Welcome to Markets Desk, here's what's moving right now.
Crude oil is surging this afternoon, with West Texas Intermediate jumping more than three percent as hopes for a swift resolution to the US-Iran conflict continue to dim. With the Strait of Hormuz still disrupted, supply anxiety is doing exactly what you'd expect — sending prices sharply higher and dragging gasoline futures along with it.
Staying in the commodities space, arabica coffee is up nearly four percent today, hitting a two-week high after dry weather forecasts out of Brazil raised fresh concerns about crop yields. Brazil remains the world's dominant arabica producer, so any credible threat to that harvest gets priced in fast, and traders aren't waiting around to find out how bad conditions get.
Meanwhile in equities, Nvidia remains very much in focus after Jensen Huang signaled the company is committed to returning value to shareholders through a one hundred fifty billion dollar buyback program. For a company generating the kind of cash flow Nvidia is producing right now, that's not just a capital allocation decision — it's a statement of confidence in the durability of the AI spending cycle.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
