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June 19, 2026 - 06:33
6 minutes
(Bloomberg) — Global stocks fell in holiday-thinned trading as investors weighed whether a 60-day diplomatic push between the US and Iran could yield a nuclear accord and a more durable peace agreement.MSCI Inc.’s gauge of world equities dropped 0.2%, paring a weekly gain. An index of Asian shares slipped 0.9% after a five-day rally that took it to record highs. S&P 500 futures slid 0.5% after the US benchmark climbed 1.1% on Thursday, while the dollar was stronger against most major currencies. The moves pointed to risk aversion ahead of the weekend, with holiday closures in the US, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan draining liquidity from markets.Brent crude traded below $80 a barrel. Prices have tumbled about 9% this week as the US-Iran interim peace deal saw shipping through the Strait of Hormuz start to return to normal, easing the global crude market’s biggest ever supply shock.US Vice President JD Vance said on Thursday that the 60-day clock for working out the contentious details in the so-called memorandum of understanding had started ticking. The full normalization of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz may take time and is contingent upon securing safety measures, Takenori Igarashi, president at Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd., said at the Japanese shipping firm’s annual general meeting in Tokyo.“With the deal signed, that geopolitical cloud is lifting, but markets have learned more than once that a resolution can unravel quickly,” said Josh Gilbert, lead analyst for Asia Pacific and the Middle East at eToro Ltd., a multi-asset investment platform operator. “The hard work starts now, and investors will likely be cautious until we’ve got an air-tight deal and traffic genuinely flowing in full through the Strait again.”Global markets are wrapping up a pivotal week marked by a landmark US-Iran agreement, Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh’s first policy meeting and the Bank of Japan’s decision to raise interest rates to the highest level since 1995. Stocks have so far been resilient despite the barrage of market-moving events, buoyed in part by the relentless enthusiasm around the artificial intelligence trade. The world equities gauge is still up more than 1% this week.A broader gauge of the dollar rose 0.1%, taking its advance this week to almost 1%. The Japanese yen remained a key focus in foreign-exchange markets. Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said the government can take bold action against speculative moves, as the currency trades not far from the weakest level in four decades.The pound edged lower against the greenback as Andy Burnham won a historic contest for an open UK parliamentary seat, paving the way for the Greater Manchester mayor to challenge Prime Minister Keir Starmer for his job. On Thursday, the Bank of England held rates at 3.75%, saying the recent drop in oil prices was “encouraging,” even as two of the nine policymakers voted for an immediate quarter-point hike over concerns of persistent inflation.Yields on 10-year Japanese and Australian bonds advanced on Friday. In the US, two-year Treasury yields steadied around 4.18% on Thursday after surging 13 basis points to hit the highest in over a year in the previous session, when traders ramped up bets on future interest-rate hikes following the Fed’s hawkish hold.However, 30-year US notes rallied in a sign the market believes inflation will be contained over the longer term, with yields declining three basis points to 4.9%. There is no cash trading in Treasuries during Asian hours due to the US holiday.Elsewhere, gold was on track for a third weekly loss as a hawkish Fed and rate-hike bets outweighed the optimism over the peace deal. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. cut its year-end gold forecast by $500 an ounce.The sharp recent selloff in crude means that futures have given back almost all of the gains triggered by the war, which erupted in February when the US and Israel attacked Iran over its nuclear program.“The repricing this week has been drastic and part of that came about because of the resumption of Iranian oil almost instantaneously,” Tony Sycamore, a market analyst at IG Australia, said on Bloomberg Television. “What comes next is the execution risk. There’s a lot of details still to be nutted out.”Corporate Highlights:Bankers for Elon Musk’s SpaceX are preparing to hold calls with investors as soon as next week to discuss a potential bond offering on the heels of the company’s record IPO, according to people with knowledge of the matter. SpaceX is proving that even the largest-ever IPO is not immune to the type of volatility that tends to rock big companies after they go public, with the shares falling for a second straight day. Amazon.com Inc. is in talks to sell its custom-made artificial intelligence chips for use in other companies’ data centers, a key expansion of its efforts to cut into Nvidia Corp.’s dominance. Accenture Plc said it’s expecting to reel in less revenue in the coming months, as artificial intelligence upends the consulting services industry and clients paused business due to the conflict in the Middle East. A parliamentary hearing into KPMG Australia’s alleged misuse of confidential client information began on Friday, with fiery exchanges traded between witnesses and lawmakers. Some of the main moves in markets:StocksS&P 500 futures fell 0.5% as of 1:29 p.m. Tokyo time Japan’s Topix fell 0.9% Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 1.1% Euro Stoxx 50 futures fell 0.4% CurrenciesThe Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.1% The euro fell 0.2% to $1.1439 The Japanese yen was little changed at 161.39 per dollar The offshore yuan fell 0.2% to 6.7946 per dollar CryptocurrenciesBitcoin fell 0.5% to $62,681.98 Ether fell 0.9% to $1,693.67 BondsJapan’s 10-year yield advanced three basis points to 2.645% Australia’s 10-year yield advanced three basis points to 4.80% CommoditiesWest Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.4% to $76.33 a barrel Spot gold fell 1.5% to $4,146.25 an ounce This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.–With assistance from Alice French, Bing Hong Lok and Carmeli Argana.©2026 Bloomberg L.P.
