Trump is on edge about the Israel-Iran cease-fire, but markets are celebrating
Markets are cheering the cease-fire between Israel and Iran, even as Trump voices concern.
The news is good enough for investors, who have spent the last week fretting over the conflict.
But markets are on watch for signs that tensions could re-escalate, analysts say.
President Donald Trump appears to still be on edge from the conflict that unfolded between Israel and Iran over the last several weeks, but the market appears eager to resume its rally toward record highs.
Trump said Israel and Iran had agreed to a cease-fire on his Truth Social account Monday evening — news that was welcomed by investors, even as the president fired off a series of posts on Tuesday urging Israel to stick to the agreement he brokered.
Still, after confronting the prospect of a much wider regional conflict, investors seemed ready to celebrate a win for the market.
Here's where major indexes stood at 11:45 a.m. ET on Tuesday:
S&P 500: 6,084.14, up 0.98%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 43,008.17, up 1% (+426.39 points)
Nasdaq 100: 19,905.52, up 1.4%
Investors have been fretting for more than a week over the economic implications if tensions in the Middle East were to escalate. But for now, the cease-fire appears to have lifted their spirits, according to David Morrison, a senior market analyst at Trade Nation.
"So, with the immediate geopolitical tensions dialled down, investors are free to focus on President Trump's trade war and the first tariff deadline coming up in a couple of weeks," Morrison wrote in a note on Tuesday, adding that he believed stocks were still in a bull market.
"This de-escalation is leading investors to be more comfortable engaging in risk-on trades in the equity market. Even if there is further escalation, it appears that Iran has limited abilities to retaliate, which is strengthening expectations that this conflict will calm down" Chirs Brigati, the chief investment officer at SWBC, said in a statement.
"As far as investors are concerned, they've just stared down the prospect of World War Three, so they're not going to be fussed by a few percentage points on US imports," he added of tariff risks.
Oil prices, which spiked as tensions in the Middle East escalated, dropped sharply from their recent highs.
Brent crude, which spiked as much as 14% amid the 12-day conflict, traded 4% lower on Tuesday at around $65 a barrel.
West Texas Intermediate crude, which spiked as much as 10% over the same period, also fell 4% to trade around $65 a barrel, below levels on the day the conflict started.
The declines are signs that oil markets are no longer fretting over possible supply disruptions in the Middle East, according to Alex Kuptsikevich, the chief market analyst at FXPro.
"Retreating to levels seen before the latest conflict, the price recouped the 'war premium,'" Kuptsikevich wrote in a note on Tuesday.
Here are other important moves in the market:
The US Dollar Index: 97.90 (-0.53%)
Bitcoin: 105,662.80 (+0.21%)
Gold: 3,319.60 (-2.22%)
Investors, though, are still on watch for signs that conflict could re-escalate in the coming days.
"Markets breathed a sigh of relief following Trump's ceasefire declaration, but the celebration could be short-lived. If tensions flare again or the ceasefire is violated, we could see a swift return to risk aversion — boosting safe havens like gold and pressuring global equities," Lukman Otunuga, a senior market analyst at FXTM, wrote in a note.
"In our downside scenario, we assume ceasefire negotiations break down and Iran attempts to disrupt trade with mines and attacks on shipping," researchers at Oxford Economics wrote in a note.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
25 minutes ago
- New York Times
Live Updates: Israel and Iran Claim Victory as Cease-Fire Takes Hold
Reporters photographing a display for 'Midnight Hammer,' the name of the American operation to bomb Iran's nuclear sites, during a news conference on Sunday. A preliminary classified U.S. report says the American bombing of three nuclear sites in Iran set back the country's nuclear program by only a few months, according to officials familiar with the findings. The strikes sealed off the entrances to two of the facilities but did not collapse their underground buildings, the officials said the early findings concluded. Before the attack, U.S. intelligence agencies had said that if Iran tried to rush to making a bomb, it would take about three months. After the U.S. bombing run and days of attacks by the Israeli Air Force, the report by the Defense Intelligence Agency estimated that the program had been delayed, but by less than six months. The report also said that much of Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium was moved before the strikes, which destroyed little of the nuclear material. Iran may have moved some of that to secret locations. Some Israeli officials said they also believed that the Iranian government had maintained small covert enrichment facilities so it could continue its nuclear program in the event of an attack on the larger facilities. Other officials noted that the report found that the three nuclear sites — Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan — had suffered moderate to severe damage, with the facility at Natanz damaged the most. It is not clear whether the Iranians will try to rebuild the programs. Former officials said that if Iran tried to quickly develop a bomb, it would be a relatively small and crude device. A miniaturized warhead would be far more difficult to produce, and the extent of damage to that more advanced research is not clear. Current and former military officials had cautioned before the strike that any effort to destroy the Fordo facility, which is buried more than 250 feet under a mountain, would probably require waves of airstrikes, with days or