New York, March 31 : A broker for US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth explored a multimillion-dollar investment in defence stocks just weeks before a US-Israel strike on Iran.

The broker at Morgan Stanley approached BlackRock in February about allocating funds into a defence-focused ETF tied to contractors like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Such companies typically benefit from rising military spending amid geopolitical tensions and military activity, Xinhua news agency reported quoting the Financial Times.

The investment did not go through due to Morgan Stanley's platform availability constraints, but the timing is raising scrutiny given Hegseth's prominent role in shaping US policy toward Iran.

The Pentagon said the report was incorrect and demanded a retraction.

"This allegation is entirely false and fabricated," Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said on social media. "This is yet another baseless, dishonest smear designed to mislead the public."

The report came amid a wider scrutiny of trades made in financial and prediction markets ahead of US President Donald Trump's major policy decisions, local media reported.

Meanwhile, President Trump has told aides that he's willing to end the US-Israeli war with Iran even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday night, citing Trump administration officials.

Trump and his aides recently assessed that a mission to pry open the crucial global energy waterway would push the war with Iran beyond his timeline of four to six weeks, said the report.

As a result, Trump decided that the United States should focus on achieving its primary objectives of crippling Iran's navy and missile stockpiles while simultaneously pressuring Tehran diplomatically to restore the free flow of trade through the strait, and, if these efforts fail, the White House would press European and Gulf allies to take the lead in reopening it, according to the officials.

/IANS