trump told an audience at the Future Investment Initiative Institute in Miami on March 27 that his peace through strength approach is built on a “great military,” while economic leverage and tough negotiating strategies can facilitate change without the use of force.

“I said, you'll never have to use it, but sometimes you have to use it, and Cuba’s next, by the way,” Trump said, while adding the line might be a joke. “But, pretend I didn’t say that please. ... Please, please, please media, please disregard that statement. Thank you very much. Cuba’s next.”

In an executive order signed Jan. 29, 2026, the president described the Cuban government’s actions as constituting an “unusual and extraordinary threat.”

The order cites Cuba’s support for and alignment with hostile nations, including China, Iran, and Russia, along with the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah, as evidence of the threat.

“Cuba has long provided defense, intelligence, and security assistance to adversaries in the Western Hemisphere, attempting to thwart United States and international sanctions designed to enforce the stability of the region, uphold the rule of law, and safeguard the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” the order reads.

Furthermore, the executive order states the Cuban government is spreading communist ideology across the Western Hemisphere, “threatening the foreign policy of the United States.”

“The communist regime persecutes and tortures its political opponents; denies the Cuban people free speech and press; corruptly profits from their misery; and commits other human-rights violations,” the order states.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called for regime change in Cuba while reiterating concerns about communism during remarks to the media on March 27.

“The only thing worse than a communist is an incompetent communist,” Rubio said. “So, their system of government has to change, because they will never be able to develop economically without those changes.”

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/09/2026 - 12:25

New Jersey Governor Sherrill Lifts 40-Year Nuclear Moratorium

Governor Mikie Sherrill signed legislation that scraps New Jersey’s 40-year de facto moratorium on new nuclear power plants, clearing the way for expanded baseload generation in a state long plagued by some of the nation’s highest utility bills. 

The bill, S3870/A4528, amends the Coastal Area Facility Review Act to remove an outdated permitting roadblock tied to Nuclear Regulatory Commission waste-disposal rules that no modern project could satisfy.

The NJ Department of Environmental Protection can now approve permits based on proven, NRC-compliant storage methods that have maintained a 100% safety record.

Speaking after a tour of the Salem Nuclear Power Plant, Sherrill launched the state’s new Nuclear Task Force by executive order.

The group, which includes officials from PSEG Nuclear, labor unions, business groups, and environmental stakeholders, will focus on five priorities: financing, supply chains and technology, workforce development, regulatory streamlining, and public trust. 

“For costs to come down, we need more energy supply,” Gov Sherrill said.

“By lifting outdated barriers and bringing together leaders across government, industry, and labor, we’re setting the stage for our state to pursue new advanced nuclear power.”

Existing reactors at Salem and Hope Creek already supply more than 40 percent of the state’s electricity and roughly 80 percent of its pollution-free power.

A 2020 Brattle Group analysis found those plants save ratepayers more than $400 million annually while running at 90-95 percent capacity on just 740 combined acres.

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/09/2026 - 12:05

“Apple: The First 50 Years”

1. To tell you the truth, I finished this book almost a week ago, and I forgot most of what I wanted to say about it. Primarily the business insights.

Not that I don’t remember the facts. Not that I haven’t internalized the messages.

In any event, this book is not for casual fans, casual readers. If you came to the Mac after Steve Jobs returned or later, you probably won’t get far in this tome. But if you were there at the beginning…

I was not. At the very beginning. Because it was all about the Apple II.

And that lore is repeated here, the creation of the Apple I, the Apple II team’s frustration that it was considered a second class citizen whilst generating all the profits, keeping the company alive well into the Macintosh era.

But I came in in 1986. With the Mac Plus…

The original Mac was close to unusable, it only had 128kb of RAM…

Now let me see… This machine I’m running has 48 GIGS of RAM. 128kb was infinitesimal. Months later came the Fat Mac, with 512kb, but the Mac Plus had a gig of RAM. However you still had to swap floppies. The screen was still small and black and white. But if you bought in, it was a religion. Like being a fan of your favorite band, but deeper. Maybe because you were there early, you were intrigued, and you knew these machines would change the world.

Computers were not rare in 1986, but most of them were PCs…which really didn’t have an effective Windows interface until 1995. In other words, they were not very usable. They were business tools.

But what really blew up computing was AOL. Didn’t matter what platform you were on, they all worked with AOL…and people ran out and bought computers just to play.

But that was almost thirty years ago. Do today’s generations, many birthed in this century, know this?

No, just like we couldn’t fathom the introduction of television in our parents’ era.

Anyway, I had no allegiance to Apple. All I knew was I wanted to start a newsletter and needed a computer to do so. And it didn’t take much research to find out I needed a Mac, with PageMaker, and a LaserWriter.

This was a different era, not quite the hobbyist era, but the machines were not foolproof, unlike your iPad and iPhone. Not only did they crash, they might not reboot. The Mac wasn’t truly user-friendly for everybody until the introduction of Mac OS X, based on Unix with the Mach kernel.

Not that you need to know that, not that today you need to know how your car runs. But for almost all of my life, you had to have a rudimentary knowledge of how your automobile functioned, because it would break! Computers were even worse, although they rarely physically broke, they just stopped working.

And you had to figure out why.

That’s right, there was no Genius Bar, really very little tech help at all. You had to sit in front of the computer and figure out what was wrong, and it could take you hours…I found it nearly impossible to fall asleep until I’d solved the problem, gotten my computer back on the right track.

Needless to say, those are not these days.

2 So forty years ago…

Not only was there no internet, techies were considered nerds, geeks, they were not respected by the hoi polloi, who were infatuated by MTV. But once you got bitten…

I used to say it was like having a math problem on my desk. Only there was no test, I wasn’t graded, but when I figured it out the level of satisfaction…

And what the Macintosh could do, and what the PC could not!

So if you were around in those days, you’ll be intrigued, you will be riveted, because Pogue brings it all back. The system updates, which you had to go to the store at first to get. The step by step innovation. The dark years and then the renaissance.

Now this is not the first time this territory has been covered, but it has never been covered so well, because David Pogue is one of our own, he’s not only writing about the Mac, he LIVED the Mac!

The best books ever about the Mac and Mac products were authored by Pogue, and I used to buy the “Missing Manual”s and read them cover to cover. You’d be stunned how powerful these machines are, most only use a tiny faction of their ability.

And the software too.

I read all the manuals, also from cover to cover.

Do you know if you double-click the top of your window, it will shrink it down to the dock? I could list tons of tips, but most are not used and not cared about. It’s almost an insider’s game. But…

Those early days, do you remember Conflict Catcher?

All the breakthroughs and bumps in the road are catalogued by Pogue. In an upfront, breezy style. He makes Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs look like the doorstep it is. Content is secondary to readability, and Pogue is very readable. And as much as he knows to leave in, he’s not afraid of leaving a bit out. It’s a book. Made to be read from start to finish. If you do so, you’ll know Apple’s history.

But how many people need to know this?

3

Apple was the little engine that could. The true breakthrough was the iPod.

But before that, during Jobs’s hejira with NeXT…

The problem with Sculley was he was a marketer, of a completely different product. Pepsi could sit on the shelves for a while. Computers lost value every day they were held in inventory.

Also, Sculley was a publicity hog, who wrote a book and liked being perceived as a visionary, even though he was not. We see this story again and again, do not believe the hype. Which is easy to garner. Can you say “Theranos”? No, the true people to admire are those who are doing the work, whose names are out there, but oftentimes say no to press, it slows them down, never mind that the press always gets it wrong, ALWAYS! Because unlike Pogue, most writers are not familiar with the territory.

Was Jobs a terror?

Yes.

And he was milder when he came back.

But he had a vision, and he didn’t believe in consumer research. He was about the bleeding edge. A lot of this has been documented, which is why the second half of the book is less interesting.

As for Tim Cook and the players in power today…

Yes, the petty wars are delineated, but the real point is they are not superstars, they are not visionaries, those only come along once in a while.

Like a classic musician, Jobs is focused on getting it right, in a world where everybody is taught to compromise to get along, where no one wants to stand out, upset the apple cart. Jobs focuses on product, believing the rest will take care of itself.

And prior to his return and their replacement, those who sat on the board saw Apple as a traditional business. They wanted to sell it, before it cratered, before Jobs came back and reinvigorated it.

Now I remember one of the lessons I wanted to impart… Don’t underestimate expertise. We see this all the time in the music business, since you don’t need a degree to be in it, no one has any respect for those who work in it. Average citizens believe they can find talent, they can do ticketing. But again and again outsiders fail, because the expertise cannot be quantified, it is built over time, it’s something you feel, it’s something innate. Even as simple as picking the hits. I’d say at least ninety percent of what people e-mail me, saying it’s great and deserves further attention, does not. I’m not saying they can’t like it, but they don’t have the seasoning and the vision to know what will spread to the public.

But it’s not only in music, in politics people have contempt for expertise. There’s this belief everybody can do everything. Then why did it take Steve Jobs to come up with the iPod and iPhone?

Breaking rules all the while. Getting rid of legacy ports on computers, getting rid of the physical keyboard on the iPhone. People are attached to the past, and if you’re busy serving them you’re going to be left behind. Jobs knew the iPhone was going to destroy the iPod, but rather than keep the music player alive, Jobs insisted on pushing the envelope, he was not willing to rest on his laurels, giving competitors a window to leapfrog Apple.

Hell, me-too is everywhere. When was the last time you heard a successful record that was truly surprising, completely different? Labels don’t sign those acts anymore, it’s too heavy a lift. They want it easy. Just like the movie studios, whose lunch was eaten by Netflix. Let me see… You raise the prices, you make fewer movies in obvious genres and then you complain that the theatre experience is dying? Believe me, people will show up for something unique and different. Then again, something might have to percolate in the marketplace for a while to catch on, but these flicks play in theatres for a minute and are then available on TV, which is a better experience.

User experience. That was Jobs’s main focus. But in most avenues of life, this is denied. Purveyors are trying to whittle down and control human behavior, keep it in the past, which is a fool’s errand.

4

The press is all over Apple’s 50th.

But it’s kind of like a lifetime achievement award… Once you get that, you’re usually done.

I get a new iPhone every year. But recently, the changes have been miniscule, almost irrelevant.

Apple is making a ton of money on services, and maybe the days of hardware breakthroughs are done, then again, the days of tech wowing us died over a decade ago, now tech is the enemy.

But the story of going from Motorola to Intel to in-house chips… Once again, the company is always thinking about the future, whereas in entertainment, everybody seems to be constantly blind-sided. Kind of like George Bush and 9-11. Who could envision they’d fly planes into buildings?

Then again, entertainment executives are all about lifestyle, accumulating and displaying. The company is something to milk.

Oh, I just remembered another thing that struck me… This happened again and again, but foremost with the original Macintosh team.

Yes, Jobs asked for the theoretically unachievable, which they always delivered, but once the Mac was released…most of the members of the team were so burned out, they couldn’t work for months, if ever at this level again. Most left Apple. None set the world on fire once again. They’d been to the mountaintop, they’d experienced the ride and the rewards, they just weren’t up for doing it again, like a hit act that cannot create hits anymore.

