2026-04-24 — ATH on Two Tailwinds: Saturday Iran Talks Confirmed, DOJ Drops Powell Probe — Oil Won't Confirm

The open this morning is a Mirror of Dorian Gray: the index looks fresher and more relaxed than it did 24 hours ago, but every line that was drawn on it yesterday is still there underneath. Intel’s blowout after the close was genuinely large — +27-30% pre-market, revenue beat by $1.16B and the largest revenue surprise in five years (TradingKey, Investing Cube). AMD lifted another leg on Stifel raising its target from $280 to $320 on “AI-driven compute demand continuing to run above expectations” (Invezz, Yahoo). Trump extended the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire by three weeks after hosting ambassadors in the Oval Office (Axios, CNBC, PBS). Iran’s foreign minister is flying to Pakistan today. That package of inputs is enough to get the tape a 30-40 bp bid on a Friday morning.

But it is not enough to change anything that made yesterday’s close RED. Brent is $104-107, WTI $95-97, the shoot-and-kill authorization is still the rules of engagement, no Northwood communique has dropped, no Mag 7 has yet reported into an enterprise-software tape that just fell -18% on one name, and the Fed-succession math still says Powell’s term ends May 15 with no confirmed successor. This is the shape of a relief rally inside a bear leg, not the start of a new up-leg.

Intel Is Real, But the Read-Across Is Narrow

Intel printing adjusted EPS of $0.29 vs $0.01 expected on revenue of $13.58B vs $12.42B is a genuinely large beat — 29x the EPS number, the largest revenue surprise in five years, and Q2 guide of $13.8-14.8B vs $13.07B consensus that implies sequential acceleration (CNBC, Intel IR). Data center printed $5.1B, +22% YoY. The stock at $87 pre-market is a fresh record. The read-across that matters: this is a compute-supply beat, not a software-demand beat. Intel’s data center revenue comes from hyperscalers and enterprises building AI capacity. ServiceNow’s -18% and IBM’s -8% were measurements of what enterprises are willing to spend on software subscriptions from the cluster being built.

Those two reads can diverge for an entire quarter. If MSFT Wednesday prints cloud deceleration alongside rising capex guidance, the Intel-positive-read-across gets narrower, not wider. AMD at +12% pre-market is piggy-backing on the same compute-supply thesis. The market is rotating into the “picks and shovels” cohort while ignoring the enterprise-spend cohort — which is exactly what happens at the front end of a regime shift, not at the end of one.

The Ceasefire Extension Bought Three Weeks. It Did Not Fix the Blockade.

Trump’s announcement that Israel and Lebanon will extend their 10-day ceasefire by three more weeks is a de-escalation on an adjacent front, not a resolution on the primary front (Washington Post, NPR). Axios’s framing is the relevant one: the extension exists “to prevent renewed fighting from undermining the effort to reach a deal with Iran.” Translation: the Lebanon channel was becoming a drag on the Iran negotiation, so the administration paid diplomatic capital to remove that drag — not because Lebanon is fixed, but because Iran isn’t.

Meanwhile on the primary channel, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is arriving in Islamabad tonight for a triangulated swing — Islamabad, then Muscat, then Moscow (KSAT, CNN, Caspian News). Pakistani mediators “expect” a second round, but Iran has not confirmed attendance, and Tehran’s public position — reiterated as recently as this week — is that there will be no resumption of talks until the US ends the port blockade. That is a precondition the White House shows no sign of conceding to. The market is trading as if Araghchi showing up in Islamabad is the same thing as a deal restarting; it is closer to the precondition for a precondition.

The sequencing the 1973 analog flagged still applies: Kissinger-era shuttle-diplomacy moments rallied the tape for days at a time before OPEC reimposed the deeper cuts a week later. Araghchi’s trip could generate an extension headline over the weekend that is enough for Monday’s open to gap higher. It does not by itself unseize the 30+ ships still trapped in the Strait or unwind the toll regime Iran banked this week.

Oil Is Refusing to Confirm the Equity Bid

The cleanest tell of the morning is the commodity tape. Brent touched $107.10 intraday and is now printing ~$104.63 after a 0.42% pullback; WTI is $94.75 after -1.15% (CNBC, OneIndia). Brent traded above $107 on the same tape that has equities bidding on “ceasefire extended, Intel beat.” If the market genuinely believed the Iran situation was de-escalating, Brent should be back under $95 within 48 hours of a Lebanon extension; instead it made a new intraday high for the session and faded only on thin Friday Asia-session profit-taking.

