\n<\/p>\n
Oil prices dropped sharply after Iran\u2019s retaliatory missile strike on a US airbase reduced concern that the country was poised to strain energy markets by closing off a vital trade route.<\/p>\n
Crude oil prices sank by 7% on Monday, with West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures dropping to $68.51, as the Iranian action on the Al Udeid base in Qatar raised hopes that the conflict would not immediately disrupt oil supplies from the region.<\/p>\n
No casualties were reported after the strike, which the US defense department described as \u201clargely symbolic\u201d after the US bombed three nuclear sites in Iran on Saturday.<\/p>\n
While the Iranian parliament voted to close the strait of Hormuz \u2013 through which more than a fifth of the world\u2019s oil supply, 20m barrels, and much of its liquefied gas passes each day \u2013 it has so far remained open.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is somewhat the lesser of the two evils,\u201d said Kpler analyst Matt Smith. \u201cIt seems unlikely that they\u2019re going to try and close the strait of Hormuz.\u201d<\/p>\n
John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital, said: \u201cOil flows, for now, aren\u2019t the primary target, and are likely not to be impacted. I think it\u2019s going to be military retaliation on US, bases and\/or trying to hit more of the Israeli civilian targets.\u201d<\/p>\n
US stocks also rose slightly, with the benchmark S&P 500 up 0.6% and the Dow Jones industrial average up 0.5% in New York, on a broadly muted day of trading in the global equity markets.<\/p>\n
Other leading indices struggled for direction. The FTSE 100 closed down 0.2% in London. The Nikkei 225 finished down just 0.1% in Tokyo.<\/p>\n
Investors have become \u201cjaded to geopolitical risks and greater uncertainty after the events throughout this year so far\u201d, John Canavan, lead analyst at Oxford Economics, observed earlier on Monday.<\/p>\n
Reuters contributed reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Oil prices dropped sharply after Iran\u2019s retaliatory missile strike on a US airbase reduced concern that the country was poised to strain energy markets by closing off a vital trade route. Crude oil prices sank by 7% on Monday, with West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures dropping to $68.51, as the Iranian action on the Al<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[1837,1205,481,1836,306,268,269,1838,1835,1349],"class_list":{"0":"post-9510","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-airbase","9":"tag-disruption","10":"tag-fears","11":"tag-iranian","12":"tag-market","13":"tag-oil","14":"tag-prices","15":"tag-reduces","16":"tag-sink","17":"tag-strike"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}