DXY breaking down during Middle East war is about as clear a signal as any that something big has changed.
It still couldn’t save AUD.
Lead boots march on.
The new safe haven.
Metals no bueno.
Miners suck the big one.
EM meh.
Junk loves WWIII.
Yields up with oil, instead down with safe haven.
Stocks poop the bed.
UBS.
Israeli strikes overnight on Iran have shifted the whole forward curve for oil up, with a more extreme move in the front end as markets weigh the risk of disruption to global crude flows. Iran’s production and export infrastructure do not appear to have been damaged, though there are some reports of damage to refineries.
The sense that it’s the early stages of what could be a protracted conflict will add $3-5/b of geopolitical risk premium to oil even without physical disruption to flows in my view. OPEC has 5mb/d of spare capacity, of which 1mb/d incremental was coming back anyway with the planned unwind of production cuts, though the conflict could escalate in a way that limits the potential impact of some of the OPEC spare capacity. It’s hard to know how the situation develops, but I’d expect oil price forecasts to be raised, with positive implications for oil sector EPS.
Trump cannot afford a protracted war or oil spike. His Saudi deal is what is offsetting his tariff inflation.
So, I would expect lots of US pressure on Israel to back off relatively quickly. The Saudis will likely pump as well. The AUD will rebound if so.
Or Trump is an idiot, and it will keep falling.
You decide!
