[MARKET ANALYSIS] Oil prices hold onto gains after rallying amid geopolitical concerns with reports noting US and Israeli military are drawing up plans to resume strikes on Iran

WTI/Brent: WTI Dec'26 +0.3% / Brent Dec'26 +0.3%

• Oil prices remain afloat after climbing yesterday amid escalation concerns following renewed Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and reports that the IDF and US military are drawing up plans to resume strikes on Iran in the coming weeks.

Gold: -0.5%

• Continued to decline and breached below the USD 4,000/oz level to the downside after recently suffering as geopolitical concerns and a deepening tech rout weighed on risk assets and the metals complex.

Copper: -0.3%

• Lingers at a monthly low with demand hampered by the broadly negative risk sentiment.

Geopolitical premia of this kind have historically built into crude through the front of the curve and the prompt spreads rather than the whole strip, and the pattern on prior occasions has been for the premium to bleed out when disruption fails to materialise and to persist when supply routes or infrastructure are actually hit. The distinction that matters is between contingency planning, which is a standing feature of military posture and has tended to add a modest, reversible premium, and executed strikes, which is where freight rates, insurance costs and physical differentials have repriced in past episodes. Houthi attacks on Saudi targets are the more concrete transmission channel here, given the established precedent of attacks on Gulf export and processing infrastructure, and the state of Red Sea shipping risk is the tell for whether the risk premium widens from paper into physical. The gold leg is anomalous against the usual script: the metal selling off through a geopolitical escalation alongside a tech-led equity rout is consistent with forced liquidation and de-grossing behaviour, where risk-off flows sell what is liquid rather than what is safe. Follow-ons to monitor are official confirmation or denial of strike planning from Washington and Jerusalem, any change in tanker insurance and freight pricing, and whether crude's backwardation deepens at the front while the long-dated contracts lag.