BarcelonaOil prices remain above $100 a barrel in the wake of the Iran-Iraq War. Brent crude, the European benchmark, although it experienced a drop of around 1% on Monday, remains well above the $72 mark it held before the US and Israeli attack on Iran. Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude, the US benchmark, followed the same trend, falling by around 2.60% to $94.30 a barrel. In fact, Brent reached a high of $106 on Monday. The rise came after US President Donald Trump warned on Sunday that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) would face a "very bad future" if allies did not cooperate to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway for international oil trade. Despite these statements, the price of crude oil has turned downward, stabilizing around $102 a barrel. The price increase occurred even though the International Energy Agency (IEA) decided last week to release 400 million barrels from strategic reserves, the largest release in its history, to help reduce tensions in oil prices. Trump also lifted the embargo on Russian oil for a month, despite opposition from the European Union, to ease crude oil prices.
In this context, in the United States, the Dow Jones and Nasdaq indexes opened higher on Monday, rising 1% and 1.45%, respectively. Meanwhile, major Asian stock markets showed mixed performance on Monday. Japan's Nikkei closed down 0.1%, while South Korea's Kospi climbed 1.1%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index rose 1.5%, while the Shanghai Stock Exchange fell by approximately 0.3%.
European stock markets were flat
In Europe, the Spanish stock market's Ibex 35 closed the first session of the week with a slight gain of 0.18%, maintaining the psychological threshold of 17,100 points at 17,089.40. Among the top performers on the main Spanish index were Merlin Properties (3.80%), which received an improved valuation from Morgan Stanley. Infrastructure companies such as ACS (2.42%) and Sacyr (1.07%) also saw gains. Repsol, the Ibex's star performer this year, closed Monday's session up 1.39%. Meanwhile, Amadeus (1.57%) was among the few stocks that closed in the red.
The rest of the European stock markets started the week in positive territory, although with modest gains: Milan closed up 0.07%, Frankfurt 0.51%, Paris 0.31%, and London 0.55%.
Debt contracts in an important week
In a week filled with meetings between central banks, the yield demanded on the 10-year US Treasury bond is below 4.25%. In Europe, the bund German bond yield falls to 2.95% and the Spanish 10-year bond yield returns to 3.45%.
As for the currency market, the euro is approaching the $1.15 level. Meanwhile, precious gold is losing ground against the strengthening dollar and is now trading below $5,000 an ounce.