Wall Street knows something about Trump and Iran: Both sides are running out of time

After a dramatic Easter weekend for the war in Iran—downed American fighter jets, a daring rescue behind enemy lines, and strikes on universities and petrochemical plants—traders hesitated at Monday’s opening bell. 

Both the S&P and prices of crude were little changed at the open, and both ticked slightly up in the first hours of morning trading. The market, it seems, is twiddling its thumbs while waiting for the clock to run out. It even looks like a three-way standoff between Trump, the Iranians, and the markets as each waits for the other to blink.

Late Sunday evening, Axios reported that mediators from Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey were making a last-ditch effort to broker a deal. A senior White House official told NBC News that a 45-day ceasefire was “one of many things being discussed,” but that President Trump had not signed off on the idea. Yet by Monday morning, Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei called a proposal for a short-term ceasefire “illogical” and unacceptable, saying that agreeing to such terms without guarantees that they won’t be struck again is something “no rational person would do.”It is unclear if Baghaei was referring exactly to that 45-day ceasefire plan.........

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