Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on April 16, 2026 in New York City, USA.
Gina Moon | Reuters
Hello, my name is Hui Jie from Singapore. Welcome to another edition of CNBC’s Daily Open.
Markets are hitting new records as warring sides in the Middle East hint at a diplomatic solution to the conflict, but could the ever-shifting geopolitical winds driven by US President Donald Trump’s mixed messages blow away this fragile peace?
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What you need to know today
Will peace finally come to the Middle East?
There is also a glimmer of hope, with US President Donald Trump saying the war should end soon and announcing on Thursday that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to a 10-day ceasefire.
This, combined with reports that the US and Iran may hold a second round of talks in Pakistan, suggests an end to the fighting.
The speaker of Iran’s parliament said that an important condition for restarting negotiations between the United States and Iran is for Israel to cease its attacks on Lebanon.
But as we all know, the best-laid plans of mice and men often fail, and peace is likely still fragile. Brent prices remain near $100 and the crucial Strait of Hormuz remains closed.
The market remains resolutely optimistic, and investors will be hoping that geopolitics won’t derail the stock’s rise. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite Index hit new record highs on Thursday, with the tech-heavy index posting its 12th straight positive session, its longest winning streak since 2009.
Asian markets were somewhat cautious with stock prices mixed in early trading.
On the corporate side, investors saw the stock prices of semiconductor giants TSMC and ASML fall even though both companies reported better-than-expected financial results, highlighting just how high investors’ expectations are for the sector.
A similar story can be seen at Netflix, where the company posted better-than-expected revenue but saw its stock fall.
Shares fell 9% in after-hours trading Thursday after the streaming giant released its first-quarter earnings report and announced that Netflix co-founder and current chairman Reed Hastings would step down from the board in June when his term expires.
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 detailed shocking plans to rebrand as NewBird AI and 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.”