even weeks of pounding the same spots. American warplanes did hit the same spots at least twice on Saturday. B-2s dropped 12 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs — often referred to as 'bunker busters' — on Fordo, and six aboveground entry craters are now visible, according to Brian Carter, the Middle East portfolio manager at the American Enterprise Institute. But many military bomb experts believed that more than one day of strikes would be needed to complete the job. The initial damage assessment suggests that President Trump's claim that Iran's nuclear facilities were 'obliterated' was overstated. Congress had been set to be briefed on the strike on Tuesday, and lawmakers were expected to ask about the findings, but the session was postponed. Senators are now set be briefed on Thursday, and a group of House Democrats issued a statement demanding that their chamber be briefed as well. Since the strikes, Mr. Trump has complained to advisers repeatedly about news reports that have questioned how much damage was done, said people with knowledge of the comments. He has also closely watched the public statements of other officials when they are asked about the damage to the nuclear facilities, they said. In a statement on Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reiterated Mr. Trump's early assessment. 'Based on everything we have seen — and I've seen it all — our bombing campaign obliterated Iran's ability to create nuclear weapons,' he said. 'Our massive bombs hit exactly the right spot at each target and worked perfectly.' Officials cautioned that the five-page classified report was only an initial assessment, and that others would follow as more information was collected and as Iran examined the three sites. One official said that the reports people in the administration had been shown were 'mixed' but that more assessments were yet to be done. But the Defense Intelligence Agency report indicates that the sites were not damaged as much as some administration officials had hoped, and that Iran retains control of almost all of its nuclear material, meaning if it decides to make a nuclear weapon it might still be able to do so relatively quickly. Officials interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity because the findings of the report remain classified. The White House took issue with the assessment. Karoline Leavitt, a White House spokeswoman, said it was 'flat-out wrong.' 'The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President Trump, and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission to obliterate Iran's nuclear program,' she said in a statement. 'Everyone knows what happens when you drop 14 30,000-pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.' Elements of the intelligence report were reported earlier by CNN. The strikes badly damaged the electrical system at Fordo, officials said. It is not clear how long it will take Iran to gain access to the underground buildings, repair the electrical systems and reinstall equipment that was moved. Image A satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies of the Fordo nuclear site. Credit... Maxar Technologies, via Associated Press There is no question that the bombing campaign 'badly, badly damaged' the three sites, Mr. Carter said. But initial Israeli damage assessments have also raised questions about the effectiveness of the strikes. Israeli defense officials said they had also collected evidence that the underground facilities at Fordo were not destroyed. Before the strike, the U.S. military gave officials a range of possibilities for how much the attack could set back the Iranian program. Those ranged from a few months on the low end to years on the higher end. . Some officials cautioned that such estimates are imprecise, and that it is impossible to know how long Iran would exactly take to rebuild, if it chose to do so. Despite claims of the sites' obliteration by Mr. Trump and Mr. Hegseth, Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been more careful in describing the attack's effects. 'This operation was designed to severely degrade Iran's nuclear weapons infrastructure,' General Caine said that at the Sunday news conference. The final battle damage assessment for the military operation against Iran, General Caine said on Sunday, standing next to Mr. Hegseth, was still to come. He said the initial assessment showed that all three sites 'sustained severe damage and destruction.' General Caine added that it was 'way too early' to assess how much of Iran's nuclear program remained. Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the former commander of Central Command, said in an interview, that he had 'a lot of confidence in the weapons systems used.' But he added: 'I'm not surprised that elements survived. That's why you do battle damage assessments, because everything can go as planned but there are still other factors.' At a Senate hearing on Tuesday, Democrats also struck a more cautionary note. 'We still await final battle damage assessments,' said Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee. Military officials had said that to do more significant damage to the underground sites, they would have to be hit with multiple strikes. But Mr. Trump announced he would stop the strikes after approving the first wave. U.S. intelligence agencies had concluded before the strikes that Iran had not made the decision to make a nuclear weapon, but possessed enough enriched uranium that if it decided to make a bomb, it could do so relatively quickly. While intelligence officials had predicted that a strike on Fordo or other nuclear facilities by the United States could prompt Iran to make a bomb, U.S. officials said they do not know yet if Iran would do so. Representatives of the Defense Intelligence Agency did not respond to requests for comment. David E. Sanger contributed reporting.
