Middle East
\nOil prices are on track for their biggest monthly fall since 2020, as investors hoped for an end to the US-Israel war on Iran.
\nThe price of Brent crude futures, the global benchmark, was down 1.3% on Friday at about $92 and 19% since the end of April.
\nThe optimism came after Donald Trump circulated a draft peace agreement for the war in Iran among allies.
\nThe US news site Axios reported that the US and Iran had reached a tentative deal to extend a ceasefire by 60 days, although it added that Trump had yet to agree to the terms. The US vice-president, JD Vance, said a deal was \u201cnot there yet\u201d but \u201cvery close\u201d.
\nThe war in Iran has lasted 90 days and caused chaos across the global economy after Iran responded by closing the strait of Hormuz to shipping. That shut off a large proportion of exports from the Gulf, one of the world\u2019s key oil-producing regions.
\nWhile the US initially aimed at regime change in Iran, its ambitions appear to have been scaled back to reopening the strait, as well as reaching a deal to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb.
\nHenry Allen, of Deutsche Bank, said markets were showing \u201cmounting optimism about an end to the conflict\u201d. He said: \u201cWith oil prices coming down, that\u2019s meant investors have started to price out the more stagflationary outcomes for the global economy, with a clear rally across multiple asset classes.\u201d The phrase stagflation refers to the damaging combination of stagnation in GDP growth and inflationary price increases.
\nMarkets across Asia rallied on Friday. Japan\u2019s Nikkei 225 rose 2.5% and South Korea\u2019s Kospi gained 3.9%. Hong Kong\u2019s Hang Seng index gained 0.7%, although the performance of stocks in mainland China was more muted. The Shanghai CSI 300 fell by 0.45%.
\nIn Europe, the UK\u2019s blue-chip FTSE 100 index was up 0.3% on Friday afternoon, while the broader Stoxx Europe 600 gained 0.2%.
\nBy late morning on Wall Street, the S&P 500 was o.2% higher, the Dow Jones was up 0.6% and the Nasdaq was roughly flat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Middle East Oil prices are on track for their biggest monthly fall since 2020, as investors hoped for an end to the US-Israel war on Iran. The price of Brent crude futures, the global benchmark, was down 1.3% on Friday at about $92 and 19% since the end of April. The optimism came after Donald …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":64000,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98314"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98331,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98314\/revisions\/98331"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}