The Daily Chase: Oil steady despite Middle East unrest

Here are five things you need to know this morning.

Oil steady despite Middle East unrest: Under normal circumstances, a barrage of missiles and drone attacks raining down from Iran onto targets in Israel is the sort of development that would send oil and stock markets haywire, but that’s not happening today despite events over the weekend. The price of Brent crude is actually down a little on Monday morning, in a development that traders attribute to the notion that Iranian air strikes were well-flagged beforehand, prompting hopes the conflict will not escalate. “We believe that the immediate risk of a direct confrontation has been contained – at least for now,” said Benjamin Hoff, global head of commodities research at Societe Generale, according to Bloomberg. “This was a well telegraphed geopolitical development,” said Timothy Graf, head of EMEA macro strategy at State Street.  “A lot of the bad news is in the price already.”  

Tesla cutting jobs: After underwhelming numbers on sales last week, it is perhaps no surprise that Tesla is cutting back on workers, too. The company is reducing its global workforce by 10 per cent, according to an email Elon Musk sent to staff. The company has more than 140,000 workers around the world right now, almost twice as many as it had as recently as 2021, so the cuts represent as many as 14,000 jobs. “We have done a thorough review of the organization and made the difficult decision to reduce our headcount by more than 10 per cent globally,” Musk said. “There is nothing I hate more, but it must be done.”

Apple no longer top dog in phone sales: Apple shipped far fewer iPhones than analysts were expecting last quarter, as a demand slowdown in China cost the company its status as the world’s largest smartphone maker. The company shipped 50.1 million iPhones in the first three months of this year, according to IDC. That’s shy of the 51.7 that analysts were expecting and a 9.6 per cent decline from last year; the biggest fall since Covid snarled supply chains in 2022. The slowdown was enough for Apple to lose its status as the world’s biggest smartphone maker, a title that it wrestled away from Samsung last year. According to the latest figures, Samsung is now in the top spot with 20.8 per cent of the global market, while Apple is now at 17.3 per cent.