MARKET WRAPS
Watch For:
EU business and consumer surveys; trading updates from Johnson Matthey, SSE
Opening Call:
European stock futures traded lower early Thursday. Asian stock benchmarks fell; the dollar and Treasury yields rose; oil futures advanced and gold fell.
Equities:
Stock futures point to a lower open in European markets on Thursday after U.S. forces conducted new military strikes against Iran, casting doubts on hopes of a U.S.-Iran peace deal.
U.S. officials said American forces shot down Iranian drones and hit a drone-control station near Bandar Abbas, a major port city in southern Iran, after Tehran launched drones at commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
Forex:
"The DXY Index's tight consolidation between 98.9 and 99.5 best reflects the "on-again, off-again" volatility of the US-Iran negotiations," DBS's Philip Wee said.
"Nonetheless, the playbook indicates downward pressure on the greenback when hopes of a positive outcome emerge, and the USD catching a defensive bid when both sides disappoint," Wee added.
Bonds:
Heavy issuance of investment-grade corporate bonds in the U.S. is likely to weigh down on the asset class, Morgan Stanley's Steve Edwards said. The rise is driven largely by new-money borrowing from hyperscalers and AI-adjacent companies, Edwards said.
He added that market conditions favor Treasurys, "which offer a more attractive risk-reward profile." Edwards favors one- to 10-year bonds for both IG credit and Treasuries.
Energy:
Oil gained early Thursday after U.S. forces conducted new military strikes against Iran.
"The oil market remains confused about the ongoing geopolitics," Julius Baer analyst Norbert Rücker said, as recent military attacks complicate earlier news about progress on the negotiations.
Metals:
Gold fell in Asia, remaining under pressure as hopes for a U.S.-Iran deal falter. Though gold is still viewed as a safe-haven asset, the mix of geopolitical uncertainty, inflation pressure and [higher interest] rate expectations has triggered heavy profit-taking, said Antonio Di Giacomo at XS.com.
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The Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is unlikely to have a major impact on copper and cobalt mining operations, according to BMI, a unit of Fitch Solutions. Operations are located in the south and have successfully weathered previous disease outbreaks, most recently Covid-19, BMI said.
"That said, downside risks should not be ignored," it said. "Ebola is significantly more deadly than Covid-19 and would have more severe consequences were transmission to intensify."
For now, impacts are most likely to be felt by artisanal miners of gold, tin and coltan, an ore containing tantalum. BMI expects major miners will be able to withstand the outbreak.
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Iron ore edged lower in Asia. Chinese iron-ore import demand was strong in FY 2025, offsetting weak steel production in the country, Citi said. The bank expects the implied lower use of scrap in steelmaking to support iron ore demand, providing a tailwind for the ferrous metal.
TODAY'S TOP HEADLINES
U.S. Military Conducts New Strikes on Iran
U.S. forces conducted new military strikes against Iran on Wednesday after Tehran launched drones at commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, according to U.S. officials, even as Washington and Tehran continue their efforts to forge a diplomatic settlement to the conflict and keep a fragile cease-fire intact.
American forces shot down Iranian drones and hit a drone-control station near Bandar Abbas, a major port city in southern Iran located on the Strait of Hormuz, according to two of the officials. The site posed a threat to U.S. forces and commercial traffic in the strait, the officials said.
Fed's Cook Ready To Raise Rates If Disinflation Fails to Appear in Timely Manner
Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook said she is prepared to raise interest rates if disinflation does not appear in a timely manner.
For now, the right course of action is to hold rates steady, but risks still remain tilted toward higher inflation, Cook said at Stanford University on Wednesday.
The High-Seas Black Market That Keeps Iran's Illicit Oil Flowing
EASTERN OUTER PORT LIMITS-In this nautical no-man's-land 45 miles off the coast of Malaysia, tankers laden with sanctioned Iranian oil sit low in the water, waiting to offload their cargo to vessels bound for Chinese refineries.
They lower tarps and other objects over the names on their hulls and use black paint to conceal identity numbers. They're here to carry out an elaborate deception: offshore trysts known as ship-to-ship transfers, in which one vessel offloads sanctioned oil onto another to help obscure the oil's origins before it is sent on to Iran's biggest customer.
Trump Says He Doesn't Fear Political Fallout From Prolonged War With Iran
President Trump said Iran was miscalculating if it thought he would soften his position to avoid a prolonged standoff with Tehran.
"They thought they were going to outwait me," Trump said Wednesday at the start of a cabinet meeting at the White House. " 'He's got the midterms [they thought]'. I don't care about the midterms. Look, what happened last night."
Meta Tests AI Subscriptions and Rolls Out New Paid Plans for Facebook, Instagram
Meta Platforms has started the rollout of subscription plans for Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, and is testing new subscriptions for users of its AI chatbot as the company seeks to recoup some of the costs from its expensive AI buildout.
A spokeswoman for the company said Wednesday that Facebook Plus and Instagram Plus will be priced at $3.99 per month, while WhatsApp Plus will cost $2.99 a month. The subscriptions to its AI chatbot, called Meta AI, will be priced at $7.99 a month for the basic tier and $19.99 a month for the premium tier.
Amazon Strikes $6 Billion Deal With Snowflake for Agentic Computing Chips
Amazon Web Services has signed up cloud storage company Snowflake as its latest chips customer, as the proliferation of artificial intelligence agents continues to drive high levels of demand for computing hardware.
Snowflake plans to pay $6 billion over the next five years for access to Amazon's Graviton chips inside AWS data centers. Graviton, which AWS released in 2018, is a central processing unit, or CPU-the main computer brains that power everything from personal devices like smartphones and laptops to car computers, data center servers and advanced AI systems.
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Expected Major Events for Thursday
04:30/NED: May Producer confidence survey
06:00/NOR: 1Q GDP
06:00/SWE: Apr Foreign trade
06:00/DEN: 1Q Labour force survey
06:30/HUN: Apr Employment & unemployment
06:45/FRA: Apr PPI
07:00/SWE: May Monthly Business Tendency Survey
07:00/SWE: May Consumer Tendency Survey
07:00/SPN: Apr Retail Sales
07:00/SVK: May Business tendency survey
07:00/SVK: May Economic sentiment indicator
08:00/ICE: May CPI
08:00/ITA: May Consumer Confidence Survey
08:00/ITA: May Business Confidence Survey
09:00/EU: May Business & Consumer Surveys - Business Climate Indicator & Economic Sentiment Indicator
09:00/CRO: 1Q Flash Estimate GDP
09:00/CRO: 1Q GDP
09:00/ITA: Apr Foreign Trade non-EU
09:00/MLT: 1Q GDP
09:00/CYP: Mar Industrial Production Index
09:30/BEL: May CPI
10:00/IRL: Apr Retail Sales Index
10:00/ITA: Apr PPI
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 28, 2026 00:01 ET (04:01 GMT)
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