![\"Jerome](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/9ebb29eb2c7a1be3d7be3139d1f728db.jpeg\")
Jerome Powel said Federal Reserve officials feel monetary policy is in a ‘good place’ (Brendan SMIALOWSKI) \u00b7 Brendan SMIALOWSKI\/AFP\/AFP <\/p>\n Jerome Powel said Federal Reserve officials feel monetary policy is in a ‘good place’ (Brendan SMIALOWSKI) \u00b7 Brendan SMIALOWSKI\/AFP\/AFP <\/p>\n
Oil prices rose and stock markets diverged Tuesday as uncertainty over the direction of the Middle East war dominated investor sentiment.<\/p>\n
Brent North Sea crude for delivery in June — its most traded contract — rose 0.3 percent to $107.72 per barrel.<\/p>\n
The international benchmark’s contract for May, which expires Tuesday, stood at $115.17 per barrel, up 2.1 percent.<\/p>\n
Oil “remains painfully high for economies to deal with”, noted Susannah\u00a0Streeter, chief investment strategist at Wealth Club.<\/p>\n
Eurozone inflation leapt in March because of surging energy prices caused by the conflict, official data showed Tuesday, hitting its highest level since January 2025.<\/p>\n
Consumer prices rose by 2.5 percent in March, sharply up from 1.9 percent in February, the EU’s statistics agency said.<\/p>\n
Following the data, the European Commission urged EU member states to make “timely and coordinated preparations” to secure oil supplies.<\/p>\n
The head of a maritime analyst group meanwhile warned in an interview with AFP that Asia is confronting a major energy crisis, as it faces the gravest fallout from the war.<\/p>\n
“We think Asia will, for now, be the ones suffering the most,” Kpler president Jean Maynier told AFP at the company’s offices in Singapore.<\/p>\n
He said the continent did not have enough energy resources of its own to cover the gap.<\/p>\n
“It will not be enough in China, it will not be enough to cover in big countries like the Philippines or Indonesia. So it’s a real energy crisis.”<\/p>\n
Asia’s main stock markets closed mixed as investors weighed a report indicating that US President Donald Trump was willing to end the Iran war even if the key Strait of Hormuz remained closed.<\/p>\n
But he also threatened to strike the Islamic Republic’s energy infrastructure should it not make a deal.<\/p>\n
The Wall Street Journal cited administration officials as saying Trump and his aides had come to the conclusion that a mission to reopen the waterway would extend the length of the conflict past his four- to six-week timeline.<\/p>\n
It added that he had decided to focus on battering Iran’s missiles and navy, before looking to pressure Iran diplomatically to reopen the strait, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil is normally transported.<\/p>\n
In a sign Trump will likely face pressure to act to bring crude prices down, the American Automobile Association said US petrol prices jumped above an average of $4 a gallon for the first time since 2022 in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Market experts warned that any US ground operation or wider Iranian retaliation could send oil prices to levels not seen since July 2008, when Brent hit almost $150 per barrel.<\/p>\n
“The question is no longer how high oil spikes, but how long elevated energy costs bleed into growth, margins, and consumption,” said SPI Asset Management’s Stephen Innes.<\/p>\n
– Key figures at around 1030 GMT –<\/p>\n
Brent North Sea Crude: UP 0.3\u00a0percent at $107.72 a barrel<\/p>\n
West Texas Intermediate: UP 1.4\u00a0percent at $104.32 a barrel<\/p>\n
London – FTSE 100: UP 0.7 percent at 10,196.59 points<\/p>\n
Paris – CAC 40: UP 0.5\u00a0percent\u00a0at 7,812.67<\/p>\n
Frankfurt – DAX: UP 0.7 percent at 22,715.01<\/p>\n
Tokyo – Nikkei 225: DOWN 1.6 percent at 51,063.72\u00a0(close)<\/p>\n
Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 0.2 percent at 24,788.14 (close)<\/p>\n
Shanghai – Composite: DOWN 0.8 percent at 3,891.86 (close)<\/p>\n
New York – Dow:\u00a0UP\u00a00.1 percent at 45,216.14 (close)<\/p>\n
Euro\/dollar: UP at $1.1468 from $1.1460 on Monday<\/p>\n
Pound\/dollar: UP at $1.3209 from $1.3183<\/p>\n
Dollar\/yen: FLAT at 159.69 yen<\/p>\n
Euro\/pound: DOWN at 86.83\u00a0pence from 86.93 pence<\/p>\n
burs-bcp\/ajb\/jxb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jerome Powel said Federal Reserve officials feel monetary policy is in a ‘good place’ (Brendan SMIALOWSKI) \u00b7 Brendan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[163737,16533,49628,4414,48664,42,87,43,6807,12521,1760,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-367579","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-brent-north-sea","9":"tag-consumer-prices","10":"tag-crude-prices","11":"tag-energy-prices","12":"tag-eu-member-states","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-iran","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-oil-prices","17":"tag-president-donald-trump","18":"tag-stock-markets","19":"tag-top-news","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-topnews","22":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}