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[Bloomberg]( Trump hits Iran with sanctions, Turkey's lira plunges, and Manafort's former right-hand man spills the beans. Cash, cars and nuts The U.S. [imposed new sanctions]( on Iran at midnight after President Donald Trump signed an executive order which will stop the purchase of dollar banknotes, while also targeting the country’s auto industry and banning the import of Persian rugs and pistachio nuts into America. The move drew fresh condemnation from the European Union which is standing by the 2015 nuclear accord. President Hassan Rouhani said Iran is [still open to talks]( with the Trump administration, but added that such talks would be meaningless while sanctions are in place. Iran’s central bank yesterday scrapped most currency controls introduced to halt the plunge in the rial, which has weakened to [100,000 to the dollar]( on the black market this month. Turkish bath The Turkish lira sank to a [new record low](, slumping as much as 6.3 percent to 5.3837 against the dollar overnight, before paring those losses this morning. While the recent selloff has been driven by increasing tensions with the U.S. over Turkey’s continued detention of a pastor, the currency’s 28 percent fall this year is mostly down to largest current account deficit in emerging markets. The central bank responded to the plunge by [modifying its rules]( to help commercial lenders free up their foreign exchange reserves, a move generally dismissed by analysts as being too small to support the economy. ManafortGate Paul Manafort’s former right-hand man, Rick Gates, testified that wealthy Ukrainian businessmen used offshore accounts and shell companies to pay his boss millions for [political consulting work](. Gates said he worked to help Manafort conceal millions of dollars in income from the Internal Revenue Service, an action which largely predated Manafort’s stint as Donald Trump’s campaign chairman in 2016. Simmering tensions between prosecutors and the trial judge erupted into [outright confrontation]( in the courtroom late yesterday, with  U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III summoning Justice Department lawyer Greg Andres to the bench after the jury had been excused. Markets rise Overnight, the MSCI Asia Pacific Index added 0.9 percent while Japan’s Topix index closed 0.8 percent higher. China’s Shanghai Composite Index posted its biggest one-day gain in two years to close [2.7 percent higher](. In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index had gained 0.5 percent by 5:50 a.m. Eastern Time with miners among the biggest gainers as commodities climbed. S&P 500 futures pointed to a [higher open](, the 10-year Treasury yield was at 2.947 percent and gold rose. Oil surge (in yuan) A barrel of West Texas Intermediate for September delivery [was at $69.44](, as the commodity continued to trade in a tight range. Futures traded in Shanghai surged by their [daily-limit of 5 percent]( to 537.2 yuan a barrel, the highest level since the contract’s debut in late March, on increasing Iran tensions. Bloomberg tanker tracking data shows that Saudi Arabia is sending the most [crude to the U.S.]( since April 2017 as American importers seek to replace supply lost due to the collapse in Venezuela. What we've been reading This is what's caught our eye over the last 24 hours. - Odd Lots: How a [post-Keynesian economist]( sees the markets right now. - Trump said his economy re-do would [help workers](. Will it? - Power worth [less than zero]( spreads as green energy floods the grid. - Baidu’s billionaire CEO declares he can [beat Google again](. - One of Brexit’s biggest financial backers [slams the establishment](. - Japan’s central bank is [roiling markets](. - Measuring the universe is [still hard](. And finally, here’s what Luke's interested in this morning Reports of the death of the “short vol” trade have been greatly exaggerated. The Cboe Volatility Index (the artist also known as the VIX or Wall Street’s “fear gauge”) just closed at its lowest levels since January 26 — the date of the last all-time high for the S&P 500 Index. While earnings season may have seemed pretty tumultuous at times for some stocks (Facebook, we’re looking at you), it did the same thing it typically does for U.S. equities as a whole. That is, realized correlations at the index level were crushed to lows not seen since November, something that tends to dampen [realized volatility](, and in turn, the VIX. 2018’s markets are very strongly resembling 2017 again. It’s pretty astounding that despite the largest one-day jump in the VIX on record this February — which supposedly heralded the dawn of a new volatility regime — a pair long-vol ETPs (TVIX and UVXY) are not only in the red for the year, but also at record lows as they swim against the current of a strong [contango.]( If there’s cause for caution, it’s that the market this year hasn't developed the habit of looking like 2017 for too long. In March, the VIX’s first foray below 15 (a level that loosely defined the ceiling of the index last year) was met with a swift selloff. Same goes for when the realized one-month swings in the S&P 500 Index sank to levels nearly this low about six weeks ago. Like Bloomberg's Five Things? [Subscribe for unlimited access]( to trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and gain expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. 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