Oil Prices Surge, Wall Street and Global Markets Retreat After Israel’s Strike on Iran

Warren Takunda

Commodity

Economic

Middle East Situation

Summary:

Oil prices jumped while global stocks and Wall Street retreated following Israel’s strike on Iran, fueling fears of broader Middle East conflict.

Oil surged, stocks fell and investors sought safety in the U.S. dollar and government bonds Friday after Israel struck Iranian nuclear and military targets in an attack that raised the risk of war between the two countries and broader instability in the Middle East.

Futures for the S&P 500 fell 0.9% before the opening bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 1%. Nasdaq futures slid 1.1%.

U.S. benchmark crude oil rose by $4.73, or 6.9%, to $72.77 per barrel, its biggest gain since the early days of Russia’s attack on Ukraine more than three years ago. Brent crude, the international standard, climbed $4.58 to $73.94 per barrel, also the largest single-day jump since the Russian invasion.

Oil prices are likely to rise in the short term but the key question is whether exports are affected, said Richard Joswick, head of near-term oil at S&P Global Commodity Insights. “When Iran and Israel exchanged attacks previously, prices spiked initially but fell once it became clear that the situation was not escalating and there was no impact on oil supply,” he wrote in an emailed analysis.

“Oil price risk premiums could rise sharply if Iran conducts broader retaliatory attacks, especially if on targets other than in Israel,” Joswick said.

China is the only customer for Iranian oil but could seek alternative supplies from Middle Eastern exporters and Russia, he said.

Iran’s oil trade is restricted by Western sanctions and import bans, and Israel exports only small amounts of oil and oil products.

Boeing shares are down 1% after falling nearly 5% Thursday when one of the aerospace giant’s planes crashed in India, killing all but one of the 242 people on board as well as several on the ground. The plane operated by Air India was the first fatal crash of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner since it went into service in 2009.

The cause of the crash is unknown.

GE Aerospace, which makes engines for Boeing, is down close to 2% after it announced it was postponing next week’s investor day in light of the tragic crash.

In Europe at midday, Germany’s DAX dropped 1.3% and the CAC 40 in Paris gave up 0.9%. Britain’s FTSE 100 slipped 0.2%.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.35% from 4.41% late Wednesday and from roughly 4.80% early this year.

In currency trading early Friday, the U.S. dollar rose to 144.12 yen, while the euro eased to $1.1511. The yield on U.S. 10-year Treasurys fell to 4.35%. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.

Treasurys and the dollar often rise when investors feel less inclined to take risks.

Coming later Friday is the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment report.

Next week brings the Federal Reserve’s two-day policy meeting where it will make a decision on its benchmark interest rate. The nearly unanimous expectation on Wall Street is that the U.S. central bank will stand pat again.

The Fed has been hesitant to lower interest rates, and it’s been on hold this year after cutting at the end of last year, because it’s waiting to see how much President Donald Trump’s tariffs will hurt the economy and raise inflation.

In Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.9% to 37,834.25 while the Kospi in Seoul edged 0.9% lower to 2,894.62. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng retreated 0.6% to 23,892.56 and the Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.8% to 3,377.00. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 drifted 0.2% lower to 8,547.40.

“An Israeli attack on Iran poses a top ten of our global risk, but Asian markets are expected to recover quickly as they have relatively limited exposure to the conflict and growing ties to unaffected Saudi Arabia and the UAE,” said Xu Tiachen of The Economist Intelligence.

Source: AP

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Gerik

Economic

China–U.S. Trade War

Fed Poised to Pause Amid Murky Trade and Growth Signals

With the federal funds rate currently set at 4.25%-4.50%, the Federal Reserve is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged during its June 17–18 meeting. While recent inflation data suggest progress toward the 2% target—particularly when excluding volatile food and energy prices—Fed officials remain hesitant to pivot aggressively. The central bank’s challenge now lies not just in inflation but in interpreting the broader consequences of U.S. trade policy and fiscal risks.

