TACO to the rescue

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It was a TACO Tuesday for the ages.

President Donald Trump announced a two-week ceasefire deal less than two hours before his deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz or risk more serious attacks.

On Tuesday morning, Trump sent the markets tumbling when he said Iran needed to open the strait by 8 p.m. E.T. "A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again," he wrote on Truth Social.

Investors were initially spooked by a potential escalation of the war, but the market climbed its way back as speculation grew that it could be another case of TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out).

That bet proved right … for now. Brent crude fell as much as 16% and WTI dropped as much as 19%, pushing both below $100 per barrel, while futures on all three major US stock indexes surged higher.

Trump said Iran's 10-point proposal was a "workable basis on which to negotiate," but there's no guarantee things won't fall apart again over the next few weeks.

Experts across finance, business, foreign policy, and politics are reacting to the news. Here's what they're saying.

Meanwhile, one research firm looking for answers took matters into its own hands.

Citrini Research said it sent an analyst to the Strait of Hormuz to conduct boots-on-the-ground reporting. BI's Theron Mohamed recapped highlights from the report.

Citrini, which went viral earlier this year with its AI doomsday hypothetical, greenlit the trip to gain clarity on what's happening along one of the world's most important transportation routes.

"It was clear that nobody — literally nobody, not the analysts, not the correspondents, not the retired generals doing hits on cable news and least of all us — actually had any idea what was going on," Citrini wrote in a Substack post detailing the trip.

The firm sent "Analyst #3" — what they dubbed him, "to avoid emotional attachment" — to the strait to see what he could uncover.

The biggest revelation? It's not shut; it's controlled. (The second biggest revelation? Wall Street's new love affair with Analyst #3.)

The strait was neither fully blocked nor completely closed. Instead, the analyst wrote that Iran was operating the passageway almost like a toll road. Locals said vessels were being told to line up to secure approval to travel through the strait.

Traffic was still down considerably. The analyst counted 15 ships crossing the strait on April 2 compared to the 100-plus that typically crossed the strait before the war.

A trickle may have kept oil flowing, just not enough to ease nerves. The International Energy Agency chief said the crisis was worse than three previous energy shocks … combined.