Oil prices climbed more than 5% while Asian shares also advanced Monday as a standoff between Iran and the U.S. prevented tankers from using the Strait of Hormuz. <\/p>\n
The Persian Gulf waterway was closed again after Iran reversed a decision to reopen the strait and President Donald Trump said a U.S. Navy blockade of Iranian ports remains in effect. <\/p>\n
U.S. benchmark crude gained 5.6% to $87.20 a barrel, while Brent crude, the international standard, was up 5.3% at $95.16 a barrel. <\/p>\n
Despite renewed doubts about how soon ships will again transport the vast amounts oil the world gets from the Middle East, share prices were mostly higher in Asia.<\/p>\n
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 gained 1% to 59,045.45, while South Korea’s Kospi was up 1.1% at 6,260.92. <\/p>\n
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 0.8% to 26,373.71 and the Shanghai Composite index advanced 0.6% to 4,075.08. <\/p>\n
Australia’s S&P\/ASX 200 was nearly unchanged at 8,943.90.<\/p>\n
In Taiwan, the Taiex jumped 1.4%.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem for markets is not the absence of hope; it is the overpricing of it,\u201d Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary. \u201cThe latest move higher in equities has started to feel less like conviction and more like momentum feeding on itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Friday, oil prices had dropped back to where they were in the early days of the Iran war<\/a>, and U.S. stocks raced to a fresh record<\/a> after Iran said the strait was open<\/a> again for commercial tankers carrying crude from the Persian Gulf to customers worldwide. <\/p>\n A freer flow of oil could relieve pressure on prices for gasoline and all kinds of other products <\/a> that get moved by vehicles. It could even ultimately help people pay less on credit-card interest and mortgage bills. <\/p>\n The S&P 500 leaped 1.2% to an all-time high of 7,126.06, closing out a third straight week of big gains, its longest streak since Halloween. <\/p>\n The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 1.8% to 49,447.43. The Nasdaq composite climbed 1.5% to 24,468.48.<\/p>\n The U.S. stock market has jumped more than 12% since hitting a bottom in late March <\/a> on hopes the United States and Iran can avoid a worst-case scenario for the global economy despite their war<\/a>.<\/p>\n The price for a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude had plunged 9.4% after Iran\u2019s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, posted on X that passage for all commercial vessels through the strait \u201cis declared completely open\u201d as a ceasefire appears to be holding in Lebanon. <\/p>\n Brent crude fell 9.1%. <\/p>\n After Araghchi’s announcement, Trump said on his social media network that the U.S. Navy\u2019s blockade of Iranian ports<\/a> remained \u201cin full force\u201d pending a deal on the war, though he also suggested that \u201cshould go very quickly in that most of the points are already negotiated.\u201d <\/p>\n