The commodity market is saying: the Lebanon extension is a side-track, the Islamabad diplomacy is uncertain, the blockade is real, and the shoot-and-kill authorization widens the kinetic tail. None of that gets priced out until Hormuz actually starts flowing. Our morning 4/23 view that oil was mispriced by ~$10 has filled and, at $104+, is arguably now correctly priced — meaning the next Brent move is driven by the weekend news flow, not the residue of yesterday’s risk premium.

VIX Finally Compresses — But Not Enough

VIX is ~18.90, down 2.12% from yesterday’s 19.31 close (FRED, Yahoo). That is the first meaningful compression in three sessions, but it is not the 16-17 handle that would signal vol sellers are actively bidding for puts. A 2% compression on a +0.3% SPX day off yesterday’s close is structurally neutral — it is consistent with premium writers selling weekend theta, not with a regime shift in implied. Any weekend kinetic headline re-opens the gap instantly.

Procter & Gamble: Consumer Staples Doing the Job They’re Paid For

PG printed Q1 CY2026 revenue $21.24B (+7.4% YoY) vs $20.52B est, adjusted EPS $1.59 vs $1.56 est, volumes +2% (StockStory, FinancialContent). Revenue beat of 3.5% is strong. But operating margin fell from 23.3% to 21.5% — a 180bp compression — and management reiterated FY guidance rather than raising. That is the same pattern IBM printed yesterday: beat the quarter, hold the guide, let the margin compression do the talking. On a day when the consumer-staples complex was supposed to lead the relief rally, PG is giving the tape a solid number with a margin footnote that reinforces the consumer-squeeze narrative from this month’s Michigan sentiment collapse (47.6 print, record low, year-ahead inflation expectations at 4.8%) (CNBC, Fortune).

The PG read extends the “volumes hang in, margins don’t” theme across two earnings clusters now. The combination matters for next week’s consumer-discretionary reads (AMZN 4/30) and for PCE whenever it prints.

Rotational Tell: Russell Down on an Up-Tape

Russell 2000 is -0.37% while Nasdaq is +0.62% (TheStreet). That is the opposite of yesterday’s rotational tell and the opposite of what a genuine relief rally looks like. On a ceasefire-extension + tech-beat day, small caps should be leading, not lagging. The Russell’s -0.37% is saying: whoever is paying for Intel and AMD right now is not the same cohort that bids risk-on breadth. The single-stock narrative beats — Intel, AMD, PG — are getting the index a bid. The breadth underneath them is not expanding. That is the signature of a relief rally inside a broken tape.

The 48-Hour Watch List

Compressed and actionable:

Weekend Hormuz kinetic activity — any first kill of an Iranian mine-laying boat under the new shoot-and-kill ROE rewrites Monday’s open entirely. Iran’s IRGC declared a 1,400 sq-km “danger zone” yesterday; that is the operational envelope where the next incident will occur if one occurs.
Araghchi’s itinerary — does the Islamabad leg produce a headline before Sunday night? Does he actually go to Muscat and Moscow as planned? Does any readout include the word “blockade”?
Northwood communique — day-two concluded without a public joint statement yesterday. Any leak or formal release over the weekend landing before Monday’s European open is market-moving.
Iran state media response to shoot-and-kill — Sunday’s state-media framing is the tell on whether Iran tests the ROE or folds on the mine-laying specifically.
MSFT/META AMC Wednesday (4/29) — the primary demand-side regime signal of the cycle, into a tape where ServiceNow fell -18% on IT-spend language.
FOMC April 28-29 — hold is consensus at 3.50-3.75%; the presser is where the Powell succession question finally gets asked live.
PCE next week — consensus core 3.0%; >3.2% is a regime signal.

Deployment Stance

RED, unchanged. The asymmetry is modestly better than yesterday afternoon but structurally identical.

