Hello, this is Anniek Bao writing to you from Singapore. Welcome to another edition of CNBC’s Daily Open.

Investors in Europe have a full plate today, with a stacked earnings docket stretching from Tokyo to Frankfurt. Meanwhile, diplomacy is inching forward over the Strait of Hormuz, and a Federal Reserve policymaker is warming to future rate hikes.

Markets appeared to be glass-half-full. The Dow closed at a record high, oil is sliding as the war premium drains away, even as Jamie Dimon warned that margin debt across financial markets has never been higher.

It’s another Super Thursday for results.

In Tokyo, SoftBank Group posted a profit beat, boosted by its stakes in Intel and TikTok-owner ByteDance. The report card also offers investors a first read on how Masayoshi Son’s AI bets weathered the tech turbulence.

In Germany, the defense industry takes center stage, with German arms maker Rheinmetall lowering its sales forecast for the year, and Renk’s reporting sustained order momentum.

Rounding out the docket, Commerzbank said its net profit jumped 94% in the second quarter, beating estimates, while Siemens reported its highest-ever quarterly industrial profit and new orders growth.

Iran says the U.S. is ready to “return to commitments,” while denying negotiations were ongoing with Washington, after President Donald Trump signaled a deal was in the making.

Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi made the comments to state broadcaster IRNA on Wednesday, likely referring to the June 17 memorandum of understanding under which Tehran was to allow commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz free of charge for 60 days, in exchange for Washington lifting its naval blockade of Iranian ships.

Trump earlier this week accused Iran’s leaders of being “duplicitous” about peace talks, saying negotiations were underway “whether Iran wants to admit it or not.”

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose early Thursday, after the blue-chip index closed at a record high and a fifth straight winning day. S&P 500 futures climbed 0.15%, while Nasdaq 100 futures were 0.19% lower.

Oil prices slipped on Thursday as investors assessed progress in the Iran-Oman talks, with the prospect of Hormuz reopening gradually eroding the war premium that dominated in July.

Fed Governor Lisa Cook said Wednesday that inflation is still too high and she is “prepared to act” on an interest rate hike.

Cook voted with the majority to hold last week — but her patience, evidently, has a shelf life.

“Inflation is too high, and I consider the risks to the inflation side of the dual mandate higher than the risks to the employment side at this point,” she said in a speech in Anchorage, Alaska. Markets see the central bank potentially acting as soon as September, per…

President Donald Trump on Thursday canceled an upcoming round of U.S. military strikes against Iran, claiming that talks with the Islamic Republic “have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved.”

“Discussions and final points have been, in both concept and great detail, approved by all parties involved,” including Israel and nine other regional powers, Trump wrote on Truth Social just hours after vowing to hit Iran “very hard” on Thursday evening.

But Trump — who has claimed for months that a peace deal with Iran is close at hand, only for none to emerge — indicated in his latest post that the purported agreement has yet to be made official.

The U.S. Naval blockade of Iranian ports in the Gulf of Oman will “remain in full force and effect until this Transaction is finalized,” Trump wrote.

Stock indexes nevertheless soared, and oil prices sank, right after Trump’s announcement.

On Thursday morning, Trump warned on social media that the U.S. would attack Iran “VERY HARD TONIGHT,” and would soon take control of Iran’s oil infrastructure assets, including Kharg Island.

This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.

A meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to take place on Thursday with “land deals” over Ukraine on the table, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff told CNBC.

“[There’s been] lots of progress in the last six to eight weeks,” Witkoff said, noting that he and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner would be meeting Ukrainian officials Wednesday evening before meeting top Russian officials.

“And then we’ll be seeing the Russians, Jared and I, sometime on Thursday evening,” Witkoff told CNBC’s Sara Eisen at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Putin would be present at the meeting, Witkoff said, noting that the Kremlin had requested the talks.

Witkoff said discussions over a U.S.-led 20-point peace plan making progress.

“We’re bringing everyone closer …hopefully we’ll have something good to announce soon,” he said.

“[Regarding] our 20-point peace plan, we’re massaging it and harmonizing it, and I think we’re down to land deals now — that’s been the 800 lb elephant in the room — and I think we have some very, very good ideas around that, and hopefully we’ll be able to make some progress there,” he said.

Asked if he believed Putin would come to a deal to end the almost four-year war in Ukraine, Witkoff said: “I do.”

“I just sense that everybody wants a peace there, that it’s time.”

Multiple attempts to get Russia and Ukraine to agree on a ceasefire have failed, but pressure from the U.S. and Trump’s impatience with the ongoing conflict — which has seen hundreds of thousands of soldier and civilian deaths — has helped to bring both sides to the negotiating table.

Entrenched obstacles to a peace deal were Russia’s demands that Ukraine hand over its eastern Donbas region, and Ukraine’s demands for security guarantees from Western partners to deter Russia from invading Ukraine again in the future.

