This could be irrelevant by the time you read it. Armageddon’s always just one errant “Truth” away. So, I’ll keep it short.

As of late Tuesday in the US, diplomacy seemed likely to prevail in the still-tenuous ceasefire between Donald Trump and Iran.

The US “blockade” of Iranian ports is apparently porous, because multiple vessels, including several whose departure point was Iran, were allowed to transit the Strait. There was no immediate explanation as to why.

Later, CENTCOM said all traffic from Iranian ports was in fact halted by the blockade following the expiration of an apparent grace period. The US Navy turned away at least half a dozen merchant vessels over 24 hours. All of those ships returned to an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman.

For its part, Tehran was said to ponder voluntarily pausing oil shipments through the waterway in order to avoid a confrontation with US warships, a wise choice if the powers that be are indeed interested in keeping peace talks (and themselves) alive.

There were also scattered reports hinting at another in-person meeting between high-level officials from both sides. (“Give peace a Vance!”) The White House later confirmed those reports, but said nothing was scheduled yet. Talks “could be happening over the next two days,” Trump told The New York Post.

Although Washington and Tehran remained far apart on the nuclear sticking point, Iran did offer to suspend uranium enrichment for five years. Trump wants 20 years. (Iran should come back with, “Six and we’ll throw in Ali Khamenei’s charred pinky finger.”)

Meanwhile, Marco Rubio’s presiding over face-to-face talks between Israeli and Lebanese diplomats in D.C. I doubt much’ll come of that, but — how should I put this? — it’s not nothin’, even if it is. (Nothin’.)

The figure above’s from the April installment of BofA’s Global Fund Manager survey, released on Tuesday. Not surprisingly, geopolitical conflict (i.e., war) remained at the top of the tail-risk leaderboard for a second month.

Note that private credit and the AI bubble have now taken a backseat not just to the war itself, but to the macro implications of the conflict: Higher inflation and upside risk to long-end bond yields as the energy shock pushes up prices, de-anchors inflation expectations and makes fiscal retrenchment not just more difficult, but potentially risky from a national security perspective.

Stocks are (more than) ready for this to be over. Indeed, they’re already trading as though it is. The Nasdaq was on track for a 10th straight gain Tuesday. That’d be the longest run of daily advances since 2021.

But, coming quickly full circle, the whole thing can take a turn for the apocalyptic in the blink of an eye — or the tap of a thumb.

As BMO’s Ian Lyngen put it Tuesday, “The extent to which the tone change is able to hold is unquestionably a wildcard and investors are cognizant that a swift reversal could easily be a social media post away.”