Iran and the U.S. Remain Far Apart Despite Cease-Fire Deal

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0:34Despite a ceasefire, the U.S. and Iran aren't on the same page. And Iran is keeping a tight grip on the Strait of Hormuz. We don't know what Iran plans to do, and Iran has shown that it is able to hold the Strait hostage. and use it as a bargaining chip. Plus, news of the ceasefire sends U.S. stock markets soaring and oil prices plunging. And the key to losing more weight on GLP-1s might be in your DNA. It's Wednesday, April 8th. I'm Imani Moise for The Wall Street Journal, filling in for Alex Osola. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today.

1:16The U.S. and Iran reached a ceasefire agreement, but it's clear that the two sides remain far apart on many issues. Since the deal was announced, there's been conflicting reports about the status of the Strait of Hormuz and continued strikes in other parts of the Middle East. WSJ national security reporter Shelby Holliday is here to walk us through the latest. So where does the ceasefire stand now and what's the next step? Well, today's been really interesting because from the U.S. side, it's been a huge victory lap. We've heard from Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt. We've heard from the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

1:47And what they're saying is that what we set out to do has been accomplished. And now we're trying to hammer out a ceasefire. There are still some very important questions lingering, namely what Iran will do with its nuclear material, whether ships will be able to freely navigate the Strait of Hormuz, who will lead Iran. So next step here is that the White House is dispatching the vice president, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner to Islamabad in Pakistan for a round of negotiations. And I think in the next few days, we might have a little more clarity on where things stand.

2:18And Iran's saying that participating in this weekend's talks hinges on a ceasefire in Lebanon. But Israel's continuing to strike Hezbollah in Lebanon. So what happens next? Yeah, that's a key sticking point, actually. So Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel just came out and said, the ceasefire has nothing to do with Lebanon. We will continue to go after Hezbollah forcefully. Hezbollah is a proxy group that Iran supports. And we don't know how Iran will react to that. And then there's the Strait of Hormuz. How soon could it return to normal traffic? We don't know what Iran plans to do. And Iran has shown that it is able to hold the Strait hostage and use it as a bargaining chip.

2:54One thing that was interesting in the White House press conference today was that Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said what Iran is doing and saying publicly does not match what they are doing and saying privately. We have seen an uptick. traffic in the strait today. And I will reiterate the president's expectation and demand that the Strait of Hormuz is reopened immediately, quickly and safely. The White House has said it's reopening. I think we're going to need to look at a lot of shipping data to verify that and see if that's actually true. But a big question lingering over the strait is whether Iran will be able to charge some sort of toll.

3:28And that really changes the dynamic in the Middle East and in oil markets if Iran is able to say, hey, you know, if you want to come through the Strait of Hormuz, you need to pay us$1 million. That's something Iran would love to do. That is something the U.S. likely will not accept. So we'll see what happens with the Strait of Hormuz. It's still very much an open question. And what about the energy facilities in the region? Energy facilities got hit really hard in this war, and they'll need to be rebuilt. And in some cases, it will take years to rebuild what was destroyed. So that will have an effect on energy markets.

3:58In the future, there is a lot of damage that was done in these five weeks, and it will take a long time to rebuild. That was WSJ national security reporter Shelby Holliday. Thanks, Shelby. Thank you. Minutes from the Federal Reserve's March meeting show officials are getting more concerned about slow progress toward lowering inflation to its 2 % goal. And the war in the Middle East is elevating the risks. A majority of officials still continue to pencil in at least one interest rate cut this year. Wall Street analysts seem to be getting worse at forecasting one of the most important economic indicators.

4:31They undershot job gains by 75 ,000 in January, predicted an increase in February when job numbers fell sharply, and last month they struck out again, missing the mark by more than 100 ,000. WSJ economics reporter Matt Grossman joins us now to explain why economists say forecasting jobs numbers has never been harder. So Matt, why is it getting more difficult to forecast jobs? There are a few things happening at once. The economy is changing quite a bit. That's both from the big immigration crackdown from the Trump administration, the uncertainty because of tariffs, and more recently, the war in Iran.

5:06On top of that, the survey that the government uses to figure out how many jobs are being created is not quite working as well as it used to because fewer companies are responding to it. And the government also changed its formula earlier this year, and economists are still struggling to figure out how that's going to affect the numbers. Last year, they did a pretty good job on the average month. They missed maybe by about 30 ,000 or 40 ,000 jobs in a typical month, which is pretty decent. This year, the average miss has been over 100 ,000. Why do the accuracy of these estimates matter to investors?

