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Oil sells off as traders calmly look beyond the bombs in the Middle East

Oil sells off as traders calmly look beyond the bombs in the Middle East

Washington Post9 hours ago

NEW YORK — If oil prices are any measure, Iran just flinched.
The price of oil tumbled Monday afternoon in an historical move as traders bet that Iran's decision to bomb a U.S. base in Qatar signals it is not planning to do the one thing that could really hurt America: Shut down the flow of oil by attacking crude shipments.

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World shares rally after Trump announces what appears to be a shaky Israeli-Iran ceasefire
World shares rally after Trump announces what appears to be a shaky Israeli-Iran ceasefire

San Francisco Chronicle​

time34 minutes ago

  • San Francisco Chronicle​

World shares rally after Trump announces what appears to be a shaky Israeli-Iran ceasefire

BANGKOK (AP) — Stocks rallied and oil prices fell on Tuesday after U.S. President Donald Trump announced what appears to be a shaky ceasefire in the Israel-Iran war. A tentative truce proposed by Trump remained uncertain after Israel said Iran had launched missiles into its airspace less than three hours after the ceasefire went into effect. It vowed to retaliate. Still, investors took heart after Trump said Israel and Iran had agreed to a 'complete and total ceasefire' soon after Iran launched limited missile attacks Monday on a U.S. military base in Qatar, retaliating for the American bombing of its nuclear sites over the weekend. The future for the S&P 500 gained 0.8% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.6%. 'The Middle East may still be smoldering, but as far as markets are concerned, the fire alarm has been shut off,' Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary. In early European trading, Germany's DAX leaped 1.8% to 23,679.64, while the CAC 40 in Paris added 1.2% to 7,631.07. Britain's FTSE 100 was up 0.4% at 8,789.91. In Asia, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 rose 1.1% to 38,790.56 and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong gained 2.1% to 24,177.07. The Shanghai Composite index climbed 1.2% to 3,420.57. In South Korea, the Kospi jumped 3% to 3,103.64, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 1% to 8,555.50. Taiwan's Taiex rose 2.1% and India's Sensex was up 0.6%. In Bangkok, the SET surged 2.5%. Oil prices fell further, after tumbling on Monday as fears subsided of an Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for shipping crude. The price of oil initially jumped 6% after trading began Sunday night, a signal of rising worries as investors got their first chance to react to the U.S. bombings. But it quickly shed all those gains, with U.S. benchmark crude falling 7.2%. It dropped further early Tuesday, giving up 2.4% to $66.85 per barrel. It had briefly topped $78. Brent crude, the international standard, shed 2.4% early Tuesday to $68.83. U.S. stocks rallied on Monday despite the United States' bunker-busting entry into its war with Israel. The S&P 500 climbed 1% and the Dow industrials gained 0.9%. The Nasdaq composite index advanced 0.9%. Iran's retaliation for the U.S. attacks appeared not to target the flow of oil. The fear throughout the Israel-Iran war has been that it could squeeze supplies, pumping up prices for crude, gasoline and other products. Back in the U.S., Treasury yields eased after a top Federal Reserve official said she would support cutting rates at the Fed's next meeting, as long as 'inflation pressures remain contained.' The yield on the 10-year Treasury held steady at 4.33% from 4.38% late Friday. The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for the Fed, dropped to 3.83% from 3.90%. The Federal Reserve has been hesitant to cut interest rates this year because it's waiting to see how much higher tariffs imposed by Trump will hurt the U.S. economy and raise inflation. Inflation has remained relatively tame recently, but higher oil and gasoline prices would push it higher. That could keep the Fed on hold because cuts to rates can fan inflation while they also give the economy a boost. On Wall Street, Elon Musk's Tesla was the single strongest force pushing the S&P 500 higher after jumping 8.2%. The electric-vehicle company began a test run on Sunday of a small squad of self-driving cabs in Austin, Texas. It's something that Musk has long been touting and integral to Tesla's stock price being as high as it is.

U.S. Oil Producers Rushed to Hedge… Just in Time
U.S. Oil Producers Rushed to Hedge… Just in Time

Yahoo

time35 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

U.S. Oil Producers Rushed to Hedge… Just in Time

U.S. oil producers flocked to hedge higher prices for their output for the rest of the year and early into 2026 as international crude oil prices surged earlier this month. Early on June 13 local time, Israel attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and military leadership in coordinated strikes that sent oil prices surging amid concerns that an escalating conflict could disrupt oil flows from the Middle East. On the night of June 12 and the following morning, Texas-based Aegis Hedging Solutions – a company with a platform for oil producers' hedging – registered its highest-ever number of hedge trades, Aegis Hedging's president Matt Marshall told Bloomberg. U.S. shale producers, who were under-hedged going into this spring, saw a major opportunity to lock in higher prices for the next few months as WTI crude prices surged out of the high $50s - low $60s per barrel price range and hit the $75 mark last week. Oil prices had lingered into the low $60s for the three months between early April and early June, as the U.S. tariff blitz and the OPEC+ production hikes weighed on market sentiment with fears of of March, a survey by Standard Chartered of 40 independent U.S. oil and gas companies revealed they had little protection, with a 2025 oil hedge ratio of just 21% for their combined 5.03 million barrels per day (bpd) of production and a 2026 hedge ratio of just 4%. To compare, the U.S. shale industry entered 2020 with an oil hedge ratio of 51.7%, which provided significant support when oil prices collapsed during the pandemic. As of the end of 2024, independent North American oil and gas producers had more than 80% of their first-half 2025 oil production unhedged, leaving them exposed as OPEC+ supply hikes and concerns about a global recession weighed on the market, data from Evaluate Energy showed in April. Hedging activity, however, spiked on June 12-13 to a record high on the Aegis Hedging platform as producers rushed to lock in higher prices in the short term amid the geopolitics-driven jump in WTI prices. Such war premium-related spikes in oil prices tend to lift the front of the futures curve more than contracts further out in time, unlike in price jumps related to fundamentals. In the case with the Middle East conflict, the hedging strategy was geared more toward the short term, Aegis Hedging says. 'In this case it was probably a six-month effect,' Aegis Hedging's Marshall told Reuters. 'Producers recognized that this could be a fleeting issue and so they saw a price that was above their budget for the first time in a few months, and instead of doing a structure that would give them a floor which is below market, they opted to be aggressive and lock in,' Marshall added. U.S. oil and gas executives polled in the Dallas Fed Energy Survey in Q1 indicated that their companies need an average $65 per barrel to profitably drill a new well. Oil companies that hedged production probably did so just in time. The tentative ceasefire between Iran and Israel, which was announced by U.S. President Donald Trump as "complete and total," has deflated the geopolitical risk premium and brought WTI oil back to $65 per barrel, roughly the level where it traded at before the Israeli strike on Iran. By Tsvetana Paraskova for More Top Reads From this article on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

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