Today’s tape is a net positive for short-term realized P&L — Intel, AMD, ceasefire extension, Araghchi flight, VIX down 2% — but not a single one of yesterday’s downgrade-to-YELLOW conditions has actually been met:

Weekend has not passed ✗
Northwood communique has not landed ✗
MSFT/META have not printed ✗
Oil has not faded under $95 ✗ (Brent $104+)
VIX has not compressed below 17 ✗ (18.90)
Pentagon has not walked back the six-month mine-clearing estimate ✗ (denied but not retracted)
Tillis has not released the Warsh hold ✗

Taking the relief rally as a regime signal when zero downgrade conditions have cleared is exactly the pattern the 12M Momentum analog-zero return is warning against. Systematic deployment remains parked. The highest-EV position is doing nothing through Monday and reassessing with the weekend news flow in hand. If Araghchi’s triangulated swing produces a dated readout, Northwood releases a diplomacy-forward communique, and no kinetic incident occurs, Monday’s pulse has an honest case for YELLOW. If any one of those three breaks the other way, the Monday open gaps down into MSFT/META week.

The asymmetry I had at 1:7 against yesterday afternoon is now closer to 1:6 against — modestly improved on the diplomatic track, unchanged on the structural track. That is not enough to deploy into.

What Would Change My Mind

Downgrade to YELLOW: All of (a) weekend passes with zero kinetic incidents, (b) Araghchi’s Islamabad leg produces a dated second-round commitment from Iran, (c) Northwood releases a diplomacy-forward communique with no operational timeline, (d) Brent closes Monday under $98, (e) MSFT commercial cloud growth accelerates sequentially Wednesday. That is five clean signals, not one. Any one of the five without the others is a trade, not a regime change.

Upgrade to CRITICAL: First US-kinetic kill of an Iranian mine-laying vessel under the new ROE. Iran retaliates against a US naval asset. Northwood communique names an operational window. MSFT or META explicitly names Iran-war demand destruction. PCE prints above 3.3% headline / above 3.2% core. Brent breaks $110. Any Mag 7 capex acceleration not paired with matching cost discipline.

Historical Context: 1973 Yom Kippur War / Oil Embargo

Day 39. Today is the clean confirmation of the relief-rally-inside-bear-leg pattern the analog has been flagging since the mid-November 1973 diplomatic window. The 1973 bear leg produced at least four quantifiable rallies of >3% inside the October-March drawdown; each one felt like “the turn” at the time; each one resolved to new lows within 10-20 sessions when the underlying supply shock reasserted. The specific sequence today mirrors November 12-15, 1973: cosmetic diplomatic progress (Kissinger-Sadat joint statement / Araghchi’s triangulated shuttle), adjacent-front de-escalation (Egypt-Israel disengagement talks / Lebanon ceasefire extension), plus a single-stock positive surprise lifting the index (a major industrial print in November 1973 / Intel today). The bear leg resumed when OPEC deepened production cuts on November 18, 1973 — a week later. The 2026 equivalent of that event is Iran formally extending the toll regime or a Northwood communique with an operational timeline. We do not have it yet. That is why the tape is allowed to bid today.

Similarities (updated for 4/24):

Cosmetic diplomatic progress producing equity bid while primary supply disruption unchanged
Adjacent-front de-escalation mistakenly read as primary-front resolution (Lebanon 2026 / Egypt-Israel disengagement 1973)
Single-stock industrial/tech beats carrying the index against broken breadth
Central bank succession unresolved with markets demanding clarity
Consumer staples margin compression (PG today / mid-cycle packaged-goods squeeze 1973)
Oil refusing to compress on headline de-escalation (Brent $104+ today)
Vol market compressing marginally but refusing to normalize (VIX 18.9)

Differences (and direction of cut):

Supply shock is now revenue infrastructure (Iran tolls institutionalized) vs OPEC protest embargo — structural, not cyclical; cuts against today
Military resolution track (Northwood) absent in 1973 — new resolution mechanism, cuts both ways but weekly framing is “action, not diplomacy”; leans escalation
Modern information cycle compresses analog timeline 3-7x — watch sessions, not weeks
Valuations CAPE ~39 vs ~18 — vastly more room for multiple compression
US net-energy-exporter status — structural shield against the worst 1973 outcome
S&P at all-time high vs -8% already in Nov 1973 — starting distance to fall is greater

Strategy performance during the analog window (Oct 6 1973 – Mar 18 1974):

Strategy	Typical 5M Return	Typical 5M Vol	Analog Return	Analog Max DD	Analog Vol
Buy & Hold	+4.5%	13.3%	-11.0%	-18.6%	19.6%
200 SMA Trend	+1.8%	10.6%	-4.5%	-5.5%	5.6%
12M Momentum	+2.7%	11.3%	+0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
RSI Mean Reversion	+0.0%	5.9%	-2.8%	-10.1%	17.6%

