- FTSE 100 falls 35 points to 10,248
- Oil prices soar above $100 for first time since 2022
- Miners (copper demand), retail estate (rate expectations) and exporters hit
4.57pm: In the red
The FTSE finished the day lower, down 35 points at 10,248, as conflict in the Middle east continued to draw investor focus.
Over in the US, Wall Street was mixed in the early afternoon. The Dow Jones was down 0.6% at 47,203 points and the S&P 500 down 0.2% at 6,725, while the Nasdaq added 0.2% at 22,422.
4.05pm: FTSE erases most of losses
With less than half an hour to go in the session, the Footsie is close to erasing all its losses from the day.
After the index lost 200 points in the opening 20 minutes, remaining close to that level for the first hour and still down over 140 points by 2pm, then things seemed to change after a confluence of supportive moves to push oil prices back.
"The overnight panic in oil has eased for now as the price reverses its madcap gains above $100, but the underlying reasons for the shock move remain in place," says IG's Chris Beauchamp.
He says it seems to be "open season on oil infrastructure" across the Middle East region, "which puts a near-term floor under the price well above the pre-war highs".
Earlier, the NYT quoted a spokesman of Iran’s military’s joint command who said on state TV saying: “If you can tolerate oil prices above $200 per barrel, continue this game.”
Beauchamp says even a co-ordinated release of reserves by Saudi, the US and IAE is "unlikely to halt the rise unless a ceasefire appears soon".
While oil is "full of sound and fury", he says the decline in equities is "likely to be more of a slow burn", though the jump in oil prices "means that there is even less reason to hold onto expensive stocks for the time being, particularly when the inflationary outlook is poised to take a material turn for the worse".
Property, mining, and retail stocks led the FTSE fallers, with British Land falling 4.8% and Land Securities 3.9% as higher interest-rate expectations pressured real estate valuations. Housebuilders were also weak, including Persimmon, Barratt Redrow and Taylor Wimpey.
Retailers have dropped on both sides of the Atlantic, with Burberry and JD Sports down over 3.5% losses in the consumer sector. Mining group Anglo American was hit by a downgrade and exporters such as Intertek, Melrose and Diplma also slipped.
Shell and BP remain near the top of the leaderboard, along with defence contractors Babcock and BAE, and insurer Admiral after its results last week.
The bond market breathed out a bit, with UK government borrowing costs dropping back from earlier multi-month peaks.
Highs around 4.756% were reached by 10-year gilts, before dropping below 4.7% around lunchtime and to 4.6% in the past half hour. Two-year gilts earlier came near 4.1%, a level that hasn't been seriously crossed since almost a year ago, but are now below 3.9%.
At both ends of the scale, bond yields are still elevated compared to where they were before the US and Israel started attacking Iran.
3.20pm: Oil prices ease
Oil prices have dived back below $100 a barrel in recent minutes.
Brent is $98.45/b and WTI crude is $95.96, both having topped $114/$115 overnight, but still up 5-6% from where they finished Friday.
In recent minutes, German finance minister Klingbeil said the use of oil reserves "is an option that is on the table, but is not yet being utilised".
ALso there were reports that at least one oil tanker made it through the key Strait of Hormuz today, however, according to ship tracking websites.
A tanker carrying a million barrels of Saudi Arabian oil made its way out of the Gulf shipping channel, while four Iranian supertankers docked at Singapore with 8 million barrels of oil, though they had set off before the US-Israeli strikes on Iran began.
3pm: Regulatory monitoring of domestic oil markets
The Competition and Markets Authority said it is monitoring heating oil markets closely amid rising prices linked to Middle East tensions, warning it would not hesitate to act if it suspected consumer or competition law was being broken.
The regulator added that customers who have already placed orders for heating oil should expect to receive deliveries at the agreed price, and that suppliers must be transparent about charges and ensure their terms are fair.
2.33pm: Wall Street led lower by travel stocks
Daylight saving being earlier in North America, Wall Street has been trading for an hour now.
The Dow Jones has lost 718 points or 1.5% to drop to 46,782, while the S&P 500 has fallen 1.2% and the Nasdaq 0.95%.
Travel and leisure stocks led declines as investors reassessed demand risks in light of rising fuel prices, with cruise operators and airlines among the worst performers.
