WS #8364

The dominant narrative remains the US-Iran conflict and its economic spillovers, but this window shows several new developments that could shift market direction. First, President Trump made two notable statements: threatening Oman over Strait of Hormuz management ('blow them up' remark) and conditioning an Iran deal on expansion of the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia and Qatar. These statements introduce geopolitical uncertainty that could keep oil prices elevated. However, Polymarket data shows a 62% probability that WTI hits $85, up 32 points in 24 hours, suggesting markets are pricing in a potential de-escalation and normalization of Hormuz traffic. Separately, a Fox report highlighted that fertilizer prices are up 44% due to the Hormuz blockade, which could feed into food inflation concerns. On the corporate front, Uber proposed a takeover of Delivery Hero at an $11.6B valuation, and IREN spiked after signing a $1.6B purchase agreement with Dell. BofA CEO sees Q2 trading revenue rising 15%, while Goldman Sachs noted foreign official institutions sold Treasuries during the conflict. The macro picture shows SPY volume declining from 97M daily average in March to 47M in May, indicating low participation. Crypto volatility hit multi-month lows with Bitcoin below $75K.