Good evening and welcome to Markets Desk.
The Trump administration has let a key Russian oil waiver expire, pulling back a brief window that had allowed sanctioned Russian crude to move through global markets. The timing is notable — with the Strait of Hormuz still effectively closed and supply concerns already elevated, removing even marginal Russian barrels adds pressure to an already strained market.
And that Hormuz situation remains very much unresolved. Iran says the strait reopens when the conflict ends, but neither Washington nor Tehran has a credible path to get there. Trump returned from meetings with China's Xi Jinping — both leaders agreed the waterway should be open, but that agreement produced no apparent mechanism to make it happen. Oil traders are watching every word closely.
Shifting to labor markets, a new CEO survey is reshaping assumptions about who bears the cost of AI-driven workforce restructuring. More than forty percent of chief executives plan to cut junior roles over the next one to two years, favoring mid-level and senior talent instead. That flips the conventional wisdom that older workers absorb the heaviest job losses during periods of technological disruption — and it has real implications for how companies are pricing human capital going forward.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
