Published on
Crude prices retreated on Monday as US President Donald Trump confirmed a peace agreement with Iran and both sides announced a lifting of their respective blockades of the Strait of Hormuz.
At the time of writing, the front month contract on US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was down almost 6% from Friday’s close to roughly $80 per barrel, while Brent crude, the international standard, dropped around 5% to about $83 per barrel.
The specific concessions made by each side are still unclear and there are questions surrounding whether the Prime Minister of Israel will respect the withdrawal of troops from southern Lebanon, which, according to the Prime Minister of Pakistan is included in the deal.
Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to publicly address the US-Iran deal, or the issue of Lebanon, and CNN has reported that the Prime Minister of Israel is seeking an urgent meeting with US President Donald Trump after this week’s G7 summit.
Nonetheless, markets are reacting swiftly to the prospect of the Strait of Hormuz slowly reopening and the potential that the Iran war is closer to ending than reigniting.
The freshly announced peace deal is currently expected to be signed on Friday.
European, Asian and US markets
At the open, European markets also rose on the news that there is meaningful progress in ending the Iran war.
Both the Euro Stoxx 50 and the broader pan-European Stoxx 600 traded over 1% higher at the start of Monday’s session.
The UK’s FTSE 100, Germany’s DAX 30, Italy’s FTSE MIB, Spain’s IBEX 35, the Netherlands’ AEX and Switzerland’s CH20, all traded between 0.5% and 1% higher than their Friday close.
France’s CAC 40 led the pack and rose almost 1.5%.
In the US, S&P500 futures traded over 2% higher and the teach-heavy Nasdaq 100 rose more than 3%.
In other trade dealings on Monday, Asia-Pacific markets jumped overnight with South Korea’s Kospi climbing over 5%, recovering from a 4% drop on Friday, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 also traded roughly 3% higher.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.8%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index jumped about 0.5% and Shangai’s SSE climbed over 1.5%.