President Donald Trump’s tariff-driven trade approach and a large budget and tax proposal still in flux continue to cloud the economic outlook. Though the administration postponed a new wave of global tariffs until next month, the policy overhang contributes to what Fed Chair Jerome Powell once described as a justification for “inertia”—waiting for clarity before shifting policy direction.

Mixed Signals: Inflation Slows, But Risks Remain

Recent data show both consumer and producer prices rose less than expected in May, easing concerns that tariffs would lead to an inflationary spike. The core PCE price index, the Fed’s preferred gauge, has hovered near 2% over the past three months, bolstering the argument for eventual rate cuts. Meanwhile, unemployment has stabilized at 4.2% for three consecutive months, suggesting that the labor market, while not accelerating, remains resilient.

Nonetheless, policymakers appear divided over the weight to assign these developments. While the March projections pointed to two rate cuts in 2025, some analysts—such as Tim Duy of SGH Macro Advisors—believe that due to the passage of time and lingering uncertainty, the updated forecast may downgrade to a single rate cut this year unless more dovish sentiment takes hold.

Tariffs: Inflation Catalyst or Demand Dampener?

A key debate is whether tariffs will exert more upward pressure on prices or act as a drag on consumer demand. The retail sales data for May, due just before the Fed’s meeting, could shed light on this dynamic. Some economists, notably from Citigroup, argue that early signs of demand softening—potentially driven by consumers cutting back on services in response to higher imported goods prices—could keep inflation in check but risk triggering higher unemployment.

This creates a complex dilemma for the Fed: whether to prioritize inflation containment or to act preemptively in defense of labor market stability. As EY-Parthenon’s Gregory Daco put it, the Fed is likely to stick with a “cautious patience” narrative, reinforcing a wait-and-see posture in the absence of compelling evidence on either front.

Markets Lean Toward September as Rate Cut Start Point

Investor sentiment remains tilted toward rate cuts beginning in September. Fed funds futures continue to price in at least two cuts by year-end, though shifts in inflation or labor data could quickly adjust expectations. Goldman Sachs recently lowered its recession probability to 30% and sees modest inflation and growth improvements. Still, the bank expects summer inflation prints to delay Fed action until late 2025.

In contrast, Citi foresees a faster pivot, with cuts beginning in September and continuing into 2026, driven by persistent demand-side weakness. According to their view, “markets have yet to internalize” the possibility that inflation moderation will come at the cost of employment deterioration.

The June Fed meeting will likely underscore the central bank’s strategic dilemma. While inflation appears to be under control for now, the potential fallout from unresolved tariffs, a fragile global trade environment, and uncertain domestic fiscal conditions make any immediate move risky. The Fed's updated projections may hint at an eventual easing cycle, but the path forward depends heavily on evolving data—and clarity from policymakers in Washington. For now, "staying put" remains the prudent course.

Source: Reuters

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Glendon

Political

Commodity

The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, handles around 26% of the world’s oil trade and is rarely far from the center of global tensions.

Iran has targeted merchant ships traversing the choke point in the past, and has even threatened to block the strait. The route’s vulnerability was back in focus after Israel launched airstrikes targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities and killed senior military commanders, raising the risk of a wider regional conflict.

The UK had issued a rare warning to mariners days earlier, saying increased tensions in the region could impact shipping. Frontline Ltd., one of the world’s largest oil-tanker operators, said it would be more cautious about offering its vessels to haul cargoes from the Persian Gulf.

The waterway connects the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean, with Iran to its north and the United Arab Emirates and Oman to the south. It’s almost 100 miles (161 kilometers) long and 21 miles wide at its narrowest point, with the shipping lanes in each direction just two miles wide. Its shallow depth makes ships potentially vulnerable to mines, and the proximity to land — Iran, in particular — leaves vessels open to attack from shore-based missiles or interception by patrol boats and helicopters.

It’s essential to the global oil trade. Tankers hauled almost 16.5 million barrels per day of crude and condensate from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Iran through the strait in 2024, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The strait is also crucial for liquefied natural gas, or LNG, with more than one-fifth of the world’s supply — mostly from Qatar — passing through during the same period.

Iran has used harassment of ships in the Gulf for decades to register its dissatisfaction with sanctions against it, or as leverage in disputes.