There are a lot of lessons in Pogue’s book. Not that he bats you over the head with them. But almost no one is going to read this book. They might buy it, but the average punter just doesn’t care about the minutiae of tech, the history of creation. Kind of like cars. You may love Mercedes-Benz, Ferrari, but how many people want to go back seventy or a hundred years and hear about the arguments and decisions regarding what kind of engines and suspensions to use, the failures…

However, the thing about Apple is unlike any single car brand, unlike any musician, period, the company’s products and services touch a broad swath of the public. Sure, Android might be bigger internationally, but all the innovation is on the iPhone first, which has over fifty percent market share in the U.S.

And now with the MacBook Neo, Macs are no longer expensive. The last hurdle has been eliminated, you can enter the cult on the cheap.

And once you do…

You get locked in.

And the love for Apple sustains. This is not a musical act or TV show that ultimately peters out. We expect Apple to continue to deliver, to lead us into the future.

Did it miss AI?

I’m not even gonna get into it. Could be their philosophy of licensing turns out to be the best.

But one thing is for sure, Apple is not a one trick pony. So many use their products and they think they know what goes on inside the gold mine. In truth they don’t. And, in truth, they don’t really care that much, they have no need to know.

But if you do…

P.S. Don’t buy the e-book unless you’re going to read it on an iPad… There are numerous color photos.

 

~~~

Visit the archive:   http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/

@Lefsetz  http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
–
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter

~~~

Originally published by Bob Lefsetz at the Leftsetz Letter

The post David Pogue’s Apple Book appeared first on The Big Picture.

FBI Arrests Former Army Contractor For Allegedly Leaking Top Secret Details About Special Forces To Media

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

The FBI arrested a former Fort Bragg civilian contractor April 7 for allegedly providing top secret details about the Delta Force special forces unit to a journalist who later published the information in an article and book.

Courtney Williams, 40, of Wagram, North Carolina, was indicted by a federal grand jury and charged with violating the Espionage Act in connection to the alleged transmission of classified national defense information to the journalist in violation of federal law.

“Let this serve as a message to any would-be leakers: we’re working these cases, and we’re making arrests,” FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X.

“This FBI will not tolerate those who seek to betray our country and put Americans in harm’s way.”

Officials say Williams worked for a Special Military Unit from 2010 to 2016 supporting top-level military warfighters. During that time, she held a top secret, sensitive compartmented information security clearance, according to prosecutors.

Williams allegedly had daily access to a wide range of classified information, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

As a clearance holder, Williams was trained to know about proper handling, safeguarding, and storage of classified information, prosecutors said. She also allegedly signed a nondisclosure agreement that confirmed she understood that disclosing it could constitute a criminal offense.

Investigators allege Williams repeatedly communicated with a journalist by phone and through text messages between 2022 and 2025. The two had over 10 hours of phone calls and exchanged more than 180 messages, according to prosecutors.

In one message, the reporter identified himself as a journalist and said he was seeking information about the unit to support an upcoming article and book, according to prosecutors.

After the communications, the journalist published a book and article that named Williams as a source and attributed specific statements to her, per court documents.

Prosecutors didn’t name the journalist in the complaint, but Seth Harp, an investigative reporter and foreign correspondent, published a Politico article on Williams on Aug. 12, 2025.

The article was an excerpt from his New York Times best-selling book, “The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces.”

Harp didn’t immediately return a request for comment about Williams’s arrest but posted statements about it on X.

“The FBI is incapable of solving real crimes, like all the murders on Fort Bragg involving elite soldiers trafficking drugs, so they settle for retaliating against courageous whistleblowers like Courtney Williams, whose only ‘crime’ was telling the truth about Delta Force,” Harp wrote.

The article names Williams and describes her decision to take a job as a contractor at Fort Bragg after ending a four-year enlistment in the Army, where she had served as an interrogator and Arabic linguist.

Her position in Southern Pines, North Carolina, was in mission support and was run by former members of Delta Force, the Army’s component of Joint Special Operations Command. Williams told Harp the job was to create and maintain fictitious cover identities for Delta Force operators to use on clandestine missions.

She also described her grievances about the unit, claiming she was discriminated against and sexually harassed. She lost her security clearance after a dispute with leadership in 2016, according to the article.

Williams and her husband allegedly burned through their savings defending herself in the dispute before settling with the unit’s lawyers and retiring from the position, she told Harp.

FBI Special Agent in Charge of the North Carolina Field Office Reid Davis said Williams faced serious charges.

“The tradecraft, tactics, and techniques used by the U.S. military unit in this case are classified and should be shared only with those with proper clearances and a need to know in order to protect American lives and safeguard classified National Defense information,” Davis said in a press release.

“These are serious accusations. Anyone divulging information they vowed to protect to a reporter for publication is reckless, self-serving and damages our nation’s security.”

Williams was not reachable for comment.

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/09/2026 - 11:45

South Beirut Sees Mass Exodus Amid Diplomatic Scramble To Ward Off Israeli Raids

Israel has on Thursday warned civilians in south Beirut to evacuate their homes and neighborhoods, amid fears of a fresh impending aerial assault, after IDF strikes across Lebanon and the capital the day prior led to at least 250 Lebanese deaths and over 1,400 people wounded. These were the heaviest strikes of the war.

"Just a short while ago, the Israeli military issued new forced evacuation orders, warning of air strikes this time for the southern suburbs, expanding the area where it says strikes may be conducted, including the Jnah neighborhood, which is south of a previously evacuated area," Al Jazeera reports. Panic and a mass exodus is being reported:

Mass exodus from Beirut's Jnah area after Israeli threat pic.twitter.com/92uE9CrdmQ

— RT (@RT_com) April 9, 2026

The effected area is densely populated with civilians and lies adjacent to Beirut's lone international airport. People who fled Wednesday's strikes on central Beirut in some places came to the Jnah area.

If Israeli bombs on Lebanon start flying again, this could re-trigger Iranian attacks on Israel. The Houthis in Yemen have also threatened to act, and all of this could collapse the fragile US-Iran ceasefire, amid impending talks expected to begin in Pakistan on Saturday.

Hezbollah now says it is engaged in ground clashes with the Israeli military in southern Lebanon’s Bint Jbeil area, per Al Jazeera, which lies a mere 3 miles from the Israeli border. Israel is seeking to de facto annex the area, Lebanon believes.

Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz has meanwhile stated the operations have dealt a "very strong blow to Hezbollah's face, leaving it stunned and confused by the depth of the penetration and the scope of the blow." Meanwhile:

TRUMP ASKED NETANYAHU TO REDUCE BOMBING IN LEBANON TO AID SUCCESSFUL IRAN NEGOTIATIONS, ACCORDING TO NBC REPORTS.

Referencing hundreds of ballistic missiles which were sent on Israel in the last weeks, Katz said the IDF is "prepared and ready to act forcefully if Iran fires at Israel." Hezbollah had also by mid-March joined the fight.

via UPI

Currently, Lebanese hospitals are said to be overwhelmed while treating victims of the latest Israeli air raids, and are said to be in short supply, also seeking blood donations.

Reuters details, "Some of Lebanon's hospitals could run out of life-saving trauma medical kits within days ​as supplies near depletion following mass casualties from large-scale Israeli strikes over ‌the past day, the World Health Organization said on Thursday." The WHO outlined that "The life-saving trauma kits include bandages, antibiotics and anaesthetics to treat patients who sustained war-related injuries."

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/09/2026 - 11:35

CoreWeave Expands Meta AI Deal To $21 Billion, Issues $4.25 Billion In New Convertible & Junk Debt

CoreWeave has expanded its agreement to supply Meta with AI computing capacity, lifting the total value of the deal to $21 billion, as reported by Bloomberg. The updated terms extend AI cloud services through December 2032.

This means that circular financing circle jerk we've been tracking since last year continues.

LOL

*COREWEAVE INKS $14 BILLION META DEAL TO SUPPLY COMPUTING POWER

ye daily circle jerk

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 30, 2025

This builds directly on the $14.2 billion pact the companies struck last September, which originally ran through 2031 with an option for extension. The additional capacity will come from multiple data centers equipped in part with Nvidia's next-generation Rubin AI chip systems.

The move gives Meta more assured access to specialized GPU clusters as it scales training and inference workloads for its expanding lineup of large language models.

It also means that CoreWeave now holds $35 billion in contracts with Meta, a firm that has made SPV private credit financing into an art form, making the tech firm one of Coreweave's largest customers.

CoreWeave will provide AI cloud capacity to Meta from multiple data centers powered in part by the Rubin systems of chips, through December 2032, the company said in a statement Thursday. 

As billion-dollar commitments have become almost routine, this latest expansion offers another glimpse into the staggering sums being funneled into AI infrastructure. Meta and the rest of the hyperscalers continue to chase AI dominance, committing vast resources even as it pours money into its own massive data center buildout. The numbers keep climbing with seemingly no ceiling in sight.

Goldman's head of Delta One slams Nvidia's increasingly grotesque vendor financing circle jerk

"... definitely not old enough to have been around trading during the tech bubble and let’s level set, multiples are now where near that point in time. That said, vendor financing was… https://t.co/Dt6th2Eobt

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 23, 2025

CoreWeave, a cash-incinerating provider of GPU-accelerated cloud computing and a longtime Nvidia investment darling, has carved out a lucrative niche in the frenzy. The company - part of a group of “neoclouds” or  businesses that, among other things, rent out access to leading AI chips - has landed nearly every big ticket name from Microsoft to OpenAI, positioning itself as an alternative to the traditional hyperscalers for the most demanding AI jobs. Its backlog of long-term contracts continues to swell, supporting rapid expansion even as the broader market watches the leverage closely. Nebius and Nscale are some of its smaller rivals.

CoreWeave has dramatically ramped up borrowing in recent years to finance deals in which it rents access to high-end artificial intelligence processors, joining an industrywide debt binge that has unsettled some investors. CoreWeave has turned to multiple financing channels to fund the capital-intensive expansion needed to keep pace with the AI boom.

And just in case its already massive debt load - at last check around $30 billion, triple what it was a year earlier - wasn't enough, CoreWeave separately said it plans to offer $3 billion in convertible senior notes due 2032 and $1.25 billion in senior notes due 2031 to cover general business including the repayment of outstanding debt.

The company is offering a 1.5% to 2% coupon on the latest $3 billion in bonds that investors can choose to convert into stock later at a premium, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the situation. Coreweave is also tapping the junk-bond market for the $1.25 billion in notes, offering just above 10% on the deal that may be sold as soon as Thursday, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

In February, the company was seeking to raise about $8.5 billion from banks including Morgan Stanley and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. to help finance its buildout of cloud computing capacity for Meta, Bloomberg reported at the time. 

Meanwhile, Meta has emerged as one of the top spenders on AI infrastructure. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is planning to drop hundreds of billions of dollars over the next few years on the energy, computing power and talent needed to build, train and run AI models. In its latest earnings call, Meta raised its 2026 capex projections to $115-$135 billion, nearly doubling its 2025 capex spend. 

Earlier this year we noted Nvidia's additional $2 billion investment in the firm to speed construction of new AI factories, and the company's revenue forecast adjustments last fall amid shifting contract timing. CoreWeave also carries roughly $21 billion in debt, a figure that coincidentally matches the scale of its enlarged Meta pact.

