August jobs gain of 162,000 lifts Asia-Pacific equities
Oil futures rose in Asian trading on Monday after the U.S. military said it struck three Iranian oil tankers on Saturday after Iran launched ballistic missiles toward two U.S. Navy warships in the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. officials described the attempted warship strike as a major escalation in the broader conflict.
Front-month West Texas Intermediate crude rose 0.5% to $91.94 a barrel, while front-month Brent crude advanced 0.2% to $96.51 a barrel. The Strait of Hormuz is a key waterway through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil is transported.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has fired ballistic missiles at U.S. forces throughout the conflict, but the attempted attack on the two warships was perceived as a major escalation by U.S. officials.
Asia-Pacific equity markets nonetheless rose in Monday’s trading. South Korea’s Kospi climbed 3.1%, Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average added 1.8%, and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index gained 0.4%.
The equity gains were supported by U.S. Labor Department data released Friday showing employers added 162,000 jobs in August — far above the 53,000 positions economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had projected. The unemployment rate held at 4.1%, in line with expectations.
“The stronger jobs data reinforces the resilience of the U.S. economy,” said Christopher Wong, an FX strategist at OCBC Group Research.
“The spectre of oil flows returning to normal in the Middle East faded amid renewed attacks between the U.S. and Iran,” analysts at ANZ Research wrote in a Monday report. “Any geopolitical breakthrough is difficult to envisage. A prolonged standoff, punctuated by calibrated military action by the U.S. and Iran, now appears the most likely scenario,” they added.