Not so far. During the 1980-88 war between Iraq and Iran, Iraqi forces attacked an oil export terminal at Kharg Island, northwest of the strait, in part to provoke an Iranian retaliation that would draw the US into the conflict. Afterward, in what was called the Tanker War, the two sides attacked 451 vessels between them. That significantly raised the cost of insuring tankers and helped push up oil prices. When sanctions were imposed on Iran in 2011, it threatened to close the strait, but ultimately backed off.

Oil traders doubt Iran would ever close the strait entirely because that would prevent it from exporting its own petroleum. Moreover, Iran’s navy is no match for the US Fifth Fleet and other forces in the region. Commodore Alireza Tangsiri, head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval forces, said shortly before the MSC Aries seizure that Iran has the option of disrupting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, but chooses not to.

During the Tanker War, the US Navy resorted to escorting vessels through the Gulf. In 2019, it dispatched an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers to the region. The same year, the US started Operation Sentinel in response to Iran’s disruption of shipping. Ten other nations — including the UK, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain — later joined the operation, known now as the International Maritime Security Construct. Since late 2023, much of the focus on protecting shipping has switched away from the Strait of Hormuz and onto the southern Red Sea, the region’s other vital waterway, and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait that connects it to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. Attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels on shipping entering or exiting the Red Sea have become a greater concern than the Strait of Hormuz. A US-led force in the Red Sea is seeking to protect shipping in the area.

Saudi Arabia exports the most oil through the Strait of Hormuz, though it can divert shipments to Europe by using a 746-mile pipeline across the kingdom to a terminal on the Red Sea, allowing it to avoid both the Strait of Hormuz and the southern Red Sea. The UAE can export some of its crude without relying on the strait, by sending 1.5 million barrels a day via a pipeline from its oil fields to the port of Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman to the south of Hormuz.

With its oil pipeline to the Mediterranean closed, all of Iraq’s oil exports are currently shipped by sea from the port of Basra, passing through the strait, making it highly reliant on free passage. Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain have no option but to ship their oil through the waterway. Most of the oil passing through the Strait of Hormuz heads to Asia.

Iran also depends on transit through the Strait of Hormuz for its oil exports. It has an export terminal at Jask, at the eastern end of the strait, which was officially opened in July 2021. The facility offers Tehran a means to get a little of its oil into the world without using the waterway and its storage tanks were slowly being filled with crude late last year.

Source: Bloomberg Europe

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Gerik

Economic

Forex

Muted Dollar Response Challenges Haven Narrative

The dollar's muted response to Israel’s military strike on Iran—historically the type of geopolitical shock that would send it soaring—has surprised investors. Instead of rallying sharply, the greenback initially slipped and only partially recovered, with Bloomberg’s dollar index still hovering near a three-year low. While U.S. status as the world’s top oil producer provided some price support during a 13% crude price surge, it wasn’t enough to restore the dollar’s traditional defensive strength.

Analysts highlight a broader erosion of the dollar’s foundation as a crisis hedge, rooted in what Vantage Markets’ Hebe Chen describes as the breakdown of its “three pillars”: economic stability, liquidity, and credibility. Each of these has come under pressure in 2025.

President Trump’s aggressive trade agenda and fiscal expansion, including tax legislation projected to balloon the federal deficit, have raised doubts about the U.S. economy’s long-term trajectory. Meanwhile, growing concerns about the Federal Reserve’s independence and America’s retreat from multilateral alliances are chipping away at the perception of U.S. institutional reliability.

The result has been an 8% year-to-date decline in the Bloomberg dollar index, with safe-haven flows now appearing to favor alternatives such as gold and occasionally the yen or Swiss franc, depending on the risk event.

Markets Rethink Dollar Allocations Amid Shifting Dynamics

FX strategists at Citigroup note that although traditional correlations remain in play—with mild gains against the yen and franc—investor sentiment has become more skeptical. The reaction to Israel’s strike, coupled with the U.S.’s decision to distance itself from the operation, may suggest that geopolitical risk is no longer an automatic boon for the dollar.