Biggest circle-jerk in history https://t.co/JlJrpyH06Y

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 1, 2026

The deal underscores a broader truth in the current cycle: hyperscalers are willing to lock in enormous, multi-year contracts to guarantee scarce high-performance computing resources. Nvidia itself has repeatedly highlighted the exponential growth in demand, and contracts of this size keep materializing to feed it. 
 

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/09/2026 - 11:25

Iran To Allow No More Than 15 Vessels Per Day Through Hormuz: Russian Media

Despite the positive development of a shaky US-Iran ceasefire holding, the reality is that Tehran still maintains de facto control over the vital Strait of Hormuz waterway. A mere few vessels passed without incident on Wednesday, before Iran's military closed the strait again, citing Israel's massive attacks on Lebanon.

The Associated Press has emphasized Thursday, "Iran's approval system for ships granted safe passage - after vetting by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps - remains unchanged despite US President Donald Trump’s demand for the strait to be reopened."

"Last week was the busiest week since the start of the war with 72 passages, still 90% below normal volumes, Lloyd’s said," the AP report continues. "Most of the vessels allowed through are connected to Iran, although some Indian vessels have gotten through with diplomatic intervention by the Indian government."

There are currently few indicators revealing Iran's intent for what comes next, and it could be that much gets determined on whether Israel will cease its attacks on Lebanon. Tehran has threatened to renew its ballistic missile attacks of Israel's anti-Hezbollah actions and massive airstrikes on Beirut persist.

Russia, which is an ally of Iran, has in its media published sources saying that Iran will allow no more than 15 vessels per day through Hormuz.

via abc.net

While this has not been confirmed officially by the Islamic Republic or IRGC, the following comes via TASS on Thursday:

Under the ceasefire agreement, Iran will allow no more than 15 vessels per day to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a senior Iranian source told TASS ahead of talks in Islamabad.

"Under the current ceasefire, fewer than 15 ships per day are permitted to transit the Strait of Hormuz. This movement is strictly contingent upon Iran's approval and the enforcement of a specific protocol. This new regulatory framework, operating under the supervision of the IRGC, has been officially communicated to regional parties. There will be no return to the pre-war status quo," the source said.

The same source additionally indicated that "the unfreezing of Iran's blocked assets is a critical executive guarantee that must be realized within this two-week timeframe."

Also, Iran is demanding that the end of the war must be formalized in a resolution of the United Nations Security Council: "If the termination of the war is not codified into a UN Security Council resolution based on our stipulated terms, we are fully prepared to resume combat against the US and the Zionist regim —just as we have over the past 40 days, and with even greater intensity," the source told TASS. Iran is further saying the US cannot build up more forces in the region during the two week ceasefire interim.

As for Iran's protocol for allowing passage, which reportedly could include up to a $2 million fee per vessel payable in cryptocurrency, Lloyd's list outlines the following on where things stand:

• Vessels transiting the chokepoint must coordinate with the IRGC Navy
• Iran's latest guidance explicitly warns of anti-ship mines in the main traffic zone of the strait
• IRGC Navy continues to vet all traffic passing through the strait on the basis of geopolitical affiliation

All of this means that the Iranian delegation in Pakistan will possess real leverage when it meets with the US side led by Vice President JD Vance this weekend. The White House has said talks are set to begin Saturday.

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/09/2026 - 10:45

Shmeasefire

By Molly Schwartz, cross-asset macro strategist of Rabobank

The trouble with ceasefires is that they often require both sides to agree to a set of terms, and then actually cease fire. However, if the set of terms are not comprehensively established and neither side can be held accountable to pause hostilities, then the so-called “ceasefire” loses all meaning.

Yesterday morning, Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth spoke about the Iran war ceasefire in a press conference. According to Hegseth, the US has achieved a “historic and overwhelming victory.” We have previously highlighted that in order for the US to achieve its stated goal of ending Iranian nuclear programs, regime change plays a fundamental role. 

Hegseth has explicitly said that regime change has been achieved, echoing Trump who posted on social media that Iran “has gone through what will be a very productive Regime Change!” However, the rhetoric out of the IRGC and the continued execution of Iranian protestors may indicate otherwise. Hegseth also said that Iran will “never have nuclear weapons” and that the Strait of Hormuz was indeed open for business.

At around 1:00pm ET yesterday, it was announced that the Strait of Hormuz was closed amid dispute over ceasefire terms. When a ceasefire is typically negotiated, this includes some formal written agreement. While that may be the case with the current “ceasefire”, the public has yet to see one. A lack of clearly defined and agreed upon terms leaves room for confusion. 

Just to show how much of a shitshow this whole thing is:

Qalibaf says that restraining Israel from attacks in Lebanon was the "first clause" of the 10-point proposal, but it wasn't the first clause in versions published by Iran's state news agency or IRGC-affiliated Tasnim… https://t.co/a3hbA8nNf7

— Gregg Carlstrom (@glcarlstrom) April 8, 2026

Israel conducted what was referred to as the “largest attack yet” on Hezbollah in Lebanon yesterday, with Israeli PM Netanyahu asserting that Lebanon and Hezbollah were not included in the ceasefire agreement. Netanyahu also provided his view on the ceasefire, declaring that this ceasefire is not the end of the war, but rather a “station en route to achieving aims.” 

Lebanon attack, April 8

The war certainly does not seem to be over, given Iran’s decision to close the Strait of Hormuz again, citing Israel’s “breach.” While the ceasefire announcement laid out by Iran does clearly state that the ceasefire extends to “Lebanon and other regions” (which may call into question the Iranian attacks on Israel, Kuwait, and the Saudi Arabia East-West pipeline in the ceasefire aftermath), the statement from the US does not, and Trump backed Netanyahu’s interpretation that Hezbollah was still fair game.

Closing the Strait of Hormuz, of course, also breaches the US stipulations for the ceasefire, including the “COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz.” Crucially, US Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt clarified that this also means Iran must operate the passage free of tolls or other duties.

EU players also released a statement to say that they “welcome the two-week ceasefire” and that their “Governments will contribute to ensuring freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.” The US Administration seemed skeptical of the EU’s commitment with Leavitt saying that over the course of the past few weeks, “they [the EU and NATO] were tested, and they failed.”

But the EU and NATO may have an opportunity to redeem themselves in Trump’s eyes. Iran’s Speaker of the Parliament, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, said on X that three clauses of Iran’s 10-point proposal had been violated, these being the aforementioned “ceasefire everywhere, including Lebanon and other regions,” as well as the “entry of an intruding drone into Iranian airspace,” and finally the “denial of Iran’s right to [uranium] enrichment.” 

As Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abbas Araghchi said on X yesterday, the ball is now in the US’ court. Everyone, but the US right now, is still lobbing missiles. So will the US hold up its commitment to halt offensive measures or put an official end to the ceasefire?

Markets are awaiting a response from the White House as well. Financial markets eagerly digested the ceasefire news from Tuesday in earnest, with the S&P 500 jumping 2.4% yesterday on the open, and trading around the $6,750-6,790 level all day, despite headline fury. 

Global macro markets were a little more sensitive to (war) hawkish headlines. While US Treasury yields gapped lower at the open, 2 year Treasury yields spent the day creeping higher 6bp to 3.79% from open, and 10 year yields up 3bp to 4.29%. But the market that (surprisingly) barely moved yesterday was crude oil. Crude one month futures fell more than $16 to $94/bbl after the news of a ceasefire first broke, but the Strait reclosing and the fragility of the ceasefire exposed resulted in minimal price action, with crude closing at around $96/bbl.

These market moves may provide some insight into the US Administration’s logic in attempting this ceasefire in the first place. While one school of thought suggests that a ceasefire is a way to walk back Trump’s pugnacious rhetoric from Tuesday morning, the Administration may also be banking on the temporary market reprieve. We have suspected that prior so-called “TACO” trades from the Trump Administration were partially driven by negative market reactions, like the stress in US Treasuries after Liberation Day in April of 2025, or last summer when Trump threatened to fire Fed Chair Powell.

A ceasefire announcement that is well-received by the market could soothe markets and inflationary expectations, as well as depress the price of oil—which it has done for the time being. Should the Trump Administration choose to ramp up offensive measures in two weeks (or even today), it’s possible that the jump in prices may be somewhat mitigated, as we’re bouncing off of a “suppressed” crude level of $94/bbl, as opposed to the $110/bbl level we were at earlier in the week. While the moving parts here are extremely complex and there is likely much more at play here than just “because markets,” the markets angle is still something to think about.

In other markets-related news, yesterday the Fed released the Minutes from the March 18 meeting. According to said Minutes, “most” FOMC board members said that a “protracted war could hit jobs” and “warrant rate cuts.” On the other hand, “many” board members said “inflation higher for longer could call for hikes.” These very insightful and directional comments maintained US OIS pricing expectations at no hikes nor cuts this year. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/09/2026 - 10:10

"Build Geothermal At Scale": Fervo Energy Locks In 1.7 GW Turbine Supply Deal With Turboden

Fervo Energy and Turboden, part of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Group, announced a three-year framework agreement to supply Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) turbines for up to 35 of Fervo’s standardized 50 MW GeoBlocks. The deal totals 1.7 gigawatts of carbon-free, dispatchable baseload power, marking a major step toward scaling next-generation geothermal across the United States.

The agreement builds directly on an earlier pact covering three GeoBlocks at Fervo’s Cape Station project in Utah, where Phase I commissioning is now in advanced stages with startup expected later this year. By locking in supply chain capacity and shortening lead times for Turboden’s proprietary ORC technology, the framework strengthens domestic manufacturing resilience and accelerates project timelines at a moment when U.S. power demand is surging from data centers and AI infrastructure.

ORC units efficiently convert geothermal heat into electricity, delivering the firm 24/7 power that intermittent renewables struggle to match. Fervo CEO Tim Latimer called the collaboration with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries a key move to “strengthen the supply chain needed to build geothermal at scale.”

This announcement arrives as interest in geothermal and nuclear power intensifies. With electricity demand exploding from AI and data centers, the market is showing a growing distaste for intermittent renewables that cannot guarantee reliable baseload power when needed most.

We hope nobody has forgotten how (not) helpful renewable energy was during Winter Storm Fern…

There’s a difference between what wind and solar promise, and what they can deliver.

During Winter Storm Fern, these energy sources failed to deliver the reliable power our communities needed. It’s time for Democrats to realize our grid requires coal, natural gas, and nuclear… pic.twitter.com/mZWFpohqW0

— Energy and Commerce Committee (@HouseCommerce) February 10, 2026

We first highlighted Fervo’s potential in the geothermal revolution reshaping America’s energy mix, where enhanced techniques and big-tech backing are turning the Earth’s heat into a practical solution for exploding electricity needs.

This latest supply deal also comes just weeks after we covered the DOE’s $171 million push for next-gen geothermal field tests.

With over 470 Turboden plants operating worldwide, the partnership positions Fervo to deliver reliable megawatts wherever the grid needs them most.

In an era of relentless demand growth, that kind of firm capacity looks increasingly indispensable.
 

