Asia stocks slide, gold rises as Middle East conflict sparks safety rush
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Asian shares slumped and gold prices rose as risk sentiment took a hit after Iran's retaliatory attack on Israel stoked fears of a wider regional conflict and kept traders on edge. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.7% after Iran had, late on Saturday, launched explosive drones and missiles at Israel in retaliation for a suspected Israeli attack on its consulate in Syria on April 1. The threat of open warfare erupting between the arch Middle East foes and dragging in the United States has left the region on tenterhooks. U.S. President Joe Biden warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the U.S. will not take part in a counter-offensive against Iran. The escalating tensions also sparked a flight to safety that sent gold rising 0.51% to $2,356.39 an ounce and the safe-haven dollar broadly higher, extending its 1.6% rise from last week. Oil prices, however, hardly reacted to the news, as traders had largely priced in a retaliatory attack from Iran that would likely further disrupt supply chains. U.S. stock futures, meanwhile, ticked higher, after a heavy selloff on Wall Street on Friday as results from major U.S. banks failed to impress. U.S. Treasury yields held near their recent highs as traders pared back their expectations of the pace and scale of rate cuts from the Federal Reserve this year. The benchmark 10-year yield last stood at 4.5277%, while the two-year yield held near the 5% level and was last at 4.8966%. A continued run of resilient U.S. economic data, particularly last week's hotter-than-expected inflation report, has added to the view that U.S. rates could remain higher for longer, and that a Fed easing cycle is unlikely to commence in June. The shift in rate expectations has halted bitcoin's blistering rally, after the world's largest cryptocurrency repeatedly notched fresh records this year thanks to flows into new spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds and expectations of imminent Fed cuts.
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https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gold-rises-oil-choppy-iran-235750196.html