Overview
- President Trump said he held back planned strikes and announced talks would begin, a move that triggered a sharp one-day fall in Brent of roughly 4–7 percent and lifted major U.S. and European stock indexes.
- Iran publicly denied any scheduled negotiations with Washington, creating a direct contradiction with the U.S. account and leaving the diplomatic outcome unclear.
- Reports of recent tanker attacks and continued disruption to Gulf shipping kept the physical risk to oil flows high and helped push prices back up after the initial plunge.
- Policy actions also shaped markets: the U.S. and Japan conducted coordinated yen-buying, OPEC+ agreed to a roughly 188,000 barrels-per-day increase from September, and U.S. officials discussed expanding Fed/Treasury liquidity tools.
- The episode cut some immediate inflation fear and eased Treasury yields but left oil volatile in the mid-$80s per barrel and meant consumers could still face higher pump prices for weeks because of shipping and supply lags.