British stocks edged lower Thursday as investors assessed conflicting signals over the Strait of Hormuz and the broader U.S.-Iran standoff against a cautious European trading backdrop. The FTSE 100 was down 0.25% at 03:25 ET (07:25 GMT), while Germany's DAX fell 0.45% and France's CAC 40 slipped 0.02%. GBP/USD rose 0.05% to 1.3613. Axios reported that Washington had quietly operated a shipping corridor through the Strait of Hormuz for several weeks, moving roughly 10 million barrels of oil a day, or about half pre-conflict volume, in nightly convoys along the Omani coast supported by U.S. air cover after a two-week campaign that degraded Iranian radar. U.S. President Donald Trump announced what he called the "most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country" against Tehran and warned countries supporting Iran's financial institutions, banks, airports or shipping registries of "tremendous economic consequences," dubbing the campaign "economic d-day." Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called the policy "economic terrorism" and a diversion from U.S. economic problems, including "unprecedented debt & surging interest costs." Markets also responded to a U.S. Treasury plan to at least double long-end buyback operations to a minimum of $4 billion per operation, while oil prices rose and Treasury yields declined. UK companies Hays and JD Sports issued negative updates on dividends, market exits and profit expectations.