Brent Crude Hits $79.65 As US-Iran Strikes Resume, SK Hynix Sinks 10% And A Critical Week Of Bank Earnings Begins
According to the Associated Press, US stock futures fell on Monday July 13 as escalating US-Iran military exchanges rattled global markets, sending Brent crude up 4.8% to $79.65 per barrel after Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz closed and US Central Command launched fresh strikes against Iranian targets overnight.
Nasdaq 100 futures led the declines, falling 0.89%, while S&P 500 futures dropped 0.3%. South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix, which had surged 13% in its Wall Street debut on Friday, slumped 15.4% in Seoul. Rival Samsung Electronics sank 10.7%, dragging South Korea’s Kospi down 9% and triggering a market-wide circuit breaker.
Iran’s IRGC declared the Strait of Hormuz closed “until the end of the American interventions,” while the US insisted the waterway remained open. The conflicting claims sent oil traders scrambling, reviving inflation fears just as Wall Street faces a packed week: CPI data on Tuesday, PPI on Wednesday, big bank earnings from JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, and TSMC’s quarterly results as a live readout on AI chip demand.
This is not a contained geopolitical footnote. The Strait carries roughly one-fifth of the world’s seaborne oil, and every tick higher in crude makes the Fed’s path to rate cuts narrower. Markets that shrugged off earlier Iran flare-ups are running out of reasons to keep doing so.
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