By Molly Schwarz, cross-asset macro strategist at Rabobank
Iran is feeling some of the economic pressure of Bessent’s “Operation Economic Outcast” with reports from Al-Hadath suggesting that Iran has agreed to halt uranium enrichment in exchange for the relaxing of US sanctions. This, of course, is the uranium that Iran was apparently never enriching, and even if they were enriching it in facilities that no one is allowed to check, it would only be for peaceful purposes. Pinky promise.
But, should these reports be verified, this could suggest some meaningful steps in the right direction to start to ease military and economic pressures in the Middle East. Total regime change in Iran is likely off the table, but convincing the current regime in Iran to give up on its goal of obtaining a nuclear weapon is…unlikely. A “compromise” where Iran pretends to stop enriching Uranium, and gets some economic relief in the process, and the US has an out where the GOP can save some face, right before the midterms, could mean end game. However, this all necessitates that the Al-Hadath headline is legitimate, that Iranian officials stand by their word, and that the US agrees to such conditions.
But markets were happy to digest whatever positive news they could, with Brent crude oil dropping around $4 on the announcement to $105/bbl. Despite the retracement in oil, yields still made their way higher, with the 2-year trading back up to 4.92%, and the 10-year up to 5.23%, after briefly breaking above 5.25%. Some talks are circulating about potential re-inversion of the US yield curve, as traders price in more hikes in the short end (17.5bp at the October meeting, and 94.6bp by July of 2027), but a look at the current spread of 32bp suggests that there’s still some way to go before reinversion becomes dinner-table talk.
Stablecoin has also made its way back into US-Senate headlines, after the Senate failed to pass the CLARITY Act a few weeks ago. However, the recent headline suggests that the passage of the CLARITY Act might also be farther off than originally thought. On Monday, the US Senate subcommittee on investigations released a 28-page report cleverly titled “EU countries are considering NATO-style joint responses to Russian hybrid attacks.” Hybrid attacks—those that include both physical and online warfare—were flagged recently by Danish intelligence, suggesting that their frequency, including those against NATO members, could increase in the coming months. But mobilizing 27 member-countries to go to war, when they can’t even agree on whether to lift tariffs on USD 60 billion of “non-sensitive goods,” with each country receiving USD 30 billion of preferential trade status on their respective exports. Non-sensitive goods may or may not include military arms, apparently, as the US ambassador to China, David Perdue, said that Tyler Durden Tue, 09/29/2026 - 10:05