Meanwhile, macro hedge fund managers such as Paul Tudor Jones forecast a significant decline in the dollar, projecting a potential 10% drop over the next year due to expectations of deep rate cuts. This outlook reflects a broader "sell America" trend that has affected U.S. equities and bonds alike.

Safe-Haven Rotation: Gold and Treasuries Regain Appeal

While the dollar faltered, other traditional havens gained traction. Gold rose as much as 1.7%, pushing toward new highs, and U.S. Treasuries advanced modestly. This suggests that market participants may still seek safety but are diversifying their refuge preferences away from the greenback.

Mark Cudmore of Bloomberg suggests that the dollar’s small rebound may be more technical than fundamental, driven by short-covering after it hit multi-year lows. This implies the move could be self-sustaining in the short term, but not reflective of renewed trust in the dollar’s haven status.

The dollar's limited upside in the face of a major geopolitical event reveals growing investor hesitance. Structural shifts in U.S. policy direction, rising debt, and increased global competition for capital may continue to dilute its safe-haven appeal. Unless the U.S. can reestablish macroeconomic and institutional credibility, the greenback risks ceding more ground in moments of global distress—an unsettling trend for currency markets and reserve managers alike.

Source: Reuters

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Adam

Stocks

U.S. stock futures slumped Friday after Israel carried out a large‑scale airstrike on Iran, escalating geopolitical risks, sending oil prices soaring and threatening global growth.

At 05:45 ET (09:45 GMT), Dow Jones Futures slid 500 points, or 1.2%, S&P 500 Futures fell 70 points, or 1.2%, and Nasdaq 100 Futures plunged 315 points, or 1.4%.

The main Wall Street indices all closed marginally higher on Thursday, with the broad-based S&P 500 index creeping closer to the all-time high reached in February, being less than 2% off that level.

Global stocks have posted an near-continuous rally since early April, with traders largely hoping that President Donald Trump’s tariff agenda may not be as aggressive as originally thought.

Geopolitical risks rise on Israeli strike

However, that positive tone disappeared overnight after Israel carried out a military strike on Iran, hitting “dozens” of military and nuclear targets in what has been described as the largest attack on the Islamic Republic since the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.

The move came just days before U.S. and Iranian officials were set to attend a sixth round of nuclear deal talks.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Israel carried out its military action against Iran independently, citing self-defense as the driving motive behind the strikes.

The White House had earlier warned it would consider military measures should nuclear negotiations fail, with a key response deadline ending Thursday.

Iran responded by launching more than 100 drones toward Israeli territory, an Israeli military spokesman said. Sirens and a state of emergency were declared across Israel amid warnings of an imminent missile and drone counter‑strike from Tehran.

The prospect of escalating tensions in the Middle East -- a critical hub for oil production -- added to uncertainty for investors already grappling with heightened trade tensions that some fear could dent global growth.

Michigan consumer sentiment due

The economic data slate is largely empty Friday, with only the preliminary June reading of the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment report to catch investors’ attention.

The May producer price index came in cooler than expected on Thursday, restrained by lower costs for services like air fares, matching the consumer price index release the prior day, suggesting the impact of Trump’s tariffs have yet to be fully felt.

On the note, Trump warned on Thursday that he could raise auto tariffs soon, stoking fresh angst over trade just a day after claiming that the U.S.-China trade deal was "done."

The president also said he will send letters to major U.S. trading partners in the next two weeks outlining his planned trade tariffs, ahead of a July 9 deadline to strike trade deals with his administration.

Adobe raises annual guidance

In the corporate sector, Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) raised its annual guidance after reporting better-than-expected fiscal second-quarter revenue, as its core digital media business continued to ride an artificial intelligence-led demand wave.

But shares in the company edged slightly lower in premarket trading Friday. Analysts at Vital Knowledge flagged that while investors "should come away relatively happy" with Adobe’s returns, its outlook "isn’t nearly as impressive" as cloud-computing group Oracle (NYSE:ORCL), which reported earlier this week.