Carnival, Norwegian Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean all fell alongside United Airlines and Delta Air Lines, while Expedia and MGM Resorts also retreated amid concerns over higher fuel costs and weakening travel sentiment.
1.09pm: Outcome has become less predictable
The strong market moves today are a reaction to a shift in economics this morning, as much as geopolitics, says John Wyn Evans, market analyst at Rathbones, with how the next few weeks go turning on "how the United States ultimately chooses to define ‘victory’ in the Gulf".
"The shifting and sometimes contradictory list of objectives offered by Washington gives it latitude to declare success at a moment of its choosing – but that flexibility does little to disguise the fact that the regional equilibrium has shifted meaningfully.
“What once looked like a series of contained, face‑saving exchanges now appears to have become a wider confrontation with more severe and less predictable consequences."
Iran's response has been more violent and widespread than expected, abandoning the carefully choreographed signalling of previous confrontations in favour of strikes on civilian infrastructure, Gulf state targets and commercial shipping that risk triggering a far broader escalation.
Oil markets are reacting to this change, he says, which is then triggering worries about inflation and affecting bonds and the interest rate futures.
"When conflicts are counted in days, equilibrium is typically restored quickly. When they stretch into weeks, and when they involve essential commodities, the odds deteriorate."
For the UK, the implications may be seen very quickly, as British electricity prices are acutely sensitive to wholesale gas markets, a structural flaw that was laid bare in 2022.
This "risks forcing the government back into household energy subsidies just months after the Spring Statement’s £30 billion of fiscal headroom was announced", says Evans, with economists estimating a potential cost of up to £5 billion if the measures are applied across 18 months.
"Fixed mortgage rates are already being repriced higher in response to gilt moves, adding further pressure on consumers.
“In such circumstances, materially reducing market exposure risks missing any sharp relief rally that could follow progress toward a settlement.
"But with little sign that Tehran intends to step back – and Washington signalling that its definition of ‘victory’ remains fluid – good news may not be imminent."
12.30pm: FTSE losses trimmed
The FTSE's decline is under 100 points now, with 15 companies' shares now in positive territory.
Joining Shell and BP are insurer Admiral, defence contractors BAE Systems and Babcock, plus Pearson and Experian, rebounding after being knocked down in the previous month's AI worries.
Property developers and housebuilders are the biggest fallers as interest rate expectations are revised due to the potential inflationary fallout from the Iran war.
Segro, British Land, Persimmon, Land Securities and Tritax Big Box are all down 4.5-5.3%.
Miners are also prominent in the red, with Anglo American and Antofagasta both down more than 4%.
JP Morgan today reversed its positive stance on the sector, downgrading Anglo, Rio Tinto and Antofagasta, with analysts arguing that events in the Middle East introduce risks that are not adequately priced into industrial metals or the UK-listed miners that depend on them.
JPM now forecasts copper falling to $9,500 per tonne in 2026 and 2027, and iron ore to $90 per tonne, setting these as its new base case rather than a downside scenario.
11.31am: UBS on oil
UBS is warning that oil prices will continue to increase "until demand is destroyed" but estimating when that will happen is "difficult", as Brent crude prices reach their highest level since 2022.
Normally about 20 million barrels a day pass through the Strait of Hormuz, but currently only 2-3 tankers are crossing a day instead of the usual 30-35, notes strategist Giovanni Staunovo, forcing producers to respond.
Iraq’s “extremely limited" storage capacity has forced the country to shut-in a substantial amount of production, with further curbs likely and Kuwait also reportedly trimming output.
Staunovo warns that strategic reserves (which may be released as per the G7 meeting later today) offer limited relief, describing them as “a drop in the ocean” relative to the scale of potential supply disruption. If shipping does not resume, he said, “oil prices will continue to increase until demand is destroyed”.
"That said, a relatively rapid end to hostilities and a resumption of normal oil flows would likely cause prices to fall quickly. But we think they would still stay higher than before the conflict started, as the resumption of production and exports will take some time."
10.51am: Rising energy prices = inflation = not good for rates
Surging energy prices have put interest rate hikes back on the table, it seems.
Markets are now seeing roughly a 70% chance of a quarter-point rate rise from the Bank of England before the end of the year.
Before the conflict began around 10 days ago, two rate cuts was the expectation.
As for the European Central Bank, tradersa now see about a 50% chance of raises rates by December, says analyst Naeem Aslam at Zaye Capital Markets.
