US & Iran Two-Week Ceasefire; Oil and Gas Prices Plunge

0:00Being a small business owner isn't just a career, it's a calling. Chase for business knows how much heart and effort go into building something of your own. Manage all your business finances, from banking to payments to credit cards, all in one place with Chase's digital tools. Plus, access online resources designed to help your business thrive. Learn more at chase.com slash business. Chase for business. Make more of what's yours. The Chase mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply. JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A. Member FDIC. Copyright 2026. JPMorgan Chase and Company.

0:35If you follow markets, you know the value of long-term thinking. You plan, you diversify, you prepare for volatility. But in life, even the best strategies can't prevent every bad day. A fire, a loss, a disruption that demands immediate attention. When that happens, what matters isn't just what you planned, it's who shows up. That's where Cincinnati Insurance comes in. For more than 75 years, they've helped individuals and businesses navigate life's toughest moments with care, expertise, and personal attention. Together with independent agents, Cincinnati Insurance focuses on relationships, not transactions.

1:13Their approach is grounded in experience, follow-through, and trust built over time. Bad days happen, and when they do, you deserve an insurance partner who understands risk, respects what you've built, and is ready to help you move forward. The Cincinnati Insurance Companies. Let them make your bad day better. Find an independent agent at c-i-n-f-i-n dot com. So there's a lot of noise about AI, but time's too tight for more promises. So let's talk about results. At IBM, we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need. Now, a global workforce of 300 ,000 can use AI to fill their HR questions, resolving 94 % of common questions.

1:55Not noise. Proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business. IBM. Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. Good morning, I'm Nathan Hager. And I'm Karen Moscow. Here are the stories we're following today. Karen, relief is sweeping through markets and the world with the U.S. and Iran pulling away from the brink 40 days into the Middle East war. President Trump announced a two-week ceasefire last night subject to Tehran reopening the Strait of Hormuz. The move came hours after the president warned, quote, a whole civilization will die tonight if Iran did not give in to his demands.

2:44Pakistan mediated to urge the president to back away from that threat. Daniel Byman is director of the Warfare, Irregular Threats and Terrorism Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. President Trump was clearly moving towards a decision moment. And today it was either going to be significant escalation or some sort of deal. And he can now claim that it was his threats that led the Iranians to the negotiating table. It's quite possible he could have gotten this deal several weeks ago, so I'm not quite sure that's right. Daniel Byman with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

3:21Bloomberg's Jumana Berset, she reports it remains to be seen whether this two-week pause leads to a lasting end to hostilities. Overnight, the National Supreme Security Council of Iran published 10 points, a very long missive that they published, and included in those points, other than the full lifting of sanctions, the end of hostilities, the withdrawal of U.S. from bases in the region, and control of the straits. Obviously, many of those are non-starters for the U.S. They've also stipulated that the war against all of their components of the so-called axis of resistance should be halted immediately.

3:55Bloomberg's Jumana Bersetchi reports President Trump is calling Iran's 10-point plan a workable basis for negotiations, and he says the U.S. will assist in allowing safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz. The White House also says Israel has agreed to the ceasefire, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says it does not extend to Lebanon, where Israel is waging a parallel war with Hezbollah. Well, Nathan, reaction pouring in around the world to the temporary ceasefire. Dalia Fahmi is director of international relations and diplomacy at Long Island University. What we're seeing in this plan put forward is that Iran is actually perhaps putting a proposal for the future, for its future, kind of guarantee taking advantage of this moment.

4:36If you look at this on the U.S. side, the goalpost of so-called success has shifted significantly. Initially, it was complete regime change, then complete destruction of the ballistic military capacity. And then it moved to nuclear enrichment. And now it's simply opening the Strait of Hormuz, which is what we heard from President Trump today. The Strait was open before the war. And so what the signals is that in terms of coming to the brink, which we were at just a few hours ago, it seems that Iran perhaps is in a position with a greater bargaining range than the United States is. And as Long Island University's Dalia Fakhmyu notes that both the U.S.

