The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition that stocks ended mixed on Tuesday amid signs of progress in negotiations as the minutes ticked down to President Donald Trump's deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz. A Reuters dispatch to The Globe says that in the last hour of trading, the major North American stock indexes recovered from steep losses earlier in the session after Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on X that diplomatic efforts for peaceful settlement of the war were progressing steadily. Mr. Sharif urged Mr. Trump to extend his Iran deadline for two weeks and requested that Iran open the strait for the same time frame as a goodwill gesture. The S&P 500, Nasdaq and S&P/TSX Composite Index closed slightly higher for their fifth straight session of gains. "Investors are calibrating as they try to read into the President's messaging and predict the degree [to which] he will follow through with some of his rhetoric in terms of the ultimatum," said Matthew Keator, a managing partner in the Keator Group, a wealth management firm in Lenox, Mass. Chicago Fed president Austan Goolsbee said Tuesday he was worried that the war would drive inflation higher while dampening the economy.