Interpretation: The 12M Momentum strategy’s flat-zero analog return is today’s most specific warning. Momentum sells out at the first breadth break, stays out through every cosmetic bounce, and re-enters only after leadership reconfirms. That is the strategy profile that wins during relief rallies — not by participating in them, but by not flipping back in on them. Today’s Intel/AMD/PG bid is the exact shape of inputs that tempt systematic strategies to re-risk; the 1973 data says don’t. The 200-SMA trend strategy’s -4.5% / -5.5% max DD result is the benchmark for what “well-executed patience” looks like in an analog window. S&P is still 4-4.5% above the 200-DMA after yesterday’s pullback and today’s bounce — unchanged structural distance to the trigger. Until that gap closes through earnings or a kinetic headline, the trend framework stays long-risk-off / short-participation-in-relief.

Evening Update

The cash session printed a fresh all-time high on the S&P (7,165.08, +0.80%) and Nasdaq (24,836.60, +1.63%) on the back of two intra-day catalysts that genuinely matter, paired with internals that genuinely don’t (TheStreet, Yahoo Finance). The Dow closed -0.16% at 49,230.71 — red on a record-high day for the cap-weighted indexes. That divergence is the entire post-mortem of the day’s tape compressed into one number. Two specific Mag-7-adjacent names did the work: Intel closed +23.60% at $82.54, its best day since 1987 (24/7 Wall St), and Nvidia +4.32% to $208.27, reclaiming the $5 trillion market cap line. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index ran for the 18th consecutive session — that is now an extension run that ranks in the longest streaks the SOX has ever recorded. The market made a record on the back of a single-cohort melt-up while half the index sat out.

The Two Catalysts That Moved the Tape

1) White House confirmed direct US-Iran talks for tomorrow. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed mid-day that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will fly to Pakistan Saturday for in-person talks with Iran (CNBC, Axios, NPR, CNN live). Notably, VP Vance is not attending — the prior delegation was Vance-led (Washington Post). The framing from the WH was that “the Iranians reached out and asked for an in-person conversation.” Foreign Minister Araghchi has arrived in Islamabad. This is the dated second-round commitment the morning pulse was watching for. It clears one of the five YELLOW conditions cleanly. Caveat that matters: Iran’s semi-official Tasnim has reported Araghchi will not meet with US officials (Al Jazeera live). Two-track signaling — pro-talks via the Pakistani channel, anti-talks via Iran state media — is a familiar Tehran negotiating posture. The first 36 hours of the talks tell us which track is the real one.

2) DOJ dropped the Powell criminal probe — Tillis’s hold should now release. US Attorney Jeanine Pirro posted today that she is abandoning the criminal investigation of Fed Chair Jerome Powell, with the Fed’s IG taking over a narrower cost-overrun review of the HQ renovation (CNBC, Axios, NPR). This is the exact precondition Tillis named when he placed his hold on Warsh (Fortune). The path to a Warsh confirmation vote opens. Whether Tillis releases the hold immediately is now the only outstanding question, and the ball is in his court — there is no longer a public cover for blocking. With Powell’s term ending May 15 and Senate out the week of 5/4, the cleanest sequencing is now: Tillis signals release Mon/Tue, Banking Committee marks up week of 4/27 or 5/4, floor vote 5/11-5/14. That is just inside the wire for a confirmed-Warsh-by-Powell-exit outcome — far better than this morning’s base case of “Powell ends without successor confirmed.” This is the highest-impact reduction in Fed-succession tail risk since the nomination was made.

The Two Catalysts That Did Not Show Up

1) Brent did not break. With direct US-Iran talks announced for the next morning, the textbook reaction in the commodity tape is for Brent to fade $4-6 into the weekend on de-escalation premium being unwound. Instead Brent settled $105.33 and WTI $94.40 (Fortune, OneIndia). Brent actually printed higher than yesterday’s close. Two reads: (a) the tanker market is pricing the Tasnim “Araghchi won’t meet” line as the real one and the Pakistan trip as theater, or (b) the toll-banking infrastructure now sits independently of the talks — even a Saturday handshake doesn’t unwind the rent-extraction architecture Iran built this week. Either reading says oil is the asset class refusing to participate in the relief rally. YELLOW condition (d) — Brent under $98 — was not met today and is not on track to be met by Monday’s open.