The Iran war has sent energy costs higher across Europe as oil prices soared over 25% while the ECB had only been expecting energy prices to rise about 5.3% this year.
This pressure on inflation often results in central banks delaying rate cuts or even raising rates, says Aslam.
"That keeps borrowing costs high across the Eurozone and reshapes risk markets. Oil doesn’t just move energy stocks. It can move interest rates too."
10.19am: US surprised by Israel oil depot strikes
The US was surprised and disappointed by the number of strikes by Israel on Iranian fuel depots at the weekend, according to reports.
Israel hit 30 fuel depots on Saturday, which "went far beyond what the US expected", according to an Axios report citing US and Israeli officials, which sparked the "first significant disagreement between the allies".
The report suggested that US is concerned Israeli strikes on infrastructure that serves ordinary Iranians "could backfire strategically", driving up oil prices and rallying Iranian society to support the regime.
9.24am: This time is not like the last and $100 oil might persist
One pattern traders have apparently been watching closely is whether the Middle East conflict follows what some see as Donald Trump's geopolitical playbook, though Iran's reaction already makes this different from other instances seen in recent memory.
The Trump playbook has previously been, says Mizuho strategist Jordan Rochester, an initial geopolitical shock, followed by an oil price spike, leading to rapid de-escalation and a quick reversal in markets.
But this time may be different.
Jorge León, head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad Energy, argues that Iran's decision to strike not just US and Israeli targets but assets in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Jordan marks "a structural widening of the conflict beyond contained or symbolic strikes".
This makes a swift resolution less likely than last June, when Trump declared Iranian nuclear facilities had been "completely and totally obliterated" by huge bunker-busting bombs.
Rochester says: “This may be a war but it's also perhaps the biggest energy supply/logistics crisis we've ever seen in modern history.”
“Oil is now on a $100pb handle and it might be there to stay,” he says, seeing a greater likelihood of $130-150 a barrel scenarios if the conflict goes on.
9.04am: Market ramifications
Rocketing oil prices, including at one stage the US WTI price jumping nearly 30%, its largest daily price gain ever, have "huge ramifications for financial markets at the start of this week", says analyst Kathleen Brooks at XTB.
The FTSE 100 is down 168 points or 1.6%, while Germany's DAX and France's CAC are both down around 2.6%, with Japan's Nikkei falling 5.2% and India's Sensex 2.3%. US futures are pointing lower too, with the S&P 500 predicted to drop 1.4%.
Global bonds are tumbling too, with the UK 10-year gilt yield surging to 4.7% at the open on Monday, the highest since October, while the equivalent German bund and US Treasury yields jump to a three-month and one-month highs.
The UK is paying more for natural gas than European neighbours and the US, pointed out Brooks, so it is understandable that our bond market sell-off would be worse.
"This is likely to be another rough day for stocks and bonds as they sell off sharply. Precious metals are also lower as energy prices rip higher, as the impact from the war continues to dominate markets."
Brooks notes that Iraq is now producing a quarter of the oil it was producing before the US and Israeli air strikes on Iran, roughly 3% of global oil supply lost in a single event.
"Shockingly, this is worse than the oil supply situation after Russia attacked Ukraine," she says, with "nothing wrong with the oil reservoirs in Southern Iraq, instead this is a storage crisis".
On prediction markets, there is a mere 23% of a ceasefire between the US and Iran by the end of March on Polymarket, while a week ago this was 44%.
8.42am: Strategic oil release talks
G7 countries are preparing to discuss the release of emergency oil reserves, according to a Financial Times report, due to the soaring price of crude oil.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has coordinated a call between G7 finance ministers to discuss the release of the reserves, set for around 1.30pm London time.
The US and two other countries have expressed support for the release of the emergency reserves, the report says, with US officials reportedly suggesting a joint release in the range of 300-400 million barrels, representing 25-35% of the 1.2 billion barrels in reserve.
The last IEA-led collective releases from the reserves were in March and April 2022, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
8.13am: FTSE plunges almost 200 points
The FTSE 100 has plunged 193 points in the opening trades of the week, dropping to 10,091.45, a level last seen in the second week of January.
Only two shares in the index are on the up, Shell and BP, up 1.7% and 1.55%.
The miners are again the biggest fallers, with Anglo American down 6.3% and Antofagasta down 5.7%. Copper prices are down to around three-week lows.
