Oil prices rose further on 18 July 2026 as investors grew more concerned about the impact of the war in the Middle East on global supply. Brent crude, the international benchmark, climbed as much as 4.6% to $95.16 a barrel, its highest point in six weeks, after gaining about 20% this month as Washington and Tehran exchanged fire.
Last night the US carried out its eleventh night of consecutive strikes against Iran, while the Iran-backed Houthi movement threatened a naval blockade on Saudi Arabian ports. Kathleen Brooks of broker XTB said the sharp rise came after Donald Trump said he was not interested in holding talks with Iran last night.
“The rise in the oil price comes after President Trump played down the prospect of fresh talks with Iran. He also said that he would escalate tensions even further and will hit Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain, which contains an underground nuclear site.
Reports suggested that US allies in the Gulf were getting tired of US strikes on Iran because they were ineffective, but there was no immediate solution to break the impasse. Markets were said to prefer fresh peace talks over a wider war to bring Iran to its knees, especially as the crisis was affecting global oil flows beyond the Strait of Hormuz.
There were signs that tankers were avoiding or slowing their approach to Bab El-Mandeb Strait near Yemen after the Houthis threatened attacks on cargo ships in alliance with Iran. For now the Red Sea remained operational, but global supply chains were increasingly under threat as escalations in the conflict heated up. The situation was expected to keep upward pressure on global supply chains, with inflation risks ramping up each day the conflict escalated.
The US stock market was a little wobbly, with the blue-chip S&P 500 down 0.1%, the tech-heavy Nasdaq down 0.5% and the Dow Jones up 0.1%.
Oil later pared back some of its earlier gains, although Brent crude remained higher on the day at up 2.5% to $93.26 a barrel.
UK bond yields were also rising across the curve as investors prepared for elevated interest rates this year. The 10-year gilt yield rose by about 3 basis points to 5.06%, its highest level since May, while the equivalent 10-year eurozone yield rose by about 2 basis points to 3.19%.
US stock futures were slipping in the afternoon as investors looked cautiously ahead to big tech earnings this week. The S&P 500 was poised to fall 0.2% when the US market opened, while futures for the tech-heavy Nasdaq were down 0.6%. Alphabet and Tesla were due to report quarterly earnings that evening.
How much have London house prices fallen?
House prices in London fell 3.7% year-on-year in May, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics, marking the ninth consecutive month of annual falls in the capital.
London was the only region in England to record a fall in house prices, while the average across the UK rose by 2.7%. That still marked a slowdown from April, when prices rose by 3.8%.
The biggest declines in London were in the inner parts of the city, including Westminster and Tower Hamlets, the ONS said.
The ONS also noted that the figures were affected by changes to stamp duty in April 2025, which brought forward several property transactions as homebuyers sought to get ahead of the tax change deadline.
Why are Norway’s oil profits rising?
Profits at Norway’s state oil company nearly doubled to $11.5bn (£8.6bn) in the three months to the end of June as higher oil and gas prices caused by the war against Iran boosted earnings.
Equinor benefited from a decision to increase oil and gas production at the start of the conflict, filling a gap in the market after a near-halt to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz caused Gulf oil flows to slump.
Equinor also . Fears over a drop in global supplies left Brent crude prices swinging between $75 and more than $100 a barrel between April and June this year, compared with roughly $60 to $70 during the same period last year.
What has Prologis offered for Segro?
Prologis, the US property group, is still pursuing the FTSE 100 warehouse landlord Segro and has announced its “best and final” offer, valuing the business at about £14bn.
The proposal consists of 0.0920 new Prologis shares for each Segro share and a partial cash alternative of up to £3.5bn. It is the fourth offer by Prologis and came just two days after Segro rejected a previous £13.5bn bid.
The FTSE 100 company has also come under pressure from one of its biggest investors, Norges Bank, which said the day before that the proposal “merits consideration”. Prologis said in a statement that its proposal “is final and will not be increased”.
“There is no doubt a combination of both companies would deliver meaningful value. We have listened to feedback from shareholders and this morning, we have improved our proposal to make a compelling offer to the Segro Board. We run Prologis with discipline and this is our best and final offer.
Segro shares were up 3.8% that morning.
Oil had breached the $95-a-barrel mark that day, and some analysts predicted the price could rise to more than $120 by the end of the year if disruptions at the Strait of Hormuz continued.
Analysts at US bank Goldman Sachs sent out a note on Monday saying Brent crude could rise above $120 by the fourth quarter, although that was not their base case assumption, Bloomberg reported. Oil prices had not been above , and
What did OpenAI say about the rogue model?
OpenAI said an autonomous AI agent powered by its technology went rogue during a test, accessed the open web and hacked a prominent startup by itself in an “unprecedented incident”.
The company behind ChatGPT said Hugging Face had detected and contained the agent, an AI tool designed to carry out tasks without human assistance, after it entered its systems.
“We consider this incident to be an unprecedented cyber incident, involving state-of-the-art cyber capabilities.
OpenAI warned that it expected this type of incident to become more commonplace as models, the technology underpinning AI tools such as chatbots and agents, became more capable.
How much could Bloomsbury receive from the Anthropic settlement?
Bloomsbury said it would receive a share of the $1.5bn US court settlement that resolves claims.
The company said in a statement that it was among the beneficiaries of the Anthropic settlement and would receive settlement payments over several instalments, estimated to start in the second half of the financial year.
“Bloomsbury confirms that it is among the beneficiaries of the Anthropic settlement and will receive settlement spread over several payments estimated to start in the second half of the financial year.
The court listed 14,087 Bloomsbury titles as within the settlement, and the proposed payout was about $3,000 for each work, to be divided equally between the author and the publisher.
Analysts at broker Peel Hunt estimated that the company would receive about £14m in total. Shares in Bloomsbury, which is listed in London, were up by about 1% that morning.
Key Facts
- Brent crude rose as much as 4.6% to $95.16 a barrel, its highest point in six weeks.
- The US carried out its eleventh night of consecutive strikes against Iran.
- London house prices fell 3.7% year-on-year in May, the ninth consecutive annual fall in the capital.
- Equinor profits nearly doubled to $11.5bn in the three months to the end of June.
- Bloomsbury is set to receive a share of the $1.5bn Anthropic settlement.
