Caroline Hepker

U.S.

President Donald Trump says negotiations are going well.

But the president's optimism is being challenged by continued fighting in Lebanon that threatens to derail talks.

Tehran indicated that it wouldn't relent on using leverage over Hormuz if Israel continues fighting in Lebanon.

Now, let's talk about the French and German governments, which have agreed to hold equal shares in the defence firm KNDS as it prepares to IPO.

That's according to a statement released by both countries yesterday.

In a separate announcement, Friedrich Merz's government said that it is seeking a 40% stake in the firm, subject to the approval of Parliament.

The news comes after Germany reached an agreement over the weekend with KNDS's family owners to take a stake in a deal valuing the business between 15 and 18 billion euros.

Now, the listing is set to be one of Europe's biggest in recent years.

France holds 50% of KNDS and has been planning to sell shares in the IPO in order to cut its stake to about 40%.

Okay, so those are our top stories for you today.

Now, looking at the market, stocks slumping.

We've got this tech sell-off that continues.

The KOSPI is down by almost 7% this morning, so a really big tumble there.

MSCI Asia-Pacific Index is down by 2.3% this after the SpaceX and Alphabet weakness that we saw in the session in the US yesterday.

NASDAQ futures this morning are also very weak.

They're down by 1.4%.

We're down nine-tenths of 1% for the US stocks today.

50 futures.

Oil is muted this morning.