US strikes on Iran: oil plunges 7%, Bitcoin does not flinch

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Facts first. The state agency IRNA reported five burst explosions in Qeshm on Monday evening. Residents describe two planes above the island. The Wall Street Journal then confirmed that the army carried out limited strikes on Qeshm. An official cited by the Associated Press speaks of “defensive strikes” against Iranians “using surface-to-air missiles against American assets.” Another official cited by CNN speaks of Iranian fire against an American plane.

These strikes are not the first. According to the Wall Street Journal, cited by The National, Washington has been carrying out these for several weeks and is not announcing them so as not to signal a resumption of the campaign which opened on February 28.

At the same time, Tehran is taking a step. President Massoud Pezeshkian said Monday that Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei had “granted certain powers to the government” to “resolve the problem through dialogue.” Qatari mediators returned to Tehran on Monday. The framework discussed repeats the seven-step plan from September, rejected by Trump at the time. Iran would reopen Hormuz and Washington would lift the naval blockade of Iranian ports. This blockade still holds.

Oil reacted before the bombs. Brent closed Monday at $104.77, down $8.66 (7.63%) according to the session report relayed by BigGo Finance. WTI ended at $96.46 (-7.36%). At the end of October, Brent was still above $110. The news of the strikes changed almost nothing on Tuesday in Asia, where Brent recovered only 0.5% to $105.25.

Gold has taken the opposite path. The metal gained almost 2% on Monday and was trading around $3,950 an ounce on Tuesday before the European opening. It was coming off its worst October since 2008. Silver returned to the $50 mark. Less war premium on crude means less energy inflation and less pressure on central banks. The CME FedWatch still gave a 73% probability on Tuesday morning of a Fed rate hike in December, compared to 80% a week earlier.

Bitcoin, for its part, remained unmoved. Around $77,000 on Tuesday at dawn, it varied by less than 1.5% during Monday's session. Glassnode places the average entry price of US ETFs around $81,500, and no news from the Gulf has moved these latent loss holders.

Machine-translated from French