October 7<\/a>.<\/p>\nMore than 3,700 Palestinians, mainly civilians, have been killed across Gaza in relentless bombardments, while an explosion at a hospital this week \u2014 which each side has blamed the other for \u2014 has ratcheted up tensions.<\/p>\n
Iran has warned it could be drawn into the conflict if Israel embarks on a land offensive, fanning fears that the region could be embroiled in a wider conflict, with several observers saying such a scenario is becoming increasingly likely.<\/p>\n
In a sign that regional players were becoming involved, the Pentagon said a US Navy ship in the Red Sea on Thursday shot down missiles and drones that had been fired by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, possibly at Israel.<\/p>\n
The likelihood of a Middle East war has sent oil prices surging and both contracts extended the week\u2019s gains Friday, rising almost one per cent in Asian trade.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe risk premium in crude has shot up again,\u201d said Vandana Hari, of Vanda Insights. \u201cAs long as the Israel-Hamas tensions run high, crude will remain susceptible to further spikes on signs of an escalation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, traders are wrestling with the prospect that US interest rates will remain elevated for some time as the Fed battles to contain inflation.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Powell suggested decision-makers would not hike at their next meeting at the end of October but left the door open to more tightening down the line.<\/p>\n
News that weekly jobless claims came in lower than expected, suggesting the labour market was tighter than many predicted, dealt a blow to traders\u2019 confidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cInflation is still too high, and a few months of good data are only the beginning of what it will take to build confidence that inflation is moving down sustainably toward our goal,\u201d Powell told a conference in New York.<\/p>\n
Additional evidence of \u201cpersistently above-trend growth\u201d or fresh signs of tightness in the labour market \u201ccould warrant further tightening of monetary policy\u201d.<\/p>\n
His comments echoed those of his colleagues on the policy board in recent weeks, with a focus on incoming data.<\/p>\n
The yield on the 10-year US Treasury note, seen as a proxy for US interest rates, rose above five pc for the first time since 2007.<\/p>\n
That weighed on US markets, with all three main indexes losing between 0.8 and one pc.<\/p>\n
And Asia followed suit, with Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Taipei, Manila and Jakarta all in the red.<\/p>\n
Sydney, Seoul and Wellington were all more than one pc lower.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Asian markets fell and oil prices extended gains Friday on worries that an expected ground invasion of Gaza by Israel will spark a wider conflict in the Middle East. Risk aversion was compounded by Federal Reserve boss Jerome Powell, who indicated a pause in interest rates at the bank\u2019s next meeting but left open the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/10\/2009501958356c1.jpg?r=095229","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}