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/09/2026 - 10:00

House Democrats Threaten Contempt For Bondi If She Doesn't Testify In Epstein Probe

Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times,

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee on April 8 threatened to file contempt of Congress charges against former Attorney General Pam Bondi if she doesn’t testify before the House as part of its ongoing investigation into deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The House Oversight Committee confirmed to The Epoch Times on Wednesday that the Justice Department had said Bondi would no longer appear for a congressional deposition on April 14 “since she is no longer Attorney General and was subpoenaed in her capacity as Attorney General.”

“The Committee will contact Pam Bondi’s personal counsel to discuss next steps regarding scheduling her deposition,” the committee said in a statement.

Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) said in a statement that if Bondi “does not come in to testify, we will begin contempt charges in Congress.”

“Our bipartisan subpoena is to Pam Bondi, whether she is the Attorney General or not,” Garcia said.

Committee Chair James Comer (R-K.Y.) issued a subpoena to Bondi on March 17 to order her testimony regarding the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein files.

Democrats and several Republicans have accused her of violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act through the Justice Department’s piecemeal release of documents, and for redacting alleged co-conspirator names while leaving some victim names un-redacted.

Enacted late last year with bipartisan support, the Epstein Files Transparency Act mandates that the Justice Department publicly release all non-classified records related to the investigation and prosecution of Epstein and his convicted co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) moved in early March to subpoena Bondi to testify before Congress. Four other Republicans—Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), Michael Cloud (R-Texas), and Scott Perry (R-Pa.)—joined Democrats on the House Oversight Committee to support Mace’s motion.

Bondi has repeatedly defended the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein files and denied Democrats’ allegations that she was obstructing congressional oversight.

The Justice Department called the subpoena “completely unnecessary” at the time.

On Wednesday, Mace reacted to the news that Bondi will no longer appear at next week’s deposition and suggested the Oversight Committee may still subpoena her, now that the former attorney general is a private citizen.

“Pam Bondi cannot escape accountability simply because she no longer holds the office of Attorney General. Our motion to subpoena Pam Bondi, which was passed by the Oversight Committee, was for Bondi by name, not by title,” Mace wrote on social media.

“She will still have to appear before the Oversight Committee for a sworn deposition. The American people deserve answers, and we expect her to appear as soon as a new date is set.”

The House Oversight Committee also recently enforced subpoenas ordering former President Bill Clinton and former First Lady Hillary Clinton to testify regarding Congress’s investigation into Epstein.

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/09/2026 - 09:40

Marc Faber Vs Brent Johnson On What's After Iran War: Utopia Or Crash

As the dust begins to settle from the latest escalation in the Iran conflict, markets are left to grapple with a more complicated question: what comes next? Is this the beginning of a reset toward stability, another leg up in markets, and lower inflation -or- are the early stages of a broader economic unraveling tied to supply shocks, currency stress, and geopolitical fragmentation? Not to mention... is the Straight of Hormuz even open? Reports are that Iran is only allowing passage after a hefty payment in either cryptocurrency or Chinese Yuan.

Tonight at 7pm ET, longtime market commentator Marc “Dr. Doom” Faber squares off against Brent Johnson, with Adam Taggart of Thoughtful Money moderating. 

Faber is an OG dollar bear while Johnson is critical of the “US Empire is doomed to fail” crowd.

Remember when KSA was going to pivot from the west to the BRICS…? https://t.co/N34E8RiY4S

— Santiago Capital (@SantiagoAuFund) March 28, 2026

Nonetheless Johnson has warned, in a recent post on his research blog, that “rationing hits next. And the downstream effects...energy prices, manufacturing inputs, food prices...follow on a timeline that stretches months, not days.” He says consequences are largely baked in, as most ships take 10 to 45 days to reach their destination and are just leaving now.

“What’s actually happening right now is slower, quieter, and more consequential than anything in the financial press.”

Faber has consistently bashed paper money, in all its forms, as destined to fall to zero against the price of gold:

pic.twitter.com/nbFE21ssKn

— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) April 8, 2026

Where he and Johnson might agree is that it is unlikely for the Euro or the Japanese Yen to unseat the dollar. But could the Chinese Yuan or a basket currency put forth by BRICS? Especially if backed by gold (or advertised as such), might other countries begin making the switch?

Iran has long known the risks of dealing in U.S. dollar-denominated assets that may be frozen unilaterally. However, the country has also now learned the consequences of challenging U.S. (or perhaps more accurately in their case, Israel) regional hegemony. So, if more countries announced their intention to de-dollarize, would the American government strike such initiatives down by force a la Libya? And even if the U.S. tries, does it become too many impossible fires to put out? Global market forces could usher in a return to gold whether the Pentagon likes it or not.

Taggart, Faber, and Johnson will answer these questions tonight, here on the ZeroHedge homepage at 7pm ET.

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/09/2026 - 09:25

The post Is Imperial County, California Going to Get Burned Again? Sodium Can Replace Lithium appeared first on CEPR.

Artemis II Astronauts Prepare For Re-Entry, Splashdown

Authored by T.J.Muscaro via The Epoch Times,

When Artemis II crew members wake up at 11:35 a.m. ET on April 9, they will begin their last full day in space and start preparing the cabin for their return home.

NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency, continue to fall back to Earth on a free return trajectory aboard their Orion spacecraft, Integrity, targeting a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean at about 8:05 p.m. ET on April 10.

Over the past eight days, those astronauts became the first people in more than 50 years to leave Earth’s orbit and cross the proverbial channel of deep space to fly around the moon.

They ventured farther from Earth than any other human expedition in history. They saw areas and aspects of the lunar surface that no other humans had ever been able to see with their own eyes, and they became the first humans ever to observe a full solar eclipse from lunar space.

They captured striking images of their home planet, and shared a call with their colleagues onboard the International Space Station, marking the first time in spaceflight history that a crew in deep space communicated directly with a crew in low Earth orbit.

But now, it’s almost time to come home.

On April 8, the crew started preparing their capsule for arrival, storing equipment and securing items for the upcoming comet-like ride through the Earth’s atmosphere.

They started reinstalling their seats into the configuration for launch and reentry, and they tested their orthostatic intolerance garments.

Those special garments are worn underneath the astronaut’s spacesuits to help “maintain blood pressure and circulation during the transition back to Earth’s gravity,” NASA explained.

“After extended time in microgravity, some astronauts experience orthostatic intolerance, a condition that can make it difficult to stand upright without dizziness or fainting. The garment applies lower‑body compression to counteract this effect and support a safe return.”

The crew was also supposed to demonstrate deployment of an emergency radiation shield inside the cabin, a procedure developed in case astronauts encounter a high dose of radiation beyond Earth orbit. But mission teams decided to forego the demonstration to prepare Integrity for reentry.

The spacecraft also executed short course correction burns on April 7 and April 8, and a third was scheduled for April 9. Also on April 8, the crew took manual control of their ship one last time, turning it around to point the tail end toward the sun.

Throughout April 9, the crew was scheduled to continue working to get Integrity into its reentry configuration.

Images, audio logs, and other data collected by the crew during their mission continue to be downlinked to mission control.

The Artemis II crew will have one more sleep period aboard Integrity beginning at 3:05 a.m. on April 10. They’ll wake up at 11:35 a.m., and then, if all goes well, they’ll fall asleep for the first time in 10 days beneath the blanket of Earth’s gravity.

Artemis II is scheduled to reenter Earth’s atmosphere at about 7:53 p.m. ET on April 10 and splash down off the coast of San Diego less than 15 minutes later.

On April 7, the mission’s recovery ship, the USS John P. Murtha, left port and set sail toward the designated recovery zone.

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/09/2026 - 09:10

Continuing Jobless Claims Tumble To 2-Year Lows

The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the first time rose from 203k to 219k last week (higher than the expected 210k), but still hovering within the low-low range of the last four years...

Source: Bloomberg

New Jersey and Oregon saw the largest WoW rise in initial claims while Texas and New York saw the biggest decline...

But, while initial claims rose, continuing jobless claims tumbled to the lowest level since May 2024...

Source: Bloomberg

Soft survey data continues to signal a stressed labor market, while hard claims data says - all clear...

Source: Bloomberg

The bottom line is the 'no hire, no fire' economy remains firmly in place with policy-makers holding their breath for March's inflation data to make a decision.

Expectations for The Fed's moves in 2026 currently price in 25% odds of a single 25bps rate-cut this year.

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/09/2026 - 09:03

Savings Rate Slides As Fed's Favorite Inflation Gauge Slowed In February (Ahead Of War)

The Fed's favorite inflation indicator - Core PCE (a measure of price changes in consumer goods and services that excludes volatile food and energy costs) - rose 0.4% MoM in February (pre-war), in line with expectations, with YoY rising 3.0% (as expected - lowest since Dec), down from January's +3.1%...

Source: Bloomberg

The YoY Core decline is coming off January's highest level since March 2024, with Services cost inflation slowing notably...

The headline PCE also rose 0.4% MoM (as expected - the biggest MoM rise since Feb 2025), up 2.8% YoY (also as expected)...

Source: Bloomberg

Under the hood, we saw a notable jump in non-durable goods prices...

Source: Bloomberg

The much-watched SuperCore PCE (Services Ex-Shelter rose 0.2% MoM with the YoY rise tumbling to +3.2% - in line with its lowest level since March 2021...

Under the hood, Recreation Services and Healthcare saw the largest deceleration MoM...

For those worried about the impact of crude oil's recent surge (since the start of the Iran war), it appears - somehow - that PCE's Energy component has already front-run some of the move but there's a lot more pain to come for March...

Source: Bloomberg

Higher prices were met with lower incomes (-0.1% MoM vs +0.3% MoM exp) and higher spending (+90.5% MoM vs +0.6% MoM exp)...

Source: Bloomberg

Income growth is slowing significantly while spending is accelerating...

Source: Bloomberg

Adjusted for inflation, real spending rose 2.5% YoY - the highest since Oct 2025...

Source: Bloomberg

After jumping from 3.9% to 4.5% in January, Americans' savings rate dropped back to 4.0% in Feb (after another huge revision in late 2025), basically at the weakest level since Nov 2023...

Source: Bloomberg

So spending solid as incomes fell and prices are rising... but this is all pre-war, so a large pinch of salt is required.

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

"Shocking Levels Of Distress": CMBS Delinquencies Unexpectedly Soar To COVID Highs

With market focused on private credit as the next credit market crisis vortex, many have forgotten that CMBS, the asset class that was smashed in the aftermath of covid as hundreds of office buildings were suddenly left vacant, has been teetering on the edge for years. For some, it proved to be a lucrative bet as the "next big short" after various office-heavy CMBX tranches collapsed in 2020 and 2021. But due to the slow-burning nature of commercial real-estate deterioration, where data center REITs provided a solid offset to weakness elsewhere, credit markets eventually moved on to the next worst thing. 

It may be time to reassess: according to the latest TREPP CMBS monthly report, March saw a surge in the delinquency rate, which jumped by 41bps to 7.55%, the highest in years, led by a surge in the lodging rate, a category which until now was not a source of concern. 

