Oil prices spike after Israel strikes Iran: Why it may worry Trump
Oil prices (CL=F, BZ=F) jumped after Israel attacked Iranian nuclear sites and military leaders. The increase in prices could pose a problem for President Donald Trump, who has been touting things like lower gas prices. Yahoo Finance Senior Washington Reporter Ben Werschkul explains in the video above.
To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Catalysts here.
Oil prices are spiking the most in three years, following Israel's attack on Iran. Bloomberg Economics projecting that oil prices could reach as high as $130 per barrel. This could further escalation. This escalation, it could risk President Donald Trump's promise to lower energy prices. That's the big question. Joining me now on this. We've got Yahoo Finance Washington correspondent Ben Werschkul. Ben, what is the potential risk that it could hit on his promise to lower prices, lower gas that was campaigned upon and we have seen it play out in some of the inflationary prints, but this a major headwind now.
For sure, for sure. Yeah, good morning, Brad. So, so this energy has obviously always been a touchy issue for Trump, and we saw evidence of this yesterday even before these attacks. He was he was at a White House event and was expressed unhappiness with with energy price increases even before last night. He even joked that he was going to call his energy secretary and scream about it. So he's this is a clearly a top of mind issue and what we saw is the energy prices spike overnight as a result of this. This comes in spite of the fact that these attacks, um, were were targeted nuclear facilities, but it just the energy, the fossil fuel side of this is is increasingly and concerned. Um, and I think part of the reason this has a lot of salience for the White House is this overall inflation question. If oil prices spike, the overall inflation goes up. It is the underpinning of a lot of Trump's economic agenda, the argument for it, tariffs first and foremost. You know, we had an inflation print earlier this week that was lower, pulled down by, um, uh, uh, the month over month decrease in the energy index and a 12% decrease in gasoline over the last year. And that's Trump's case for tariffs is that tariffs aren't aren't spiking inflation. We're not, that's not happening, and so that's why tariffs are great. And this comes right in the middle of his negotiations over what's what's being called liberation 2. day 2.0, where they're going to talk about additional tariffs. It's also an additional complication for Trump and his increasingly combustible relationship with Jerome Powell. He was talking about Powell again yesterday, called him a numbskull for not lowering rates, and he said, um, Powell should lower rates because inflation's under control. Obviously, if inflation gets less under control, driven by oil changes, it kind of it kind of upends his policy on a bunch of different fronts.
All right. Ben, thanks so much for continuing to track this, breaking this down for us. Appreciate it.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
18 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Despite the downward trend in earnings at Bellway (LON:BWY) the stock swells 12%, bringing three-year gains to 58%
By buying an index fund, investors can approximate the average market return. But if you pick the right individual stocks, you could make more than that. Just take a look at Bellway p.l.c. (LON:BWY), which is up 38%, over three years, soundly beating the market return of 14% (not including dividends). However, more recent returns haven't been as impressive as that, with the stock returning just 16% in the last year, including dividends. After a strong gain in the past week, it's worth seeing if longer term returns have been driven by improving fundamentals. Trump has pledged to "unleash" American oil and gas and these 15 US stocks have developments that are poised to benefit. While the efficient markets hypothesis continues to be taught by some, it has been proven that markets are over-reactive dynamic systems, and investors are not always rational. By comparing earnings per share (EPS) and share price changes over time, we can get a feel for how investor attitudes to a company have morphed over time. During the three years of share price growth, Bellway actually saw its earnings per share (EPS) drop 28% per year. This means it's unlikely the market is judging the company based on earnings growth. Therefore, we think it's worth considering other metrics as well. The revenue drop of 12% is as underwhelming as some politicians. The only thing that's clear is there is low correlation between Bellway's share price and its historic fundamental data. Further research may be required! You can see how earnings and revenue have changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values). Bellway is a well known stock, with plenty of analyst coverage, suggesting some visibility into future growth. If you are thinking of buying or selling Bellway stock, you should check out this free report showing analyst consensus estimates for future profits. As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). The TSR is a return calculation that accounts for the value of cash dividends (assuming that any dividend received was reinvested) and the calculated value of any discounted capital raisings and spin-offs. