US EQUITY OPEN: Stocks open with slight gains while oil falls on geopolitical optimism

US EQUITY OPEN: Stocks opened with marginal gains on Friday of between 0.1-0.35%, with the Russell underperforming. Sectors are mixed, with Technology, Industrials and Financials outperforming, while Energy, Communication Services and Consumer Discretionary lag. Macro focus has been on geopolitics after the Iranian Foreign Minister said overnight that Iran presented a proposal to the US through mediators this week to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and restart negotiations towards a final deal, calling on the US to meet certain conditions within seven days. As a result, crude prices are lower amid the renewed geopolitical optimism, while natgas is also lower after Russian gas supplies to Armenia restarted. In FX, the Dollar is lower while the Yen rallies, with USD/JPY falling back below 157.00. US President Trump said Yen weakness is problematic, while Japanese PM Takaichi said the currency is undervalued. Meanwhile, Finance Minister Katayama said she expects excessive Yen selling to be corrected. STOCK SPECIFICS: Costco Wholesale (COST): New member adds Y/Y growth slowed; quarterly results beat expectations Akamai Technologies (AKAM): Signed a seven-year USD 11.6bln cloud services deal with Anthropic People Inc. (PPLI): MGM Resorts is considering a bid for Barry Diller's People Inc. Apple (AAPL): Bernstein sees downside risk to December-quarter earnings as sharply higher memory-chip costs pressure iPhone margins. Corecivic (CXW): Patrick Swindle resigns as Preisdent and CEO. Nike (NKE): Downgraded at BofA. Microsoft (MSFT): Co. revamps copilot with code generation, and agentic AI tools.