Dizzying month on markets with Middle East war

Oil prices on fire, stagflation stalks The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's crude transited before the war, sent oil prices skyrocketing. The price of Brent crude, the benchmark international oil contract, soared nearly 50 percent. That is a record monthly gain since Bloomberg began compiling data on oil prices in 1988. WTI, the benchmark US oil contract, closed above the symbolic level of $100 per barrel on Monday. It could see its biggest monthly gain since 2020.