Oil opened with a gap up in Sunday evening (US time) futures trade:

Escalation in the Middle East centred on two recent items:

  • Late last week a Trafigura-operated fuel tanker was hit by terrorist missiles.
  • Over the weekend three US servicemen were killed in an attack

After the gap up oil has dropped back:

oil update 29 January 2024 2

Curiously I could do a similar update on gold, it too gapped higher:

Its a little different in price action, it covered its gap and began heading higher:

gold gap 29 January 2024 2

Does oil follow higher?

Some commentary from ANZ suggest that answer should be 'yes', noting a change in the supply outlook:

  • "Disruptions to supply have been limited, but that changed on Friday after an oil tanker operating on behalf of Trafigura was hit by a missile off the coast of Yemen,"
  • "With oil tankers linked to the U.S. and UK now under threat of attack, the market is likely to reprice the risk of disruptions."