TREPP states that the five largest newly delinquent loans accounted for just over $2 billion of the almost $5.1 billion in newly delinquent loans, including a West Coast hotel portfolio, a Midwest office loan, a Northeast retail center loan, a national hotel portfolio, and a Pacific Northwest office portfolio, which pushed the rate higher.

In addition, roughly 40% of the newly delinquent loans this month were considered performing matured balloon last month. Continuing the sideways delinquency trend as loans mature, go delinquent, cure, and become delinquent again.

Among all newly delinquent loans, non-performing matured balloon was the most common delinquency classification, consistent with prior months.

At the property-type level, four of the five major property type rates increased while one edged down slightly. Lodging posted the largest increase, jumping 137 basis points to 7.31%, the first time it has been above 7% since its recent April 2025 peak of 7.85%. Office rose 51 basis points to 11.71%, maintaining the elevated range established over the past year, but remaining below January 2026’s recent high of 12.34%. Retail increased 32 basis points to 6.62%, rising from February’s recent low of 6.30% but remaining below the higher readings observed in 2024 and early 2025, when that rate averaged 6.71%. Multifamily was also especially week, as the delinquency rate rose 30 basis points to 7.15%, pushing slightly above its prior high-water mark of 7.12% in October 2025, and well past its marks from one year ago of 5.44% and 1.84% two years ago. Industrial - a stable category which includes warehouse and data center REITs - dipped slightly to 0.65% from 0.67%, continuing to sit near the bottom of the major property-type delinquency spectrum.

And in an ominous twist, if loans past their maturity date but current on interest (classified as performing matured balloon) were included, the delinquency rate would register 9.07%, up 32 basis points from February. This figure sits 152 basis points above the headline rate of 7.55% and continues to highlight the role of maturities in overall CMBS performance. The seriously delinquent rate (60+ days delinquent, in foreclosure, REO, or non‑performing balloons) also increased, rising to 7.29% (from 6.89%). The percentage of loan balance in the 30-day delinquent bucket is 0.26%, essentially flat versus February (0.25%).

In a well-timed report, the WSJ yesterday published a reminder that much of the battered US office market continues to drag along the bottom, and continues to hold a fire sale, featuring some buildings marked down by more than 90%. 

Some striking examples:

• In Chicago, real-estate developer Marc Calabria bought a 485,000-square-foot office building for $4 million. The building sold for $68.1 million a decade ago. 
• Developer Asher Luzzatto paid a mere $5.3 million for the Denver Energy Center, after a foreclosure process. The two-building complex sold for $176 million in 2013. 
• Even the federal government’s landlord is getting in on the act. The General Services Administration last month sold a 940,000-square-foot building to a residential converter for $24 million, a tiny fraction of its value a few years ago.

Investors purchased 204 distressed office buildings nationwide last year, up from 133 sales in 2024, according to data firm MSCI. Sales of these properties, which were auctioned out of bankruptcies or sold through foreclosures and lender seizure, came to $5.2 billion. In the first two months of this year, sales volume of distressed offices was $808 million, up 24.5% from the same period last year, MSCI said. 

Denver Energy Center

The bottom line is this: we may be approaching the next commercial real estate crisis because much of the reserves that kept the sector semi-solvent for years, have run out. As the WSJ puts it, "landlords and their lenders held on to their office towers for years, hoping for a turnaround after Covid. Now, they are accepting enormous losses. Owners and creditors are capitulating to the reality that more employees are splitting their work time between home and office. They are also resigned to stubbornly higher interest rates, which lower property values and make it harder for buyers to borrow."

“People who don’t know real estate would be shocked at the level of distress,” Luzzatto said.

Of course, not every office building goes for a few pennies on the dollar. These are mostly B-grade, or poorer-quality buildings, often in undesirable locations. And owners of high-end office towers in the best locations of New York City and the hottest parts of San Francisco are raising rents and selling buildings profitably (although pockets of weakness are appearing there too, now that AI is making a growing number of tech workers obsolete).

But most office sales reflect the sector’s steep decline. Even higher-quality properties on average have dropped about 35% in value from their peak, according to analytics firm Green Street.

Buyers, meanwhile, are picking up office towers in major U.S. cities for roughly the price of a three-bedroom condo unit in Manhattan. These distressed sales are paving the way for new owners to pursue redevelopment ideas that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

Calabria in Chicago plans to convert the office building into an urban farm and education center. He is working with Farmzero, which will use grow lights and hydroponic farming techniques to produce millions of pounds a year of berries, tomatoes, lettuce, herbs and other vegetables. 

“The buy-in at this distressed price allows us the opportunity to afford change,” Calabria said. 

Rock-bottom prices are also accelerating the move to residential conversion. Developers who bought at steep discounts can now justify costly structural changes - such as carving out atriums or reconfiguring floor layouts - that would have been financially unworkable at higher valuations.

At the start of the year, more than 90,000 apartments nationwide were in the process of conversion nationwide, up 28% from a year earlier, according to data firm RentCafe. New York City’s obsolete buildings are leading the way, but tax breaks and other government incentives are helping spark similar projects in Chicago and Washington, D.C. 

This reckoning follows years when office owners and their lenders avoided confronting the sector’s problems. Owners would inject more equity, while lenders extended loans in hopes of a rebound. 

Now, with many concluding that values aren’t coming back, lenders are increasingly demanding repayment or selling the properties, a sign that the office market’s long slide that intensified during the pandemic is nearing a bottom. 

“We’re six years from the shock of Covid,” said Jim Costello, an MSCI executive director. “But that’s how long it takes someone to capitulate and give up such a highly valued asset.”

The good news is that the threat of systemic risk remains low for now: many banks and other lenders are better positioned to take losses after spending the past few years shoring up their balance sheets and building reserves against troubled loans.  Special servicers overseeing distressed office buildings financed through commercial mortgage-backed securities are also selling. The Chicago building being converted into an urban farm was sold by special servicer CW Asset Management, which said the low price was justified because the empty building’s taxes, utility bills and other costs were so high.

It isn’t just weak demand from remote work forcing down values. Owners must contend with the high cost of leasing up empty space -through hefty brokerage commissions and tenant incentives - and uncertainty about how AI could reshape office usage.

Sharp discounts are showing up in both downtown and suburban markets. For example, Newmark Group brokered the sale of five suburban Texas office buildings over the past two years at prices more than 50% lower than prepandemic values. Buyers demolished them to make way for higher-demand uses like industrial space. 

Some of the big buyers of distressed office assets include Cross Ocean Partners, a credit-focused investment firm known for moving from one pocket of distress to another. It recently raised the first $300 million of a $750 million fund to buy distressed office assets—both debt and equity—in such markets as Minneapolis, Austin, Texas, and the Boston area.

The strategy centers on acquiring assets at steep discounts and underwriting the cash flow from existing tenants. Even if office demand remains weak, those in-place rents can generate a profit.

While institutional investors have largely pulled back from distress to focus on the strongest buildings in the most resilient markets, high-net-worth individuals are stepping in. 

Hossein Fateh recently bought a 940,000-square-foot GSA building in Washington, D.C. A data-center investor, he made a fortune when Digital Realty paid $7.6 billion for DuPont Fabros Technology, which he co-founded.

Fateh is planning a residential conversion, adding a swimming pool or atriums in the middle of the floors to create windows. Such architectural hacks will help push the conversion cost into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

If the price wasn’t so low, “this deal wouldn’t work,” he said. 

And with AI set to unleash the next big wave of office vacancy, coupled with banks throwing in the towel on cash-burning properties, many more such deals are emerging on the horizon.  

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Tyler Durden Thu, 04/09/2026 - 08:40

Stock Futures Slide As Doubts Over Ceasefire Send Oil Higher

Stocks resumed their drop and oil erased about a third of its Wednesday drop as traders watched the fragile US-Iran ceasefire shatter by the hour, with both sides accusing the other of breaches while the Strait of Hormuz is still effectively closed and Israel intensified strikes on Lebanon. As of 8:00am ET, S&P futures fell 0.4% after Bloomberg strategists said a best-case scenario has already been priced in;  Nasdaq futures dropped 0.3% with Mag7 stocks mostly lower. Europe’s Stoxx 600 index fell 0.7%. Emerging-market stocks slid almost 1%. The dollar ticked higher even as 10Y US YST yields dropped about 1bp; equivalent UK yields rose six basis points after tumbling almost 20 basis points on Wednesday. Brent crude jumped back to $98 a barrel on signs the Strait of Hormuz is still effectively closed. US economic data calendar includes February personal income/spending (with PCE price index), weekly jobless claims and third estimate of 4Q GDP (8:30am) and February wholesale trade sales and inventories (10am). Fed speaker slate is blank until April 14.

In premarket trading, Mag 7 stocks are mostly lower (Alphabet -0.7%, Amazon +0.8%, Apple -0.4%, Nvidia -0.7%, Meta Platforms +1%, Microsoft -0.1%, -0.3%)

• Applied Digital (APLD) falls 1% after the data center operator’s third-quarter gross margins missed the average analyst estimate.
• CoreWeave (CRWV) rises 6% after the cloud-computing provider reported an expanded long-term agreement with Meta to provide AI cloud capacity through December 2032 for ~$21 billion.
• Marvell Technology (MRVL) rises 2% after Barclays upgraded the stock to overweight, citing demand for optical products.
• Instacart (CART) climbs 2% as Raymond James upgrades to outperform, calling the grocery segment an under-penetrated e-commerce market.
• Simply Good Foods (SMPL) falls 16% after the packaged-food firm forecast year net sales will be down as much as 10%.
• STAAR Surgical (STAA) rises 23% after the health-care supplies firm said it expects net sales for the first quarter to exceed $90 million, up from $42.6 million in the year ago period. The estimate surpassed Wall Street’s expectations.
• Texas Instruments (TXN) gains 1.6% after Stifel upgraded the stock to buy, citing “multiple tailwinds” that should support the semiconductor firm’s outlook.
• Whitestone REIT (WSR) shares rise 11% after the retail-focused real estate investment trust company entered into a definitive merger agreement with Ares Real Estate funds to be acquired for $19 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at about $1.7 billion.

In AI, Anthropic employees sold some equity to investors, wrapping up a secondary share sale that started earlier this year. Meta shares are up in premarket trading, with analysts generally positive on the AI model it showed on Wednesday. PIMCO is said to be looking to sell a portion of the $14 billion of debt financing it’s providing for a massive Oracle data center in Michigan. In other corporate news, the WSJ reported that Disney is preparing to make sizable layoffs in one of the first significant moves under its new CEO. Seven & i Holdings will delay a public listing of its US convenience-store business planned for later this year. 

Markets have given up some of the big moves seen Wednesday when optimism around the deal for a two-week pause in fighting spurred a relief rally. Continued fighting in the Middle East, punctuated by Israeli strikes in Lebanon, threatened to derail the fragile ceasefire deal. Iran and the US-Israeli side appeared to disagree over whether the ceasefire covers Lebanon. Yet despite the escalating rhetoric, the ceasefire was largely holding on Thursday, with a decline in attacks across Arab states in the Persian Gulf.

“There’s a fair amount of skepticism in the market about the ceasefire and the upcoming negotiations,” said Raphael Thuin, head of capital markets strategies at Tikehau Capital. “The big question is what state the global economy will be in after the crisis.”

