Oil falls as Trump says Iran war will end ‘very soon’

Good morning and welcome back. In today’s newsletter:

Donald Trump says Iran war will end ‘very soon’
Ex-Meta AI scientist Yann LeCun raises more than $1bn for start-up
Poland to build EU’s first anti-drone shield
The electoral battle for France’s cities

We begin in the US, where Donald Trump said the war against Iran would end “very soon” as he sought to calm chaotic trading in the oil market that had sent prices to almost $120 a barrel yesterday.

The latest: Speaking from his Doral resort in Florida, the US president described the war against Iran as a “little excursion” that had succeeded “much faster than we thought”, but declined to specify when it would end.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps hit back at Trump’s comments, saying “the end of the war is in Iran’s hands”.

Market reaction: The US president’s comments prompted a sell-off in energy markets, pulling oil prices back after they soared to their highest in four years yesterday.

Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, slipped 4.3 per cent today to $94.74 a barrel. Follow further developments in our live blog.

The rise of Mojtaba Khamenei: Iran’s new supreme leader has been shaped by life-long ties with the powerful and hardline Revolutionary Guards.
Lebanon offensive: Israel is preparing for an extended campaign against Hizbollah likely to outlast the Iran war, said people briefed on the discussions.
Dispatch from Tehran: Residents sheltering from bombing in their homes have turned to bike couriers for deliveries of food and essentials.
Opinion: Iran is becoming a crucial test case for the American way of war, writes Jacquelyn Schneider, a Hoover fellow at Stanford University.
US waiver: Washington’s move to allow India to buy Russian oil that is already at sea will bring immediate but very limited relief to Indian refiners.

Here’s what else we’re keeping tabs on today:

Economic data: South Africa publishes fourth-quarter GDP figures.
Poland: Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia begin a three-day state visit.
Results: Domino’s Pizza, Lego, Lindt, Oracle, Saudi Aramco and Volkswagen report earnings.

Sign up to an exclusive FT subscriber webinar about the Middle East war. On Wednesday March 11, columnists Kim Ghattas, Edward Luce, Katie Martin and Gideon Rachman will join Alec Russell, foreign editor, to dissect the political, military and diplomatic calculations behind the conflict.

Five more top stories

1. Meta’s former chief AI scientist Yann LeCun has raised more than $1bn for his new start-up in Europe’s largest ever seed funding round. Find out the global group of investors backing Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs.

2. Poland is building what it bills as Europe’s most advanced anti-drone shield following Russia’s airspace violations against Nato members. Warsaw decided to set up the system in response to Moscow launching drones into Polish airspace last September. Read more details.

3. The battle between European and Asian buyers to source liquefied natural gas has intensified as the Iran war chokes off supply, with some gas carriers sailing to Europe changing course to swing towards Asia, an FT analysis of ship monitoring data shows.

4. Exclusive: Goldman Sachs has pitched hedge funds on strategies to short corporate loans as investors look for new tools to bet against the debt of enterprise software companies and other industries threatened by AI. Read the full story.

5. The chair of the Parker Review, a report on ethnic diversity in the top ranks of British companies, has said it will be “natural for white males to have fewer board seats” in the future, due to the UK’s changing social demographics.

The Big Read

From left: the streets of Toulon, Paris and Marseille, three key battlegrounds in this year’s municipal elections — © FT montage/Getty Images

Municipal elections in France this month will set the stage for next year’s presidential showdown. A look at closely fought races in Paris, Marseille and Toulon illustrates the political trends already at play.

We’re also reading . . .

App romance: Hinge is posting growth in a sector dogged by shrinking audiences and online-dating fatigue. Its CEO explains why.
Britain’s safety net: The state does not offer a temporary cushion to support those who were previously in work, writes Sarah O’Connor.
London homebuilding: Berkeley has to contend with higher taxes and heavier regulation, which has brought residential construction in the UK capital to a near halt, writes John Gapper.

Chart of the day

Britain is more exposed than other European economies to the latest movements in energy markets due to greater reliance on natural gas. Households are also in a fragile position as energy bills are still 60 per cent higher than before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.