Despite the macroeconomic factors swirling over Wall Street, a relative calm has descended across markets. At the time of writing, the S&P 500 is up 0.8% over the past day, the Nasdaq was up 1%, and the FTSE 100 was up 0.5% in early trading this morning. S&P futures were up 0.23% this morning, premarket.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a far cry from the choppy trading seen in recent months as investors reacted to Trump\u2019s tariff announcements, military action in the Middle East<\/a>, and concerns over the White House\u2019s attempts to influence the central bank. <\/a><\/p>\n Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick had more good news for speculators this week. He confirmed late last night that the Oval Office had a slate of deals ready to be signed off before the end of Trump\u2019s 90-day pause.<\/p>\n Lutnick also revealed part of the system for how other negotiations may be sped up. He said America\u2019s top 10 deals with partners would be used as category blueprints for other agreements, explaining the White House will \u201cput them in the right category, and then these other countries will fit behind.\u201d<\/p>\n With preliminary frameworks in place for the U.K. and China, speculation is rife about whom the following agreements may be with.<\/p>\n Japan and India seem to be strong contenders, with noise out of both governments suggesting negotiations may prove fruitful. <\/p>\n Regarding Japan, for example, Lutnick told Bloomberg<\/a> the nations are \u201ccurrently discussing the series of U.S. tariff measures, and we will continue to make our utmost efforts on the matter as our top priority.\u201d<\/p>\n Those who don\u2019t have a deal come July 9, the end of the 90-day pause, will also be categorized into their \u201cproper buckets.\u201d<\/p>\n Lutnick said: \u201cThose who have deals will have deals, and everybody else that is negotiating with us, they\u2019ll get a response from us, and then they\u2019ll go into that package.<\/p>\n \u201cIf people want to come back and negotiate further, they\u2019re entitled to, but that tariff rate will be set, and off we\u2019ll go.\u201d<\/p>\n The commerce secretary also confirmed a deal signed with China\u2014\u201cthey\u2019re going to deliver rare earths to us,\u201d and when that happens \u201cwe\u2019ll take down our countermeasures\u201d\u2014but if he was hoping for a gold star from the markets, it won\u2019t be forthcoming<\/a>.<\/p>\n As UBS chief economist Paul Donovan put it in a morning note sent to Fortune: \u201cU.S. Trade Secretary Lutnick declared an agreement with China over trade. Markets do not care, as this seems to be just a codification of the agreement made in Geneva and reaffirmed in London.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cLutnick promised 10 trade deals were coming (no news on whether this includes the penguins of the Heard and McDonald Islands).\u201d<\/p>\n Eye of the storm<\/p>\n Analysts may head into the weekend questioning, \u201cWhy the brief reprieve?\u201d with so much uncertainty still swirling<\/a>. At the start of the week economists were nervously eyeing whether Iran\u2019s parliament would shut the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>, a blockage to the world\u2019s global oil supply that could send prices spiraling. But that fear has receded. Goldman Sachs\u2019 Yulia Zhestkova Grigsby and her team put the chances of Iran closing the ocean bottleneck at just 4%, in a note sent to clients yesterday.<\/p>\n The relative calm may merely be the eye of the storm, wrote Deutsche Bank\u2019s Jim Reid in a note seen by Fortune this morning.<\/p>\n \u201cA rare period of 2025 calm seems to have broken out for now.\u00a0It may be that we\u2019re in the eye of the storm that was the Middle East, and later to become tariffs again,\u201d Reid wrote. \u201cHowever for now markets are not thinking about, or are not particularly concerned about, the upcoming July 9th tariff deadline.\u201d<\/p>\n He added that President Trump\u2019s potential early intervention into naming the next Fed chairman is also generating expectations for lower borrowing costs in the future, with Trump\u2019s candidate expected to be more open to lowering rates.<\/p>\n \u201cWhether this will prove to be yet another false dawn only time will tell,\u201d Reid added.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a snapshot of the action prior to the opening in New York this morning:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n