Good morning and welcome to Markets Desk, your morning read on what's moving money.
Oil is trading at ninety-two dollars and twenty-seven cents a barrel this morning, sitting roughly twenty dollars higher than where it was a year ago. That year-over-year surge is the direct engine behind blockbuster second-quarter results from ExxonMobil and Chevron, both of which reported profits sharply higher as the Iran war kept supply concerns elevated and energy prices firm.
The geopolitical picture driving those oil prices remains deeply unsettled. Hamas is pushing back on President Trump's claim of a breakthrough Gaza disarmament agreement, saying it will only consider laying down arms after Israel honors prior ceasefire commitments. That conditional stance puts the diplomatic breakthrough in question and keeps a floor under risk premiums across energy markets.
Meanwhile gold, which typically benefits from exactly this kind of geopolitical tension, is actually trading sharply lower this morning. The culprit appears to be Federal Reserve uncertainty — traders are recalibrating their rate cut expectations, and when the rate path looks murkier, the opportunity cost of holding a non-yielding asset like gold rises, pulling prices down even as the Middle East burns.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
