Market Open: All eyes on oil as US-Iran war set to trigger surge; ASX set to fall

Greetings, this is HotCopper‘s Market Open for Monday of Week 10 of 2026, I’m Jon Davidson, and it’s all eyes on oil this morning as the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran are set to trigger a surge in oil prices.

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While Iran in itself does not hold anywhere near as large a stake in global oil production as it did during the 1970’s oil crisis, conflict in the country has seen trading firms decide not to use the Strait of Hormuz for a few days – so oil shipments will be paused indefinitely, and that will make traders edgy.

At the same time, over the weekend, OPEC+ has announced it will boost oil supply, in an apparent attempt to ease volatility. OPEC includes petrostates Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, both of whom were hit by Iranian missiles over the weekend due to having US bases as well as the Shia-Sunni dynamic.

And, in that context, you can expect gold prices to travel higher, too. It would be a contrarian reaction were they to go in any other direction.

At home, ASX futures indicated a flattish red day the last time they traded, but given the weekend, that mightn’t mean much.

Also at home: later today we get business indicator data from the ABS, but that rarely moves the market.

Looking around the traps, Magelllan Financial has announced it’s proposing to merge with Barrenjoey in a deal worth more than A$1B.

Elsewhere, Australia’s largest REE miner Lynas Rare Earths has renewed its Malaysian licence into 2036.

Looking at commodities when they last traded:

• Brent Crude @ US$72.87/bbl.
• Gold @ US$5,278/oz.
• Silver @ US$93.81/oz.
• Iron Ore @ US$97.85/tn (SGX).

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