Investors bet the fragile ceasefire would hold

The ceasefire between Israel and Iran appears to be holding. In yesterday’s newsletter, we talked about how a blitzkrieg of missile-led diplomacy seemed to help de-escalate tensions.

The flipside of that strange path to a truce is that missiles, well, are fundamentally weapons. Mere hours after both countries agreed to the ceasefire, Israel said its longtime rival had fired missiles into its borders — an accusation which Tehran denied — and was preparing to “respond forcefully.” Probably with more missiles.

U.S. President Donald Trump — who reportedly brokered the ceasefire with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani — expressed frustration with those developments.

“I’m not happy with them. I’m not happy with Iran either but I’m really unhappy if Israel is going out this morning,” Trump told a reporter pool en route to the NATO summit in the Netherlands.

His admonishments seemed to work. There is now a fragile armistice between the two countries.

Oil prices fell and U.S. stocks jumped.

Reuters uploaded a photo of Israeli residents playing frisbee at the beach on June 24. Flights at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport are resuming, and Iran’s airspace is partially open, according to flight monitoring firm FlightRadar24, CNBC reported at around 3 a.m. Singapore time.

Three hours after that update, NBC News, citing three people familiar with the matter, reported that an initial assessment from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency found the American strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites on Saturday left “core pieces … still intact.”

And so it goes.

Israel-Iran ceasefire holds, for now
The fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran, announced by Trump on Monday, appears to be holding. Israel on Tuesday said it would honor the ceasefire so long as Iran does the same. Earlier in the day, both countries accused each other of violating the truce, and said they were ready to retaliate, prompting Trump to say he’s “not happy” with them. Stay updated on the Israel-Iran conflict with CNBC’s live blog here.

Markets jump as traders bet on truce
U.S. stocks jumped Tuesday on expectations that the Israel-Iran ceasefire would hold. The S&P 500 gained 1.11% to put it just 0.9% away from its 52-week high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 1.19% and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.43%. The Nasdaq-100 rose 1.53% to close at an all-time high. Europe’s Stoxx 600 rose 1.11%. Travel stocks were some of the best performers, while oil and gas stocks fell the most.

Oil prices slump for a second day
Oil prices tumbled Tuesday, its second day of declines, as the market bet that the risk of a major supply disruption had faded. U.S. crude oil settled down 6% at $64.37 a barrel while the global benchmark Brent fell 6.1%, to $67.14 during U.S. trading. Prices closed 7% lower on Monday. Earlier Tuesday, Trump said China can keep buying oil from Iran, in what seemed like a sign that the U.S. may soften its pressure campaign against Tehran.

Powell says Fed is ‘well positioned to wait’
At a U.S. congressional hearing Tuesday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the economy was still strong. But he noted that inflation is still above the central bank’s target of 2%, and the Fed has an “obligation” to prevent tariffs from becoming “an ongoing inflation problem.” In combination, those considerationsmake the Fed “well positioned to wait” before making a decision on interest rates.

U.S. is committed to NATO: Secretary-General
There is “total commitment by the U.S. president and the U.S. senior leadership to NATO,” the military alliance’s Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Tuesday morning, as the summit kicked off in The Hague, Netherlands. But America expects Europe and Canada to spend as much as the U.S. does on defense. Ahead of the summit, members agreed to increase defense spending to 5% of gross domestic product by 2035.

[PRO] Not ‘bullish enough’ on rally: HSBC
The S&P 500′s rally off its April lows has brought it back to roughly 1% off its record high in a very short time. It’s an advance that has perplexed many investors, who worry that another pullback is on the horizon. But Max Kettner, chief multi-asset strategist at HSBC, said he worries he’s not “bullish enough” on the current rally.

Strait of Hormuz GPS jamming remains major security issue, tanker CEO says

Despite a tentative ceasefire between Israel and Iran on Tuesday, security issues in the Strait of Hormuz continue for shipowners.

According to Angeliki Frangou, a fourth-generation shipowner and chairman and CEO of Greece-based Navios Maritime Partners, which owns and operates dry cargo ships and tankers, vessels in the Strait of Hormuz are still being threatened by continuous GPS signal blocking.

“We have had about 20% less passage of vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, and vessels are waiting outside,” Frangou told CNBC.

“You are hearing a lot from the liner [ocean shipping] companies that they are transiting only during daytime because of the jamming of GPS signals of vessels. They don’t want to pass during the nighttime because they find it dangerous. So it’s a very fluid situation,” Frangou said.