Oil’s Price Floats Back Above $80/Barrel Level
August 4, 2026
Monday’s U.S. stock market rally had been triggered by another last-minute pull-back in President Trump’s threat to annihilate Iran militarily. Yet again, his willingness to give diplomatic talks one more chance was quickly met with a different narrative with Iran that direct talks between the two countries have not resumed. They are only speaking to neighboring Oman, and so Tuesday finds the price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil nearly 2% higher at $81.81 and Brent up 2.4% at $85.8/bbl. U.S. stock futures are so far holding their Monday gains, but the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield is up three basis points at 4.70%, and the 30-year yield has risen 2 bps to 5.25%.
Today’s biggest currency market story remains the yen. Japanese officials had conducted massive intervention purchases of yen late last week, and the U.S. complemented that effort yesterday with its first intervention intended to strengthen Japan’s currency since the Asian debt crisis of 1998. In that long span, the only U.S. intervention involving the yen was done in 2011 and meant to cap that currency’s strength. The yen at 157.9 per dollar is currently 0.4% below its intra-day peak, so the ultimate success of the joint intervention exercise remains in doubt, especially since the Bank of Japan hasn’t pulled the trigger on another interest rate cut to counterbalance a planned dose of more stimulative Japanese fiscal policy.
In other financial market news today, stocks rose 1.4% in Australia and Indonesia and 1.6% in South Korea but fell by 0.6% in Hong Kong. The German Dax is 0.6% firmer, and 10-year sovereign debt yields have risen four basis points in Australia, three bps in the U.K. and two basis points in Japan. The price of silver has jumped 1.8%, while gold is just 0.3% higher. Crypto currencies are barely changed on net from Monday closing levels, and the same can be said about the dollar’s relationships with the Swiss franc, sterling and Canadian dollar.
Three more purchasing manager surveys have been reported. Ireland’s manufacturing PMI index rose 0.2 points to 55.1 in July, just 0.8 points below May’s four-year peak and putting Ireland on top of the Euroland leader board. Non-oil PMI surveys covering Saudi Arabia and Egypt printed at a 2-month low of 53.1 and a 2-month high of 46.8, respectively.
South Korean consumer prices fell 0.2% on month in July, trimming their 12-month rate of increase more sharply than forecast to a 3-month low of 2.8% after June’s reading of 3.2%.
Romanian producer price inflation, which had printed as low as -8.0% in March 2024, accelerated further in June to a 39-month high of 12.7% in June.
Retail sales during June were 3.1% higher than a year before in Italy, most in 3 months. Sales in Hong Kong posted their smallest on-year gain (2.3%) in nearly a year.
A 6.0% on-year rise of Australian household spending in June was the most since March.
The Central Bank of Armenia’s policy rate was retained at 6.5% as expected, it level since a 25-basis point cut last December. Armenian CPI inflation of 5.1% exceeds the 2-4% target corridor. Inflation risks are skewed to the upside, and “financial market participants on average expect the Central Bank to keep the policy rate at 6.5% over the medium-term horizon” according to today’s statement from the monetary authority. From a peak of 10.75% in the first half of 2023, Armenia’s interest rate had been reduced by 150 basis points later than year, 225 bps in 2024 but just 50 bps last year.
U.S. and Canadian trade figures arrive later this morning. Other scheduled U.S. data releases today include factory orders, the JOLTS labor market figures and the RCM/TIPP optimism index.
Copyright 2026, Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved.
Tags: Central Bank of Armenia
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