The prices of gold and oil surged on Thursday night as U.S. forces launched airstrikes on a military installation in Syria from which Syrian dictator, Bashar al Assad, recently launched chemical attacks on civilians in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib Province.
In an address to the nation, President Trump said the strikes were a response to the Syrian government’s reckless abandon of the chemical weapons convention, “It was a slow and brutal death for so many, even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack. No child of God should ever suffer such horror.,” he added.
Gold rallied 1.47 percent in the space of two hours, hitting a 5-month high of $1269.40 at 10:00 p.m. EST on Thursday:
While crude oil futures jumped to a 30-day high of $52.94, erasing a large portion of the losses incurred in March:
The rapid rise of crude prices also impacted oil-sensitive currencies such as the Canadian dollar, which strengthened by 0.26 percent to 1.33965 against the USD on Thursday night.
Trump's airstrikes also tanked the Russian ruble by 1.7 percent, pushing the USD/RUB exchange rate to its lowest level for this month (57.0747).
The price of Silver also spiked approximately 1.7 percent to a 2-month high of $18.472, but at press time, the XAG/USD exchange rate has not made a new high for 2017.
While precious metals, currencies and commodities saw significant volatility in the overnight trading session, American equities and the U.S. Dollar Index have remained mostly range-bound.
Although that will likely change with the opening of European markets on Friday, as investors digest the knock-on effects of Trump’s airstrikes on geopolitical dynamics in the region.
