The main events by the morning: April 17

• The Swiss People's Party opposed the country's joining the REPO group, which is engaged in the search and freezing of Russian assets. It is worth noting that this is the largest political force in Switzerland, which continues to defend its neutral position. 

• The markets believe in oil at $250 against the background of mutual shelling of Israel and Iran. It was at this execution price that traders bought options for 3 million barrels. Moreover, the options are for June, which means that the markets are confident of tripling the cost of oil in just 2 months. 

• In case of confiscation of frozen assets of the Russian Federation, Ukraine will not receive everything at once. According to Reuters, the most likely way to use these assets would be to provide them as collateral for future loans to Ukraine. They can also be used as collateral for the country's future bond loans. In this case, only interest income will be used.

• In 2023, the trade turnover between Russia and Japan decreased by 42.15%. According to the Japanese Ministry of Finance, the total volume of exports from Japan to Russia decreased by 35%. However, there is one area where trade continues to grow, this is the LNG sector. Japan increased imports of liquefied natural gas from Russia by 35.7%, and the share of Russian supplies increased to $10.4 billion.

• The United States will impose new sanctions against Iran in the coming days. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that in response to the attack against Israel, the United States intends to impose sanctions against several Iranian companies and government programs. In particular, these are missile and unmanned programs, as well as structures supporting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.