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Port Louis, Mauritius, July 13, 2026. Oil opened more than 3.5 percent higher on Monday after Iran widened its weekend strikes to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates for the first time in months. The attacks also reached Jordan, Kuwait and Oman, and Tehran once again declared the Strait of Hormuz closed to shipping.

Washington hit back hard. Pentagon officials report 300 or more strikes on Iranian targets over three nights, one of the fiercest exchanges of a conflict now in its fourth month. The US president also signaled over the weekend that the ceasefire reached in late June no longer holds. That one comment pushed government bond yields higher across the US, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Australia and Spain as investors braced for stickier inflation.

For traders, the takeaway is simple. A supply shock in one narrow strait does not stay parked in oil futures. It travels through freight costs, central bank reserves and safe haven demand until it touches almost every liquid market on the planet. Regulus Liquidity, the FSC Mauritius regulated multi asset broker and institutional liquidity provider, is watching this the way its clients actually feel it: through spreads, execution speed and correlation risk across forex, commodities and equity indices.

From Tankers to Ticks

The Strait of Hormuz is barely 21 miles wide at its tightest point. Yet close to a fifth of the world's oil passes through it every single day. That is exactly what makes it so fragile. There is no quick detour for a tanker loaded with two million barrels. A factory can find a new supplier in a few weeks. An oil route cannot be rebuilt overnight, so prices jump within minutes of a threat instead of waiting for an actual blockade.

From there the shock spreads into currency markets through three doors.

• The first is trade. Countries that import most of their energy watch their costs climb and their currencies soften. Oil exporters often see the opposite.
• The second is central bank policy. Pricier energy feeds straight into headline inflation, which can pin a central bank to higher rates for longer than it ever planned.
• The third is plain nerves. When investors get anxious, money tends to run back into the US dollar, whether or not the trigger has anything to do with the American economy.

This is why a strike near a shipping lane thousands of miles from Wall Street can move EUR/USD before most retail traders have finished their coffee. It is also why one headline can widen spreads across forex, commodities and equities all at once, instead of in a single corner of the market. 

Monday's Reaction, Market by Market

The pattern repeated this week. Early pricing showed EUR/USD near 1.1404, USD/JPY near 161.68, GBP/USD near 1.3390 and USD/CHF near 0.8083, all pointing to a broad bid for the dollar. Gold, usually the first place money hides on a day like this, actually slipped more than 1 percent. That is a good reminder that a stronger dollar and rising rate expectations can cancel out a geopolitical scare rather than pile on top of it.

Roughly 20 vessels were reported to have crossed the strait alongside the US military over the previous 24 hours, with several more moving on their own, though the real number is still disputed. That detail matters. It marks the difference between a strait that is shut and one that is simply more dangerous to cross. Oil has been priced for the second case, not the first, which is why Brent's early jump has been sharp without turning into a runaway.

China's independent refiners, the so called teapots, have reportedly leaned toward Qatari, Iraqi and UAE crude instead of Iranian barrels. It is a small move, but it shows how fast supply chains reroute around risk even when prices cannot. The People's Bank of China also set its daily USD/CNY reference at 6.7972, above the 6.7850 the market expected, a quiet signal of how far the ripple has reached beyond the Gulf. Angola, meanwhile, has reportedly added the yuan to its FX reserve mix alongside the dollar and euro, another sign that central banks well outside the conflict are hedging their own exposure.

Asia Takes the Hit, Crypto Shrugs

Asian equities wore the worst of it. South Korea's KOSPI dropped as much as 7 percent intraday, its lowest since May 4, as selling in SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics deepened worries about how durable the AI memory rally really is. Japan's Nikkei fell around 1.5 percent as rising oil costs muddied the outlook right as earnings season kicked off. One event managed to bruise two unrelated stories, energy costs and AI valuations, on the very same day.

Bitcoin went its own way. It has held in the low 60,000 dollar range even with oil risk back in the headlines and Asian tech sliding. For most of the year, weakness in AI and chip names dragged crypto down with them. That link has loosened in July, and whether it survives this latest flare up will tell us something about whether digital assets are starting to trade less like a leveraged tech bet and more like an asset class of their own.

What Comes Next

The calendar gives no one a break. June CPI lands Tuesday, the same morning Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh gives his first semi annual policy testimony to Congress. Goldman Sachs expects core inflation to cool to 2.8 percent year on year. Tuesday also opens second quarter bank earnings, with JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Bank of America all reporting before the bell. Traders will listen closely for whether bank chiefs treat the Gulf conflict as a contained risk or a real threat to spending, because that framing can move markets almost as much as the numbers do.

For Regulus Liquidity clients, a live geopolitical shock stacked on a heavy data calendar is exactly the kind of setting where execution and spread stability earn their keep. Wide, jumpy spreads in a volatile window can turn a correct call into a losing trade before the position ever gets room to breathe. A trader who reads dollar strength right but gets filled three pips wide on entry has already handed back part of the edge that made the trade worth taking in the first place.

"Weekends like this one are where the gap between a retail feed and institutional grade liquidity really shows up. "Our clients do not need us to call the next move in oil. They need clean execution when everyone else's spreads are blowing out."

About Regulus Liquidity

Regulus Liquidity is a multi asset broker and institutional liquidity provider regulated by the Financial Services Commission of Mauritius under License GB23202202. The firm offers more than 1,200 instruments across forex, commodities, indices, stocks and crypto on the MT5 platform, with leverage up to 1:1000 and spreads from 0.0 pips. It serves both retail and institutional clients through its Edge, Premium and Crown account tiers, with minimums of 100 dollars, 10,000 dollars and 25,000 dollars.

Disclaimer

Regulus Liquidity is regulated by the Financial Services Commission of Mauritius under License GB23202202. This press release is for information only and is not investment advice or a recommendation to trade. Trading forex, CFDs, commodities and other leveraged products carries a high level of risk and can lead to losses greater than your initial deposit. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Readers should speak with a qualified financial advisor and weigh their own goals, experience and risk appetite before making any trading decision.

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