Overnight, Trump pledged to keep US troops in the Persian Gulf ahead of talks with Iran; the first round of direct negotiations is scheduled for Saturday morning in Islamabad. Meanwhile, Goldman predicted that Brent is set to average more than $100 a barrel right through 2026 if the strait remains closed for another month. 

Much of Wednesday’s move was driven by short-covering and a return to normal positioning: According to Goldman’s trading desk, hedge funds rushed to close out bets against US stocks at a pace not seen since March 2020. The ceasefire, along with upcoming earnings driving up the potential for idiosyncratic moves across equities, may mean “downward pressure on implied correlations,” according to Citi option strategists.

Even if weekend talks lead to a more permanent peace, the effects of the war will rumble on. Earnings expectations will need to be tempered because of the inflationary fallout from the war, according to BlackRock’s Helen Jewell. And in central banks, a former executive director at the Bank of Japan said the BOJ is likely to increase its benchmark rate this month to avoid falling behind on controlling inflation. Fed policymakers will get the latest reading of their preferred inflation indicator, core PCE, later, ahead of CPI data on Friday. The latter, covering March, is likely to be more interesting as it will begin to reflect the Middle East conflict.

In politics, the Justice Department’s top antitrust litigator and three senior trial attorneys are leaving the agency, according to people familiar. The US is said to consider lifting sanctions on Venezuela’s central bank to facilitate the flow of billions of dollars into the country’s battered economy.

Turning to the start of earnings season next week, expectations will need to be tempered due to the inflationary fallout from the war, BlackRock Inc.’s Helen Jewell said.  “If you look at earnings forecasts at the moment for the year, they’re still well into double digits — 15, 16, 17, 18%,” said Jewell, who is international chief investment officer for fundamental equities at the world’s largest asset manager. “There’s a lot of headroom for the earnings to come down a little bit.” 

On Thursday, the Fed's preferred gauge of inflation will offer a snapshot of pre-war price pressures. Economists see the so-called core personal consumption expenditures — PCE — price index, which excludes food and energy, having risen by 0.4% for a third month in February, suggesting progress toward tamer inflation was stalling even before the conflict.

Europe's stocks followed their Asian counterparts lower, with the Stoxx 600 down 0.7% after its best day since March 2022 on Wednesday. US equity futures also drop. Oil stocks advanced along with Brent crude. Many of yesterday’s laggards in the oil sector are today’s biggest gainers, including Var Energi, Equinor, BP and TotalEnergies. Here are the biggest movers Thursday:

• ITM Power shares climb as much as 17%, the most in 10 months, after the UK government pledged to invest around £87 million in the clean energy company to drive a build out of its hydrogen technology manufacturing facility
• Rexel shares climb as much as 4.1% after analysts at Jefferies raise the French electrical supplies firm to buy from hold, saying it is well positioned to outpace its guidance thanks to higher prices and growth drivers
• Technip Energies shares rise as much as 4.1% to the highest level since September after the engineering firm was awarded a contract to improve the Long Son Petrochemicals complex in Vietnam
• Vallourec rises as much as 5.2% after announcing a five-year supply agreement with Fervo Energy worth up to $800 million, which CIC Markets says “demonstrates the effectiveness” of the firm’s New Energies segment strategy
• AG Barr rises as much as 4.7% after Bank of America initiates coverage of the UK soft drinks manufacturer with a buy rating and a street-high 850p price target. BofA cites growth potential for IRN-BRU
• DCC shares rise as much as 4.1% after analysts at BNP Paribas raise their rating to outperform from neutral on the energy seller’s current valuation and the positive impact of energy prices
• Melia Hotels shares rise as much as 3.9%, to the highest level since Sept. 2018, as Kepler Cheuvreux raises its recommendation on the Spanish hotel operator to hold from reduce
• Abivax shares rise as much as 3.8% after Oddo BHF lifted its price target on the French biotech company, saying Crohn’s disease could represent a bigger commercial opportunity than ulcerative colitis
• Alstom falls 7.2%, the most in ten months, after the French trainmaker flags currency headwinds in an earnings preview. JPMorgan (overweight) lowers estimates on FX headwinds
• Man Group shares trade as much as 7.7% below their last closing price, only partly due to trading without rights to the next dividend. Deutsche Bank analysts cut their earnings estimates and price target ahead of 1Q results
• Netcompany shares fall as much as 6.5%, the most in two months, after ABG Sundal Collier cut its recommendation on the Danish IT consultancy to hold from buy, seeing a “less compelling” risk/reward after a strong run for the shares
• Grieg Seafood falls as much as 7.9%, the most since last May, after the Norwegian seafood and salmon company’s preliminary first-quarter earnings disappointed, leading DNB Carnegie to cut 2026 EPS estimates by 12%

Earlier in the session, Asian stocks retreated as oil prices rose again and sporadic fighting in the Middle East cast doubts over the implementation of the two-week US-Iran ceasefire deal. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index slid 1%, with South Korean chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix the biggest drags. Most national benchmarks in the region traded lower, with the Kospi being the biggest loser followed by India’s Nifty 50. Asia’s stock benchmark jumped 5% in the previous session, the most in about a year, as global risk assets rallied on optimism over the ceasefire deal. It is up more than 8% so far in 2026.

“Headline risk remains elevated,” according to Kyle Rodda, analyst at Capital.com. “Markets aren’t necessarily out of the woods yet. There are several variables that could upend market sentiment.”

In rates, treasury yields are slightly lower, down 1bp to 4.29% and slightly richer across the curve after plying small ranges during Asia session and London morning; equivalent UK yields rose six basis points after tumbling almost 20 basis points on Wednesday. US yields are as much as 1.5bp lower led by intermediate sectors, steepening 5s30s curve by around 1bp. 10-year is down about 1bp near 4.28% with European counterparts 3bp-6bp higher on the day. European yields are broadly higher with oil prices as Strait of Hormuz traffic remains blocked: UK and German 10-year yields rise 7 bps and 4 bps respectively. US session includes PCE price gauges for February, several other US economic indicators and 30-year bond auction. Treasury’s $22 billion 30-year bond reopening has WI yield near 4.88%, about 1bp higher than result of last month’s auction, which stopped through by 0.7bp; Wednesday’s 10-year reopening tailed by 0.2bp after rallying into the bid deadline.

In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index inches higher. The yen is the weakest of the G-10 currencies, falling 0.3% against the greenback. Gold edges up while Bitcoin is flat.

In commodities, WTI crude oil futures are up more than 5% near session highs, erasing about a third of Wednesday’s 16.4% drop; Brent crude futures rise 4% to above $98 after a more than 13% plunge to under $95 a barrel as the Strait of Hormuz remains largely blocked. Two fully laden Chinese oil tankers in the Persian Gulf were approaching the Strait, potentially putting them on track to become the first such vessels to cross since the ceasefire was announced.  European natural gas futures climb 2%.

US economic data calendar includes February personal income/spending (with PCE price index), weekly jobless claims and third estimate of 4Q GDP (8:30am) and February wholesale trade sales and inventories (10am). Fed speaker slate is blank until April 14.

Market Snapshot

• S&P 500 mini -0.3%, Nasdaq 100 mini -0.3%, Russell 2000 mini -0.6%
• Stoxx Europe 600 -0.6%, DAX -1.2%, CAC 40 -0.7%
• 10-year Treasury yield little changed at 4.29%
• VIX +0.4 points at 21.39
• Bloomberg Dollar Index little changed at 1202.1, euro +0.1% at $1.1678
• WTI crude +3.1% at $97.38/barrel

Top Overnight News

• JD Vance will head the U.S. negotiating team for the peace talks with Iran on Saturday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday. Axios
• Even as the U.S. and Iran seek to cement a ceasefire, Israel is seizing more territory from its neighbors in preparation for a long, drawn-out conflict across the Middle East. Israel's creation of "buffer zones" in Gaza, Syria and now Lebanon reflects a strategic shift after the attacks of October 7, 2023, one that puts the country in a semi-permanent state of war. RTRS
• Vance said Wednesday Israel has proposed to restrain itself when it comes to strikes in Lebanon as long as the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran are taking place. Axios
• The White House is considering a plan to punish some members of the NATO alliance that President Trump thinks were unhelpful to the U.S. and Israel during the Iran war, according to administration officials. The proposal would involve moving U.S. troops out of North Atlantic Treaty Organization member countries deemed unhelpful to the Iran war effort and stationing them in countries that were more supportive. WSJ
• EU will still be hit by a “stagflationary shock” of low growth and rising inflation despite the US and Iran agreeing a two-week ceasefire, the bloc’s top economic official has warned. FT
• BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda said that Japan’s finance conditions remain accommodative, with the level of real rates clearly below zero. BBG
• The US is said to be considering lifting sanctions on Venezuela’s central bank to facilitate the flow of billions of dollars into the country’s economy. BBG
• Wealthy investors attempted to pull more than $20bn from private credit funds in the first quarter, underscoring the growing strain on the asset class. Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. The funds tracked by the FT, which collectively manage investment portfolios worth about $300bn, have honored just over half of the redemption requests they received. Many investors have been forced to wait until a redemption window opens up later this quarter to exit. FT
• The Trump administration will likely extend its waiver of sanctions on Russian oil this week, former Treasury and State Department officials said — teeing up a similar move on Iranian oil. Semafor
• World Bank forecasts global growth for 2027 at 2.4%, while it said investment remains subdued as firms await clearer signals on the external environment and domestic policy, which it called a binding constraint on growth.

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newqsuawk

APAC stocks were lower in a mild pullback from yesterday's ceasefire-fuelled extremes and as the widespread euphoria gradually waned amid the wide gaps between each side's peace proposals. Furthermore, several strikes had continued in the 24 hours after the  announcement, and the inclusion of Lebanon is seen as a key point of contention, while shipping in the Strait of Hormuz remains largely blocked, although a senior Iranian official stated that Iran could open Hormuz on Thursday or Friday ahead of their planned talks. ASX 200 traded little changed amid a lack of data or drivers and with resilience in energy, defensives and financials offsetting the firm losses in the tech sector. Nikkei 225 pulled back after the prior day's stellar performance, with the index returning to beneath the 56,000 level amid very few fresh catalysts and the absence of tier-1 data to sustain the previous momentum. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp conformed to the uninspired mood amid concerns regarding the fragility of the US-Iran ceasefire, and with weakness in Chinese tech and property stocks, while there were prior reports that the US FCC will vote on a measure that would ban Chinese labs from testing US electronics.

Top Asian News

• South Korea's Finance Minister comments that financial and FX market volatility has eased a bit.

European bourses (STOXX 600 -0.6%) have pulled back from Wednesday's ceasefire-related surge after cracks appeared in the agreement. US President Trump announced that the military will remain in and around Iran until a real agreement is fully complied with. Furthermore, the IRGC announced a new Hormuz corridor, effectively raising risks of disruption and bottlenecks. The IBEX 35 outperforms, with the index trading near flat. On the other hand, the DAX 40 is the underperformer. European sectors echo the above bias, with the majority in the red. Energy and Chemicals are amongst the sectors in the green, highlighting its defensive characteristics, while Consumer Products and Services and Technology sit at the bottom of the pile.

