{"id":44349,"date":"2026-03-31T08:00:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/44349\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T08:00:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:00:07","slug":"stocks-rise-as-trump-willing-to-end-iran-war-without-hormuz-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/44349\/","title":{"rendered":"Stocks rise as Trump willing to end Iran war without Hormuz deal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The FTSE 100 (^FTSE<\/a>) and European stocks pushed higher on Tuesday morning following a Wall Street Journal report that Donald Trump has told his aides he was willing to end the US military campaign against Iran, even if the Strait of Hormuz remained largely closed.<\/p>\n

The US president assessed that a mission to reopen the strait would push the war beyond his timeline of four to six weeks, according to the report, which cited administration officials.<\/p>\n

Comments from US leadership have pointed to potential progress in diplomatic discussions, while Trump also claimed that the US may move to seize control of Iran’s oil<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The news has raised hopes that the current phase of the conflict will wind down soon, with West Texas Intermediate (CL=F<\/a>) pulling back to trade near $103 a barrel after earlier jumping almost 4% following another Iranian attack on a tanker in the Persian Gulf. Meanwhile, Brent crude (BZ=F<\/a>) was around $113.<\/p>\n

It comes after Trump said on Monday that the US will blow up power plants, oil facilities and \u201cpossibly\u201d desalination infrastructure if Iran doesn\u2019t re-open Hormuz.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will be hurting the Trump administration,\u201d Will Walker-Arnott of wealth manager Raymond James told BBC Radio 4\u2019s Today programme.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarkets continue to gyrate. The Trump administration continues to vacillate and so there is continued uncertainty in the markets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) confirmed on Tuesday that the UK\u2019s gross domestic product (GDP) rose 0.1% in the final three months of last year, following growth of 0.1% in the third quarter.<\/p>\n

The ONS increased it calculation of growth for the whole of 2025 to 1.4%, up from previous growth of 1.3%.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, investors are gearing up for fresh economic data on Tuesday<\/a>, including the March reading on consumer confidence and February\u2019s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), both of which should provide insight into the health of the US economy.<\/p>\n

London\u2019s benchmark index (^FTSE<\/a>) was around 0.5% higher in early trade<\/p>\n

Germany’s DAX (^GDAXI<\/a>) rose 0.2% and the CAC (^FCHI<\/a>) in Paris headed 0.3% into the green<\/p>\n

The pan-European STOXX 600 (^STOXX<\/a>) was up 0.4%<\/p>\n

Across the pond on Wall Street, contracts linked to the S&P 500 (ES=F<\/a>) rose 0.8% as Nasdaq 100 (NQ=F<\/a>) futures climbed 0.7%. Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM=F<\/a>) futures leaped 0.9%.<\/p>\n

The pound was 0.1% higher against the US dollar (GBPUSD=X<\/a>) at 1.3200<\/p>\n

Follow along for live updates throughout the day:<\/p>\n

LIVE 5 updates<\/p>\n

Raspberry Pi posts strong full-year earnings <\/p>\n

Single-board computing company Raspberry \u200cPi (RPI.L<\/a>) reported a \u200cbetter-than-expected 25% rise in annual \u200badjusted core earnings to $46.4 million on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

It was boosted by strengthening demand \u200cand \u2060favourable unit economics in the second half.<\/p>\n

The \u2060British company shipped 4 million units \u200bin the \u200bsecond \u200bhalf, giving a \u200ctotal of 7.6 million for the year, up 7% on 2024.<\/p>\n

It said strong sales momentum \u200chad carried \u200binto the \u200bopening \u200bmonths of this \u200cyear, but it cautioned \u200bthat \u200bsecond-half visibility was limited by constraints in \u200bthe \u200cDRAM market.<\/p>\n

Read the more here<\/a><\/p>\n

Average UK house price rises to \u00a3277,186 in March <\/p>\n

UK house prices grew by 0.9% month-on-month in March, putting the average cost of a home at \u00a3277,186, according to the latest data from Nationwide.<\/p>\n

That was up from an average price of \u00a3273,176 in February. Nationwide\u2019s latest house price index, released on Tuesday, showed that the cost of on an annual basis house prices increased by 2.2% in March, picking up from 1% growth year-on-year in February.<\/p>\n

