Trump to address the nation tonight at 9 PM ET — first formal speech since Iran war began
Iran FM says "zero trust" in US, preparing for "at least 6 months" of fighting
Brent crude slides to $101 as markets price de-escalation hope
Bitcoin holds $68K, ending worst Q1 since 2018
S&P 500 up 0.7% on risk-on sentiment
Bitcoin & Crypto
BTC at ~$68,160, up ~2% on the day on ceasefire hopes ahead of Trump's evening address. Q1 2026 finished down 22.2% — worst first-quarter performance since 2018. (beincrypto.com)
Spot Bitcoin ETFs saw $117M net inflows on April 1, extending a recent positive streak. Institutional demand continues despite macro uncertainty. (CoinGlass)
Geopolitics & Oil
Iran war Day 33. Trump will address the nation tonight at 9 PM ET / 6 PM PDT — his first formal address since the war began. Expected to give an operational update and reiterate his "2-3 week exit" timeline. (NPR)
Trump claimed on Truth Social that Iran's president "asked for a ceasefire." Iran's FM Araghchi called the claim "false and baseless." Araghchi separately told Al Jazeera that Iran has received messages from US envoy Witkoff but called it "contact, not negotiations" and said Iran trusts the US "zero." (Washington Post, Al Jazeera)
Pentagon continues deploying troops despite Trump's exit rhetoric: 82nd Airborne (~2,000 troops) now in theater, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (3,500 Marines, USS Tripoli) arrived from Sasebo. A second MEU (11th, ~2,500 Marines) is inbound. (Al Jazeera, CNN)
No Rubio-Araghchi meeting has occurred despite Pakistan FM saying talks would happen "within days." The four-nation mediation push (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt) produced procedural progress but no framework.
Brent crude at $101.10, down 2.8% on the session. Market stripping war premium on ceasefire rhetoric — analysts estimate ~$14/bbl removed from the March peak of ~$126. WTI at ~$100. Key catalysts ahead: OPEC+ meeting April 5, energy-strike pause expiry April 6. (Fortune)
Houthis active but have not blockaded Bab al-Mandeb. Missile barrage at Israel on March 28, claimed attacks on commercial vessels and US frigates in Red Sea. Shipping rerouting via Cape of Good Hope continues. (CNN, France 24)
DHS shutdown reaches Day 46. Both chambers of Congress remain on Easter/Passover recess until April 13-14. No recall order from Trump despite rhetoric about "urging" return. The 60-day threshold is April 14. (CBS News, CNN)
AI
Anthropic dealing with data leak fallout. A misconfigured data store exposed ~3,000 internal files late March, including draft references to an unreleased model codenamed "Capybara." Anthropic issued DMCA takedowns on 8,000+ copies of leaked Claude Code source. Ongoing as of April 1. (llm-stats.com — not yet independently confirmed by Anthropic)
Perplexity AI hit with class-action lawsuit alleging the company shared user chat data with Meta and Google. (Yahoo Finance)
Google confirmed North Korean hackers breached the Axios integration platform by injecting malware into a software update. (Just Security, NPR)
Macro & Markets
S&P 500 at 6,576, up 0.7%. Risk-on sentiment driven by Trump's ceasefire framing. Tech names (Meta, Alphabet, Amazon) gained ~1%. Nike sank 12% on weak guidance. (Schwab)
March ISM Manufacturing PMI released today showed a surge in manufacturing input prices — tariff effects beginning to flow through. Strong retail sales and ADP private employment data also released. (Yahoo Finance)
NASA Artemis II launch set for this week — first crewed lunar flyby since 1972. (WORLD/WNG)
Risks / Watch
Trump 9 PM ET address tonight — watch for any "mission accomplished" or "operations ended" language
OPEC+ meeting April 5 — surprise production response to war premium?
Iran energy-strike pause expires April 6 17:00 PDT — binary catalyst for oil
DHS day-60 threshold April 14 — Congress returns same day