Miami Herald
28 minutes ago
- Miami Herald
Was Trump's attack on Iran legal? Experts weigh in on US and international law
President Donald Trump's decision to bomb Iran has reignited a decades-long debate over the legality of unilateral military action. In response to the June 21 attack — during which U.S. stealth bombers struck three Iranian nuclear sites — Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, labeled it 'not constitutional.' Sen. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, called it 'illegal' and dangerous. However, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said Trump 'made the right call, and did what he needed to do.' Numerous other elected Republicans echoed this statement. McClatchy News has asked legal experts to clear the air and weigh in on whether the president's actions were lawful under both U.S. and international law. US law Whether or not the president has the power to independently launch a military attack has been a hotly contested and largely unresolved issue for years. 'It's been a longstanding situation of competing claims of authority between the Congress and the president,' Robert Goldman, a law professor at the American University Washington College of Law, told McClatchy News. The debate stems from the U.S. Constitution, which divides wartime powers between both the legislative and the executive branch, Goldman said. On the one hand, Article I grants Congress the power to declare war, while Article II designates the president commander in chief of the armed forces. The consensus among legal scholars is that the authors of the Constitution 'intended to separate the power to initiate a war from the power to run a war once it has begun, leaving the president able only to repel sudden attacks without first going to Congress,' experts told the New York Times. In practice, though, presidents of both parties have frequently initiated military campaigns without the approval of Congress — and often with little pushback. 'The U.S. has been involved in numerous armed conflicts or wars since World War II,' Goldman said. 'But the last time the U.S. Congress formally declared war was when Franklin Roosevelt, in 1942, came to them after the attack on Pearl Harbour.' While Congress has not declared war in eight decades, it has, in some cases, granted a president's request to use military force against specific targets through what is called an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). For example, in 2001, following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, lawmakers passed an AUMF, permitting President George W. Bush to use force against 'nations, organizations or persons' that took part in the attacks. But, in multiple other instances, presidents have used military force without an AUMF, including in Kosovo in 1999, Libya in 2011, in Syria in 2014 — and now in Iran under Trump. 'This is something that's gone on for ages,' Goldman said. 'This is not something that is unique to this particular administration.' International law On the other hand, under international law, the rules are more cut and dry, experts said. 'By attacking Iran, the U.S. is breaking international law — there is no doubt about that,' Ian Hurd, a political science professor at Northwestern University, told McClatchy News. 'It is illegal to use military force against another country,' Hurd said. 'This rule is the centerpiece of international law, written into the United Nations Charter at the end of World War II.' Under the U.N. Charter, an attack on another nation is only permitted under a few circumstances — none of which apply to Trump's bombing of Iran. Firstly, Article 51 of the Charter recognizes the right of a state to respond to an armed attack for purposes of self defense. 'Quite clearly,' Goldman said, 'we were not subject to an armed attack by Iran.' Some legal experts also argue that anticipatory self defense — under which a state has not been attacked, but determines that a foreign attack is imminent — is legal under international law. 'Obviously, you couldn't argue anticipatory self-defense because…Iran doesn't have any weapons platforms capable of hitting the continental U.S.,' Goldman said. Lastly, the charter permits the use of force against a state if it has been authorized by the U.N. Security Council — as it did during the First Gulf War in 1990. Such an authorization was not obtained for Trump's bombing of Iran. 'So I would say the situation is fairly straightforward as to the legality,' Goldman concluded. 'It may have been done politically for a reasonable reason, but that is distinct from international law.' The U.S., though, is hardly alone in breaking international law. In recent years, numerous conflicts have violated the U.N. Charter, according to Amnesty International, including Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Israel's war in Gaza.
Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Thomson Reuters (TRI) Price Target Hiked at Wells Fargo on Legal Tech Space Opportunity
Thomson Reuters Corporation (NYSE:TRI) is one of the 11 best industrial stocks to buy right now. On June 16, Wells Fargo analyst Jason Haas reiterated an 'Equal-Weight' on the stock. The analyst also hiked the stock's price target to $213 from $187. The analyst rating underscores a balanced view of the stock's near-term performance. A close-up of a person signing a loan agreement, emphasising safety and legality of this company's fixed & floating rate loan services. The price target adjustment follows a meeting with Fisher Phillips's Chief Knowledge and Innovation Officer, Evan Shenkman. The law firm is best known for its early adoption of legal tech. Consequently, the law firm reiterated that Thomson Reuters remains well-positioned within legal tech. Thomson Reuters Corporation (NYSE:TRI) is an industrial company that specializes in offering specialty business services. Its Legal Professionals segment offers research and workflow products focusing on legal research and integrated legal workflow solutions that combine content, tools, and analytics for law firms and governments. While we acknowledge the potential of TRI as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: and . Disclosure: None. Sign in to access your portfolio
