Monday, April 6, 2026…4:10 PM ET
[4:00 PM ET closing prices for stocks; 3:50ish for commodities and bonds.]
Tale of the Tape at the gas pump, nationwide averages, courtesy of AAA.
Fri., Feb. 27…regular gas $2.98…diesel $3.75
Mon. Apr. 6…reg. $4.11…diesel $5.61…20 cents from all-time high….
After reporting on the spectacular rescue of the second crew member of a downed F-15E fighter jet in Iran just after midnight on Sunday, President Trump was active the rest of the day.
Trump on Truth Social, Sunday, 8:03 AM:
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”
Under international law, the military is allowed to strike civilian power plants and other key infrastructure only if it contributes to a military operation and civilian harm is minimized.
Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Galibaf posted on X:
“1 / Your reckless moves are dragging the United States into a living HELL for every single family, and our whole region is going to burn because you insist on following Netanyahu’s commands.
“Make no mistake: You won’t gain anything through your war crimes.
“2 / The only real solution is respecting the rights of the Iranian people and ending this dangerous game.”
The president gave conflicting messages in brief interviews with Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, Sunday, telling Fox that a deal could come as early as Monday, while he gave no definitive answer on the war’s ending to the Journal.
Instead, he told the Journal: “If they don’t come through, if they want to keep it closed, they’re going to lose every power plant and every other plant they have in the whole country,” Trump said.
Pressed on when he thinks the war will end, Trump said, “I will let you know pretty soon.”
“But we are in a position that’s very strong, and that country will take 20 years to rebuild, if they’re lucky, if they have a country,” he said. “And if they don’t do something by Tuesday evening, they won’t have any power plants and they won’t have any bridges standing.”
Asked if he is concerned the people of Iran could suffer if civilian infrastructure is hit, Trump said, “No, they want us to do it,” arguing that Iranian people are “living in hell.”
Trump then cryptically posted at 12:38 PM, Sunday:
“Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time!”
Karim Sadjadpour, a scholar of Iran at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the New York Times: “I don’t believe that Iranians have rallied around a deeply unpopular regime, but the destruction of infrastructure and rising civilian casualties strengthen the regime’s narrative that this is a war on the nation, not just its rulers.”
Eight OPEC members and allies raised concerns about the toll of the Iran war on oil supplies and infrastructure in the Persian Gulf region. The group led by Saudi Arabia met virtually on Sunday and agreed to raise oil production quotas by 206,000 barrels a day beginning in May.
But OPEC+ warned that the damage to Middle East energy assets will have a prolonged impact on oil supply even after the conflict ends. And with U.S. inflation data coming out later this week, the sudden increase in gasoline prices felt by American consumers is set to be on full display.
Economists are penciling in a 1% increase in the consumer price index for March – the sharpest one-month advance since 2022 – after the Iran war pushed gas prices at the pump up by about $1 per gallon.
Israel and the United States carried out a wave of attacks on Iran on Monday, killing more than 25 people, and Iran responded with missile fire on Israel and its Gulf Arab neighbors.
Among those killed in strikes over the weekend and today was the head of intelligence for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, Maj. Gen. Majid Khademi, according to Iranian state media and Israel’s defense minister.
In an effort to stop the fighting, Egyptian, Pakistani and Turkish mediators have sent Iran and the U.S. a proposal that calls for a 45-day ceasefire and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to give time to try to find a way to end the war, according to various reports. The proposal was sent late Sunday night to both Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghci and U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, Mideast officials said.
Under the proposal, a ceasefire would take effect immediately, reopening the Strait of Hormuz, with 15-20 days to finalize a broader settlement. The deal, tentatively dubbed the Islamabad Accord, would include a regional framework for the Strait, with final in-person talks in Islamabad.
Iran then rejected the proposal and instead said it wants a permanent end to the war, even as President Trump’s ultimatum loomed to avoid a major escalation in attacks against power plants and bridges.
“We won’t merely accept a ceasefire,” Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of Iran’s diplomatic mission in Cairo, told the Associated Press. “We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again.”
He said Iran no longer trusts the Trump administration after the U.S. bombed the Islamic Republic twice during previous rounds of talks: The “White House assassinated the negotiating table.”
Iran’s rejection came after Israel struck a key petrochemical plant in the South Pars natural gas field and killed two paramilitary Revolutionary Guard commanders.
The gas field attack aimed at eliminating a major source of revenue for Iran, Israel said. The field is shared with Qatar and the world’s largest.
At 1:00 PM this afternoon, President Trump appeared for a press conference in the White House briefing room, after already taking numerous questions at the annual Easter Egg Roll.
Prior to his comments, oil was spiking anew, West Texas Intermediated above $113, gasoline futures above $3.30, as Iran dismissed the Pakistani proposal.
But the president didn’t say anything new. On one hand he said he’s “not at all” concerned about committing possible war crimes as he continued to threaten Iran’s bridges and power plants, but on the other, he said there are credible negotiations taking place (which I don’t believe) and that he doesn’t want to have to bomb the infrastructure.
So oil fell back a bit from the day’s highs.
It ended up being a quiet day in the stock market.
Meanwhile, the crew of Artemis II is flying by the moon at this very moment at the closest distance they will get to the lunar surface and the nearest any human has gotten to the moon in more than 50 years.
Just after 7:00 PM ET, astronauts will snap images of the moon’s far side – a vantage that is never seen from Earth.
As they approached the moon today, the Artemis II crew also broke the record for the farthest distance any humans have traveled in space, surpassing the distance the Apollo 13 crew traveled in 1970.
Dow Jones +165…+0.4% [46669]
S&P 500 +29…+0.5% [6612]
Nasdaq +117…+0.5% [21996]
Oil (WTI) $112.65…Brent $109.20
Gold $4675
Silver $73.05
Bitcoin $69,740 [4:00 PM ET]
U.S. 2-yr. 3.85%
U.S. 10-yr. 4.33%
Japanese 10-yr. 2.40%…another 27-year high….
Back Tues.
Brian Trumbore
