Sunday, October 04
It’s the kind of geopolitical flashpoint that might once have triggered a full-blown market meltdown: Israeli warplanes struck Iranian nuclear sites, Tehran vowed revenge — then followed through. Oil spiked.Yet in a year where crises have come in waves, traders from London to New York opted to hold their breath rather than flee en masse.Yes — gold climbed, stocks slid and bonds seesawed, but there was no big stampede. The S&P 500 finished the week down modestly and remains less than 3% below its record high. Crude gave back some of its early gains.That relative calm — for now — followed a familiar playbook: Markets are shocked, prices stumble, then the habitual dip-buyers swoop in. It’s a routine that has been all but cemented after months of crises that never quite landed.
The Federal Reserve's balancing act between concerns about a weakening labor market and still above-target inflation will take center stage for investors in the coming week as they weigh risks to the rally in the U.S. stock market. The benchmark S&P 500 has rebounded sharply over the past two months as worries about the impact of trade barriers on the economy have eased since President Donald Trump's "Liberation Day" announcement on April 2 sent the market plunging. The rally hit a stumbling block on Friday as stocks fell globally and investors moved to safe-haven assets after Israel launched a military strike on Iran, and Iran fired missiles in response. Major U.S. indexes ended down over 1% on Friday, with the S&P 500 falling 1.1%. The Fed's two-day monetary policy meeting could
Middle East tensions are escalating sharply and propelling oil prices higher as a raft of major central banks, led by the U.S. Federal Reserve, make interest rate decisions and G7 leaders meet in Canada. Here's a look at what's coming up for world markets in the week ahead from Rae Wee in Singapore, Lewis Krauskopf in New York, and Lucy Raitano, Dhara Ranasinghe and Marc Jones in London. 1. MIDDLE EAST IGNITES Israel's strikes on Iran mean another of the major geopolitical tail risks investors have long been worried about has just become a reality. Markets will be closely following how Tehran - which has seen many of its proxies in the region weakened - retaliates and what the world's top powers do in the coming days. The initial reaction has been a spike in oil prices, a drop in stocks an