2) The kinetic posture has not visibly de-escalated. US officials told the JPost today that Iran is continuing to lay mines in the Strait of Hormuz (JPost). The shoot-and-kill ROE remains active. NPR is reporting thousands of seafarers stranded by the ongoing US blockade (NPR Illinois). The Northwood-track US contingency planning is now public: CNN reported the US military is preparing detailed contingency strikes against Iranian targets across the Strait, southern Persian Gulf, and Gulf of Oman if the ceasefire collapses (CNN, The Week). The leak of bombing-campaign options on the same day Witkoff is announced for Saturday is consistent with the “talk softly, carry a public stick” approach — but it is not a backdrop where the kinetic tail is shrinking.

The Breadth Tell Is Doing Its Job

Dow -0.16% on a +0.80% S&P / +1.63% Nasdaq day is the cleanest breadth read of the month. Intel and Nvidia together represent a meaningful share of the S&P/Nasdaq cap-weighted gain; the Dow’s price-weighted construction (and absence of Nvidia) means the rally bypassed it entirely. The Russell finished roughly flat — small caps are not bidding alongside the mega-cap-tech leg. This is the rotation profile that has historically preceded tape breaks, not followed them: the index makes new highs on a narrowing set of names while the average stock stops participating. If MSFT/META/AMZN print well next week, the breadth re-expands and this becomes a footnote. If they print like ServiceNow did, the narrowness is the prelude.

VIX Finally Sub-19

VIX closed 18.71, -3.11% (24/7 Wall St). First close below 19 in three sessions, and the largest single-day compression of the week. That is consistent with premium-writers selling weekend theta into a tape with a confirmed diplomatic event Saturday morning. It is not the 16-17 print that would signal vol sellers are pricing the talks succeeding. 18.71 is “we’ll let the weekend happen, but we’re not buying the post-summit gap.” If Saturday’s talks actually produce a substantive readout and Brent fades Monday, VIX has 2-3 points of compression to give back fast. If the Tasnim line is the real one and the talks collapse without a readout, the gap-up is in vol, not equities.

The Five YELLOW Conditions: Tally After Close

From the morning pulse:

(a) Weekend passes with zero kinetic incidents — PENDING through Monday open
(b) Araghchi’s Islamabad leg produces a dated second-round commitment from Iran — PARTIALLY MET: Witkoff/Kushner fly Saturday, but Tasnim contradicts. Net: dated commitment exists from US side, Iran side has dual signaling.
(c) Northwood releases a diplomacy-forward communique with no operational timeline — CROSSCUT: Northwood track is diplomacy-forward (no formal communique), but parallel US contingency-strike planning has now leaked publicly. Net: not the clean “diplomacy-forward only” signal needed.
(d) Brent closes Monday under $98 — NOT ON TRACK: closed $105.33, ~$7-8 above the threshold.
(e) MSFT commercial cloud growth accelerates sequentially Wednesday — PENDING through 4/29 AMC.

Plus the bonus Fed-succession development that was not on the morning’s list:

DOJ probe dropped, Tillis hold removable, Warsh path opens — NEW POSITIVE, materially reduces Fed tail risk.

Two clean positives on the day (US-side commitment to Saturday talks, Powell probe dropped). Three conditions still un-met. The Brent and contingency-strike signals are the ones I’d weight heaviest, because they are price- and operational-signal channels rather than political-statement channels.

Deployment Stance: RED, Asymmetry Improved to ~1:5 Against

The asymmetry I had at 1:6 against at the open is now roughly 1:5 against — improved on the diplomatic and Fed-succession tracks, unchanged on the structural-supply-shock track. That is materially better than yesterday but still not the call to deploy. The pattern remains exactly the 1973-analog warning: cosmetic-diplomatic progress + adjacent-tailwinds (today: Powell probe + Intel + Nvidia) producing index records while the underlying supply-shock infrastructure (toll regime, mine field, blockade ROE, narrowing breadth) sits unrepaired. The 12M Momentum analog return of zero is the strategy profile that wins this regime by not flipping back in on the relief rally.

If Saturday’s talks produce a substantive readout (joint statement, dated next round, any language indicating Iran will lift mine-laying), and Monday opens with Brent breaking $100 to the downside, and Tillis publicly releases the Warsh hold over the weekend, Monday afternoon’s pulse has the case for YELLOW. That is three conditions, not one. If any one of those three breaks the wrong way — Tasnim’s “won’t meet” reading proves correct, or Brent holds $105, or Tillis stays silent — the asymmetry stays inside RED.

