Shortly before the 8:00 pm deadline last night, a two-week ceasefire was announced. There are serious questions about the durability of the agreement, including how much Iran would really open the Strait and Israel’s take on it- the country continued to launch strikes in Lebanon. However, given the alternatives, markets took what they could get. A significant rally across risk assets was triggered as oil prices dove lower. In the latest example of History Rhyming If Not Repeating, today is the one-year anniversary of the post Tariff-Day low, making tomorrow the one-year anniversary of the historic turnaround rally when the S&P rocketed 10% higher on the tariff “postponement”. Today’s move is much more subdued though still impressive. The S&P is up over 2% and near its HOD. The equal-weight is trailing slightly but still +2%. Small and mid caps are outperforming slightly. The tilt is clearly to Growth/Risk over Value/Defensive. The S&P blew through its 200d ma on a big gap up at the Open and is now testing the 50 and 100d ma, 6770-6800. This puts us squarely back in the 6700-7000 range the index was meandering through since the end of last year. The ceiling at 7000 remains as a key test overhead.

There’s no doubt energy commodities are doing the driving today, specifically crude’s >10% plunge. Natural gas is also sharply lower across the globe. Precious metals are higher, with gold up 2% but off its highs after getting within about $40 of its 50d ma ~$4940. Copper is up as well as oil’s decline eases concerns around economic growth. Ag is mixed with wheat lagging ahead of tomorrow’s WASDE report. Crypto is higher. Bitcoin broke above its 50d ma ~$70k, which it tested the past 2 days.

Treasuries strengthened overnight on the ceasefire news, pushing yields lower but those have crept higher since equities opened. Currently yields are down 2bp out to the 10y while the 30y is flat. The 10y auction today was good enough, in light of a string of recent weak auctions (before yesterday’s 3y), tailing by 0.2bp but showing OK demand. While markets continue to lean towards no additional cuts this year (70%) that’s down from 80% yesterday, while a rate cut has increased from 14% to 25%. The US Dollar Index is sharply lower with risk assets rallying and reversing much of March’s gains.