Elsewhere, Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone sales rose to the top spot in China in May, with global sales growing 15% year-on-year during April and May in the tech giant’s strongest performance for the two-month period since the COVID-19 pandemic, data from Counterpoint Research showed.

Crude surges on Israeli strike

Oil prices surged on Friday in the wake of Israel’s large‑scale airstrike on Iran early Friday, which hit “dozens” of military and nuclear targets, according to media reports.

At 05:45 ET, Brent futures climbed 7.2% to $74.32 a barrel and U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 7.6% to $73.19 a barrel.

These contracts had earlier seen the largest intraday moves for both contracts since 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine, with both climbing to their highest levels since late January, as traders worried that any conflict could disrupt shipping routes or oil infrastructure across the Gulf.

Source: investing

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Michelle

Forex

Economic

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said earlier this month that he was sticking with a "gradual and careful" approach to cutting interest rates as uncertainty from U.S. tariffs clouds the outlook.

In May, the BoE's Monetary Policy Committee voted 5-4 to cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point to 4.25%. External MPC members Swati Dhingra and Alan Taylor backed a cut to 4%, while Catherine Mann and Huw Pill voted to hold rates.

Financial markets see a roughly 90% chance that the BoE will keep rates at 4.25% on June 19, and price in about 50 basis points of rate cuts by the end of 2025 - similar to what is expected from the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Following is a summary of comments by MPC members since their last rate decision was announced on May 8.

ANDREW BAILEY, GOVERNOR

June 3: "I think the path (for interest rates) remains downwards, but how far and how quickly is now shrouded in a lot more uncertainty."

"Gradual and careful remain my ... guiding line," Bailey said of his thinking on future rate cuts.

June 3: "We've added the word 'unpredictable' to 'uncertain' because of the sheer nature of what we're dealing with."

May 29: "The less volatile part (of inflation), again it's gradually grinding down but very slowly."

"We don't want to lose the relationship with the U.S. We really want to get to the (trade) issues that are underlying this and help to solve them."

HUW PILL, CHIEF ECONOMIST

May 20: "I would characterise my May vote as favouring a 'skip' within a continuing withdrawal of monetary policy restriction, rather than a halt to the process of withdrawal."

"It should not be seen as favouring a halt to - still less a reversal - of that withdrawal of restriction."

"(As) long as disinflation back to target is not complete, maintenance of some restriction will still be required. On my reading, that is a view that is held across a broad swathe of MPC members."

May 13: "I remain concerned that we have seen a sort of structural change in price and wage-setting behaviour, maybe driven by the type of things that were involved in models of the inflation process from the '70s and '80s."

May 9: "The analysis in the baseline forecast does not suggest that there's a dramatic shift in the behaviour of the UK economy on the back of these trade announcements and trade uncertainties."

CLARE LOMBARDELLI, DEPUTY GOVERNOR

May 12: "Caution remains appropriate. I'll be more comfortable when I see material deceleration in the data over a longer period."

SARAH BREEDEN, DEPUTY GOVERNOR

June 3: "I thought that there was a case for a cut in Bank Rate, even absent the international developments, because I judged that domestic disinflationary process that we've all talked about was progressing as I expected, and I thought it would continue."

June 1: "The big picture, the landscape on which I'm thinking about policy, is that the waves of disinflation are continuing."

"I think the labour market is loosening. We've seen unemployment rise a little bit, and in addition we've got relatively weak growth."

ALAN TAYLOR, EXTERNAL MPC MEMBER

May 30: "I'm not going to pre-emptively announce my vote, but I think I indicated in my dissent that I thought we needed to be on a lower (monetary) policy path."

"I'm seeing more risk piling up on the downside scenario because of global developments."

May 12: "The erosion of confidence that we saw has continued. We're getting very low readings on PMI and REC and so forth. So there's that continuation, the sort of wait and see in ... precautionary saving (and) postponement of investment."

"The international dimension for me is quite perilous."

MEGAN GREENE, EXTERNAL MPC MEMBER

June 7: "Our view is that we can look through it (higher inflation), but of course there's a pretty big risk."

"The last time we had a lot of second-round effects. We're hoping that we won't have second-round effects this time around, but we're not sanguine about it."

