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US EQUITY OPEN: Stocks open with slight gains while oil falls on geopolitical optimism

Tape rhetoric of this kind, an offer routed through mediators with a deadline attached, has historically been enough to take the war-risk premium out of crude even before any verification, with the discount concentrated in prompt Brent and WTI spreads rather than far-dated paper.

Newsquawk StaffPublished On the live feed at , 20 minutes before this page
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US EQUITY OPEN: Stocks open with slight gains while oil falls on geopolitical optimism

Japanese Finance Minister Katayama and US Treasury Secretary Bessent reaffirmed that JPY undervaluation is a matter of concern

[MARKET UPDATE] USD/JPY moves below 157.00 on continued jawboning

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US EQUITY OPEN: Stocks opened with marginal gains on Friday of between 0.1-0.35%, with the Russell underperforming. Sectors are mixed, with Technology, Industrials and Financials outperforming, while Energy, Communication Services and Consumer Discretionary lag.

Macro focus has been on geopolitics after the Iranian Foreign Minister said overnight that Iran presented a proposal to the US through mediators this week to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and restart negotiations towards a final deal, calling on the US to meet certain conditions within seven days.

As a result, crude prices are lower amid the renewed geopolitical optimism, while natgas is also lower after Russian gas supplies to Armenia restarted.

In FX, the Dollar is lower while the Yen rallies, with USD/JPY falling back below 157.00. US President Trump said Yen weakness is problematic, while Japanese PM Takaichi said the currency is undervalued. Meanwhile, Finance Minister Katayama said she expects excessive Yen selling to be corrected.

STOCK SPECIFICS:

  • Costco Wholesale (COST): New member adds Y/Y growth slowed; quarterly results beat expectations
  • Akamai Technologies (AKAM): Signed a seven-year USD 11.6bln cloud services deal with Anthropic
  • People Inc. (PPLI): MGM Resorts is considering a bid for Barry Diller's People Inc.
  • Apple (AAPL): Bernstein sees downside risk to December-quarter earnings as sharply higher memory-chip costs pressure iPhone margins.
  • Corecivic (CXW): Patrick Swindle resigns as Preisdent and CEO.
  • Nike (NKE): Downgraded at BofA.
  • Microsoft (MSFT): Co. revamps copilot with code generation, and agentic AI tools.
Context

The pattern in comparable episodes is a relief bid in equities, a softening Dollar against haven currencies, and energy the underperformer on the sector board, all of which match the early colour here. What separates follow-through from fade is whether the specified conditions are publicly acceptable to Washington; proposals demanding concessions within a short window have tended to stall at exactly that point, in which case crude re-arms on the first denial. USD/JPY moving on coordinated jawboning from both capitals is the unusual feature; intervention-adjacent commentary from one side or the other has appeared before, but aligned rhetoric compresses the pair faster and with more durability than unilateral warnings. Worth tracking is whether Brent's drop holds into the weekend and whether Yen gains extend once verbal support is digested, since Positioning in the pair has been stretched. The stock specifics are single-name flows and secondary to the macro driver.

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