{"id":8234,"date":"2025-06-23T14:46:08","date_gmt":"2025-06-23T14:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/8234\/"},"modified":"2025-06-23T14:46:08","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T14:46:08","slug":"oil-prices-flip-flop-us-stocks-drift-as-amid-wait-for-irans-reaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/8234\/","title":{"rendered":"Oil prices flip-flop, US stocks drift as amid wait for Iran’s reaction"},"content":{"rendered":"

By STAN CHOE, ELAINE KURTENBACH and BERNARD CONDON, AP Business Writers<\/strong><\/p>\n

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 The United States\u2019\u00a0bunker-busting entry<\/a>\u00a0into\u00a0Israel\u2019s war with Iran<\/a>\u00a0is not upsetting the price of oil and stock markets on Monday, at least for now. The hope is that Iran won\u2019t retaliate in a way that disrupts the global flow of crude, which would hurt economies worldwide but also its own.<\/p>\n

The S&P 500 was 0.4% higher in morning trading, coming off a week where stock prices had\u00a0jumped up<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0down<\/a>\u00a0on worries about the conflict potentially escalating. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 156 points, or 0.4%, as of 10 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% higher.<\/p>\n

The price of oil did jump more than 4% shortly after trading began on Sunday night, but it quickly pared back as the focus shifted from what the U.S. military did to how Iran would react.<\/p>\n

By Monday morning, the price of a benchmark barrel of U.S. oil was down 0.4% at $73.56. Brent crude, the international standard, edged down by 0.2% to $76.82 per barrel. They still remain above where they were before the fighting began a little more than a week ago, when a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude was close to $68.<\/p>\n

The fear throughout has been that a worsening war could squeeze the world\u2019s supply of oil, which would pump up prices for it, gasoline and other products refined from crude. Not only is Iran a major producer of crude, it could also try to block access to the Strait of Hormuz off its coast, through which much of the world\u2019s oil passes each day on ships.<\/p>\n

The calming in the oil market came as several analysts said Iran would likely not close the waterway. Iran uses the strait to move its own crude, mostly to China, and it needs the revenue made from such sales of oil.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a scorched earth possibility, a Sherman-burning-Atlanta move,\u201d said Tom Kloza, chief market analyst at Turner Mason & Co. \u201cIt\u2019s not probable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neil Newman, managing director of Atris Advisory Japan, said hope remains that the Israel-Iran war could be a short conflict, with the thinking being \u201cthe one big hit by the Americans will be effective and then we\u2019ll get back to sort of business as usual, in which case there is no need for an immediate, panicky type of reaction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking to Fox News on Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said a disruption to traffic through the strait by Iran would be \u201ceconomic suicide\u201d and would elicit a U.S. response.<\/p>\n

When asked about that at a routine briefing in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told reporters that \u201cChina is willing to strengthen communication with Iran and relevant parties to continue playing a constructive role in promoting de-escalation\u201d of the conflict.<\/p>\n

Of course, not everyone is sure about Iran\u2019s next move.<\/p>\n

Andy Lipow, a Houston analyst covering oil markets for 45 years, said countries are not always rational actors and that he wouldn\u2019t be surprised if Tehran lashed out for political or emotional reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the Strait of Hormuz was completely shut down, oil prices would rise to $120 to $130 a barrel,\u201d said Lipow, predicting that that would translate to about $4.50 a gallon at the pump and hurt consumers in other ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would mean higher prices for all those goods transported by truck, and it would be more difficult for the Fed to lower interest rates.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Federal Reserve has been\u00a0hesitant to lower interest rates<\/a>, and it\u2019s been on hold this year after cutting at the end of last year, because it\u2019s waiting to see how much\u00a0President Donald Trump\u2019s tariffs<\/a>\u00a0will hurt the economy and raise inflation.<\/p>\n

Inflation<\/a>\u00a0has remained\u00a0relatively tame<\/a>\u00a0recently, and it\u2019s near the Fed\u2019s target of 2%, but a continued rise in oil and gasoline prices would put upward pressure on inflation. That in turn could keep the Fed on hold because cuts to rates can fan inflation higher, along with giving the economy a boost.<\/p>\n

A preliminary report on Monday suggested tariffs are pushing up prices for U.S. businesses, whose overall activity is growing by more than economists expected. The data from the survey \u201ccorroborate speculation that the Fed will remain on hold for some time,\u201d according to Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence.<\/p>\n

In the bond market, Treasury yields eased as hopes continue that the Fed may cut interest rates later this year.<\/p>\n

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.32% from 4.38% late Friday. The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for the Fed, fell to 3.86% from 3.90%.<\/p>\n

On Wall Street, Elon Musk\u2019s Tesla was the single strongest force pushing the S&P 500 higher after rising 6.7%. The electric-vehicle company on Sunday began a test run of a small squad of self-driving cabs in Austin, Texas, something that\u00a0Musk has long been touting<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In stock markets abroad, indexes fell modestly across Europe after finishing mixed in Asia. France\u2019s CAC 40 fell 0.9%, and Hong Kong\u2019s Hang Seng rose 0.7% for two of the world\u2019s bigger moves.<\/p>\n

Kurtenbach contributed from Bangkok. AP video journalist Mayuko Ono in Tokyo contributed.<\/p>\n

Originally Published: June 23, 2025 at 9:32 AM EDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By STAN CHOE, ELAINE KURTENBACH and BERNARD CONDON, AP Business Writers NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 The United States\u2019\u00a0bunker-busting…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,439,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,9504,2969,3642],"class_list":{"0":"post-8234","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-financial-markets","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkcity","14":"tag-ny","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-us-stocks","22":"tag-usa","23":"tag-wall-street"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114733225329098156","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}