In the wake of Israel's incursion into Iranian territory, a move exacerbating extant anxieties surrounding Tehran's burgeoning nuclear ambitions and precipitating a vertiginous spike in crude futures – with both WTI and Brent benchmarks registering substantial gains – Asian markets commenced Friday trading in a decidedly bearish posture, exemplified by declines across key indices including the Nikkei 225, Kospi, Hang Seng, Shanghai Composite, and S&P/ASX 200; however, despite the palpable systemic risk inherent in the geopolitical conflagration, Xu Tianchen of the Economist Intelligence Unit posits a relatively swift recuperation for Asian equities, predicated on their circumscribed exposure to the immediate theatre of conflict and burgeoning economic symbiosis with regions hitherto insulated from the crisis, such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, while on Wall Street, Thursday witnessed a countervailing bullish trend, buoyed by sanguine inflation data that spurred a decline in Treasury yields, thereby fueling speculation regarding a potential volte-face in Federal Reserve monetary policy later in the year, though the spectre of resurgent inflationary pressures stemming from the potential reinstatement of Trump-era tariffs, coupled with the persistent Damoclean threat of recession, continues to exert a palpable chilling effect on investor sentiment.