Good morning. The Iran ceasefire expires Wednesday evening Washington time and nobody seems particularly confident it gets extended. Trump called an extension “highly unlikely” without a deal, Iran hasn’t confirmed it’s even sending delegates to Islamabad for a second round of talks, and both sides spent the weekend trading threats. That’s what’s driving everything this morning.

Brent crude pulled back slightly to $94.89 after Monday’s 5.6% spike, WTI at $88.60. The Touska seizure over the weekend was enough to remind everyone that Hormuz is still very much shut and 13 million barrels a day are still offline. Oil is taking a breather but the direction hasn’t changed. If Wednesday comes and goes without an extension, $100 Brent is back on the table.

European markets opened cautiously higher. The Stoxx 600 up 0.1%, DAX at 24,564 after Monday’s 0.9% drop across the continent. Everyone’s waiting. Hard to commit to anything with Wednesday hanging over the market like that.

US futures are pointing up this morning. Dow futures gained 310 points, S&P futures up 0.3%, Nasdaq 100 adding 0.4%. Monday was a quiet selloff: S&P closed at 7,109, Dow basically flat at 49,443, Nasdaq down 0.26% to 24,404 snapping a 13-day winning streak that went all the way back to late March. And then there’s the Apple news. Tim Cook is stepping down in September, handing the CEO role to hardware chief John Ternus after 15 years. Cook becomes executive chairman. Markets haven’t really reacted yet but that’s a generational transition for the world’s biggest company.

Asia was mixed but mostly green. Nikkei gained 0.89% to 59,349, Hang Seng added 0.35%, and South Korea’s Kospi hit a record high. Cautious optimism on peace talks, even if the facts on the ground don’t fully support it.

Bitcoin is holding around $75,658 after bouncing back above $76,000 on Monday from weekend lows near $74,000. ETH at $2,307. The bigger crypto story is the KelpDAO hack: $293 million drained from the liquid restaking protocol, triggering a $14 billion exodus from DeFi and a $6 billion TVL drop at Aave alone. Lazarus Group getting the blame. Gold at $4,782, still well below the $5,032 March high but finding support in this range. Silver around $79.50.

No major US data releases today but all eyes are on the ceasefire deadline Wednesday and the massive earnings week ahead with Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta all reporting.

The whole market is holding its breath until Wednesday. Everything between now and then is positioning, not conviction. We’ll see how it plays out.