Oil Hits $100 as Escalation Widens; Treasury Plan Rebuffed

Oil prices rose to $100 a barrel on Wednesday, the first time since July, after the US struck five Iranian tankers in the Gulf and Yemen's Houthis hit oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, according to the BBC. Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they struck eight tankers, two warships and a US base in Jordan in response, the report said. Saudi-Houthi clashes have escalated toward what the New York Times described as a tilt toward full-scale war in Yemen.

The bond market rebuffed a $6 billion Treasury plan intended to reduce US borrowing costs, the New York Times reported, adding pressure to a fiscal picture already strained by rising issuance. The Justice Department opened an investigation into Nvidia's (NVDA) deal with AI chip startup Groq, according to the New York Times, introducing a regulatory overhang on the semiconductor trade.

Separately, Google confirmed a €13 billion investment in Finland, its largest single European commitment, including a deal to buy up to half the output of a nuclear power plant to supply AI data centers, the BBC reported. Apple (AAPL) unveiled its first folding iPhone under new chief executive John Ternus, the BBC reported, in his second week running the company.

In the UK, more than 2,000 flights were cancelled following a four-hour air traffic control failure that the transport secretary called avoidable, according to the BBC, with disruption continuing into a second day. Spain's government declassified intelligence showing it warned Morocco of a planned mass migrant crossing into Ceuta the day before it occurred, the BBC reported.