In the first quarter, Nationwide said UK house prices grew by 1.5% compared to the same period a year ago, and by 0.7% on a seasonally adjusted basis versus the previous three months.<\/p>\n

At a regional level, Northern Ireland saw the biggest growth in house prices in the first quarter, with the average cost of a home increasing 9.5% year-on-year to \u00a3225,269.<\/p>\n

That was followed by the North West, where the average house price climbed 3.3% to \u00a3229,173 in the first quarter compared to the same period last year.<\/p>\n

In London, house prices increased 1.7% on an annual basis in the first quarter, to an average \u00a3538,181.<\/p>\n

Robert Gardner, chief economist at Nationwide, said:<\/p>\n

Gardner added that the outlook for interest rates is \u201cparticularly uncertain particularly uncertain and dependent on whether the demand or supply side of the economy is more adversely affected\u201d.<\/p>\n

Asia and US overnight <\/p>\n

Stocks in Asia were down across the board last night, with the Nikkei (^N225<\/a>) slipping 1.6% on the day in Japan, while the Hang Seng (^HSI<\/a>) fell 0.4% in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

The Shanghai Composite (000001.SS<\/a>) was 0.7 down by the end of the session and in South Korea, the Kospi (^KS11<\/a>) lost 4.3% on the day.<\/p>\n

It came despite a modest upside surprise in China\u2019s official PMIs, with the manufacturing PMI at a one-year high of 50.4 (compared to the 50.1 expected), whilst the non-manufacturing PMI rose to 50.1, versus the forecasted 49.9.<\/p>\n

The negative mood was buoyed by Kuwait Petroleum Corp saying overnight that an oil tanker was attacked by Iran in a Dubai port, causing a fire, despite a Wall Street Journal report saying that president Trump told aides he was willing to end the US military campaign against Iran, even if the Strait of Hormuz remained largely closed.<\/p>\n

Across the pond on Wall Street, stocks were mixed at the close, with the S&P 500 (^GSPC<\/a>) down 0.4%to 6,343.72, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq (^IXIC<\/a>) was 0.7% lower at 20,794.64. The Dow Jones (^DJI<\/a>) eked out a 0.1% gain, closing at 45,216.14.<\/p>\n

UK shop price inflation edges up <\/p>\n

Shop price inflation edged up in March as higher costs resulting from the Middle East conflict started to feed into supply chains, figures show.<\/p>\n

Shop prices overall were 1.2% higher than a year ago, up from 1.1% in February but still below the three-month average of 1.3%, according to data from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and NIQ.<\/p>\n

The BRC warned that \u201cstorm clouds loom\u201d despite \u201csubdued\u201d inflation and noted the headline figure rose even as food inflation eased from 3.5% to 3.4% due to dairy prices falling with lower wholesale milk costs.<\/p>\n

Inflation on non-food items rose to 0.1% against a drop of 0.1% in February despite retailers offering promotions on alcohol, TVs and sound systems in the run-up to the final round of the Six Nations, as well as on clothing and footwear to entice consumers to spend.<\/p>\n

BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson said:<\/p>\n

Coming up <\/p>\n

Good morning, and welcome back to our markets live blog. As usual we will be taking a deep dive into what’s moving markets, and what’s happening across our global economy.<\/p>\n

Looking at the day ahead now, and data releases include the Euro Area flash CPI print for March, German unemployment for March, the US Conference Board\u2019s consumer confidence indicator for March, the JOLTS job openings for February, and the FHFA house price index for January.<\/p>\n

From central banks, we\u2019ll hear from the Fed\u2019s Goolsbee, Barr and Bowman, and the ECB\u2019s Panetta, Muller, Kazimir and Sleijpen.<\/p>\n

Here’s a snapshot of what’s on the agenda for today:<\/p>\n

7am: Trading updates: Pets at Home, AG Barr, James Halstead, Hilton Food, Raspberry Pi, Princes Group<\/p>\n

10am: Eurozone inflation<\/p>\n

Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple<\/a> and Android<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The FTSE 100 (^FTSE) and European stocks pushed higher on Tuesday morning following a Wall Street Journal report…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[18516,38,2272,34,18517,101,6796,1149],"class_list":["post-44349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iran","tag-administration-officials","tag-donald-trump","tag-ftse-100","tag-iran","tag-raymond-james","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-wall-street-journal","tag-west-texas-intermediate"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116322738025346218","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}