[MARKET UPDATE] US equity futures begin higher (Emini S&P +0.4%, Emini Nasdaq 100 (+0.7%), while oil futures slump 6% at the reopen after US President Trump announced he agreed to halt strikes on Iran subject to making a rapid deal

• Spot gold is up 0.9% or around USD 35/oz higher.
• T-note futures are up around 13 ticks.

De-escalation headlines in the Gulf have a well-worn template: an initial risk-on pop in equity futures and a sharp give-back in crude, with the crude move typically the largest and least durable leg, since it prices out a supply-disruption premium that was only ever conditional. The size of the oil slump here reflects how much geopolitical premium had been embedded, and past episodes of this kind show that premium rebuilding quickly if talks stall, making crude the cleanest barometer of whether the truce is holding. The conditional phrasing, a halt on strikes subject to a rapid deal, matters: verbal pauses of this sort have historically been fragile, and the sequencing to watch is whether the announcement is followed by named negotiators, a venue, and a timetable, or by silence and renewed rhetoric. The accompanying bid in T-note futures alongside higher equities is the familiar cross-asset signature of an unwind rather than a fresh risk impulse, with havens lagging rather than selling outright. Gold holding higher at the same time is consistent with precedent: in prior de-escalation episodes bullion has tended to keep a floor from official-sector demand even as the war premium leaks out. Near-term tells are crude's behaviour at the next liquidity handover, any movement in tanker and insurance pricing through the Gulf, and confirmation or contradiction from the other side.