At the open, China’s main futures were mixed. Shanghai crude (SC) fell about 4%; rapeseed meal slipped over 2%; lithium carbonate dropped nearly 2%. Fuel oil, coking coal, container-shipping Europe route, LPG and coke declined more than 1%. Pulp rose nearly 3%; methanol gained over 2%; asphalt was up about 2%; ethylene glycol (EG), alumina, propylene, synthetic rubber and silicomanganese advanced over 1%.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent said the Netherlands is repatriating gold held in North America, including Ottawa and New York, as a matter of national preference rather than a blanket rejection of U.S. assets.

Pentagon investigators found that intelligence gaps, outdated imagery and excessive reliance on AI contributed to the Feb. 28 strike on a primary school in Minab, Iran, that killed many children. The site had been labeled a military facility years earlier, but commercial satellite images as early as 2018 showed it had been repurposed — including colorful walls and a soccer field; U.S. analysts recorded those changes in 2019 in a system not linked to the main military intelligence database. Investigators also found parts of U.S. Central Command over-relied on Palantir’s Maven battlefield-intelligence platform and expected it to flag outdated or inconsistent foundational intelligence on potential targets.