Insights

Weekly Market Commentary

4 October 2024

This week markets have been relatively calm despite the serious escalation of fighting in the Middle East. Times of significant stress usually see a sharp rise in the dollar and US treasury yields fall as nervous investors seek a safe haven. Gold often rises as well. None of those things have happened this week. The only significant move was in oil, and that came late in the week after the US appeared to clear the way for Israel to respond to Iran’s rocket strike with an attack on Iran’s oil infrastructure. Time will tell if markets are over-confident that either escalation of the conflict will be limited or that a wider war will not have a significant impact on the global economy.