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. In the case of Bellway, it has a TSR of 58% for the last 3 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. This is largely a result of its dividend payments! We're pleased to report that Bellway shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 16% over one year. And that does include the dividend. That's better than the annualised return of 6% over half a decade, implying that the company is doing better recently. Given the share price momentum remains strong, it might be worth taking a closer look at the stock, lest you miss an opportunity. Most investors take the time to check the data on insider transactions. You can click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling. If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of companies that have proven they can grow earnings. Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on British exchanges. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
A Very Different Anniversary Celebration
The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. As tanks roll through Washington today to mark the U.S. Army's 250th birthday—and the 79th birthday of President Donald Trump—Europe is commemorating a different anniversary, not with combat vehicles but with a passenger liner moored near a riverbank. Dignitaries from across Europe are gathering in Schengen, a riparian village in Luxembourg, to celebrate the creation of an international agreement to abolish controls at their countries' common borders. The agreement, signed on June 14, 1985, turned the little-known village into a landmark of European integration; today, Schengen is synonymous with the experiment the agreement spawned—an area of borderless travel that has grown to encompass 29 nations and more than 450 million people. The anniversary celebration in Schengen features artifacts of the treaty-making process, including the MS Princesse Marie-Astrid, the refurbished cruise ship where diplomats from the five original signatory states—France, West Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands—convened on the Moselle River to dismantle border controls. Their aims were practical: The Schengen Agreement was intended to make life more convenient for people—to send a message to workers and vacationers to 'pass, pass, pass,' as one of the signers told me during research for my book about Schengen. 'In principle, you can pass; and we presume that you're honest.' [Read: What Europe fears] But the agreement took on greater symbolic meaning. Schengen embodied the values of liberal internationalism that were ascendant at the so-called end of history, fulfilling the promise of a community of nations where people, goods, capital, and information all would circulate freely. If the Abrams tank is the key symbol of American military might on display today in Washington, the passenger ship anchored in Schengen showcases a very different vision of the international order, one premised on mobility, connection, and cross-border exchange—on the right 'to travel, to migrate, to circulate, to receive and be received,' as one Senegalese migrant in Paris put it in the years after Schengen's founding. Of course, both visions are legacies of the defeat of fascism and the end of the Cold War: a strong United States that vanquished enemies of freedom, a peaceful Europe where erstwhile adversaries worked to eradicate borders that once stood as battle lines. For a time, these visions coexisted. Now they seem to be coming apart. That's all too clear in the contempt that senior members of the Trump administration have expressed for longtime allies; the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, called Europe 'PATHETIC' in a private chat on the Signal messaging app. It's also clear in the administration's escalating crackdown on immigration, and in the deployment of Marines in response to protests in Los Angeles. The vision of free movement animating Schengen is not one shared by Stephen Miller, to say the least. But Schengen is a peculiar creation, in a way befitting our disorienting times. As I explore in my book, the agreement hardly envisioned unrestricted mobility. Instead, it paired the free movement of European citizens with the exclusion of unwanted outsiders, termed 'undesirable' and ranked according to the level of risk they posed to Europe. The agreement assigned participating nations new responsibilities to police the Schengen Area's borders. And it gave them the authority to reintroduce internal controls in the event of a serious threat to 'public policy' or national security. [T. H. Breen: Trump's