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There is a big uncertainty about whether Lebanon is involved in the ceasefire and if Iran will accept it if not. There is a report that a ship was turned around due to strikes on Lebanon.

At the same time, Iran itself seems to be violating the agreement as it has sent drone strikes today. That could just be due to the difficulty in relaying the news or due to rogue commanders but it's all looking precarious. With that, the S&P 500 trimmed its gain to 2.0% on the day.

Pakistani PM Shehbaz Sharif posted:

Violations of ceasefire have been reported at few places across the conflict zone which undermine the spirit of peace process. I earnestly and sincerely urge all parties to exercise restraint and respect the ceasefire for two weeks, as agreed…

Lebanon is quickly becoming the biggest problem in ceasefire talks.

Israeli top officials today said the ceasefire doesn't apply to Lebanon and backed that up with a huge wave of strikes, including targeting 100 locations in Beirut.

Both France and Pakistan have said that Lebanon is part of the ceasefire but the US hasn't weighed in.

The Tasnim report citing unnamed sources said Iran will withdraw from the agreement if the attack on Lebanon continues. A separate Press TV report says Iran will punish Iran for attacks against Hezbollah 'in violation of the ceasefire'.

With the latest headlines, we are seeing some softening in stocks. The S&P 500 is up 149 poitns, or 2.26%, to 6767. Gold is notably eating into the post-deal…

It's real. And it's a big deal.

I wrote about evidence of leaks of Anthropic's Mythos last week and the reality looks even brighter as Anthropic dropped the system card for Claude Mythos Preview today, and the numbers are staggering.

On SWE-bench Verified — the gold-standard test for whether an AI can fix real software bugs — Mythos hits 93.9%. Claude Opus 4.6 scored 80.8%. Gemini 3.1 Pro sits at 80.6%. That's not a marginal improvement; that's a different league.

SWE-bench Pro, the harder variant with multi-file diffs and no data leakage, lands at 77.8%. Opus 4.6 managed 53.4%. GPT-5.4 got 57.7%. Again — a massive gap.

USAMO 2026 is where it gets absurd. This is the USA Mathematical Olympiad, proof-based competition problems that took place…

The mood in markets is very positive, with emerging markets posting their best day since 2022. A ceasefire is a particularly large relief for small crude oil importing nations, particularly those ones that relied on Middle Eastern refineries.

S&P 500 futures are up 2.6% and WTI crude oil is down $20 to $92.93 in one of the largest one-day losses ever.

The fear at the moment is that the ceasefire won't hold. The FT is out with a report just now on a drone strike on Saudi Arabia's east-west pipeline to the Red Sea and that's boosted oil by $2. There's also Lebanon, which Pakistan and France said were in the ceasefire agreement but video shows Beirut being hit with dozens of bombs today.

The US said yesterday that it would take some time for…

Headlines:

• Risk-on wave tides over markets as US, Iran agree to a two-week ceasefire
• US president Trump says will work closely with Iran amid "very productive" regime change
• Oil prices dive after US-Iran ceasefire agreement; focus turns to Friday's negotiations
• The US Dollar sinks on the US-Iran ceasefire agreement
• The S&P 500 almost erases March losses after the US-Iran ceasefire agreement. What's next?
• Silver looks to come up for air as market mood picks up on US-Iran ceasefire
• Eurozone February PPI -0.7% vs -0.7% m/m expected
• Eurozone February retail sales -0.2% vs -0.2% m/m expected
• Germany February industrial orders +0.9% vs +2.0% m/m expected
• Germany March construction PMI 48.0 vs 43.7 prior
• UK March construction PMI 45.6 vs 43.7…

From the man himself:

"The United States will work closely with Iran, which we have determined has gone through what will be a very productive Regime Change! There will be no enrichment of Uranium, and the United States will, working with Iran, dig up and remove all of the deeply buried (B-2 Bombers) Nuclear “Dust.” It is now, and has been, under very exacting Satellite Surveillance (Space Force!). Nothing has been touched from the date of attack. We are, and will be, talking Tariff and Sanctions relief with Iran. Many of the 15 points have already been been agreed to. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP"

Market optimism continues to pick up with the dollar tumbling lower alongside bond yields. Meanwhile,…

• There are good developments about Iran
• They have agreed to open the Strait of Hormuz
• US and allies have agreed to stop attacking Iran
• That's the basis of the "fragile truce" currently
• Some people within Iran have responded very favourably to the truce
• US negotiating team to work in good faith to get to an agreement with Iran
• If Iran doesn't engage in good faith, "they will find out that Trump is not one to mess around"

More to come..

This article was written by Justin Low at investinglive.com.

• Prior +0.7%; revised to +0.8%

This is very much lagging data as the whole picture will change once we get to the March report. That as we will see a surge in energy inflation especially, which will translate to higher price pressures here and eventually make its way into consumer prices too. The picture before the war is quite a different one, hence there is not much to extrapolate from this report.

The breakdown shows that energy prices were down 2.4% on the month and if you exclude that, overall producer prices actually increased by 0.1%.

The added details show an increase in prices for intermediate goods (+0.3%), capital goods (+0.3%), and durable consumer goods (+0.2%). Meanwhile, there was a drop in prices for non-durable consumer goods…

• Prior -0.1%

More to come..

This article was written by Justin Low at investinglive.com.

• Situation in the Middle East is still severely disrupting shipping and supply chains
• Hopefully the Strait of Hormuz will reopen
• About 1,000 ships are still stuck in the region, six of which are from Hapag-Llyod
• None of our ships have passed through the Strait of Hormuz
• The extra costs per week due to the crisis are around $50 million to $60 million
• We have no choice but to pass on some of that to customers
• Middle East situation remains very fluid at the moment
• Even though news of ceasefire is good, we won't have a normal network for at least another 6-8 weeks
• We will open up for bookings into the Upper Gulf area hopefully fairly soon

While markets are busy cheering on the ceasefire news, the reality of the situation on the ground is still filled…

• Prior 44.5

More to come..

This article was written by Justin Low at investinglive.com.