WS #7698

The dominant narrative remains the ESCALATING Iran conflict, but a significant counter-signal emerged: Trump stated he called off a planned attack on Iran at the request of Gulf states, citing serious negotiations. This de-escalatory signal caused oil prices to slump. Separately, the Ebola outbreak in DRC is escalating with 500+ suspected cases and 130 deaths, prompting WHO emergency response. In corporate news, Blackstone announced a $5B AI infrastructure venture with Google using TPU chips, directly challenging Nvidia's dominance. Japan's 20-year bond yield hit 3.78%, the highest since 1996, signaling accelerating BOJ policy normalization. Foreign governments cut U.S. Treasury holdings in March as the Gulf War forced dollar reserve liquidation. Australia forced Chinese investors out of a rare earths miner for the second time in two years, escalating rare earth supply chain tensions. The EU is moving to cut import duties on U.S. goods to avoid tariff escalation. Agilysys jumped 16% on Q4 beat. Citi flagged 5.5% as the next key level for 30-year Treasury yield. The SEC is reportedly set to roll out a framework for trading tokenized securities on crypto platforms. A DeFi exchange launched equity perpetuals powered by Nasdaq data. Crypto flows showed rotation from bitcoin into XRP and Solana. India raised retail fuel prices for the second time in less than a week. The UK energy price cap is forecast to rise nearly 13% in July. Japan and South Korea agreed to strengthen energy supply chain cooperation. The San Diego mosque shooting and Nigeria school abductions are tragic but not market-moving. Polymarket trades are noise.