Asad Kahloon

According to Bloomberg, Asian equities rallied and oil reversed early gains Monday as diplomatic progress in US-Iran talks in Switzerland buoyed risk sentiment. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose more than 1%, led by technology-heavy markets in Taiwan and South Korea, where a regional tech subgauge surged nearly 3%. LG Electronics jumped over 12% in Seoul after a report that LG Group executives will visit Nvidia headquarters to discuss cooperation in physical AI and robotics.
Brent crude fell 1.5% to below $80 a barrel after earlier climbing more than 2%, while spot gold rose 1% to $4,197.76 an ounce and the 10-year Treasury yield edged up two basis points to 4.48% as cash trading resumed following Friday's US holiday. The dollar index was little changed, while the yen slipped 0.1% to 161.49 per dollar.
Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmail Baghaei said Tehran and Washington had made progress in discussions on oil sales permits and the unfreezing of Iranian assets. Qatar and Pakistan confirmed the first session of high-level talks had concluded, with technical negotiations set to continue through the week. The session had begun on uncertain footing after reports that Iran briefly halted talks following fresh threats by Trump to strike Iran if Hezbollah continued attacks on Israel.
"The market sees the Iran agreement as fragile but not fragile enough to trigger an aggressive repricing of geopolitical risks at this stage," said Dilin Wu, a strategist at Pepperstone Group.