The Market Updates

🔥MASSIVE:

$650,000,000,000 has been added to the US stock market today.

BREAKING:

Fed Chair contender Kevin Warsh disclosed early-stage bets in crypto and tech.

Includes Compound, Optimism, Blast, and Solana.

One of the most crypto-heavy disclosures from a potential Fed Chair.

🇺🇸 The ships turning back at the Strait are doing so roughly 400 kilometers from where the USS Abraham Lincoln is currently positioned.

That's a horizon-level threat; close enough to respond, far enough to not provoke.

The blockade is being enforced by presence, not proximity. The carrier doesn't need to be at the door to own the room.

Source: Geopolitics Watch

🇺🇸🇵🇰🇮🇷 Trump says Iran talks could happen in Pakistan in the next 2 days.

Says they’re leaning toward Pakistan for the next round after earlier talks there failed to reach a deal.

So yeah… talks might be back on, but nothing locked in yet.

Source: NYP

BREAKING:

🇺🇸 President Trump says US-Iran talks could happen over the next 2 days.

BULLISH for markets 🚀

🔥THIS IS HUGE

🇺🇸 Trump's Fed Chair contender Kevin Warsh's financials have been disclosed.

He had made investments in Solana, Compound, and Optimism, along with trading infrastructure and crypto investment firms.

The upcoming Fed Chair seems very bullish on crypto.

Source: EleanorTerrett

JUST IN:

$3.6 Trillion Goldman Sachs has filed for a Bitcoin Premium Income ETF.

Everyone wants BTC exposure now.

🇮🇷🇺🇸 Iran wants $270 billion from the neighbours for picking a side.

Tehran is demanding reparations from Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Jordan for opening their airspace and bases to the U.S. and Israel.

5 countries just got named, priced, and put on notice.

Source: IRNA

🩸CRASH:

Oil has dumped nearly 6% in just 2.5 HOURS.

The market is expecting US-Iran de-escalation.

🇮🇷🇺🇸 Iran is reportedly considering a short-term pause on Hormuz shipments to avoid triggering a confrontation with the U.S. blockade while fresh peace talks are arranged.

- Tehran wants to avoid an incident that derails a second round of negotiations before the ceasefire expires next week
- A pause is seen as a pragmatic step to keep the diplomatic track alive
- But Iran's calculus is fluid. The IRGC could shift course quickly and challenge the blockade to prove it can be defied without consequence
- Oil traders are watching every Hormuz transit in real time
- Until now Iran was the only country sending oil through the strait during the conflict

Source: Bloomberg

🇸🇦🇺🇸🇮🇷 Saudi is quietly asking Trump to call off the Hormuz blockade. Here's why:

- Riyadh fears Iran responds by activating the Houthis to shut down Bab al-Mandeb, the Red Sea chokepoint
- Saudi just restored its oil exports to 7 million barrels a day via a Red Sea pipeline. That all disappears if Bab al-Mandeb closes
- The Houthis already proved in 2025 they can cripple Red Sea traffic, costing the U.S. over $1 billion to partially suppress
- Houthis have promised not to attack Saudi ships, but that guarantee evaporates under Iranian pressure
- Iran's advisor warned Tehran has "large, untouched levers" to respond to the blockade
- The U.S. wants Iran to suspend nuclear enrichment for 20 years. Iran has offered less than 10

One blockade could trigger another

And the second one hits everyone harder

Source: WSJ

🚨 BREAKING 🚨

🇺🇸 US PPI came in at 4%

Expectations: 4.6%

HOPIUM:

For the first time since the October 6 top, Bitcoin has broken its downtrend.

What if $60K was the bottom?

🇺🇸🇮🇷 The Islamabad talks revealed more progress than either side is admitting...

During the weekend negotiations, the U.S. asked for 20 years of no enrichment.

Iran countered with 5 years. Trump rejected it.

But the gap went from "permanent dismantlement" to haggling over a number.

That's enormous movement from where both sides started.

On the uranium, similar narrowing.

The U.S. wanted it removed from the country entirely.

Iran insisted it stays but offered to dilute it below weapons grade.

Tehran has never formally made that offer before.

The risk of re-enrichment remains, but the distance between the two positions shrank significantly across those 21 hours.

Both sides moved off their maximalist positions.

Both sides put formal proposals on paper.

And discussions about another round of in-person talks are happening, though nothing is finalized.

Twenty versus five. Removal versus dilution.

These aren't unbridgeable gaps.

They're the kind of positions that get resolved in round two or three, not round one.

The talks just stalled, but they're not finished.

Source: NYT

🇮🇷 Iran has offered to pause nuclear activity for up to 5 years but Trump wants 20 years.

Market is expecting a US-Iran deal soon.

BREAKING: 🇺🇸 President Trump says Iran called this morning and WANTS TO MAKE A DEAL.

Bullish for markets 🚀

Japan bond yields are going up-only.

You know what happens next.

🇺🇸🇮🇷 There's an important gap between what Trump posted last night and what CENTCOM actually announced this morning. And it matters a lot.

Trump said any ship that paid Iran a toll to transit the Strait would be pursued and intercepted in international waters. That's an act of war against third-party shipping. That's what sent markets into panic mode overnight.

CENTCOM said something different.

The blockade, which starts at 10am ET today, only applies to vessels entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, including ports on the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. If your ship isn't going to or from Iran, CENTCOM says you have freedom of navigation through the Strait. Full stop.

So what is this actually?

It's a port blockade, not a full naval siege of the Strait. The US is cutting off Iran's ability to export anything by sea, oil, gas, goods, all of it, while technically leaving the Strait itself open to non-Iranian traffic.

That's a meaningful distinction. It's economic strangulation of Iran without triggering a full global shipping crisis on day one.

The strategic logic is clear. Iran's leverage in every negotiation has been the Strait, holding 20% of global oil supply hostage. The US is now saying: fine, keep threatening the Strait, but we're cutting off your ports regardless, and the rest of the world gets to keep moving.

It's maximum pressure without maximum escalation. For now.

The question is whether Iran reads it that way. Tehran has already said it will "retaliate against military vessels entering the strait." And the IRGC doesn't always wait for foreign ministry approval before pulling a trigger.

The ceasefire is technically still alive. The blockade starts in hours. And somewhere in the Gulf right now, both sides are deciding how far to push.

🚨 BREAKING:

🇺🇸🇮🇷 CENTCOM announces the U.S. blockade of all Iranian port exports begins tomorrow, April 13th, at 10:00am ET.

So Trump wasn't bluffing! Let's see how the energy markets react to this

Full statement:

"The blockade will be enforced impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, including all Iranian ports on the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman.

CENTCOM forces will not impede freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports."

Source: CENTCOM

🇮🇷 Speaker Ghalibaf just walked out of 20 hours of talks and came back with this.

- "You are indebted to the Iranian nation and still have much to do to make amends"
- "If you choose war, we will fight; if you come with logic, we will respond with logic"
- "We will not submit to any threats"
- "If they test our will again, we will give them a greater lesson"