A photo taken from the southern Lebanese region of Tire shows smoke rising from the site of an Israeli air strike that targeted villages in southern Lebanon on April 16, 2026.
Kawanat Haju AFP | getty images
Hello, I am Leonie Kidd writing to you from London. Welcome to another edition of CNBC’s Daily Open.
The historic 10-day ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon clears another major hurdle in a comprehensive peace deal for the Middle East.
This leaves one main point of contention – the Strait of Hormuz.
Positive sentiment continued during this week’s trading, with major markets near record highs.
What you need to know today
The temporary ceasefire began at 5 p.m. ET Thursday, Trump said in a statement. satya social post.
one in follow upTrump said he would invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to the White House “for the first meaningful talks between Israel and Lebanon since 1983, a long time ago.”
“Both sides want to see peace, and I believe it will happen soon!” Trump wrote.
Speaking to CNBC in Washington DC, Israel’s central bank governor Amir Yaoron said that despite geopolitical uncertainties, markets are taking the latest peace developments positively.
There is also optimism about progress with Tehran, as Trump said “the war in Iran is slowly going away.”
“This should be over very soon,” Trump said at an event in Las Vegas. He repeated similar predictions about the end of the war that he had made since the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran in late February.
During this time, US officials have told some European allies that deliveries of some weapons may be delayed Because of the war in Iran. reuters Spoke to multiple sources who indicated that the weapons have been purchased as part of a contract under the Foreign Military Sales Program, but have not yet been delivered.
Asia-Pacific markets were trading lower on Friday, bucking Wall Street’s record-setting rally. Pre-market indicators for Europe and Wall Street were mixed in early trading Friday.
In other news, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is under renewed pressure On the appointment of Peter Mandelson, former British Ambassador to the US. The British media then reported that Lord Mandelson had failed the vetting process for his appointment. Downing Street has blamed the Foreign Office for the failure, and a The top civil servant has reportedly been sacked.
– Leonie Kidd
And finally…
Retailers pile into Allbirds after strange AI pivot. History shows that this will not end well
Retail traders stampeded out all the birds after the embattled shoemaker labeled his business artificial intelligence, a set-up that market history shows rarely ends well after the initial hype fades.
The company’s shares surged more than 800% at one point on Wednesday after the company detailed surprise plans to rebrand as Newbird AI and shift toward compute infrastructure.
“The market is not pricing risk. It is pricing fiction. It is pricing the word ‘AI’ the same way it once priced the word ‘blockchain’ and before that it priced the suffix ‘.com,'” Mark Malek, CIO of Siebert Financial, said in a note.
“This is not analysis. This is pattern-matching practiced by investors who have seen AI-adjacent stocks going parabolic and don’t want to miss the next leg up. The signal is not subtle.”
– Yun Lee
