Brent crude soars above US$100 as Iran’s Houthis attack Saudi tankers; US bond yields jump

Friday, 24 July 2026

Hits by Yemen on Saudi ships have caused oil prices to shoot up with 10-year bonds following closely behind - and markets also have to contend with continued AI infrastructure spending blow-outs.

While we slept

Oil prices and 10-year US bond yields soared overnight, while financial markets fell, as accelerated concerns about increased AI spending and further bellicosity from US President Donald Trump towards Iran set nerves on edge.

Oil prices shot up to US$100.67 after Yemen’s Tehran-backed Houthi militant group claimed responsibility for attacks on two Saudi Arabian tankers in the Red Sea, while Trump continued to threaten Iranian infrastructure. Axios reportedTrump as “considering a massive attack” on Iran, “bigger than ever before”. No deadline was given.

The US 10-year yield topped 4.7% to reach its highest level since January 2025. 4.35%. The rise suggests bond markets are aggressively pricing in inflation risks stemming from the massive spike in global energy and oil prices.

Adding to the troubled mix was second quarter results from two of the world’s largest companies - Alphabet (parent of Google and others) and Tesla. Alphabet exceeded analyst expectations for both revenue and profit, but spending on AI infrastructure was revised up to a range of $195b - $205b, and investors didn’t like it - sending the company’s shareprice down 6%.

Tesla, meanwhile, said capex surged 142% year on year in the second quarter to $5.79 billion and it expected more than $25 billion in capex this year, sending its shares down 14%.

Both companies were free cash flow negative in the quarter.

Market summary

US markets are a sea of red in mid-afternoon Thursday trading - The Dow Jones is down 1.11%, the S&P 500 has dropped 1.43% while the Nasdaq has lost 2.38%.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 had its sharpest single-day sell-off in two weeks, closing down 1.18%.

Asian and Pacific markets closed prior to the Yemeni strikes, and so had a relatively positive day on Thursday - mainland China’s CSI 300 closed up 0.23%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 1.28%, Japan’s Nikkei 225 ticked up 0.46% and South Korea’s Kospi surged 4.40% as heavyweight chipmakers remained in demand.

Back here, New Zealand’s S&P/NZX50 also ticked up 0.23% Thursday, to another record high, starting low and surging into the green later in the day. Bank stocks helped the turnaround - Westpac was up 2% and ANZ up 1.9%

In the business day, Meridian Energy warned any power price drops probably wouldn’t happen before April next year; Mercury Energy made a large investment into South Island datacentres; Kiwibank data showed couples save more than singles, and Stats NZ said it would be reporting inflation monthly from next year.

On the main board, small caps predominated in the gainers column - Savor grew 9.03%, but this was largely on a small buy order of 500 shares executed throughout the day. Promisia Healthcare advanced 8.33%, following a strong first quarter performance update. Minerals Exploration rose 6.67%, Rua Bioscience was up 5.56% and Channel Infrastructure rose 4.59% on optimistic market outlooks over its fuel storage expansion project.

The biggest decliners were also small caps - and included WasteCo, which dropped 12.50% after a period of disputes on its board. Gentrack fell 5.19%, ArborGen dropped 4.62% and New Zealand King Salmon lost 4.35%.

In Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.18% on Wednesday, led up by wealth and investment platform Generation Development Group, which gained 37.13% on the revelation of a substantial growth of funds under management in the year. Uranium producer Paladin Energy advanced 11.61% after the company’s production target was upgraded.

What’s up today

Today in The Post, Aimee Shaw reports on a few days at the meeting of apple and pear producers in Queenstown this week; Tom Pullar-Strecker delves into the spending of large sums on Microsoft products across Government, he also explains how power firms and big users are split over the Government's winter electricity plan, and Kiwibank economist Alexandra Turcu opines on what the New Zealand dollar will do in the short-medium term.