Iran attacks U.S. military bases on safe-haven assets

Earlier this morning, at least nine rockets struck Ain al-Asad Air Force Base in Anbar Governorate in western Iraq, an air force base near the Syrian border with U.S. forces. According to several Iranian media sources, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards confirmed the attack on the US Assad Air Base in Iraq with dozens of missiles. This has renewed concerns about the escalation in the Middle East. Crude oil prices surged in early trading to new highs since April 2019; traditional safe-haven assets such as gold and the yen rose sharply; U.S. stock index futures fell sharply in the short-term; bitcoin rose back shortly after stepping on the $ 8,000 integer mark in the early trading. The highest approached the $ 8,400 mark at one point, up 23% in the past week.

In the early hours of this morning, Bitcoin broke through the $ 8,000 integer mark and the upper space further opened. In the early trading, the effective step back support for the key resistance conversion of 8000 confirmed that it provided a strong technical support for a new round of accelerated rise. At present, bitcoin has increased by more than 6% in the day, the highest intraday hit a high of $ 8,360, and continues to refresh the new high since mid-November 2019.

Gold quickly rose after the market opened in the early morning, breaking the US $ 1600 round mark in the session. This is also the first time that the spot gold price has returned to above US $ 1600 since March 2013. As of the date of the publication, the highest gold price ever reached US $ 1612.

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The yen also rose rapidly in early trading, with USD / JPY diving from above 108.50 to around 107.60, a new low since mid-October 2019.

International oil prices have taken off, with US crude oil gaining nearly 5% during the day. The highest intraday price reached US $ 65.62 / barrel, the highest since late April 2019.

The chairman of Iran's Supreme National Security Council said on Tuesday (January 7) that Iran is conducting a situational assessment of 13 options for retaliation against the United States in remembrance of the U.S. killing of Iranian star Suleimani, even these options. The weakest of these plans can also trap the United States in a "historical nightmare." This also shattered the market's optimism over "crisis easing", and the pullback momentum of gold and US debt on Tuesday was forcibly reversed.

The semi-official news agency Fars quoted Ali Shamkhani, chairman of Iran ’s Supreme National Security Council, as saying in an interview that even the weakest of the 13 alternative “retaliation” programs mentioned above would be a historic nightmare for Americans For now, for intelligence reasons, we are temporarily unable to provide more information to the media.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in Tehran on Tuesday that the United States will taste the consequences of its killing of Suleimani "at the time and place of its choice". He said that the day when the United States withdrew from the Middle East had begun to count down, and warned that if it continued to rely on the United States, the Middle East war would continue for generations.

The latest White House official statement said that President Trump has been informed of the incident at the US facility in Iraq and is closely monitoring the situation with his national security team. U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said in an interview with CNN International on Tuesday that the United States does not intend to go to war with Iran but is ready to deal with the worst.

In the short term, the situation in the Middle East will continue to be an absolute dominant event in global financial markets, and investors still need to pay close attention to the progress of this news.

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