Israel-Hamas war: How will it impact the stock markets, crude oil and gold movement?

livemint.com:

fire. In India, the benchmark Nifty fell around 2.5 percent in these 3 weeks, but this was mostly due to the sharp rise in yields.

Meanwhile, more pronounced moves since the attack in geopolitically sensitive asset classes like oil (Brent crude up 11 percent) and gold (up 9 percent) have brought questions around side effects for the economy. Christopher Wood, global head of equity strategy at Jefferies in his latest weekly note to investors, GREED & fear said that he believes that Markets will continue to try to ignore events in West Asia so long as no invasion is launched.

This can even trigger a relief trade in the markets, allowing them to ignore the native implications of uncomfortably high bond yields for a while, he noted. Wood predicts that Israel is not going to launch a full-scale ground offensive, that view has been increasingly reflected in markets as evidenced by the correction in the oil price last week even despite today’s news of an in-and-out “raid" by Israeli defence forces into northern Gaza “If GREED & fear is wrong and the invasion is launched, there will be an immediate negative impact in terms of a spike in the oil price and renewed concerns of a broader regional conflict, concerns which unfortunately will be quite legitimate.

Another alternative view is that Israel is biding its time, waiting for the news cycle to play out, while working out the best plan of attack. This is, certainly, entirely possible, he added.

While Greed & Fear believes markets will continue to ignore the event in the Middle-East, and the decline in equity markets supports the same, another brokerage UBS, also noted that geopolitical events have rarely caused a global recession or left a lasting mark on markets. Hence, UBS