[MARKET ANALYSIS] Oil futures slightly pulled back after gaining yesterday as the Iran conflict continues to drag out

WTI/Brent: WTI Oct'26 -0.6% / Brent Nov'26 -0.4%

• Oil prices slightly pulled back overnight after gaining yesterday as the US-Iran conflict continues to show no signs of improvement, as the Trump administration has repeatedly told mediators it has no interest in going back to the terms of the MoU it reached with Iran in June, with Trump willing to wait and see if squeezing Iran economically bears fruit. Furthermore, there was a lack of major fresh developments to spur oil prices, although it was reported that Venezuela was mulling leaving OPEC.

Gold: -0.6%

• Trickled lower with the precious metal back beneath the USD 4,600/oz level following recent choppy price action and an ultimately flat dollar as participants await Fed Chair Warsh's Jackson Hole speech.

Copper: +0.1%

• Trades little changed amid the mixed sentiment seen across risk assets.

Session recaps of this kind are standard desk fare rather than signal events: the substance is the Iran premium and its duration, not the overnight pullback, which is the usual pattern in drawn-out geopolitical standoffs where crude builds a risk premium on escalation headlines and bleeds it back on quiet days. The transmission channel to watch is physical, freight rates, insurance premia and any disruption to Gulf transit, rather than rhetoric alone; episodes where supply was never actually interrupted have historically seen the premium fade once headline fatigue sets in. The Venezuela angle is a slower-moving OPEC cohesion story: departure talk of this kind has surfaced repeatedly over the years and typically matters for quota arithmetic and spare capacity assumptions rather than near-term barrels. Gold easing back beneath a round level with a flat dollar ahead of the Fed chair's Jackson Hole appearance fits the established pattern of position-squaring into a marquee speech, where the metal's direction tends to be set by the real-rate readout of the remarks rather than by pre-event drift. Copper flat against mixed risk sentiment confirms the absence of a cross-asset impulse; the next concrete tells are fresh mediation headlines, any change in shipping or sanctions enforcement, and the Jackson Hole text.