Oil prices easing on escalating tensions between Israel, Iran
In This Article:
Oil (CL=F, BZ=F) prices slip from two-month highs as Middle East tensions between Israel and Iran rise.
Yahoo Finance senior business reporter Ines Ferré analyzes oil market moves as the US considers pulling embassy personnel from the region over these safety concerns.
To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Morning Brief here.
Oil prices are falling off the two month highs we saw earlier this morning, as investors consider escalating tensions in the Middle East. Here with more. We've got Yahoo Finance senior markets reporter, Anès Ferre. Hey Anès.
Hey Brad, yeah. And those tensions in the Middle East has kept oil volatile over the last few sessions. I do want to show you what's happened over the last two sessions here. We saw oil yesterday really jumping more than 4%, as much as 5% in the late afternoon. And this is because of tensions in the Middle East. First of all, reports that Israel is considering military action against Iran without the help of the U.S.. And also yesterday we saw that big surge after the U.S. State Department had said that it ordered the departure of non-essential personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. So a partial evacuation of that embassy because of threats in the area. So you had seen oil yesterday really rally off of that. You also had President Trump yesterday in a podcast that was released, saying that he was less confident about a nuclear deal with Iran taking place. Now remember that Iran is a big oil producer. They produce more than three million barrels of oil per day, they export a lot of oil. So if you have a supply crunch with Iran, then you would see oil prices going higher. Now we have seen, look, in April you had the biggest monthly drop in oil for since November of 2021. That was because of demand fears, that was because of the tariff situation, and because OPEC plus was increasing supply. But we have seen oil really rally off the back of those lows. And so year to date, right now we're looking at WTI down about 7% year to date, with Brent crude down about 9% year to date. $69 for Brent, $67 for WTI. Some Wall Street analysts still think that oil is due to be go down a little bit further than that with Goldman Sachs predicting that $60 Brent for oil, oil, Brent oil at $60 for the rest of 2025, Brad.
Anès thanks for charting this out, breaking this down for us. Appreciate it.
Thank you.