5:18and Iran are portraying the ceasefire as a victory, but significant differences remain between their demands to bring the war to a complete end. Well, Karen, we are seeing huge movements in energy markets this morning. Checking oil once again. West Texas Intermediate Crude is down more than 15.5%, trading above$95 a barrel. Brent is down more than 13%, just shy of$95. dollars. Refined product prices are falling as well, with benchmark European diesel futures dropping as much as 23 percent. Will Kennedy covers the energy markets for Bloomberg. The big question, of course, is the terms under which they might be able to make those voyages.

5:56Iran has asserted its right to charge for passage and to control passage through the straits during the conflict and has proposed a more permanent arrangement where it would levy fees on ships for passage. That will be controversial, to say the least, with the U.S. and other countries around the world. And it will be very interesting to see how far Iran insists on that. But in the near future, traders will just want to see the ships move and for traffic to resume at some kind of pace, if not the pace before the conflict broke out. Bloomberg's Will Kennedy says even with today's drop, WTI crude is still up more than 40 percent since the conflict began on the last day of February.

6:38Well, Nathan, several airline executives say it will take several months to normalize even if the Strait of Hormuz is open. And Nazaruddin Bakar is the CEO of the Malaysia Aviation Group. The impact at the Middle East area, not only just the supply of the fuel and the crude oil, is at the refinery itself. Even if the war stops, I personally believe it's going to take many, many more months for the price to stabilize. And Malaysia Aviation Group's Nazaruddin Bakar made the comments at the International Air Transport World Data Symposium in Singapore. Turning to equity markets this morning, they are jumping.

7:16Led by NASDAQ, futures up 3.5%, or 845 points. S &P futures are up 2.3%, or 177 points. And Dow futures higher by 1 ,128 points. That is a gain of almost 2.5%. In Europe, the stocks 50 is higher by 3.5%. And in Asia, Japan's Nikkei stock average closed higher by more than 5%. Well, Nathan, the rapid shifts in the war have seen stock trading intensify. We get the details with Bloomberg's John Tucker. Investors wary of being wrong-footed by twists and turns in the conflict are trading stocks at a record intensity. One technical metric, the daily turnover in the State Street Spider S &P 500 ETF Trust has breached$60 billion.

8:02That is a reading seen as a, quote, freakout indicator by Bloomberg intelligence strategists 29 times this year. That record compares to 28 times in all of 2025. Buying on weakness has been rewarded in recent years with markets eventually bouncing to a race declines spurred by everything from the COVID pandemic to the worst inflation scare in decades. Seasonality may also prove a tailwind. The S &P 500 has notched an average April gain of one and a half percent since 1990. In New York, I'm John Tucker, Bloomberg Radio. All right, John, thank you. We're following a couple of important stories in politics this morning.

8:39Vice President J.D. Vance is criticizing the European Union for what he sees as meddling in Hungary's election. Vance spoke alongside Prime Minister Viktor Orban on a visit to Budapest ahead of Sunday's vote. What has happened in the midst of this election campaign is one of the worst examples of foreign election interference that I've ever seen or ever even read about. The bureaucrats in Brussels have tried to destroy the economy of Hungary. They have tried to make Hungary less energy independent. They have tried to drive up costs for Hungarian consumers. And they've done it all because they hate this guy.

9:17Vice President Vance gave no evidence for his claims and no EU leader has campaigned alongside the opposition in Hungary. Independent polls show Orbán's party is on track to lose power after 16 years. And let's turn to U.S. politics now, Nathan. The race to fill Marjorie Taylor Greene's open house seat in Georgia is complete. And with nearly all the votes counted in the special runoff election, Republican Clay Fuller is projected to beat Democrat Sean Harris by a nearly 12-point margin, 55.9 to 44.1 percent. Fuller told his supporters his victory could offer a blueprint for the midterms. When Republicans are united, when we share a common purpose, and when we understand what's at stake, we win.

10:03But Harris says he plans to run again in the general election. If we get out and vote, if we get out and speak our voice, we will win this election every time. And we're going to win this election come November. And Clay Fuller's victory last night expands the Republicans' narrow House majority to 218 to 214 plus one independent.

