Share markets slipped in Asia on Monday as fighting intensified in the Gulf and Iran claimed to have closed the vital Strait of Hormuz, sending oil prices surging and rekindling inflation risks globally.
Brent crude climbed 3.3 per cent in early trade to reach $78.50 a barrel, up from the recent trough of $70.14, while US crude added 3.4 per cent to $73.83 a barrel. US officials said around 20 vessels had been escorted through the strait in the previous 24 hours, though ship tracking sites showed little traffic moving.
Over the weekend, Tehran extended strikes on Qatar and the United Arab Emirates while the US launched further strikes on Iran, the latest in a cycle of attacks and counter-attacks over shipping through the strait.
US president Donald Trump said on Sunday that the Strait of Hormuz is open to commercial traffic, although Iran declared earlier that it closed the strait after a vessel traveled on an unapproved route and was struck.
Six vessels transited the strait on Sunday, shiptracking data from Kpler showed, the lowest number in five weeks.
The escalating attacks cast further doubt on the future of an interim US-Iranian agreement signed last month that aimed to reopen the strait and end the war after a further 60 days of negotiations.
Following the agreement, global oil supply rose by 4.1 million barrels per day in June, but remained 9.4 million bpd below pre-war levels, the International Energy Agency said in its monthly report on Friday.
South Korea’s red-hot market eased 0.4 per cent, and will be in focus having shed almost 8 per cent last week as leveraged bets on semiconductor shares came under pressure. The market has recently become something of a bellwether for the chip sector globally and further losses could ripple out more broadly.
In commodity markets, the rise in yields weighed on non-interest bearing gold which slipped 1.1 per cent to $4,076 an ounce.
The dollar gained with bond yields as investors nudged up the chance of a hike in interest rates from the Federal Reserve, just a day before Chair Kevin Warsh is due to face Congress for the first time in his new role.
Inflation figures for June on Tuesday could show some cooling in the headline rate of 4.2 per cent as petrol prices decline, though some of that will reverse now that oil is rising anew.
Equity investors will be hoping the earnings season proves as upbeat as forecast with the major banks kicking off from Tuesday, while Netflix and General Electric are also on the docket.
“Tech continues to screen highly in our models, supported by stand out earnings growth/momentum and attractive valuations,” wrote analysts at Citi in a note.”While AI volatility may remain elevated over the coming quarter, we maintain our Overweight stance on global IT and the US,” they added.
“We pair these growth exposures with over weights in cyclical regions/sectors, including Japan, financials and materials.”
Early action saw S&P 500 futures ease 0.3 per cent, while Nasdaq futures lost 0.5 per cent. Japan’s Nikkei fell 1.0 per cent, having shed 1.7 per cent last week, while MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.2 per cent.
South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix’s US-listed shares jumped almost 14 per cent in their Nasdaq debut on Friday. News that Apple had sued OpenAI and two former employees for trade secrets theft emerged after markets closed. The spike in oil pushed 10-year Treasury yields up 2 basis points to 4.59 per cent, while Fed fund futures slipped 2 ticks, implying 34 basis points of policy tightening by the end of the year.
That in turn kept the dollar index firm at 101.12. The euro eased a fraction to $1.1403 as Europe is far more reliant on foreign oil than the US. The dollar added 0.1 per cent on the yen to 161.96, regaining some of the ground lost on Friday when Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama floated an idea to encourage the $1.8 trillion Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) and other retirement vehicles to bring some of their money home.
“The GPIF currently allocates 50/50 between domestic and offshore and a move back even to the pre-pandemic norm closer to 60/40 would come with a large JPY buying flow,” said Taylor Nugent, a senior economist at NAB.
“It is worth noting though that while allocations can theoretically be reviewed any time, they tend to be slow moving, and the FY26 investment plan is already in place.”