Warehouse developer Segro, engineers Rolls-Royce, IMI and Spirax are down 4-5% as investors factor in disruption to shipping and demand.
British Airways parent IAG, hotelier IHG, airline easJet and upmarket retailer Burberry are all down over 3.5%, with banks, insurers and property developers at similar levels.
Compared to the last maximum disruption during the 1956-1957 Suez Crisis (as a percentage of total liquids demand), this represents the largest oil supply loss in history, by a factor of two.
Worse, unlike in past crises, there's zero spare capacity available.@RapidanEnergy…
— Bob McNally (@Bob_McNally) March 9, 2026
7.58am: Clarkson resilience tested last year, while 2026 has 'strong momentum'
Shipping services group Clarkson has reported a fall in profits for 2025 as a volatile global trading environment looms over the industry, with the current Middle East conflict driving up journey times and increasing the number of ships required to move the same volumes of cargo.
Underlying profit before tax fell 21% to ££90.6 million for the past calendar year, as revenue decreased 4.5% to £631 million.
"2025 was a year that tested the resilience and adaptability of the global shipping industry," said chief executive Andi Case.
"Whilst it is still early in 2026, we have started with strong momentum, supported by positive market sentiment and trading, and our diversified strategy, healthy forward order book and commitment to innovation, position us well for the year ahead, recognising that ongoing geo-political uncertainty continues to drive complexity in our markets."
7.40am: Nigel Farage takes stake in Bitcoin company
Nigel Farage has taken a stake in Stack BTC, a small London-listed company that plans to build a portfolio of British businesses alongside a Bitcoin treasury, in a £260,000 fundraising that also brought in cryptocurrency firm Blockchain.com as a strategic investor.
Stack is chaired by Kwasi Kwarteng, the former chancellor whose mini-budget in September 2022 triggered a brief but severe market crisis, and whose tenure at the Treasury lasted just 38 days.
Reform Party leader Farage has acquired a 6.31% stake in the companby through his vehicle Thorn In The Side Ltd, paying 5p per share for 4.3 million shares in a raise that values the company at around £3.4 million.
Blockchain.com, one of the oldest names in crypto and best known for its Bitcoin wallet and blockchain explorer, will work with Stack on developing its Bitcoin treasury strategy.
7.26am: Oil price shock
Reflecting the vertical direction of the oil price charts at the moment, some analysts are warning that the current situation in the Middle East has strong echoes of previous price shocks.
"In short," says Rabobank, "this is now starting to look like a potential combination of the 1973 post-Yom Kippur War oil shock, the 2022 Russia-Ukraine War commodity shock, and the 2020-21 Covid supply chain shock.
"The longer this goes on, the more exponential the damage becomes in a domino effect, which is exactly what oil is now showing to a market that saw some takes last week that 'things could be a lot worse'.
"Well, now they are: and if we are still in the same position this time next week, things could be quite terrifying."
7.15am: FTSE 100 poised to plummet as oil prices soar above $105
The FTSE 100 is set to plummet by another 100 points or more on Monday, as global oil prices soared well above $100 for the first time since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
After the London share index fell 129 points on Friday and 626 points over the whole week to end at 10,284.75, futures are pointing to a fall of almost 130 points at the start of the week.
Brent crude oil, which had risen from $84 to end last week at just under $92 a barrel, surged as Asia Pacific trading began overnight, topping $116 at times before easing to $106.52 now.
This follows developments in the Middle East over the weekend, where oil and gas producers have started to shut down production amid the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
"The pace of the price increase and the level of prices are reminiscent of the developments in 2022, when Russia attacked Ukraine," says analyst Asger Wilhelm Dalsjö at Danske Bank.
"It further raises the pressure on the US to finish the war to cool energy markets. The current situation is unprecedented, and we stress that the oil price may rise further as the war continues."
Meanwhile, Iran's Assembly of Experts officially elected the late supreme leader's son, Mojtaba Khamenei, as the new supreme leader.
"Fighting escalated on day nine of the US-Israeli campaign against Iran, as Israeli forces expanded their bombardment of Iran, striking major oil storage facilities near Tehran," notes Dalsjö.
This included Israeli forces targeting senior Iranian commanders in a drone strike on Beirut, and Bahrain reporting that an Iranian drone attack had damaged one of its desalination plants, according to newswire reports.