Top European News

• Italian PM Meloni said ruling out government reshuffle, not planning to resign; if the middle east crisis were to flare up again, Europe should consider temporary suspension of the stability and growth pact.
• EU's Dombrovskis said the bloc will still be hit by a “stagflationary shock” of low growth and rising inflation despite the US-Iran ceasefire, while European Commission is preparing to cut growth forecasts, according to FT.

FX

• FX Markets are paring some of Wednesday's optimism with crude gaining and general risk-off elsewhere as markets weigh Iran's claims of ceasefire breaches and subsequent concerns over Hormuz following reports from state media.
• DXY cautiously chugged higher throughout the European morning, supported by the key 99.00 mark. Overnight, FOMC Minutes were viewed as hawkish, with it stating many members said persistently higher oil prices could keep inflation elevated long enough to justify rate rises. Taking a look at rate expectations, markets moved to price just 7bps of easing by year-end compared to 15bps pre-minutes.
• Kiwi continues to perform well, amid hawkish remarks from RBNZ Governor Breman, she said inflation is expected to increase considerably in the near-term, and they will ‘act decisively’ if core prices pick up. This marks the second day of gains against the greenback, with NZD the sole currency that outperforms a mildly stronger USD. In terms of market pricing, 75bps of easing is expected by year-end, an increase of 15bps since last week.
• JPY is the worst performer in the G10, as energy prices weigh on the net importer nation. The pair marked a session low of 158.45 and sits on a 159 handle at the time of writing. Elsewhere, EUR/GBP trades a touch above the 0.87 mark. In a note this morning, ING suggests rate differentials will help the cross with EUR; rate expectations are likely to prove sticky and BoE dovish pricing potentially coming "through more smoothly" should energy prices continue to decline.

Central Banks

• RBNZ Governor Bremen said more risk on inflation to the upside and inflation is expected to increase considerably in the near-term. said:. Previous rate cuts are still providing some stimulus to the economy, and a swift resolution to the conflict is expected to yield stronger growth this year. RBNZ to ‘act decisively’ if core prices pick up.
• BoJ Governor Ueda said short and medium-term interest rates are clearly negative, adds accommodative financial conditions are maintained, leading to moderate increase in capex.

Fixed Income

• Global fixed benchmarks are trading flat to lower, as benchmarks pull back from the extremes seen on Wednesday, and as traders begin to find holes within the current ceasefire agreement. This comes after Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf said three clauses of the 10-point plan have been violated so far, and as such, a bilateral ceasefire or negotiations is unreasonable. Another interesting point is that Iran introduced controlled shipping routes and coordination with the IRGC, effectively shifting from free transit to monitored flows—raising risks of disruptions and bottlenecks. (Full details on the Newsquawk headline feed). This, alongside continued strikes on both Lebanon and Iran, has led to a rebound in the energy complex, once again renewing inflationary concerns.
• USTs are currently flat, and mildly outperforming vs peers – currently trading within a 111-04+ to 111-10 range, and have entirely reversed the initial ceasefire-related optimism. Much of the action facilitated by the geopolitical factors mentioned above, but the complex is also weighed on by hawkish-leaning FOMC Minutes and heading into a 30yr auction later today. On the data front, markets will await weekly claims, February’s PCE data (exp. +0.4% M/M vs prev. +0.3%) and core PCE (exp. +0.4% M/M vs prev. +0.4%); final Q4 GDP stats. From a yield perspective, the 2yr has rebounded back towards 3.785% (vs Wednesday’s trough at 3.713%).
• Bunds are in the red and down by around 50 ticks at this stage, and holding towards the bottom end of a 125.67 to 126.10 range. German paper did dip a tick below the high from 7th April, with market participants highlighting 125.53 as a potential area for intraday longs to be exited. Bunds are moving at the whim of energy prices this morning, but there have been some domestic updates. An interesting comment via Italy’s PM Meloni got some attention, after she suggested that the EU should consider a temporary suspension of budget deficit rules if the Iran war persists. No move in EGBs at the time, but traders will remain cognizant of any fiscal related concerns, should a suspension be enacted. From a data perspective, Industrial Production printed at -0.3% (exp. +0.9%), highlighting the turbulent recovery of Germany – even before the Iran war started.
• Gilts are underperforming vs peers, after leading the fixed complex on Wednesday. As above, moving at the whim of energy prices, with UK-specific newsflow light. UK 2yr has rebounded back towards 4.237% (vs trough of 4.044% on Wednesday). UK paper currently trades within an 89.10 to 89.61 range; further pressure could see a breach below the 89.00 mark, and then the high from 7th April at 88.88.
• UK sold GBP 4bln 4.125% 2033 Gilt: b/c 3.30x (prev. 3.37x), average yield 4.507% (prev. 4.075%), tail 0.2bps (prev. 0.2bps).
• Spain sold EUR 5.778bln vs exp. EUR 5-6bln 2.35% 2029, 2.60% 2031 and 3.30% 2036 Bono & EUR 0.676bln vs exp. EUR 0.25-0.75bln 1.15% 2036 I/L Bono.
• Japan sold JPY 1.9tln 5yr JGBs; b/c 3.58x (prev. 3.69x), average yield 1.826% (prev. 1.633%).
• Unicredit (UCG IM) to sell 6-year EUR-denominated noted, guidance seen +125bps to MS.
• Lloyds (LLOY LN) to sell 10-year GBP-denominated noted, guidance seen at +170bps to UK Treasuries.
• Japanese Finance Minister Katayama said it is important to base JGB issuance plans on market demand, when asked about extending duration of government debt.

Commodities

• Optimism over the US–Iran ceasefire faded as both sides signalled breaches and diverging terms, with Trump warning of military escalation if compliance fails and Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf saying multiple clauses of Tehran’s plan have already been violated. Lebanon has emerged as the key fault line—while the US and Israel insist it sits outside the agreement, Iran and its allies treat it as integral, raising the risk of collapse as Israeli strikes and Hezbollah activity continue. The situation in the Strait of Hormuz adds further fragility, as Iran introduced controlled shipping routes and coordination with the IRGC, effectively shifting from free transit to monitored flows—raising risks of disruptions and bottlenecks (Full Analysis available on the Newsquawk headline feed).
• Crude rebounded after Wednesday’s biggest one-day drop since April 2020, with Brent Jun'26 back above USD 97/bbl (after Wednesday’s 13% slump), as the Strait of Hormuz remained largely blocked and Israeli attacks on Lebanon raised concerns over the durability of the Middle East truce. WTI May'26 trades towards the top of a USD 96.25-98.38/bbl range and Brent Jun'26 towards the upper end of a USD 96.30-98.53/bbl parameter. Mizuho expects crude to remain near USD 90/bbl through Q2 before returning to pre-conflict levels, while CBA sees upside risks while the Strait remains largely closed and physical undersupply linked to the Iran war supports prices.
• Spot gold holds above USD 4,700/oz after rising 1.5% over the prior two sessions, as traders weighed hopes for a diplomatic resolution against sporadic fighting that threatened the ceasefire. However, some flagged a technical correction after the sharp rise in front-month Comex futures. The metal trades within a narrow USD 4,699-4,733/oz range at the time of writing, with the 100 DMA at USD 4,671.57/oz. Commerzbank said gold had been supported by lower oil prices, easing inflation risks and pulling down rate expectations and bond yields, though the outlook still depends on whether a lasting US-Iran settlement emerges.
• Copper futures pulled back overnight and remain weak in the European session as the heightened risk appetite from the fragile US-Iran ceasefire petered out, with 3M LME copper in a narrow USD 12,587.00- 12,678.70/oz.
• Brazil court suspends oil export tax for Shell (SHEL LN), Equinor (EQNR), TotalEnergies (TTE FP) and Repsol (REP SM).
• OECD has urged governments to unwind expensive fuel duty cuts, according to the FT.
• Japan considers releasing an additional 20 days of oil reserves, according to Kyodo.
• US mulls lifting Venezuela's central bank sanctions with the aim of increasing oil output, according to sources.
• Russia is offering sanctioned LNG to Asia via intermediaries at a 40% discount.
• Goldman Sachs said Brent would average above USD 100/bbl through 2026 if the Strait of Hormuz stays closed for another month. Adds that the situation remains fluid after the start of a two-week US-Iran ceasefire, and that risks to its oil price forecast are still skewed to the upside.

Geopolitics

• US President Trump posted "All U.S. Ships, Aircraft, and Military Personnel....will remain in place in, and around, Iran, until such time as the REAL AGREEMENT reached is fully complied with".
• US President Trump posted "NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN. REMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!".
• Trump admin is considering a plan to punish some members of the NATO alliance that he believes were unhelpful to the US and Israel during the Iran war, WSJ reported citing admin officials. The proposal would involve moving US troops out of NATO member countries deemed unhelpful to the Iran war effort and station them in countries that were more supportive of the US military campaign. The proposal would fall far short of President Trump’s recent threats to fully withdraw the US from the alliance, which by law he can’t do without Congress. Plans could also include closure of at least 1 US base in a European country, possible Spain or Germany.
• NATO Secretary-General Rutte pointed out to US President Trump that a large majority of European nations have been helpful.
• US officials say they do not rule out resuming fighting in Iran and that President Trump will not offer major concessions to Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz, adds Iran's insistence on controlling straight reformers could lead to a resumption of fighting.
• Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister said the Speaker of Parliament will lead Iran’s delegation for the talks, and the exchange of messages continues via Pakistan, Al Jazeera reported.
• Iran Ambassador to Pakistan said the Iranian delegation is to arrive on Thursday night in Islamabad for "serious talks", based on the 10 points proposed by Iran.
• IRGC Navy announces alternative shipping routes to avoid possible sea mines, according to ISNA.
• IRGC claimed on Thursday that shipping through the Strait of Hormuz slowed sharply and then stopped following what it said was an Israeli ceasefire violation in Lebanon, according to CNN.
• Iranian Parliament's Security and Foreign Policy Committee Chairman Ibrahim Azizi said '"Once again, you have proven that you do not know the meaning of a ceasefire" and "Only fire will discipline you...so wait for it".
• Saudi Arabia and Iran reportedly discussed de-escalation in a call, according to SPA.
• Pakistani Foreign Ministry senior source suggests US has walked back on including Lebanon in the ceasefire with Iran, Al Arabiya reported.
• Israeli PM Netanyahu says will continue to strike Hezbollah with force, overnight, the IDF struck a series of terror infrastructures in southern Lebanon.
• Israel's Ministry of Energy directs the resumption of operations at the Karish gas platform after it halted due to the war, according to Israel's Channel 12.
• Hezbollah said its attacks on Israel will continue until the aggression stops, according to Fars News Agency, while it fires rockets at Israel citing ceasefire breaches.
• Missile fired from Lebanon into Northern Israel, according to Fars News Agency.
• Israeli attacks continue in Lebanon, despite a ceasefire with Iran, according to Anadolu Agency.
• French President Macron spoke with Iran's President Pezeshkian and US President Trump, and told both that their decision to accept the ceasefire was the best possible one.
• Russia launched 119 drones at Ukraine overnight according to UKR media.

