ENERGY
According to reporting from Business Insider and Yahoo Finance, U.S. stocks surged and oil prices fell on Monday following a Truth Social post from President Donald Trump claiming he’d had “productive conversations” with Iranian leaders about ending the war.
Both publications cited market commentary from The Kobeissi Letter, which quantified the move during the first hour as a swing of more than $3 trillion S&P 500’s market cap, which followed Trump’s announcement on Friday that he would target civilian energy infrastructure in reprisal if Iran failed to open the Strait of Hormuz ahead of a 48-hour deadline.
While markets took Trump’s Truth Social post as a sign of potential de-escalation, the official Iranian state media, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, issued a statement that “No conversation has taken place between Iran and the US, and Trump’s claim about having these talks is false.”
The outlet added “Trump’s false claim as an attempt to escape his recent threat on Iran’s power infrastructure. Iran’s stance on the Strait of Hormuz has not changed.”
It is a war crime to target civilian infrastructure according to the Geneva Coventions.
The speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, later said no talks had taken place and accused Trump of trying to manipulate oil markets with his post.
Economist Paul Krugman suggested the same in a post todaty, noting that someone who had insider knowledge “could have sold a bunch of crude oil futures, at very high prices, Brent was over $112 over the weekend, then bought them back immediately after Trump’s announcement of triumphal progress, but before the Iranians said that is not happening. And you could have turned a very, very nice, very large profit.”
Indeed, by the end of the day, reporters like Yun Li at CNBC noted that about fifteen minutes before Trump’s announcement there had been a sudden and sharp jump in S&P 500 futures and oil futures.
According to the Associated Press, some of the optimism that sent stocks rallying a day earlier drained out of Wall Street, as airstrikes continue to batter Iran and missiles target sites across the Middle East. Oil prices got back to rising early Tuesday, and U.S. stocks are returning some of their gains. The price for a barrel of Brent crude rose 3.5% to $103.47 per barrel, a day after slumping more than 10%. The S&P 500 fell 0.6%, giving back almost half of its gain from the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 363 points, or 0.8%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.5%.
U.S. markets ticked slightly lower and oil prices rose early Tuesday as the war in the Middle East continued a day after President Donald Trump said the United States had made progress in talks with the Islamic Republic to end the conflict.
