Is The Iran-US Deal Actually Done?! with Andreas Steno | Macro Mondays

Andreas Steno describes a US-Iran memorandum of understanding covering the next 60 days that includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz to shipping transit and allowing Iran to sell oil globally without sanctions during that period. He characterizes it as more or less a done deal, with a signing ceremony planned for later in the week in Switzerland, and says the key difference from previous announcements is that all parties have agreed this time. The enriched uranium question remains unresolved, with Lindsey Graham calling on JD Vance and his negotiation team to consult Congress on that specific issue. An Israeli attack on Lebanon on Sunday is interpreted by Steno as an attempt to derail the signing ceremony.

On oil market mechanics during the crisis, roughly 20 million barrels per day typically left the region before the disruption. China reduced imports by approximately 5.5 million barrels per day since the latter parts of March, and the US launched Operation Freedom in the first week of May, moving roughly 3 million barrels per day out of the Persian Gulf, with more than 125 million barrels having left the Strait since that operation began. Approximately 11.5 million barrels per day of disrupted flows were replaced through alternative measures in total. Steno notes both Iran and the US had incentives to conceal oil flows during the crisis, since admitting to them would undermine each side's claimed leverage, and Iran was able to move oil along the coastline to India and Pakistan because the US blockade could not operate in territorial waters.

Steno estimates the oil market has been in a mild surplus of between one and a half and two million barrels per day since early April when including China's import drawdown, which he says explains falling oil prices despite contrary views from energy pundits. He predicts oil prices should fall below 70 dollars per barrel by end of month. Iranian oil production capacity is close to 4 million barrels per day at maximum, and lifting sanctions could add approximately 0.75 million barrels per day above pre-war levels to global supply, though sanctions relief is only confirmed for the 60-day window. The UAE left the OPEC plus group during the war, and Steno characterizes OPEC as effectively a Saudi Arabia plus group, with Saudi Arabia largely alone in influencing supply and price dynamics. He predicts a race to the bottom in oil prices as producers have incentive to increase supply when prices are on a slippery slope, and notes China has not yet begun filling storage, taking its typical trading-oriented approach of waiting for a bottom to form.

The ECB hiked interest rates approximately 24 hours before a resolution was found in the Strait of Hormuz, which Steno calls hilarious timing. The ECB projects total eurozone growth of 0.8 percent for 2026 despite a negative first quarter, which Steno says requires roughly three quarters of approximately 0.5 percent quarterly growth. He takes the under on both ECB growth and inflation projections and argues central banks will have to abandon inflation alarmism given falling energy prices and the Strait resolution.

Steno says the US administration told Anthropic to curb access to its Claude model for users outside the US after Amazon developers exposed that the model's guardrails were not functioning as intended. He frames this as reducing the right-hand tail of Anthropic's addressable market while also removing significant left-tail financing risk, and argues AI models from Anthropic and OpenAI have become too big to fail given the sovereign-level race toward AGI, predicting the public sector will likely get involved in financing either company if push comes to shove. Both Anthropic and OpenAI are looking at IPOs in October, and marginal AI activity has likely shifted toward cheaper models ahead of those IPOs. Steno is not tempted to participate in either IPO and prefers hardware companies delivering to AI spenders, including memory, power, and semiconductors.

SpaceX completed what Steno describes as the biggest IPO of all time on Friday, raising approximately 75 billion dollars, with shares rising 15 to 20 percent on IPO day and trading near 175 at the time of recording. SpaceX will be included in the NASDAQ index, bringing passive inflows, and Steno expects melt-up price action through end of month while remaining uncertain about direction from July 1 onward. Combined IPO proceeds from SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI will far exceed 100 billion dollars, and total IPO proceeds for the current year will likely reach around 300 billion dollars, representing roughly 4 percent of total market cap compared to over 10 percent at the dot-com peak. Steno characterizes the current IPO season as extreme but not a record in relative terms and says the dynamics look more like the year before the final year of a cycle, suggesting it can get pricier. South Korean exports for the first 10 days of the month showed almost 90 percent year-over-year growth, and Steno believes there are hay days ahead in semiconductors with the liquidity situation looking decent until August.