US Event Calendar

• 8:30 am: United States Feb Personal Income, est. 0.3%, prior 0.43%
• 8:30 am: United States Feb Personal Spending, est. 0.6%, prior 0.38%
• 8:30 am: United States Feb PCE Price Index YoY, est. 2.8%, prior 2.83%
• 8:30 am: United States Feb Core PCE Price Index MoM, est. 0.4%, prior 0.4%
• 8:30 am: United States Feb Core PCE Price Index YoY, est. 3%, prior 3.06%
• 8:30 am: United States Apr 4 Initial Jobless Claims, est. 210k, prior 202k
• 8:30 am: United States Mar 28 Continuing Claims, est. 1828k, prior 1841k
• 8:30 am: United States 4Q T GDP Annualized QoQ, est. 0.7%, prior 0.7%
• 8:30 am: United States 4Q T Personal Consumption, est. 2%, prior 2%
• 8:30 am: United States 4Q T GDP Price Index, est. 3.8%, prior 3.8%
• 8:30 am: United States 4Q T Core PCE Price Index QoQ, est. 2.7%, prior 2.7%
• 10:00 am: United States Feb F Wholesale Inventories MoM, est. -0.1%, prior -0.5%

DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

As we go to press this morning, oil prices are creeping up again as several questions remain about the ceasefire announced on Tuesday night. A few factors have driven that, but it’s pushed Brent crude oil (+2.34%) back up to $96.97/bbl, and it’s also taken the momentum out of the market rally overnight. Indeed, Asian equities are down across the board after yesterday’s surge, whilst US and European equity futures have also stumbled. So the Nikkei (-0.75%), the KOSPI (-1.61%), the CSI 300 (-0.64%) and the Hang Seng (-0.36%) have all fallen back this morning, and S&P 500 futures (-0.21%) are also pointing towards losses after a run of 6 consecutive gains.

Those overnight losses follow several indications that the ceasefire isn’t holding quite as expected on Tuesday night. For instance, both the UAE and Kuwait said yesterday that their air defences had been intercepting drones from Iran. And on the Iranian side, their Parliament’s Speaker Ghalibaf said that three points of the ceasefire agreement had been violated. Moreover, the IRGC warned of a “regret-inducing response" if Israel’s strikes against Lebanon didn’t stop immediately, whilst the Fars news agency said that the passage of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz was halted because of Israel’s continued strikes on Lebanon. So collectively, that’s raised concern about how durable this ceasefire will prove, particularly with it only being a two-week truce.

In the meantime, President Trump also posted overnight that US forces would “remain in place, and around, Iran, until such time as the REAL AGREEMENT reached is fully complied with.” He also said that if it weren’t complied with, then the military action would be “stronger than anyone has ever seen before”, and that the US military was “looking forward, actually, to its next Conquest”. He also criticised NATO in a separate post overnight, saying that they weren’t “there when we needed them”, and called on people to “remember Greenland, that big, poorly run, piece of ice!!!”. So that raised concerns about a repeat of mid-January, when Trump’s call for the US to take Greenland and the threat of European tariffs drove a risk-off move in global markets.

Nevertheless, compared to 24 hours ago, the market stress has eased considerably, as the ceasefire news and hopes for a de-escalation pathway have created a lot more optimism. Moreover, there are still signs of progress, with White House Press Secretary Leavitt saying that Vice President JD Vance would lead a delegation to Islamabad, with a first round of talks scheduled for Saturday morning.

So despite the overnight newsflow, the net result is that fears have eased considerably about a stagflationary shock, with huge gains for bonds and equities as a result. Indeed, Brent crude oil prices saw a sharp decline of -13.29% yesterday, taking them to a 4-week low of $94.75/bbl. And in turn, there was an incredibly strong performance, particularly in Europe, where the STOXX 600 (+3.88%) posted its best performance since 2022, whilst 10yr bund yields (-14.1bps) saw their biggest decline since 2023. Similarly in the US, the S&P 500 (+2.51%) was also back within 3% of its record high, whilst US HY spreads (-17bps) fell beneath their pre-strike levels in late-February. So even with all the volatility of recent weeks it was another day of historic moves, and the overnight move for Brent crude this morning (+2.34%) still leaves us well beneath the pre-ceasefire oil price of around $110/bbl.

The ceasefire itself was the main driver of those moves, but they got further support from the positive tone of US officials yesterday. For example, President Trump said the US would “work closely with Iran”, and that they were discussing tariff and sanctions relief, though he also said in a subsequent post that countries supplying military weapons to Iran would face a US tariff of 50%. And later on, Vice President Vance said that “we’re on the right track” in negotiations.

So overall, even with the question marks around a ceasefire, the fact one had been agreed led to a huge wave of optimism, with investors feeling much clearer about the path to a de-escalation. Most directly, the prospect that the Strait of Hormuz might reopen led to a big decline in oil prices, with Brent crude (-13.29%) down to a 4-week low of $94.75/bbl, whilst WTI (-16.41%) fell to $94.41/bbl. Meanwhile, we saw a big decline in European natural gas, with front-month TTF futures (-14.92%) falling to €45.30/MWh, their lowest in over a month, which again eased fears about the scale of any European inflation shock. However, with persisting restrictions on Hormuz shipping, the declines were more modest further out the oil curve, with the 6-month Brent future (-2.33%) closing at $81.19/bbl, still above its levels late last week.

That backdrop of lower energy prices meant that inflation fears eased dramatically, which in tun led to a dovish repricing of central banks, especially in Europe. For instance, the 1yr US inflation swap plummeted by -12.9bps to 3.13%, and the 1yr Euro inflation swap fell by a huge -38bps to 3.11%. In turn, that saw investors price out the likelihood of rapid rate hikes, with the probability of an ECB hike this month down from 68% before the ceasefire announcement to 32% by yesterday’s close, and a further decline to 29% this morning.

All that meant yields saw dramatic declines in Europe. Indeed, 10yr bund yields (-14.1bps) were back down to 2.94%, marking their biggest daily decline since April 2023. At the front end, the 2yr German yield (-22.4bps) saw its biggest decline since March 2023, the week of Credit Suisse’s collapse, so it was another day of historic declines. And it a similar story across the continent, with 10yr OATs (-20.1bps), BTPs (-26.1bps) and gilts (-19.3bps) all posting their biggest declines since 2023 as well.

US Treasuries saw more muted moves, given yields had already fallen late in Tuesday’s session and oil prices were edging higher later in the US session yesterday. So both 2yr yields (-0.1bps at 3.79%) and 10yr yields (-0.2bps at 4.29%) were little changed by the close, having been 6-8bps lower on the day early on. We also got the minutes of the March FOMC meeting, which showed the uncertainty on how officials should respond to the war’s impact. It said that “most participants” were concerned that “a protracted conflict in the Middle East could lead to a further softening in labor market conditions, which could warrant additional rate cuts”. But it also said that “Many participants pointing to the risk of inflation remaining elevated for longer than expected amid a persistent increase in oil prices, which could call for rate increases”.
For equities, there were also dramatic moves yesterday, as the oil price slump provided a huge lift on both sides of the Atlantic. In Europe, the rally was the biggest in several years, with the DAX (+5.06%) and the STOXX 600 (+3.88%) seeing their biggest gains since March 2022. Indeed, the latest gains left the STOXX 600 just over 3% beneath its record high just before the strikes began. Then in the US, the S&P 500 (+2.51%) advanced by a slightly smaller amount, but it was still a 6th consecutive advance for the index, with the VIX index of volatility (-4.74pts) down to its lowest since the strikes began, at 21.04pts. However, the main exception to those equity gains came from the energy sector, with the S&P 500’s energy component down -3.66%.

Emerging market assets were another beneficiary amid the easing energy fears, with the MSCI EM equity index (+5.49%) posting its biggest rise since the early Covid volatility in March 2020. By contrast, the dollar index (-0.73%) fell for a third consecutive session for the first time since the strikes began.

Looking at the day ahead, data releases include US PCE inflation for February, the weekly initial jobless claims, the third estimate of Q4 GDP, and German industrial production for February. Otherwise from central banks, we’ll hear from the ECB’s Sleijpen.

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/09/2026 - 08:18

Pro-Iranian Hackers Breached US Infrastructure, Feds Say

Authored by Troy Myers via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Pro-Iranian hackers have breached critical U.S. infrastructure, according to a joint warning issued Tuesday by several federal agencies.

High voltage power lines run through a sub-station along the electrical power grid in Miami on Jan. 14, 2026. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The advisory came only hours ahead of President Donald Trump’s Tuesday deadline for Iran, warning that “a whole civilization will die tonight” if Iran refuses to open the Hormuz Strait to oil traffic. Trump later suspended the attack following negotiations mediated by Pakistan.

Iranian cyberattacks targeting U.S. organizations have increased recently with the ongoing war against Iran, the advisory said.

In the latest breach, hackers caused disruptions through “malicious interactions” on project files and data displays in organizations across multiple U.S. critical infrastructure sectors, including government services and facilities, local municipalities, water and waste systems, and energy infrastructure.

Hackers exploited vulnerabilities in internet-connected devices used to control machinery in the key U.S. sectors.

“In a few cases, this activity has resulted in operational disruption and financial loss,” reads the advisory, which was issued by the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the National Security Agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and U.S. Cyber Command’s Cyber National Mission Force.

U.S. entities that use the impacted devices, including programmable logic controllers (PLCs) from Rockwell Automation’s Allen Bradley brand, are advised to check their cyber defenses, apply safety measures listed in the warning, and review activity on their networks for indications that they were compromised to avoid the risk of further breaches.

Although the agencies specifically named the Rockwell Automation devices, they said other brands could have been affected as well.

“Due to the widespread use of these PLCs and the potential for additional targeting of other branded [operational technology] devices across critical infrastructure, the authoring agencies recommend U.S. organizations urgently review the tactics, techniques, and procedures and indicators of compromise in this advisory,” the advisory reads.

If U.S. organizations discover they were breached, they are advised to contact appropriate federal agencies for support, risk mitigation, and investigation assistance.

The joint notice Tuesday listed IP addresses that hackers used within specific time frames. The IP addresses were provided so U.S. companies can check against their own logs for indications of a breach by Iranian-backed threat actors.

“The authoring agencies recommend continually testing your security program, at scale, in a production environment to ensure optimal performance,” the warning reads.

This latest breach is not the first time Iran-backed hackers have breached critical U.S. infrastructure. In November 2023, a cyber group called “CyberAv3ngers” compromised at least 75 U.S.-based PLC devices.

Iran has also engaged in “malicious cyber activity” against key U.S. government officials and others involved in political campaigns, according to a September 2024 advisory.

“The cyber actors working on behalf of the IRGC gain access to victims’ personal and business accounts using social engineering techniques, often impersonating professional contacts on email or messaging platforms,” the 2024 notice reads.

Additionally, Iran-backed hackers targeted Trump during his 2024 presidential campaign and tried to deliver information they extracted to former President Joe Biden’s campaign.

The FBI and other agencies said in a statement that the hackers also tried sending the stolen Trump data to media organizations.

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/09/2026 - 08:05