By Alun John<\/p>\n
LONDON, March 1 (Reuters) – The safe-haven Swiss franc and Japanese yen firmed, while the euro slid as trading resumed after a weekend that saw the United \u200cStates and Israel launch their most ambitious attacks on Iran in decades, killing Supreme \u200cLeader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.<\/p>\n
The euro dropped 0.34% to $1.1776 compared with around $1.18 in late New York trade on Friday. It also \u200bfell 0.5% on the Swiss franc to 0.9039, its lowest since 2015.<\/p>\n
The dollar slipped 0.26% to 155.65 yen and was last down 0.3% against the Swiss franc. But the greenback strengthened on sterling and the Australian dollar.<\/p>\n
U.S. and Israeli strikes — and Iranian retaliation — have sent shockwaves across the Middle East, and through \u200csectors from shipping to air travel \u2060to oil on warnings of rising energy costs and disruption to business in the Gulf, a strategic waterway and global trade hub.<\/p>\n
How energy markets react \u2060will be a major driver of how stocks, bonds and currencies trade in response to developments in Iran.<\/p>\n
Analysts expect oil to open sharply higher on Monday — traders say it is already up around 10% in over \u200bthe \u200bcounter markets. Safe haven gold is also likely to \u200bjump, and stocks to fall.<\/p>\n
Most Gulf equities \u200cfell on Sunday and Boursa Kuwait suspended trading after Iranian retaliatory attacks across nearby U.S. targets in Gulf cities fanned fears of prolonged regional instability. [.MIDEAST]<\/p>\n
INVESTORS ARE SCENARIO PLANNING<\/p>\n
FX markets were among the first asset class to begin trading following weekend developments, as investors scrambled to work out what comes next.<\/p>\n
“We see two scenarios: first, contained disruptions to global energy markets, with limited implications for the world \u200ceconomy. Second, a more protracted, broader conflict leading to \u200ban oil shock,” said Lombard Odier chief economist Samy Chaar.<\/p>\n
“We \u200bbelieve that the first case is playing \u200bout right now,” he said, but, in the second scenario, “commodities, bond yields, currencies, \u200coil-sensitive equity sectors, inflation expectations, monetary policy \u200bpaths \u2013 and in case \u200bof a protracted closure (of the Strait of Hormuz), economic growth \u2013 would all be affected.”<\/p>\n
Brent crude oil traded 8%-10% higher at around $80 per barrel over the counter on Sunday, traders said. \u200bIt jumped on Friday to $73, its \u200chighest since July.<\/p>\n
Iran is a major energy producer and lies opposite the oil-rich Arabian \u200bPeninsula across the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of global oil supply \u200bpasses.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Alun John; Editing by Dhara Ranasinghe)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Alun John LONDON, March 1 (Reuters) – The safe-haven Swiss franc and Japanese yen firmed, while the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[8490,796,3188,14966,41,470,17,13898],"class_list":{"0":"post-23471","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-switzerland","8":"tag-ayatollah-ali-khamenei","9":"tag-energy-markets","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-japanese-yen","12":"tag-swiss","13":"tag-swiss-franc","14":"tag-switzerland","15":"tag-weekend"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}