Oil and gold prices have jumped after US officials said an Israeli missile had struck Iran.<\/p>\n
Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose by 1.8% to $88 a barrel while gold briefly came close to a record high before falling back to nearly $2,400 an ounce.<\/p>\n
Investors have been closely watching Israel\u2019s reaction to Iran\u2019s direct drone and missile attack last weekend.<\/p>\n
There are concerns a worsening conflict in the Middle East could disrupt oil supplies.<\/p>\n
Oil prices had jumped by as much as 3.5% initially. However, gains receded after Iranian state media claimed that there was \u201cno damage\u201d in Isfahan province where there had been reports of explosions.<\/p>\n
Sharp and sustained rises in oil prices risk fuelling inflation. Countries are heavily reliant on the commodity, which is used to produce fuels such as petrol and diesel.<\/p>\n
Fuel and energy prices have been a major driver behind the higher cost of living worldwide in the past couple of years.<\/p>\n
Randeep Somel, fund manager at M&G Investment Management, told the BBC\u2019s Today programme: \u201cThe concern for markets would mainly be the inflationary one, that this would actually add to inflation.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the pace of inflation has been slowing, in the UK it is still above the Bank of England\u2019s 2% target and some economists have forecast that a cut to interest rates may not happen until summer or later on in the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the UK, the inflation rates is still around 3.2% \u2013 still someway off the target \u2013 and it is becoming a bit of a concern for policy makers,\u201d said Mr Somel.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is good to see that this hasn\u2019t escalated any further and that hopefully the disruption to markets is short-lived.\u201d<\/p>\n
The gold price often rises at times of uncertainty as it is seen as a safe investment.<\/p>\n
The heightened tension in the Middle East has led to concerns about whether shipping through the Strait of Hormuz between Oman and Iran will be affected.<\/p>\n
It is a crucial shipping route, as about 20% of the world\u2019s total oil supply passes through it.<\/p>\n
Members of the oil producers\u2019 cartel Opec \u2013 Saudi Arabia, Iran, the UAE, Kuwait and Iraq \u2013 send most of the oil they export through the strait.<\/p>\n
Iran is the seventh largest oil producer in the world, according to the US Energy Information Administration, and the third-largest member of Opec.<\/p>\n
The initial spike in oil prices was \u201ca knee-jerk reaction to fears of a renewed escalation of warfare between Israel and Iran,\u201d said energy market expert Vandana Hari of Vanda Insights.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the latest events underscore is the heightened fragility and volatility in the Mid East situation,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Stock markets in Asia fell on worries over the situation in the region. Japan\u2019s Nikkei 225 index fell 2.7%, while Hong Kong\u2019s Hang Seng dropped 1.2%. The Kospi in South Korea fell by about 1.7%.<\/p>\n
The post Oil, gold prices rise as US says Israel has struck Iran<\/a> first appeared on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Oil and gold prices have jumped after US officials said an Israeli missile had struck Iran. Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose by 1.8% to $88 a barrel while gold briefly came close to a record high before falling back to nearly $2,400 an ounce. Investors have been closely watching Israel\u2019s reaction to Iran\u2019s direct […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28990\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}