U.S. equity futures pushed to a fresh post-ceasefire high in early Friday trade and Brent crude held below $91 a barrel, as a softer-than-expected April inflation report and an unexpectedly dovish statement from the Bank of England reinforced the view that the worst of the spring energy shock has worked its way through global prices.

S&P 500 e-mini futures were up 0.5 percent at 0730 GMT, implying an opening level near 5,789, which would put the cash index a fraction above the record close it briefly held on March 21, the day before the first Iranian missile salvo on the Negev. Nasdaq 100 futures gained 0.7 percent, lifted again by a strong overnight bid in semiconductor names. Dow futures added 132 points. The dollar index slipped to 101.9, its weakest reading since mid-February, and the yield on the 10-year Treasury note traded at 4.07 percent, down four basis points on the session.

Brent crude for July delivery settled in London on Thursday at $90.84 a barrel, off 1.1 percent on the day and a fresh post-ceasefire low. West Texas Intermediate finished at $86.61. The two benchmarks have now closed lower in five of the past six weeks, a stretch that has stripped roughly 27 percent from the late-March highs and translated, by AAA’s estimate, into a national average pump price of $3.34 a gallon, down 41 cents from the April 2 peak.

“The market is pricing a real and durable ceasefire for the first time,” said Marisol Vega, chief commodities strategist at Hartfield Capital in New York. “When you combine that with the OPEC+ supply that came on in April and a clearly weaker Chinese demand impulse, $90 stops looking like a floor and starts looking like a midpoint.”

The principal trigger for Friday’s tone was Wednesday’s April consumer price index, which came in at 2.6 percent year over year against a 2.8 percent consensus, with the core measure easing to 2.9 percent from 3.1 percent in March. Goods inflation slipped to a 0.4 percent annual pace as gasoline prices retraced their wartime spike, and shelter inflation continued the gentle deceleration that began in the winter. Services excluding shelter, the so-called supercore measure that Federal Reserve officials have flagged as critical, posted its softest monthly gain since November.

Federal Reserve Chair Sarah Lindgren, in a Thursday afternoon address to the Economic Club of Chicago, declined to declare victory but acknowledged that the inflation picture had “evolved in a constructive direction” since the ceasefire. She stopped short of guiding the market toward a specific meeting for a first rate cut but said the Federal Open Market Committee was now “in a position to be patient rather than vigilant,” language Wall Street economists immediately read as a tilt away from the more cautious posture the chair had struck during the war. Fed funds futures now imply a 71 percent probability of a quarter-point cut at the June 17 meeting, up from 60 percent at the start of the week.

The Bank of England added to the dovish tone Thursday with a 7-2 vote to leave its policy rate unchanged at 4.25 percent, alongside a forecast revision that pulled its 2027 inflation projection back to the 2 percent target a full quarter earlier than the February round. Governor Andrew Bailey, in his press conference, said the committee judged the risks around inflation to be “broadly balanced” for the first time in nearly two years. Sterling slipped half a cent against the dollar to $1.272, and U.K. two-year gilt yields fell 11 basis points, their largest one-day move since January.

“Bailey effectively told the market a first cut is coming this summer, and the market has heard him,” said John Reilly, a senior rates strategist at Citi in London. “What is more interesting is that he did it without leaning on growth weakness. He leaned on a credible disinflation story. That is the message U.S. investors are extrapolating to the Fed.”

European equities rallied on the back of the statement. The Stoxx Europe 600 climbed 0.8 percent Thursday to a fresh all-time high, with rate-sensitive sectors leading. London’s FTSE 100 added 0.5 percent despite weakness in BP and Shell on the lower oil price. Germany’s DAX rose 1.1 percent. In Asia, the Nikkei 225 closed Friday up 0.9 percent and the Hang Seng gained 1.3 percent, with mainland Chinese markets reopening from the extended Labour Day break to a muted 0.2 percent gain on the CSI 300.

Earnings season is now in its final stretch and continues to surprise to the upside. With roughly 86 percent of S&P 500 companies having reported, FactSet’s blended first-quarter earnings growth ticked up to 12.1 percent on Friday morning, from 11.4 percent a week earlier and well above the 6.1 percent expectation at the start of April. Revenue growth has held at 5.6 percent. Industrials, communication services and information technology have led the upside, while energy and airlines have continued to lag.

Walt Disney Co. delivered the headline beat earlier in the week, posting better-than-expected streaming margins and reaffirming full-year guidance. Uber Technologies Inc. beat on bookings and raised the lower end of its annual free cash flow target. Marriott International, reporting Thursday, said Gulf-region revenue per available room had recovered to roughly 80 percent of January levels, faster than analysts had expected.

“Guidance is finally catching up to the macro,” said Daniel Okafor, head of U.S. equity research at Brightline Securities. “March quarter results were always going to be noisy because of the war. What you want to see is management teams putting cleaner second-half numbers back on the table, and that is what is happening this week.”

Insurance and shipping markets continued to normalize. The Joint Maritime Information Center reported tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz at 99 percent of January averages on a seven-day rolling basis, the highest reading since the conflict began. London quoted war-risk premiums on Gulf transits fell to 0.27 percent of hull value, a fresh post-war low, and Lloyd’s underwriters said a review of the Persian Gulf’s high-risk designation had been added to the Joint War Committee’s May 22 agenda.

Not every corner of the tape rallied. Defense names extended a soft stretch, with Lockheed Martin off 1.3 percent on Thursday and Northrop Grumman down 1.7 percent after a Bank of America note cut both stocks to neutral, citing what analysts called a “less generous” outlook for supplemental replenishment funding. The S&P 500 Energy sector slipped 0.4 percent, its third decline in four sessions.

Looking ahead, the calendar through May 15 features the April producer price index due Tuesday and retail sales on Thursday, alongside a fresh slate of Federal Reserve speakers including New York Fed President Lisa Argento on Wednesday. OPEC+ ministers were due to hold a virtual review meeting May 18, and Saudi delegates said no decision on a partial rollback of the April 1 production increase would be telegraphed before then.