10:28Time now for a look at some of the other stories making news in New York and around the world. And for that, we're joined by Bloomberg's Michael Barr. Michael, good morning. Good morning, Karen. A Long Island architect accused in a string of long unsolved slayings known as the Gilgo Beach Killings is expected to plead guilty. Rex Hureman is charged with murdering seven women. A guilty plea would put him in prison for the rest of his life. Hureman is also expected to plead guilty today in the death of an eighth woman. Karen Vergata was a 34-year-old from Manhattan who disappeared in 1996. Last year, a judge rejected his bid to exclude DNA evidence obtained through advanced techniques that prosecutors say proves he's the killer.

11:11He previously pleaded not guilty. Meanwhile, Hewerman is being sued, along with his former wife and their daughter, by the son of one of the alleged victims. Benjamin Torres, the son of Valerie Mack, claims his mother was tortured ferociously and her body dismembered. Robert Macedonio is the attorney for Hewerman's ex, Asa Ellerup, and daughter Victoria Hewerman. The individual responsible acted alone. Rex Hewerman has been indicted and charged with a series of homicides, and he will have his name caught to answer those charges. Macedonio called the lawsuit reckless, saying Victoria Hewerman was just three years old at the time of the murders.

11:51NASA officials say the Artemis II crew is back within the influence of Earth's gravity and still on schedule to splash down on Friday. Artemis II lunar science lead Dr. Kelsey Young said during the lunar flyby, the crew observed new colors on the moon's surface. Right away they started describing the green around Aristarchus Plateau and different brown hues. And these colors really help tell us nuances about the chemistry of lunar material. About half of New Yorkers approve of Mayor Zorim Mdani's job performance as he approaches his 100th day in office. That's according to a new Marist poll. Global News 24 hours a day and whenever you want it with Bloomberg News Now.

12:33Michael Barr and this is Bloomberg. Karen. Thanks, Michael. Time now for our Bloomberg Sports Update. And for that, we bring in John Stashauer. Thanks, Karen. The Dodgers are the two-time defending World Series champions. Favorites to win a three-peat. And in Toronto, where they won Game 7 last fall, they beat the Blue Jays 4-1. The Dodgers are off to a 9-2 start. The Yankees are 8-2. Four runs in the eighth inning to Medrissario, his second home run of the night. And the Yanks beat the A's 5-3. The Lakers are playing without their three best players. Luka Doncic maybe for the rest of the season.

13:05Also Austin Rees and LeBron James. Lakers lost at home to Oklahoma City by 36. That's your Bloomberg Sports Update. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Daybreak coming up after this. Support for the show comes from Public. Public is an investing platform that offers access to stocks, options, bonds, and crypto. And they've also integrated AI with tools that can assist investors in building customized portfolios. One of these tools is called Generated Assets. It allows you to turn your ideas into investable indexes. So let's say you're interested in something specific like biotech companies with high R &D spend, small cap stocks with improving operating margins, or the S &P 500 minus high debt companies.

13:49Chances are there isn't an ETF that fits your exact criteria. But on public, you just type in a prompt and their AI screens thousands of stocks and build a one-of-a-kind index. You can even backtest it against the S &P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Go to public.com slash market and earn an uncapped 1 % bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com slash market.

14:19SEC Registered Advisor. Crypto services by zero hash. Sample prompts are for illustrative purposes only, not investment advice. All investing involves risk of loss. See complete disclosures at public.com slash disclosures. So there's a lot of noise about AI, but time's too tight for more promises. So let's talk about results. At IBM, we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need. Now, a global workforce of 300 ,000 can use AI to fill their HR our questions, resolving 94 % of common questions. Not noise, proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business.

14:58Let's create smarter business, IBM. For many men, mental health challenges aren't recognized until they've already taken a toll. Work pressure, financial stress, changing relationships, and traditional expectations around masculinity can quietly wear men down, often without clear warning signs. In Season 3 of The Visibility Gap, Dr. Guy Winch and his guests explore how these pressures show up, how to spot them earlier, and how men can access meaningful support. Listen to the new season of The Visibility Gap, a podcast presented by Cigna Healthcare.