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Disney and James Cameron’s third Avatar movie, “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” hit theaters Thursday, snapping up $12 million in early preview screenings domestically.

The second installment in the film series, “The Way of Water,” had a better start and tallied $5 million more in its Thursday preview haul in 2022. Still, box office analysts expect “Fire and Ash” will bring in at least $100 million during its opening weekend in the U.S. and Canada.

“A lot is riding on the performance of ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ and with less than two weeks remaining in the year, the film’s results will play a pivotal role in shaping the annual box office totals,” Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at Comscore, told CNBC.

Fueling global ticket sales will be international markets, which collected $43.1 million in preview screenings.

“The circumstances surrounding each Avatar film have been quite different,” said Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder of Box Office Theory. “The first was a sleeper-turned-phenomenon during a pre-streaming box office heyday, the second a beneficiary of pent-up sequel demand and eventized-status in moviegoing’s post-Covid recovery, and the third is now opening in a more competitive and new-normal market.”

The Avatar franchise is a unicorn in Hollywood. Despite garnering widespread acclaim and massive financial success at the box office, the franchise has never quite captured the cultural relevance that Star Wars or the Marvel Cinematic Universe — both also owned by Disney — have enjoyed. Toy sales fizzled and cosplayers donning heavy blue makeup at pop culture fan conventions have become few and far between.

Yet, both 2009’s “Avatar” and 2022’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” have topped $2 billion at the global box office, with the first film teetering close to $3 billion in total ticket receipts.

“The constant is the James Cameron factor,” Robbins said. “Audiences expect grand visuals, sound and storytelling when they buy tickets to his movies. They consistently meet or exceed expectations with long runways at the box office and exclusive theatrical windows because they deliver an experience that cannot be duplicated at home.”

Driving these strong hauls is the sale of premium large format tickets for screens like IMAX and Dolby, as well as 3D showings, which tend to be more expensive than regular tickets. 

While 3D films have fallen out of favor with domestic audiences, they remain popular internationally — especially in China. Indeed, “Avatar” made the bulk of its money outside of the U.S., with a whopping $2.08 billion coming from overseas.

Dergarabedian said the franchise has consistently benefited from moviegoers’ enthusiasm for seeing the films in 3D.

“The original ‘Avatar,’ released in 2009, was a groundbreaking film that reignited widespread interest in 3D cinema, setting the stage for subsequent entries to capitalize on this trend,” he added.

The…

It’s not a bird or a plane that soared into cinemas Thursday night — it was Warner Bros.’ “Superman.”

The first film in the new era of DC films under James Gunn and Peter Safran snared $22.5 million from preview showings.

It’s the third-best Thursday performance for a superhero flick under the DC banner ever, just behind “The Dark Knight Rises,” which secured $30.6 million in 2012, and “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice,” which tallied $27.7 million on its first Thursday in 2016, according to data from Comscore.

It’s also the best preview numbers for a Superman film ever. “Superman: Man of Steel” secured just $9 million in Thursday night preview tickets in 2013.

“‘With great power comes great responsibility’ may be the mantra of Spider-Man, but Peter Safran and James Gunn have a similar charge and therefore the stakes are incredibly high for the new ‘Superman’ movie to deliver superhero style box office numbers over what will be a highly scrutinized summer movie weekend,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.

“Superman” is expected to tally between $130 million and $140 million at the box office during its full three-day opening weekend. “Man of Steel” generated $116 million during its opening weekend more than a decade ago.

That range is also on par with the 2022 release of Matt Reeves’ “The Batman,” which took in $134 million. Only three DC films have performed better during their first three days in theaters — “Batman v. Superman” opened to $166 million, “The Dark Knight Rises” captured $160 million and “The Dark Knight” brought in $158.4 million.

“Premium screens will undoubtedly be a major draw for James Gunn’s hopeful superhero spectacle, and if families turn out to introduce today’s younger generation of kids to Superman, we’ll be looking up to box office staying power through the rest of summer,” said Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder of Box Office Theory.

That would be a good sign for the new era of DC under Gunn and Safran.

The pair took over as co-heads of Warner Bros. Discovery’s DC Comics film and TV unit in late 2022. Since taking the reins for DC Studios they have developed a 10-year plan to reinvigorate its franchises across TV and film, including fresh spins on Superman and Batman.

Both executives have experience with the superhero genre and have brought heroes from Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC Universe to the big and small screens, including “Guardians of the Galaxy,” “The Suicide Squad” and “Peacemaker.”

While several television projects have already debuted on WBD’s streaming service HBO Max, “Superman” is the first theatrical project to come to fruition from Gunn and Safran.

Critics seem on board with the reboot, as the film currently holds an 83% “Fresh” rating…