CNBC Daily Open: A ceasefire, but no Strait talk

Hello, this is Leonie Kidd writing to you from London. Welcome to another edition of CNBC's Daily Open.

A historic 10-day ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon removes another major obstacle to a broader peace agreement for the Middle East.

It leaves one main point of contention — the Strait of Hormuz.

The positive sentiment has held up during this week's trade, with major markets holding near record highs.

The leaders of Israel and Lebanon agreed to a 10-day ceasefire after officials from the two countries met in Washington, President Donald Trump said Thursday.

The temporary truce started at 5 p.m. ET on Thursday, Trump said in a Truth Social post.

In a follow-up, Trump added that he will be inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Joseph Aoun of Lebanon to the White House "for the first meaningful talks between Israel and Lebanon since 1983, a very long time ago."

"Both sides want to see PEACE, and I believe that will happen, quickly!" Trump wrote.

Speaking to CNBC in Washington D.C., Israel's central bank governor, Amir Yaron, said markets were taking the latest peace developments positively, despite lingering geopolitical uncertainties.

There is also optimism around progress with Tehran, as Trump said that "the war in Iran is going along swimmingly."

"It should be ending pretty soon," Trump said at an event in Las Vegas, echoing similar predictions about the end of the war that he has made since the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran in late February.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials have told some European allies that certain weapon deliveries could be delayed due to the war in Iran. Reuters spoke to a number of sources who indicated the weapons have been bought as part of contracts under the Foreign Military Sales program, but not yet delivered.

Asia-Pacific markets were trading lower Friday, diverging from Wall Street's record-setting rally. Pre-market indicators for Europe and Wall Street were mixed in early Friday trading.

In other news, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is under renewed pressure over his appointment of former U.K. Ambassador to the U.S. Peter Mandelson. This after British media broke the news that Lord Mandelson had failed a vetting process for his appointment. Downing Street has blamed the Foreign Office for the failure, and a top civil servant has reportedly been sacked.

— Leonie Kidd

Retail traders pile into Allbirds after odd AI pivot. History shows it won't end well

Retail traders stampeded into Allbirds after the troubled shoemaker slapped an artificial intelligence label on its business, a set-up that market history suggests rarely ends well once the initial hype fades.

Shares of the company skyrocketed more than 800% at one point on Wednesday after the firm detailed shocking plans to rebrand as NewBird AI and shift toward compute infrastructure. 

"The market is not pricing risk. It is pricing narrative. It is pricing the word 'AI' the same way it once priced the word 'blockchain' and before that the suffix '.com,'" Mark Malek, CIO at Siebert Financial, said in a note.

"This is not analysis. This is pattern-matching on a buzzword by investors who have watched AI-adjacent stocks go parabolic and do not want to miss the next leg. The signal is not subtle."

— Yun Li