Oil surges to six-week high as Middle East tensions revive Fed rate-hike bets

Brent crude jumped $3.06 to $94.07 after an 11th night of U.S. strikes on Iran, lifting the 10-year Treasury yield to 4.66% while the S&P 500 slipped 0.14% to 7,499 ahead of Alphabet and Tesla earnings.

Deepakshi

Kristal Research & Marketing team

23 Jul2 min

Key takeaways — AI summary

Brent crude climbed $3.06 to settle at $94.07 a barrel, its highest in about six weeks, after an 11th straight night of U.S. strikes on Iran and threats to regional energy sites; traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has slowed to a trickle.
Higher oil pushed traders to raise rate-hike bets: markets now price roughly a one-in-three chance of a Fed hike at the July 29 meeting, with the 10-year Treasury yield rising to 4.66%, near its year high.
Equities drifted lower ahead of big tech earnings — the S&P 500 fell 0.14% to 7,499 and the Nasdaq 100 dropped 0.54% to 28,998 — with energy, materials and utilities gaining while communication services and consumer names fell.
Energy producers led earnings winners: EQT rose 8.35% and Equinor gained 6.31% on $11.48 billion adjusted pre-tax profit; Airbus fell 9.76% and Reddit dropped 8.32% among losers.
After the close, Alphabet eased despite a revenue beat as it lifted 2026 capital spending to around $200 billion (per Bloomberg), while Tesla slipped as adjusted profit of 33 cents missed despite record 480,126 deliveries and revenue of $28.24 billion.

Generated by Kristal AI · reviewed by the research desk

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