Oil Jumps About 4 Percent and Asian Equities Sell Off as US-Iran Strikes Resume

Global markets opened the week lower after the United States and Iran exchanged a fresh round of strikes over the weekend, reviving concern about supply through the Strait of Hormuz. Euronews reported that oil prices climbed and most Asian shares fell after the American airstrikes and Iran's retaliation. Web searches place Brent crude up about 4 percent to near 79 dollars a barrel, reversing the decline that followed last month's truce.

The decline in equity markets was steep and concentrated in Asia. The Israeli financial outlet Globes reported that South Korea's KOSPI index lost roughly 6.9 percent and that the memory-chip maker SK Hynix fell about 11 percent, with United States stock futures pointing to declines of up to 1.1 percent before the New York open. In Mumbai, the Economic Times reported that the Sensex fell about 700 points and the Nifty tested the 24,000 level, with rising crude prices and Middle East tension named as the leading drivers.

The pattern is the one an energy shock typically produces. A higher oil price transfers income to producers and raises input costs for import-dependent manufacturers, which weighs most heavily on export-heavy, energy-poor economies such as South Korea, Japan and India. Prices across gold, oil, equities and bonds are now moving more closely together, a sign that a single geopolitical variable, the security of Hormuz shipping, is setting the direction for many separate markets at once.

From a sound-money view, the episode is a reminder that the risk premium markets gave up during the June de-escalation was not eliminated, only postponed. Central banks face the same difficult combination that recurred through the past two years. An inflationary supply shock is arriving while growth softens, which narrows the room to cut rates even as equity valuations fall.