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Wall Street closed lower across the major averages on Tuesday as tensions in the Middle East continue to rise, hitting a 5th day of attacks between Iran and Israel. The Dow Jones lost 0.7%, the S&P500 fell 0.84% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq ended the day down 0.91%.

President Trump took to Truth Social, his social media platform, demanding ‘unconditional surrender’ from Iran’s leader as he departed the G7 conference early to deal with the situation in the Middle East.

In Europe overnight, markets in the region fell as the Israel-Iran conflict continues. The STOXX 600 fell 0.8%, Germany’s DAX lost 1%, the French CAC fell 0.8% and, in the UK, the FTSE100 ended the day down 0.5%.

Across the Asia region on Tuesday markets closed mixed as investors assessed the escalating tensions in the Middle East. Lingering uncertainty and rising energy costs are weighing on global investor sentiment due to the conflict, at a time where volatility and uncertainty was already heightened due to US tariffs and global tensions rising on the trade front. Japan’s Nikkei added 0.6%, China’s CSI index closed flat, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.34% and South Korea’s Kospi index ended the day up 0.12%.

The local market started the new trading week virtually flat with a 0.01% gain on Monday before see-sawing between positive and negative on Tuesday to close down 0.08% as investors reacted to escalating tensions in the Middle East and Trump urging for Tehran’s evacuation amid the Iran-Israel attacks. Volatility, rising geopolitical tensions and macro and market uncertainty have been the core drivers of market movements in recent times weighing on investor sentiment. Rate sensitive sectors posted gains yesterday with Tech and REIT stocks ending the day up 0.32% and 0.23% respectively while utilities stocks took the biggest hit with a 0.68% loss.

Gold miners regained some ground on Tuesday following Monday’s sell-off as investors fled to safe-haven assets again in the face of growing geopolitical tensions, while uranium miners extended their recent surge on nuclear power demand rising.

What to watch today:

• On the commodities front this morning, oil continues to climb, trading up 4.6% at US$75.06/barrel, gold is up 0.2% at US$3390/ounce and iron ore is down 0.16% at US$95.23/tonne.
• The Aussie dollar has weakened against the greenback to buy 64.70 US cents, 93.96 Japanese Yen, 47.79 British Pence and 1 New Zealand dollar and 8 cents.
• Ahead of the midweek trading session the SPI futures are anticipating the ASX will open the day down 0.19% tracking the global market sell off overnight.

Trading Ideas

• Bell Potter has increased the 12-month price target on IVE Group (ASX:IGL) following the company’s investor strategy session where it upgraded guidance for FY25 for underlying NPAT to come in around $50m, representing a 4.7% upgrade, driven by margin expansion.
• Trading Central has identified a bearish signal on Lendlease (ASX:LLC) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 21-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may fall from the close of $5.55 to the range of $5.20 to $5.26 according to standard principles of technical analysis.