Systematic deployment remains parked through Monday’s open at minimum, and through Wednesday’s MSFT/META AMC and Thursday’s PCE more likely. Today’s record close is the kind of session that tempts a re-risk. The 1973 lesson is that the temptation is the trap.

What Would Change My Mind (Updated for End-of-Friday)

Downgrade to YELLOW (Monday close): Saturday talks produce a joint readout with a dated next round AND no kinetic incidents over the weekend AND Brent closes Monday under $100 AND Tillis publicly releases the Warsh hold by Monday morning. Three of four is a maybe; four of four is a clean YELLOW.

Downgrade to GREEN: Add MSFT/META printing commercial-cloud acceleration with no Iran-war demand commentary AND PCE in-line at ≤3.0% core AND Brent breaking $95 AND VIX closing under 16. That is the full set of conditions and is at minimum a week away.

Upgrade to CRITICAL: Saturday talks collapse with a public Iranian repudiation. Any US-kinetic kill of an Iranian vessel under the new ROE. Iran retaliates against a US naval asset. Northwood or US contingency communique names an operational window. PCE prints above 3.3% headline / above 3.2% core. Brent breaks $110. Tillis publicly maintains the Warsh hold despite the DOJ probe being dropped (would signal the hold was never about the probe).

Updated sources: TheStreet — Stock Market Today April 24, Yahoo Finance — Friday April 24 live blog, 24/7 Wall St — Intel up 100% YTD, 24/7 Wall St — VIX dips below 19, CNBC — Kushner Witkoff Pakistan direct talks, Axios — Witkoff Kushner meet Araghchi Pakistan, NPR — Kushner Witkoff Pakistan new Iran talks, Washington Post — Iran talks Vance excluded, CNN — Iran war live April 24, Al Jazeera — Iran war live April 24 Tasnim Araghchi, Al Jazeera — Araghchi to visit Pakistan, Bloomberg — Pakistan says Iran FM to visit Islamabad, CNBC — DOJ ends Powell probe Warsh hurdle, Axios — DOJ drops Powell probe, NPR — DOJ drops Powell inquiry, Fortune — Tillis blocking Warsh market stability, Fortune — Oil price April 24, OneIndia — Brent crosses $105 April 24, JPost — Iran continuing to lay mines, NPR Illinois — Thousands seafarers stranded blockade, CNN — US military contingency strikes Iran Hormuz, The Week — US bombing campaign Hormuz contingency, Fox News — Hegseth blockade live April 24

Sources: Bloomberg — US Stock Futures April 24, TheStreet — April 24 Stock Market Today, CNBC — Intel Q1 2026 earnings, Intel IR — Q1 2026 results, TradingKey — Intel CPU AMD AI Pre-market, InvestingCube — Intel pre-market, Invezz — Stifel AMD target $320, Yahoo — Stifel AMD target, Axios — Trump Lebanon ceasefire 3-week extension, CNBC — Trump Lebanon extension Iran war, Washington Post — Lebanon extension WH diplomats, PBS — Trump 3-week Lebanon ceasefire, NPR — Lebanon-Israel extension, CNN — Iran delegation to Pakistan April 24, KSAT — Araghchi travels Pakistan US oil step, Caspian News — Pakistan urges ceasefire extension, Al Jazeera — Trump shoot and kill Iranian boats, CNBC — Trump Navy shoot and kill mine boats, Time — Trump orders Navy shoot-and-kill, NBC News — Trump Navy Hormuz blockade live, Axios — Iran deploys more mines Hormuz, CNBC — Oil WTI Brent Lebanon ceasefire, OneIndia — Brent crude April 24 $105, FRED — VIXCLS, Yahoo — VIX Index, 247WallSt — VIX calmest since March, StockStory — Procter Gamble Q1 CY2026, FinancialContent — PG Q1 CY2026 beats, Bloomberg — Warsh would end forward guidance, CNN — Fed chair succession saga Warsh, UK Gov — UK France multinational Hormuz planning, Kyungyang — Reopening Strait of Hormuz conference UK fighter squadron, CNBC — Consumer sentiment Iran war low, Fortune — Michigan sentiment record low Iran, Saxo — Mag 7 earnings preview April 2026