5:45It matters a lot if you're a certain kind of investor who is making big bets on how the market's going to move on a given day. If there's a really positive economic report, that could move the stock and bond prices quite a bit because it gives a lot of updated information very quickly about how the economy is doing and also, importantly, how the Federal Reserve is likely to respond next. That makes a lot of sense. Is there something similar going on with other data releases, like inflation, for example? So far, the inflation forecasts haven't been nearly as difficult. And that could be because inflation just hasn't changed much over the past year or two.

6:26We've kind of been floating around this range where consumer prices over the past 12 months have been going up by 2.5 % to 3%. Of course, the war in Iran has lifted oil prices quite a bit. We'll see how much that has played into other price increases as well. And we'll see on Friday how well Wall Street has done at predicting exactly how big that increase is going to be. That was WSJ economics reporter Matt Grossman. Thanks, Matt. Thank you. Coming up, a big market rally after the ceasefire news, why flights are getting more expensive, and Meta's answer to AI rivals. That's after the break. Today we helped a Latte for Sam coffee shop get an insurance quote simply and easily and made sure a floral delivery van was able to make someone's day.

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7:41Major U.S. stock indexes rallied today. The Dow shot up by more than 1 ,000 points at the open and stayed high, ending up 2.8 percent. Similarly, the Nasdaq and S &P 500 each rose more than 2.5 percent. Meanwhile, U.S. oil prices tumbled 16 percent to about$94 a barrel. Agreements to reopen the Shade of Bermuda would make a long-term energy shortage less likely. Fuel-intensive companies like airlines and cruises were some of the biggest gainers of the day. But the truce might be more fragile than market reactions imply. WSJ markets reporter Hannah Aaron-Lang polled her sources on what they're paying attention to now.

8:17So, Hannah, are markets still on edge, as you said yesterday? Or is this the start of a long-term rebound? Today, we saw pretty significant rallies. Stocks are up a ton. Investors are feeling pretty relieved to hear the news of this ceasefire. I think in terms of what happens from here, that's the big question. And that depends on the negotiations between the United States and Iran, and it depends on the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. Some people are calling what happened today the taco trade. Can you tell us what that means, and does this market rally qualify? Yeah, I would definitely say it qualifies.

8:50We've heard the word taco thrown around a lot today on our phone calls with investors. The phrase taco, it kind of dates back to the Liberation Day tariffs last year that also sent stocks tumbling in April of 2025. And it's this acronym that means Trump always chickens out. And that same dynamic is kind of what we're seeing today. If you were one of the investors betting that this whole thing would kind of blow over and stocks would eventually rebound, I mean, you look kind of vindicated today, right? We're seeing a pretty sharp move upward. I should mention, this isn't kind of as big of a quote-unquote taco moment as we have seen in the past.

9:31Today's taco trade didn't pack as much of a punch as it did a year ago when we saw even more massive gains in the major U.S. stock indexes after Trump paused those tariffs. Where does today's rally put us for the year? Have we erased all of those losses that we saw when the war began? We haven't necessarily snapped back enough to eke out a positive gain this year to date. So all three major U.S. stock indexes are still down slightly in 2026. We need to make sure that this rally has legs before we end up in positive territory for the year so far. And I think for the rally to have legs, investors need to feel confident that the ceasefire has legs.

10:08Yes, exactly. That was WSJ Markets reporter Hannah Aaron-Lang. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me.

10:17Today, Delta Airlines reported a$289 million loss for the first quarter, mostly due to the soaring cost of fuel. The airlines plan for offsetting higher fuel costs, charging customers more for tickets and luggage, and cutting back on overnight and midweek flights. Delta CEO Ed Bastian says the airline's customers are still booking flights, and he expects them to keep at it. The higher-end consumer, the premium consumer, is candidly immune, or becoming more immune to the headlines, and not delaying their investment in the experienced economy, waiting to see what the next headline is going to be.

10:56Delta shares rose nearly 4%. And in tech, Meta Platforms today announced its first major new artificial intelligence model in over a year, called MuseSpark. Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic have been releasing models at an accelerating pace. Meta has spent billions of dollars on hiring AI talent to catch up. The owner of Facebook and Instagram says the model outscored Google's Gemini on some internal tests. It was also competitive with other industry leaders. Meta stock closed up about 6.5%. Turns out, how many pounds you can drop using weight loss drugs like Wiggovi and Zetbound may depend on your DNA.

11:34A new study from 23andMe found that a specific gene variant can lead to about three extra pounds of weight loss, while the median weight loss in the study for people on the drugs was about 25 pounds. Doctors say insight like these could eventually guide personalized treatment and potentially save people money. 23andMe filed for bankruptcy protection last year. Testing for predictive genes could be a way for the company to salvage its business. And that's list news for this Wednesday afternoon. Additional sound courtesy of S &P Global Market Intelligence. Today's show was produced by Anthony Bansi and Alexis Green with supervising producer Tali Arbel.

12:10I'm Imani Moise for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.

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