Good afternoon and welcome to Markets Desk.
Geopolitical risk is back at the center of the tape today after reports that President Trump threatened to bomb Oman over a developing maritime deal with Iran involving the Strait of Hormuz. That corridor handles roughly a fifth of global oil supply, and any escalation there sends immediate shockwaves through energy and risk markets worldwide.
That threat is feeding directly into the flight to safety we're seeing across asset classes. Gold is surging, with the SPDR Gold Shares ETF crossing above its two-hundred-day moving average, up nearly four percent on the session, and Kinross Gold breaking that same technical threshold, trading up more than ten percent. When geopolitical pressure meets a weakening dollar, gold tends to run hard and fast.
And that dollar weakness is a story unto itself. US government debt has now crossed forty trillion dollars, borrowing at what the Financial Times is calling a historic rate, even as the administration vows fiscal restraint. Treasury Secretary Bessent is meanwhile buying back long-term debt to cap yields, a move that cooled the bond selloff but raises serious questions about Fed independence and inflation down the road.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
