On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump said negotiations with Iran are in their final stages, while warning that Iran will face further attacks unless it agrees to a deal.
Market expectations of an imminent U.S. deal with Iran to end the war in the Middle East heated up as the dollar index retreated from a six-week high to end down 0.03% at 99.12, while the benchmark 10-year U.S. bond yield closed at 4.592%, and the 2-year U.S. yield, which is sensitive to the Federal Reserve’s policy rate, ended at 4.066%.
Spot gold regained the 4540 mark and ended up 1.38% at $4543.79 per ounce; spot silver ended up 2.92% at $75.85 per ounce.
Investors’ hopes for an imminent U.S.-Iran deal were ignited, and international oil prices fell heavily. wti crude oil finally closed down 4.73% at $102.53/barrel; brent crude oil closed down 4.97% at $105.48/barrel.
U.S. stocks closed up 1.3% on the Dow, 1.08% on the S&P 500 and 1.5% on the Nasdaq. Micron Technology (MU.O) rose 4.7 percent, NVIDIA (NVDA.O) gained 1 percent, Tesla (TSLA.O) rose 3 percent and Intel (INTC.O) rose 7 percent. The Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index fell 0.4 percent, with Beili (BILI.O) down 8 percent and Global Data (GDS.O) down 9 percent.