Oil tops $100
Oil prices climbed above $100 a barrel after the United States moved to blockade Iran, sparking a risk-off reaction in markets. The dollar strengthened and stock futures fell as failed US‑Iran talks and energy‑market stress pushed volatility higher ahead of major bank earnings and producer‑price data. (reuters.com) (livemint.com)
Oil jumped back above $100 a barrel on Monday after the United States military said it would blockade Iranian ports starting at 10 a.m. Eastern time. (cnbc.com) United States crude for May delivery rose more than 7% to $103.66 a barrel, and Brent crude for June gained 7.2% to $102.05 in early trading. United States stock futures fell and the dollar strengthened as investors moved out of riskier assets. (cnbc.com) (usnews.com) The blockade followed weekend talks in Islamabad that ran from Saturday into early Sunday and ended without a deal to stop the war. Reuters reported the meeting was the first direct United States-Iran meeting in more than a decade and the highest-level contact since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. (usnews.com) The immediate market focus is the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow shipping lane between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Reuters said about 20% of global energy supplies move through that route, and tanker traffic had already thinned before Monday’s blockade order. (usnews.com) (cnbc.com) United States Central Command said vessels going to non-Iranian ports would not be stopped, but any ship entering or leaving Iranian ports and coastal areas would be subject to the blockade. President Donald Trump also said the Navy would intercept ships in international waters that had paid Iran a toll to transit the strait. (cnbc.com) (usnews.com) Iran signaled it would treat approaching military vessels as a ceasefire breach, raising the risk that a shipping crackdown could turn into a wider military clash. Dana Stroul, a former senior Pentagon official, told Reuters the mission would be “difficult to execute alone” and likely hard to sustain over time. (usnews.com) The timing lands in the middle of a packed United States market week. Goldman Sachs was set to report first-quarter results before markets opened on Monday, while JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo are scheduled to release earnings on Tuesday, April 14. (cnbc.com) (jpmorganchase.com) (wellsfargo.com) Investors are also waiting for the March Producer Price Index, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics scheduled for Tuesday, April 14, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time. With oil back above $100, traders are bracing for another week in which geopolitics and inflation data hit markets at the same time. (bls.gov)
