US Retaliatory Strike on Iran Sends Oil Prices Climbing After Hours
Oil futures closed lower Friday for a third weekly loss, then reversed course after the US military confirmed a strike on Iran.
It was a tale of two trading sessions on Friday. Oil futures spent the regular session sliding lower, capping off a rough week — actually, a rough three weeks in a row — with another loss. Traders were apparently not feeling great about crude heading into the weekend.
Then the news dropped. The U.S. military confirmed it had carried out a retaliatory strike on Iran, and suddenly the after-hours oil market woke up fast. Prices pushed higher in extended trading, because any military action involving Iran — one of the world's significant oil producers and a country that sits near the critical Strait of Hormuz — tends to make energy markets very nervous, very quickly.
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Here's why that matters to you even if you don't trade oil futures: when crude prices spike, gasoline prices typically follow. Geopolitical flare-ups in the Middle East have a long history of rattling energy markets, and a confirmed U.S. military strike is about as serious as it gets on the geopolitical tension scale. Whether this turns into a prolonged escalation or a one-time event will likely determine how much of that after-hours jump sticks around come Monday morning.
For now, traders are in wait-and-see mode. Three straight weeks of losses had already suggested some bearish sentiment building in the oil market before this development. Friday's after-hours bounce is a reminder that geopolitics can flip the script on any technical trend in a matter of minutes. Keep an eye on how markets open next week — it could be a bumpy ride.
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