WTI crude (+5.1% to $92.78) and Brent crude (+5.02% to $105.23). The overnight surge is a war-risk repricing, not a demand story: attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz hit at least 12 in the week of September 28 to October 5, the worst weekly tally since the war began, including the projectile strike on the tanker On Peace that injured 12 crew. See today’s Hormuz story.
Dry bulk freight (+2.34%). Tanker and bulk rates are catching the same bid as crude, with the Black Sea shipping war widening in parallel: three incidents in three days across Romanian, Bulgarian and Russian waters, including a sunken Turkish-owned cargo ship with its crew missing. See today’s Black Sea story.
Uranium miners (-4.47%), silver miners (-3.54%), gold miners (-3.13%), copper miners (-3.13%). A broad risk-off sweep across the miner complex with no single-company driver in this morning’s reporting. Gold itself sat flat at $4,142.50 near nine-week lows as rising US rate-hike bets offset the Hormuz safe-haven bid, while silver slid 1.58 percent to $58.96. See today’s gold ETF inflows story for the positioning backdrop.
Rare earth miners (-2.99%). The complex is trading the overhang of today’s Beijing talks: EU trade commissioner Sefcovic meets China’s Wang Wentao with the rare-earth export-control moratorium due to expire in the coming weeks and Brussels pressing for an extension. See today’s EU-China trade story.
The cross-market read is a split screen. Physical energy is bid on genuine supply-route risk, with crude, freight and diesel all moving the same way. Financial risk appetite is softening at the same time, with miners, silver and rate-sensitive equities sagging as markets price a higher-for-longer path from the Fed and today’s ECB account. The day’s two scheduled events sit on opposite sides of that split: the ECB account at 7:30 AM ET feeds the rates leg, and the Beijing trade talks feed the energy and metals leg.