A photo taken from the Tire region in southern Lebanon shows smoke rising from the scene of an Israeli airstrike targeting villages in southern Lebanon on April 16, 2026.
Kawanat Haju | AFP | Getty Images
Hello, my name is Leonie Kidd and I’m from London. Welcome to another edition of CNBC’s Daily Open.
The historic 10-day ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon has removed another major obstacle to a broader peace agreement in the Middle East.
The main remaining issue is the Strait of Hormuz.
The positive sentiment continued into this week’s trading, with major markets holding near all-time highs.
What you need to know today
The leaders of Israel and Lebanon have agreed to a 10-day ceasefire after meeting in Washington, President Donald Trump announced Thursday.
President Trump said in a post on Truth Social that the interim truce began Thursday at 5 p.m. ET.
In a follow-up, Trump added that he would invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to the White House “for the first meaningful talks between Israel and Lebanon since all those years ago in 1983.”
“Both sides want peace, and I believe it will happen soon!” Trump wrote.
Israel’s Central Bank Governor Amir Yaron told CNBC in Washington, D.C., that despite lingering geopolitical uncertainty, markets are positive about recent peace progress.
President Trump’s statement that “the war in Iran is progressing smoothly” has given rise to optimism regarding the progress of relations with Iran.
“The war should be over soon,” Trump said at an event in Las Vegas, repeating similar predictions he has made about an end to the war since the United States and Israel began attacking Iran in late February.
Meanwhile, U.S. officials have told some European allies that the Iran war could delay the delivery of certain weapons. Sources told Reuters that the weapons were purchased as part of a contract under the Foreign Military Sales Program but have not yet been delivered.
Asia-Pacific markets fell on Friday, diverging from Wall Street’s record gains. Premarket indicators in Europe and Wall Street were mixed in early Friday trading.
In other news, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is under fresh pressure over the appointment of former British Ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson. This came after British media reported that Lord Mandelson had failed his appointment. Downing Street blamed the Foreign Office for the failure, and top civil servants were reportedly sacked.
— Leonie Kidd
And finally…
Retail traders flock to Allbirds after bizarre AI pivot. History shows it doesn’t end well.
Retailers flocked to Allbirds after the troubled shoemaker slapped the artificial intelligence label on its business, but as market history suggests, this regime rarely ends well once the initial hype wears off.
The company’s stock soared more than 800% at one point Wednesday after the company rebranded itself as NewBird AI and detailed shocking plans to move into computing infrastructure.
“The market is not pricing risk, it is pricing a story. It is pricing the word ‘AI’ in the same way it once priced the word ‘blockchain’ and, before that, the ‘.com’ suffix,” Mark Malek, chief information officer at Sievert Financial, said in a note.
“This is not analysis. This is buzzword pattern matching by investors who see AI-adjacent stocks going parabolic and don’t want to miss out on the next leg. The signals are not subtle.”
— Yun Lee
