A photograph taken from the southern Lebanese area of Tyre shows smoke as it rises from the site of Israeli airstrikes that targeted villages on southern Lebanon on April 16, 2026. <\/p>\n
Kawnat Haju | AFP | Getty Images<\/p>\n
Hello, this is Leonie Kidd writing to you from London. Welcome to another edition of CNBC’s Daily Open. <\/p>\n
A historic 10-day ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon removes another major obstacle to a broader peace agreement for the Middle East. <\/p>\n
It leaves one main point of contention \u2014 the Strait of Hormuz. <\/p>\n
The positive sentiment has held up during this week’s trade, with major markets holding near record highs. <\/p>\n
What you need to know today<\/p>\n The leaders of\u00a0Israel<\/a>\u00a0and Lebanon agreed to a 10-day ceasefire<\/a> after officials from the two countries met in Washington, President\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0said Thursday.<\/p>\n The temporary truce started at 5 p.m. ET on Thursday, Trump said in a\u00a0Truth Social post<\/a>.<\/p>\n In a\u00a0follow-up<\/a>, Trump added that he will be inviting Israeli Prime Minister\u00a0Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a>\u00a0and President Joseph Aoun of Lebanon to the White House “for the first meaningful talks between Israel and Lebanon since 1983, a very long time ago.”<\/p>\n “Both sides want to see PEACE, and I believe that will happen, quickly!” Trump wrote.<\/p>\n Speaking to CNBC in Washington D.C., Israel’s central bank governor, Amir Yaron, said markets were taking the latest peace developments positively<\/a>, despite lingering geopolitical uncertainties. <\/p>\n There is also optimism around progress with Tehran, as Trump<\/a>\u00a0said that “the war in Iran is going along swimmingly.”<\/a><\/p>\n “It should be ending pretty soon,” Trump said at an event in Las Vegas, echoing similar predictions about the end of the war that he has made since the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran in late February.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, U.S. officials have told some European allies that certain weapon deliveries could be delayed<\/a> due to the war in Iran. Reuters<\/a> spoke to a number of sources who indicated the weapons have been bought as part of contracts under the Foreign Military Sales program, but not yet delivered. <\/p>\n Asia-Pacific markets were trading lower Friday<\/a>, diverging from Wall Street’s record-setting rally. Pre-market indicators<\/a> for Europe and Wall Street were mixed in early Friday trading. <\/p>\n In other news, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is under renewed pressure<\/a> over his appointment of former U.K. Ambassador to the U.S. Peter Mandelson. This after British media broke the news that Lord Mandelson had failed a vetting process for his appointment. Downing Street has blamed the Foreign Office for the failure, and a top civil servant has reportedly been sacked.<\/a> <\/p>\n \u2014 Leonie Kidd<\/p>\n And finally…<\/p>\n Retail traders pile into Allbirds after odd AI pivot. History shows it won’t end well<\/a><\/p>\n Retail traders stampeded into\u00a0Allbirds<\/a>\u00a0after the troubled shoemaker slapped an artificial intelligence label on its business, a set-up that market history suggests rarely ends well once the initial hype fades.<\/p>\n Shares of the company skyrocketed more than 800% at one point on Wednesday after the firm detailed shocking plans to\u00a0rebrand as NewBird AI<\/a>\u00a0and shift toward compute infrastructure.\u00a0<\/p>\n “The market is not pricing risk. It is pricing narrative. It is pricing the word ‘AI’ the same way it once priced the word ‘blockchain’ and before that the suffix ‘.com,'” Mark Malek, CIO at Siebert Financial, said in a note.<\/p>\n “This is not analysis. This is pattern-matching on a buzzword by investors who have watched AI-adjacent stocks go parabolic and do not want to miss the next leg. The signal is not subtle.”<\/p>\n \u2014 Yun Li<\/p>\n