15:34Coast to coast on Bloomberg Radio, nationwide on Sirius XM, and around the world on Bloomberg.com and the Bloomberg Business App. This is Bloomberg Daybreak. Good morning. I'm Nathan Hager. A two-week pause. President Trump says he is putting his war with Iran on hold hours after threatening to wipe out its whole civilization if it would not reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Sanam Vaqil is director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House. This is a welcome pause. This is a war that nobody was winning. All sides have come out much weaker, but I still remain cautious because Iran's demands are really quite extreme and it's hard to see them coming out having achieved everything.

16:21Saddam Bakil with Chatham House. For more, we are joined from Dubai by Bloomberg Middle East correspondent and anchor of Bloomberg Horizons, Jumana Bersechi, along with Bloomberg News Deputy Washington Bureau Chief Laura Davison. And it's good to have both of you with us this morning. Jumana, I'll start with you. Where does this two-week pause leave things in Iran? What are the chances that this leads to a more permanent solution? Good morning. Yeah, that's the question on everyone's mind this morning. It certainly feels tenuous. I will say before that, that the entire region is breathing a sigh of relief, that the very worst-case scenario didn't materialize, and President Trump didn't follow through on some of those threats.

16:59Of course, the language got increasingly strident as the war went on. So there is a sense of relief this morning. But again, a lot of questions about whether this temporary truce can actually turn into something more permanent. And namely because if we go back to the starting points of the upcoming negotiations between both the U.S. and Iran, they're still very, very far apart. And in the middle of the night yesterday, Iran actually presented their 10 point proposal. And some of those demands are extremely maximalist, including them maintaining that they have a right of sovereignty over passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.

17:43They are asking for assurances that the war won't happen again. They're asking for war reparations and the right to actually continue with enrichment as well. Many of those are non-starters for the U.S., but obviously formed the foundation of the upcoming likely discussions that are going to take place most likely in Islamabad at the end of the week. To that point, Laura, we heard President Trump call that 10-point plan from Iran a workable basis for negotiations. What happened to the 15-point plan from the U.S.? Plans have been consistently changing over the past several weeks. And this has been sort of a point of contention going into the ceasefire is what exactly are the basis for these negotiations.

18:30The White House has said this 10-point plan that Jumana mentioned. However, the White House has declined to confirm what those 10 points are. Trump has said that some of the reporting out there is inaccurate but hasn't suggested exactly what the basis of negotiations are happening here. So we have a scenario where you have, you know, Trump sort of suggesting that, you know, lots of these points are agreed to. But in that 10 point document, you know, those would are many things that would be non starters for the U.S. So we have a, you know, perhaps going into this two week ceasefire with a little bit of a misunderstanding or perhaps overly rosy glasses from the U.S.

19:03and potentially also from Iran as to exactly where each of the two sides stand at this moment. And of course, there's been so much focus now in the last few days on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, as opposed to some of the other objectives that President Trump has laid out here. Jumana, what is the difficulty for getting traffic to move through that strait? Well, the difficulty is that the Iranian foreign minister, even when saying that they had accepted the ceasefire, also maintained that vessels would still have to get permission from Iran armed forces over the next couple of weeks. So they're still, once again, reiterating that they effectively have control over who and what gets to pass through the straits safely.

19:44And already we started to hear from various ministries of foreign affairs in the region, the likes of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, putting up posts just in the last half an hour, saying that while they welcomed the ceasefire, they also would like to see a return to the former status quo where shipping was free, available for oil, and bound by international maritime law, as opposed to this new protocol that Iran is trying to set up. So as things stand now, you've got about 800 vessels stranded in the Persian Gulf waiting to get a signal that they can leave. But of course, there's a huge backlog, And it's unclear at this point whether any of them or many of them are going to go ahead.

