Wall Street hesitates, oil prices rise amid uncertainty in Strait of Hormuz

The US stock market is holding tentatively near its record heights on Monday, while oil prices climb with uncertainty about when oil tankers can resume crossing the Strait of Hormuz and restore the world’s flow of crude. Duelling claims about a possible Iranian strike on a US Navy vessel in the strait heightened the tensions.The S&P 500 slipped 0.1 per cent, coming off its latest all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 216 points, or 0.4 per cent, as of 9.35am Eastern time, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.1 per cent.The action was stronger in the oil market, where the price for a barrel of Brent Crude climbed 2 per cent to US$110.37 and briefly topped US$114 during the morning. Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz due to its war with the United States has kept oil tankers pent up in the Persian Gulf and away from customers worldwide. That in turn has sent the price of Brent soaring from roughly US$70 per barrel before the war.