Market Brief, North America

Oil prices are tumbling and currency markets are snapping back toward pre-war levels after President Donald Trump said that Washington and Tehran had held “very good and productive conversations” over the preceding two days, and that he had ordered the Pentagon to postpone planned strikes on Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for five days. The announcement, which came just hours before his own 48-hour ultimatum to Iran was set to expire, has led to a circa-15-percent drop in the global Brent crude benchmark, with similar moves playing out in West Texas Intermediate, along with European gas futures. Since US...

Financial markets are turning cautiously optimistic this morning as oil prices stabilise and investors position for a raft of central bank decisions. Several tankers registered to non-aligned countries crossed the Strait of Hormuz overnight, even as Iran continued its attacks on Israel and its Gulf neighbours, while Donald Trump said the US could end the war in the “very near future”*. West Texas Intermediate is trading below $95 a barrel, Brent at $103, equity futures are pointing to a second consecutive daily advance, Treasury yields are slipping, and the dollar is edging lower against a basket of its major counterparts....

Good morning. The dollar is recovering from yesterday’s losses as crude prices ricochet higher following a series of Iranian strikes on energy infrastructure in the Persian Gulf and near the Strait of Hormuz. Brent and West Texas Intermediate are each up more than 3 percent on the session after a tanker was struck by a projectile in the Gulf of Oman, and drone attacks hit the United Arab Emirates’ Fujairah facilities and the Shah gas field. Crude markets remain remarkably volatile as downstream energy consumers scramble to secure supplies amid continued uncertainty over the scale and duration of the conflict....