"(Private-sector pay growth was) way above what would be consistent with a 2% inflation target".

"It's (going) in the right direction, it's just not going as quickly as I would like it to."

May 12: "What's a little bit more worrisome for me is that medium-term inflation expectations have also started picking up."

"I came into this last round quite torn about whether to hold or cut by 25 basis points."

SWATI DHINGRA, EXTERNAL MPC MEMBER

June 3: "On balance, the risks to inflation and growth appear to me to be tilted to the downside."

"The most significant contributions to the near-term pickup in headline inflation reflect developments in household energy bills and past energy shocks, and to a lesser degree, regulated price increases, rather than an imbalance in underlying supply and demand pressures."

CATHERINE MANN, EXTERNAL MPC MEMBER

June 2: "An additional cut in this cycle of Bank Rate reduction, so as to try to compensate for tightening at the long end, could run counter to the need to maintain restrictiveness for long enough to purge the structural rigidities in labour and product markets that I have often noted are key to my Bank Rate decisions."

"Now that the MPC is reducing restrictiveness, I believe that we need to consider the differing effects of our policies on different parts of the yield curve ... as a more salient issue."

May 14: "The labour market has been more resilient. Now, yes, we've had some prints that are indicative of a slowing labour market, but it is not a non-linear adjustment."

"I need to see the loss of pricing power. I need to see that firms are starting to be much more moderate in setting their prices across a broad range of products."

DAVE RAMSDEN, DEPUTY GOVERNOR

May 8: "I am worried that we're not going to see that recovery in productivity and supply, which is a kind of fundamental judgment to our baseline forecast. If that on its own happens, that would tend to push inflation up relative to baseline forecast."

Source: Reuters

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Adam

Commodity

Gold spiked after Israel conducted airstrikes targeting Iran’s nuclear sites and military leadership, raising fears that hostilities between the two nations may spiral into a wider regional conflict.

Bullion climbed as much as 1.7% on haven demand from investors, before paring some gains. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the operation would continue until the “threat” was removed. Iran vowed a “severe response” to the airstrikes and sent a wave of drones towards Israel.

The US wasn’t involved in Israel’s attacks, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, but Iran said it would respond against America. Gold is trading around $80 below a record of $3,500.10 an ounce reached in April. Copper futures, a reliable gauge of sentiment on economic growth and trade, fell 1%.

“The risk of Iranian retaliation, including threats to US bases, adds to the uncertainty and supports haven flows,” said Charu Chanana, a strategist at Saxo Capital Markets Pte. “With markets already on edge and risk sentiment deteriorating, gold is likely to stay bid as a hedge — not just against conflict risk, but also a possible spillover into inflation and volatility.”

The move higher extended a two-day gain, after weak US inflation and jobs data fueled bets that the Federal Reserve will lower interest rates later this year. A report on Thursday showed US producer price inflation remained muted in May, while a separate print showed recurring applications for unemployment benefits rose to the highest since the end of 2021.

Gold has rallied 30% this year, as investors seek hedges against President Donald Trump’s aggressive trade policies and geopolitical tensions, including in Ukraine. Strong demand from central banks and sovereign institutions has also supported prices.

“Gold is probably the best thing that we added to our portfolios in the middle of last year,” said Mark Andersen, co-head of global asset allocation at UBS Switzerland AG on Bloomberg TV. “It’s both helping us when we see rising tensions in the Middle East like today, but also weighing against debt fears, inflation fears, etc.”

Israel’s attack on Iran followed repeated warnings from Netanyahu about striking the OPEC producer and crippling its atomic program. The US and Iran were meant to meet for their next round of nuclear talks on Sunday in Oman, but it’s unclear if those negotiations will happen now.

Iran launched 100 drones in retaliation for the attack, according to Israel. Iranian state television reported that the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hossein Salami, and Armed Forces Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheri were both killed in the strikes.

Spot gold was 1% higher at $3,421.01 an ounce as of 10;06 a.m. in London. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.3%. Silver was steady, platinum and palladium fell. In energy, Brent oil rallied as much as 13% before paring some of the gains.