What’s the Middle East conflict like today, August 8, 2024? We’ve been providing daily updates as the situation unfolds, focusing on how it affects various markets like oil, financial markets, cryptocurrencies, etc. The Middle East conflict is most likely a regional affair, but…
The Middle East conflict is most likely a regional affair, but its impact could affect the world’s economy. For a start, the bulk of the world’s oil flows through this region. So, any disruption to production or supply could affect the oil market and cause prices to soar incredibly.
How does this affect crypto? The crypto market has been known to respond to real-life events such as war or even policies. We recently saw a bloodbath in the crypto market with altcoins like Ethereum losing as much as 20% of their value. Bitcoin wasn’t spared either. However, both Bitcoin and Ethereum have been on a recovery path since Tuesday. Let’s find out what the situation looks like today, Thursday, August 8.
Oil prices remained fairly stable on Thursday after two days of gains. There’s been recent concern about supply risks in the Middle East and weak demand. These helped to push prices to their lowest levels since early 2024 earlier in the week.
By 0903 GMT, Brent crude was down 16 cents, or 0.2%, at $78.17 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) dropped 9 cents, or 0.12%, to $75.14. Both Brent and WTI enjoyed two consecutive sessions of gains. Brent saw a 2.4% increase, and WTI climbed 2.8% on Wednesday. Their rebound came hours after a huge decline on Monday.
Interestingly, oil prices found support on Wednesday due to a surprising 3.7 million barrel drop in U.S. crude inventories. This was much more than the expected 700,000 barrel reduction. The oil market has been pretty unstable due to the Middle East conflict.
The oil market is worrying about potential retaliatory moves from Iran against Israel. Although supply hasn’t been disrupted yet, traders are nervous about the possibility of attacks, especially with ships in the Red Sea being forced to take longer routes due to security concerns.
Adding to the mix, Libya’s National Oil Corporation declared a force majeure at their Sharara oilfield, which means they can’t fulfill their contracts due to protests.
After bouncing back for two days, the US Dollar (USD) is having a hard time holding steady on Thursday. The USD Index, which measures the dollar’s strength, has dropped below 103.00 during the European session.
On Wednesday, the main indexes on Wall Street started strong, continuing the gains from Tuesday. However, the rally didn’t last, and by the end of the day, the stock markets ended up with significant losses. With no big economic data or news to drive the markets, it seems like investors took their profits and are now waiting on the sidelines for the next big move.
Meanwhile, the yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond went up on Wednesday, getting close to 4%, but then it lost some momentum. By early Thursday, it’s down nearly 1%, sitting around 3.9%, and US stock futures are also in the red.
Gold prices went up a bit on Thursday. This was largely because of concerns around the Middle East conflict. People are also hopeful that the U.S. might cut interest rates soon. Traders are also waiting to see some economic data to guess what the Federal Reserve might do next.
The price of gold in the spot market rose by 0.3% to $2,389.42 per ounce, while U.S. gold futures dropped slightly by 0.2% to $2,428.40. Kelvin Wong, a market analyst, believes the Middle East conflict could keep pushing gold prices higher in the long term.
Bitcoin is still on a strong recovery path. As of Thursday, Bitcoin has been up 0.47%, recovering from last week’s decline. However, Ethereum lost some of its previous recovery. And is currently 1.36% down in the last 24 hours. Other major altcoins like BNB are still down. However, XRP has been up 19% in the last 24 hours.
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