Renewed Fighting With Iran Shows Cracks in Peace-Trade Rally

July 10, 2026
Business

The market is flashing conflicting signals:

Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil, has dipped since Wednesday to around $77.50 a barrel. That’s well below its wartime peak of about $120. But it has climbed roughly 5 percent this week, stoking fears of wider inflation.
The CBOE Volatility Index, known as Wall Street’s fear gauge and a measure of investor uncertainty, ticked higher on Thursday.
SP 500 futures are in the green, and sovereign bonds are rebounding.

The region “is more unstable today than it was before the war,” Mohit Kumar, an economist at Jefferies, wrote in a research note on Thursday. Iranian officials said they had targeted U.S. military bases in Bahrain and Kuwait, and ship traffic through the vital Strait of Hormuz trade conduit is near a standstill, according to Bloomberg. Yet oil prices haven’t surged again, perhaps because regional energy infrastructure wasn’t struck.

Kumar still expects a peace deal but added, “Medium-term, tensions may flare up again.”

The war’s economic toll remains in focus. The International Monetary Fund on Wednesday published its latest forecast showing a sharp slowdown in global growth this year as countries feel the aftershocks of wartime inflation.

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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/business/dealbook/iran-war-markets.html