20:25And we know that prior to the war, about 100 to 120 vessels would pass through the strait a day. Now it's trickled down to around maybe half a dozen at most. And most of those vessels would have been Iranian-length. So we'll see what happens in the next couple of days. And this idea of Iran taking tolls to allow passage through the strait arguably puts them in a much different position than it was, as you mentioned, just a few weeks ago. when passage was free. Where does this, Laura, leave the U.S. in this two-week window now to try to come up with some kind of resolution when it comes to how things move through the strait?

21:06This is going to be the big question going into these talks and suggest that perhaps two weeks is not enough time to get that negotiated, which could mean that we're looking at a much longer sort of short-term ceasefire while these finer points are negotiated. But if Iran is coming into this ceasefire with effective control over the Strait of Hormuz, they've suggested they will allow ships to pass. But exactly what that looks like and how much control they have over that remains to be seen. But if they are able to have some sort of veto power or the ability to collect tolls, that gives them a leverage over the global economy that they didn't have before the start of this war.

21:44Trump has said he wants free travel. He wants to have essentially the straight of Hormuz return to what it was like before the war. But that's going to be—that's the Trump card that Iran has, and that's going to be one of the things that they're going to want to hold on to the longest. Of course, that's the thing that Trump also wants to see relieved the most. So this creates a lot of tension going into these talks. And, of course, the key point being here that this has a lot of effect over what oil prices are doing, over what gas prices are doing. And that is one of Trump's key concerns politically, domestically, as well as economically.

22:17And Jumana, of course, all this comes just hours after President Trump threatened to lay waste to the country, essentially saying a whole civilization would be wiped out tonight. What to make of the the extreme back and forth here from President Trump? Yeah, well, the language didn't go down well with anyone from the region, even his allies in the region. And obviously it was deemed to be one step too far. And some people are actually saying that is what incentivized them or President Trump to back down because he got so much pushback after that post. It seems as though Pakistan really made a last ditch effort to try to bring all sides together.

23:00J.D. Vance, according to overnight reporting, seemed to have played a pivotal role as well. And then also President Trump crediting China, too, with bringing Iran to the negotiating table. So I guess it's one of those questions of, you know, maybe he had to go that far down the escalation chain in order for things to deescalate. But at the same time, I think many people in the region would have deemed those comments to be quite insulting and diminutive and reductive and really unpresidential. So, you know, the limit of what was acceptable got increasingly tested over time. And as the war went on, it was apparent that President Trump was becoming frustrated.

23:42Now, this just, you know, as we said, everyone's breathing a sigh of relief. It's a chance for a reset. And let's see whether cooler heads prevail in the coming weeks. This is Bloomberg Daybreak, your morning podcast on the stories making news from Wall Street to Washington and beyond. Look for us on your podcast feed by 6 a.m. Eastern each morning on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere else you listen. You can also listen live each morning starting at 5 a.m. Wall Street time on Bloomberg 1130 in New York, Bloomberg 99.1 in Washington, Bloomberg 92.9 in Boston, and nationwide on Sirius XM Channel 121.

24:22Plus, listen coast to coast on the Bloomberg Business app now with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto interfaces. And don't forget to subscribe to Bloomberg News Now. It's the latest news whenever you want it, in five minutes or less. Search Bloomberg News Now on your favorite podcast platform to stay informed all day long. I'm Karen Moscow. And I'm Nathan Hager. Join us again tomorrow morning for all the news you need to start your day right here on Bloomberg Daybreak.

24:58If you follow markets, you know the value of long-term thinking. You plan, you diversify, you prepare for volatility. But in life, even the best strategies can't prevent every bad day. A fire, a loss, a disruption that demands immediate attention. When that happens, what matters isn't just what you planned, it's who shows up. That's where Cincinnati Insurance comes in. For more than 75 years, they've helped individuals and businesses navigate life's toughest moments with care, expertise, and personal attention. Together with independent agents, Cincinnati Insurance focuses on relationships, not transactions.

25:35Their approach is grounded in experience, follow-through, and trust built over time. Bad days happen, and when they do, you deserve an insurance partner who understands risk, respects what you've built, and is ready to help you move forward. The Cincinnati Insurance companies. Let them make your bad day better. Find an independent agent at c-i-n-f-i-n.com.