Market Open: Oil over US$100 per barrel after further Middle East unrest

ASX today – Wall Street was again down after oil surged further overnight with Brent hitting over US$100 per barrel this morning.

The S&P/ASX 200 is poised to open lower after oil prices rose above US100 a barrel for the first time since July after Iran’s Revolutionary Guard claimed it fired ballistic missiles at a US base in Jordan and attacked 10 ships.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 320 points, or 0.6 per cent, the S&P 500 fell 0.3 per and the Nasdaq Composite was down 0.5 per cent.

Treasury yields were also up amid economic uncertainty and a large debt buyback announcement by the US Treasury Department.

Meanwhile, the World Gold Council reports that Central banks continued their gold accumulation in July with net buying reported at 23 tonnes.

Emerging markets also continued to accumulate gold with China (20 tonnes) and Poland (eight tonnes) taking the lead.

Elsewhere, the Central bank of the Netherlands has reportedly moved dozens of tonnes of its gold out of the US and Canada.

The De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) said in a statement the removal aimed to boost the country’s “crisis preparedness” amid “increasing geopolitical unrest.”

On the market news front:

Gold mining company West African Resources (ASX: WAF) has delivered $437 million in NPAT for H1 2026;

Cosmo Metals (ASX: CMO) has expanded its copper prospective portfolio in NSW;

LINQ Minerals (ASX: LNQ) has continues to grow the Monza copper gold system in NSW;

Tungsten Mining (ASX: TGN) has hit a key milestone with full project approvals attained for Watershed; and

Ora Banda Mining (ASX: OBM) has commenced the Waihi underground project.

Buck and ore

Now – in forex, the Oz dollar is buying US$0.721

Looking at commodities, all in the greenback,

Iron Ore was down 0.65% to $99.37 per tonne in Singapore today,

Brent Crude was up 3.26 per cent to $101.108 per barrel,

Gold was selling at $4398.15,

US natgas futures were down 3.63 per cent to $2.8102 per gigajoule.

That’s HotCopper’s Market Open, I’m Colin Sandell-Hay – happy trading.

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