Brent crude touched $79.15 after US strikes on Iran and Trump's declaration that the ceasefire was over. The prompt spread widened, signalling near-term supply tightness. Traders watch for escalation risks to Iranian exports and Gulf shipping.
Alpha Score of 40 reflects weak overall profile with weak momentum, poor value, moderate quality. Based on 3 of 4 signals – score is capped at 90 until remaining data ingests.
Brent crude touched $79.15 a barrel on Thursday, its highest since early April, after the US military launched a fresh wave of strikes on Iran and President Donald Trump declared the eight-week ceasefire over. The move reversed a period of relative calm in oil markets and pushed the geopolitical risk premium back into the front-month contract.
Brent settled Wednesday at $78.19, up 5.4% on the session. West Texas Intermediate rose 4.4% to $73.52. The after-hours spike added another dollar to both benchmarks before Thursday's cash open. US Central Command confirmed the strikes late Wednesday, hours after Trump told the NATO summit in Turkey that the truce was finished.
Trump accused Iranian leaders of shifting positions during negotiations, saying they would agree on terms privately then reverse course publicly. He called them “cuckoo” and warned that further military action could follow. The administration had already struck Tehran “very hard” in Tuesday's attacks, he said.
The equity market reaction was mixed. The Dow fell 577 points, or 1.1%, to 52,348. The S&P 500 slipped 0.3%. The Nasdaq eked out a 0.2% gain, helped by tech names that benefit from higher energy prices indirectly through inflation hedging flows.
The question for crude traders is whether this spike has legs. The ceasefire had allowed Iranian exports to creep back toward 1.5 million barrels a day, according to tanker tracking data. A return to active hostilities puts those flows at risk again, along with the broader Strait of Hormuz transit that accounts for roughly a fifth of global seaborne oil.
Brent's prompt spread – the difference between the front-month and the six-month contract – widened to about $1.20 a barrel on Thursday, up from 80 cents a week ago. That suggests the market is pricing near-term supply tightness rather than a structural shift in the long-run balance. The backwardation is real but not extreme.
US crude inventories offered no additional support. The Energy Information Administration reported a 2.1 million barrel build for the week ended April 11, against analyst expectations for a 1.5 million draw. Gasoline stocks rose 1.8 million barrels. The builds capped some of the upside in WTI relative to Brent.
For now, the direction depends on whether the strikes escalate into a sustained campaign or remain a punitive round. The administration has not defined its military objectives beyond Trump's statement that the ceasefire was over. Traders will watch for any disruption to Iranian loading terminals or to commercial shipping in the Persian Gulf.
The next scheduled OPEC+ meeting is May 5. The group had been preparing to unwind some production cuts from June. A sustained price spike above $80 would complicate that plan, particularly if it looks demand-destructive rather than supply-driven.
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