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BBC \u2014 Oil and gold prices have eased after Iranian authorities appeared to downplay reports of an attack from Israel.<\/p>\nBBC \u2014 Oil and gold prices have eased after Iranian authorities appeared to downplay reports of an attack from Israel.<\/p>\n
Brent crude, the international benchmark,\u00a0<\/b>fell after jumping briefly\u00a0<\/b>to over $90 a barrel after reports emerged of an attack.<\/p>\n
Gold briefly came close to a record high before settling below $2,400 an ounce.<\/p>\n
There are concerns a worsening conflict in the Middle East could disrupt oil supplies.<\/p>\n
Investors have been closely watching Israel\u2019s reaction to Iran’s direct drone and missile attack last weekend.<\/p>\n
Oil prices had jumped by as much as 3.5% initially. But Brent then fell back to roughly $87 a barrel after Iranian state media claimed that there was “no damage” in Isfahan province where there had been reports of explosions.<\/p>\n
Sharp and sustained rises in oil prices risk fuelling inflation. Countries are heavily reliant on the commodity, which is used to produce fuels such as petrol and diesel.<\/p>\n
Fuel and energy prices have been a major driver behind the higher cost of living worldwide in the past couple of years.<\/p>\n
Randeep Somel, fund manager at M&G Investment Management, told the BBC’s Today programme: “The concern for markets would mainly be the inflationary one, that this would actually add to inflation.”<\/p>\n
While the pace of inflation has been slowing, in the UK it is still above the Bank of England’s 2% target and some economists have forecast that a cut to interest rates may not happen until summer or later on in the year.<\/p>\n
“In the UK, the inflation rates is still around 3.2% – still someway off the target \u2013 and it is becoming a bit of a concern for policy makers,” said Mr Somel.<\/p>\n
“It is good to see that this hasn\u2019t escalated any further and that hopefully the disruption to markets is short-lived.\u201d<\/p>\n
The price of Brent is far below the heights reached after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 when a number of major economies imposed sanctions on the oil-producing nation.<\/p>\n
Oil hit $125 a barrel in the weeks that followed, leading to a sustained period of higher household energy bills.<\/p>\n
The gold price often rises at times of uncertainty as it is seen as a safe investment.<\/p>\n
The heightened tension in the Middle East has led to concerns about whether shipping through the Strait of Hormuz between Oman and Iran will be affected.<\/p>\n
It is a crucial shipping route, as about 20% of the world’s total oil supply passes through it.<\/p>\n
Members of the oil producers’ cartel Opec – Saudi Arabia, Iran, the UAE, Kuwait and Iraq – send most of the oil they export through the strait.<\/p>\n
Iran is the seventh largest oil producer in the world, according to the US Energy Information Administration, and the third-largest member of Opec.<\/p>\n
The initial spike in oil prices was “a knee-jerk reaction to fears of a renewed escalation of warfare between Israel and Iran,” said energy market expert Vandana Hari of Vanda Insights.<\/p>\n
“What the latest events underscore is the heightened fragility and volatility in the Mid East situation,” she added.<\/p>\n
Stock markets were mixed as investors reacted to the latest events.<\/p>\n
In the US, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was roughly 0.5% higher in mid-day trade, while the S&P 500 fell 0.5% and the Nasdaq was down 1.3%.<\/p>\n
In the UK, the FTSE 100 share index closed 0.2% higher while the FTSE 250 ended down 0.3%.<\/p>\n
In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell 2.7%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 0.9%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BBC \u2014 Oil and gold prices have eased after Iranian authorities appeared to downplay reports of an attack from Israel. Brent crude, the international benchmark,\u00a0fell after jumping briefly\u00a0to over $90 a barrel after reports emerged of an attack. Gold briefly came close to a record high before settling below $2,400 an ounce. There are concerns […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":117926,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recposts"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117925"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117928,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117925\/revisions\/117928"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}