un-American parade] Nations have done so repeatedly over the past decade, since Europe was jolted by the arrival of an estimated 1.3 million asylum seekers in 2015. A series of deadly terrorist attacks added to the impetus to crack down. Unrelenting emergencies over the past five years—the coronavirus pandemic, Russia's war in Ukraine, and spasms of violence in the Middle East—have put still more pressure on European states to step up border checks. Recently, Germany vowed to maintain controls at all nine of its land borders, citing 'high levels of irregular migration and migrant smuggling,' as well as the country's strained asylum system and the 'global security situation.' The Netherlands closed its borders in part because of the 'pressure on public services' from an influx of migrants and asylum seekers. Multiple Nordic countries, meanwhile, point to the threat of Russian sabotage, among other destabilizing cross-border activities, to justify renewed border checks. Yet 40 years on, the Schengen Agreement is so interwoven into the fabric of European life that nations no longer have the resources or logistical capabilities necessary to seal their borders. There are border checks, at least in some places, but moves to reintroduce controls on a large scale have been mostly symbolic. And for all the opposition to mass migration, which has fueled far-right politics on both sides of the Atlantic, the free movement of people and goods remains one of the European Union's most popular policies. Perhaps that reflects Schengen's origins as an innovation designed to improve everyday life, not a show of force or revolutionary transformation. Or perhaps it reveals that values of peace and pluralism are still deeply held by large parts of Western society. Both, in fact, define the view of Robert Goebbels, who, as Luxembourg's delegate to the negotiations 40 years ago, helped draft the agreement and chose Schengen as the site of the signing ceremony. I wrote to Goebbels, who has since gone on to serve as a government minister and then a member of the European Parliament, on the eve of today's twin anniversary celebrations. Schengen, he told me, is a 'peace project,' binding nations once engaged in bloody conflict and 'offering liberties and well-being to 450 million Europeans.' Trump, meanwhile, 'celebrates himself.' Article originally published at The Atlantic
Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Here's where 'No Kings' protests are happening around Indiana today
"No Kings" protests will be happening across Indiana on Saturday, June 14. It's the same day a massive military parade is set to take to the streets of Washington in an elaborate showcase of troops, tanks, weapons and aircraft. The parade, estimated to cost $40 million, coincides with both the U.S. Army's 250th anniversary and President Donald Trump's 79th birthday. In response to the extravagantly costly display, a mobilization of "No Kings" protests have been organized nationwide. Here's what you should know. The protest organizer's website describes "No Kings" as a "nationwide day of defiance" in response to Trump and the military parade, saying, "we're taking action to reject authoritarianism." With an emphasis on nonviolent activism, the website outlines the movement's broad appeal, "from city blocks to small towns," and makes a promise to battle Trump's "ego" in a fight for democracy. "On June 14th, we're showing up everywhere he isn't – to say no thrones, no crowns, no kings," the website reads. Downtown protests: Up to 1,000 protest ICE outside Pacers-Thunder finals game in Indianapolis Story continues after photo gallery. There are over 30 protests planned across the state of Indiana; only a few of them are listed below. Visit the website to find the closest one to you. The times of June 14 protests scheduled in Indiana can be found below. Exact locations and further details can be found after signing up on the "No Kings" website. Indianapolis: Noon-3 p.m. ET Albion: Noon-1 p.m. ET Angola: 10-11 a.m. ET Auburn: 1:30-2:30 p.m. ET Bedford: Noon-2 p.m. ET Bloomington: Noon-3 p.m. ET Brookville: 11 a.m.-2 p.m. ET Columbus: 1-4 p.m. ET Connersville: Noon-3 p.m. ET Corydon: Noon-2 p.m. ET Crown Point: Noon-2 p.m. CT Decatur: 1-2 p.m. ET Evansville: 1-3 p.m. CT Fort Wayne: 2-5 p.m. ET Kentland: Noon-2 p.m. CT Knox: Noon-2 p.m. Kokomo: Noon-1 p.m. ET Lafayette: 10 a.m.-1 p.m. ET Lagrange: 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. ET Liberty: 1-3 p.m. ET Logansport: Noon-1 p.m. ET Madison: 10 a.m.-noon ET Michigan City: Noon-2 p.m. CT Muncie: 10-11:30 a.m. ET Nashville: Noon-2 p.m. ET New Albany: 10 a.m.-3 p.m. ET Richmond: 12:30-2:30 p.m. ET Salem: Noon-2 p.m. ET South Bend: 1-3 p.m. ET Terre Haute: 10 a.m.-noon ET Vincennes: 2-4 p.m. ET Wabash: Noon-2 p.m. ET Warsaw: 2:30-6:30 p.m. ET Kathryn Palmer, Cybele Mayes-Osterman, and Tom Vanden Brook contributed to this article. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Where are No Kings protests in Indiana? Find one near you
