You're listening to Markets Desk, and here's where things stand.
Asian equities are under pressure this session, tracking Wall Street lower as tensions over the Strait of Hormuz continue to escalate. The threat to that critical shipping corridor sent crude oil spiraling higher overnight, and that risk-off sentiment has traders pulling back across the region with broad-based selling in major indices.
Those higher fuel prices are rippling into domestic policy as well. The IRS has announced an increase in standard mileage rates effective July first of this year, covering business, medical, and qualified moving expenses. The agency cited rising fuel costs as the direct driver — a fairly rare mid-year adjustment that signals just how persistent this energy price pressure has become.
Meanwhile in the commodity pits, soybeans are staging a quiet rally worth watching. Midday gains are running seven to eleven and a half cents, with the national average cash bean price pushing up to eleven dollars and fifty-four cents. Soy oil is leading the complex higher, up nearly three hundred points, even as soymeal lags behind slightly in the session.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
