Optimism about a quick end to the Middle East conflict eclipsed the anxiety surrounding the release of the FOMC minutes on Wednesday afternoon. The slide in crude oil prices as well as the looming earnings update from chip giant NVIDIA also swayed market sentiment and investor assessment.
Wall Street Futures are trading with mild gains amidst President Trump's comments that the war with Iran could end very quickly. Benchmarks in Europe are trading on a mostly positive note. Earlier in the day, Asian markets had finished trading on a heavily negative note.
The 6-currency Dollar Index which measures the U.S. Dollar's strength against a basket of 6 currencies has edged up ahead of the release of the FOMC minutes on Wednesday afternoon. Bond yields eased across regions. Both the crude oil benchmarks have declined around 2 percent on an overnight basis. Gold is also trading deep in the red. Cryptocurrencies are trading on a mixed note.
Here is a snapshot of the major world markets at this hour. Stock Indexes:
DJIA (US30) at 49,417.30, up 0.11% S&P 500 (US500) at 7,377.20, up 0.32%Germany's DAX at 24,454.20, up 0.11% U.K.'s FTSE 100 at 10,314.23, down 0.16% France's CAC 40 at 8,005.09, up 0.29%Euro Stoxx 50 at 5,879.86, up 0.46% Japan's Nikkei 225 at 59,742.00, down 1.34% Australia's S&P ASX 200 at 8,496.60, down 1.26%China's Shanghai Composite at 4,162.18, down 0.18%Hong Kong's Hang Seng at 25,651.12, down 0.57% South Korea's KOSPI at 7,208.95, down 0.86%
Currencies:
Dollar Index at 99.40, up 0.08% EUR/USD at 1.1592, down 0.10%GBP/USD at 1.3388, down 0.05%USD/JPY at 159.04, down 0.02%AUD/USD at 0.7113, up 0.07%USD/CAD at 1.3773, up 0.20%
Ten-Year Govt Bond Yields:
U.S. at 4.648%, down 0.56% Germany at 3.1636%, down 0.77%France at 3.940%, down 0.93%U.K. at 5.0490%, down 1.52%Japan at 2.779%, down 0.54%
Commodities:
Brent Oil Futures (Jul) at $109.31, down 2.49%.Crude Oil WTI Futures (Jul) at $102.46, down 1.84%.Gold Futures (Jun) at $4,482.40, down 1.66%. Silver Futures (Jul) at $75.49, down 2.52%.
Cryptocurrencies:
Bitcoin at $77,381.53, up 0.51%Ethereum at $2,129.25, down 0.14%BNB at $643.73, up 0.25%XRP at $1.36, down 1.01%Solana at $84.89, down 0.36%
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Business News
May 15, 2026 15:25 ET Apart from the confirmation of Kevin Warsh as the next Fed chair, the main news on the economics front this week included key price data from the U.S. and the first quarter economic growth figures from major economies. Both consumer prices and producer costs have started to reflect the effect of supply shocks due to the Middle East conflict. In Europe, GDP data was in focus, while inflation data from China dominated the news flow in Asia.