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U.S. stock futures dipped late Sunday while oil prices rose, but didn\u2019t spike, as investors kept their cool after a weekend packed with new fighting in the Persian Gulf.<\/p>\n
Futures tied to the Dow Jones industrial average fell 100 points, or 0.19%. S&P 500 futures were down 0.27%, and Nasdaq futures lost 0.48%.<\/p>\n
U.S. oil futures rose 3.2% to $73.70 a barrel, while Brent crude also climbed 3.2% to $78.45. Gold dropped 0.7% to $4,085 per ounce.<\/p>\n
Bob McNally, founder and president of Rapidan Energy, told CNN that crude oil markets have been \u201cblowing off this geopolitical risk for years\u201d and described Sunday\u2019s rise in prices as \u201cpretty tame.\u201d<\/p>\n
Traders are confident that the worst of the Hormuz conflict is over and see the beginnings of a recovery in ship crossings as well as oil production around the Gulf, he explained, adding that the stock market hasn\u2019t cared about Iran since April.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo there\u2019s a lot of complacency, a lot of confidence, built into the market right now about oil,\u201d McNally, a former White House energy adviser, said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Sunday evening, U.S. Central Command announced yet another set of strikes on Iran, aimed at \u201cdegrading their ability to attack civilian mariners and commercial ships freely transiting the Strait of Hormuz.\u201d<\/p>\n
It marked the fifth round of attacks in the past week and the third over the last 24 hours, signaling that the operational tempo is quickening.<\/p>\n
The latest wave came after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeted a commercial ship, prompting U.S. forces to intercept an Iranian missile and drone.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Sunday, the U.S. conducted a \u201cfew strikes\u201d on Iranian missile and air-defense systems as well as small boats around the strait.<\/p>\n
Before then, U.S. forces had already hit 300 targets over three prior rounds, with Saturday alone seeing 140 targets bombed, including missile and drone sites, naval capabilities, ammunition storage facilities, communication networks, and coastal surveillance locations, Central Command said.<\/p>\n
For its part, Iran has paired its attacks on commercial ships with salvos against its Gulf Arab neighbors, including Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and Oman. <\/p>\n
Iran has argued that the memorandum of understanding signed with the U.S. last month gives it authority to regulate ship traffic and has attacked ships that are not using a regime-backed corridor that runs along the Iranian coast.<\/p>\n
But the U.S. has demanded that freedom of navigation in Hormuz must be fully restored and established an alternate corridor that hugs Oman\u2019s coast. Since early May, U.S. forces have helped more than 800 commercial vessels and 400 million barrels of crude oil transit the strait.<\/p>\n
The standoff has fueled\u00a0increasingly violent skirmishes\u00a0as Iran seeks to preserve its main source of leverage, namely the ability to effectively shut down Hormuz traffic.<\/p>\n
For Sal Mercogliano, a Campbell University professor who specializes in military and maritime history, the recent combat was an ominous sign, as he called the ceasefire a \u201cfacade.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it\u2019s been a facade for quite a while,\u201d he\u00a0said on a YouTube post\u00a0on Sunday. \u201cAnd one of the things I fear is that we\u2019re finding ourselves in this undeclared naval war. And an undeclared naval war can escalate.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
#Rising #tempo #combat #battle #Hormuz #tests #markets #confidence #worst #Iran<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U.S. stock futures dipped late Sunday while oil prices rose, but didn\u2019t spike, as investors kept their cool after a weekend packed with new fighting in the Persian Gulf. Futures… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8684,13277,6727,640,445,166,808,280,165,10441,3615,4115],"class_list":["post-11886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-battle","tag-combat","tag-confidence","tag-hormuz","tag-iran","tag-markets","tag-military","tag-oil","tag-rising","tag-tempo","tag-tests","tag-worst"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}