Dollar Slips a Fourth Day as Iran Peace-Talk Hopes Knock $10 Off Brent

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said his government has been granted more authority by the country's supreme leader to pursue peace talks, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported. "We are striving to resolve the issue through dialogue and, in this regard, the supreme leader has also granted certain powers to the government," the agency quoted him as saying. Pezeshkian did not specify how far that authority extends or whether it signals a broader change in negotiating strategy. President Donald Trump told reporters that "they want to make a deal, and that it could happen," while Vice President JD Vance said there had been "good conversations with the Iranians" and that he and the president "both feel pretty good about the prospects of potentially coming to a negotiated settlement."

The link to the currency runs through energy prices. A sustained oil shock feeds headline inflation and keeps interest-rate expectations — and therefore the dollar — elevated; if that shock fades, one pillar of support fades with it. MUFG put the point conditionally, saying the case for a stronger dollar "would diminish if the energy price shock started to fade." The same session delivered a second drag from equities, with the continued correction in U.S. AI-related shares weighing on the currency alongside crude, the research said.

A second and likely shorter-lived brake sits on the dollar: the U.S. midterm elections. Final polling from the New York Times and Siena University put Democrats ahead in almost all of the seven battleground states that will decide control of the Senate — Michigan, Texas, Maine, Ohio, Kansas, Alaska and Iowa. MUFG said the outcome could temporarily dampen dollar upside.

Whether the oil leg of the story persists depends on talks both sides describe as unfinished. MUFG called a deal highly uncertain, but said the prior session's price action demonstrated how sharply energy prices could fall on further positive progress — the condition that would most directly erode the dollar's energy-related support. The reverse applies with equal force: if diplomacy stalls, the energy premium underpinning the currency stays in place.