Safe-haven assets jump as US launches missile strike against Syria
The US dollar dropped half a yen, while gold and oil prices rallied hard, though dealers say the early panic calmed when a US official called the attack a ‘one-off’
Sydney — Safe-haven bonds and the yen jumped in Asia on Friday as stocks slipped after the US launched cruise missiles against an air base in Syria, raising the risk of confrontation with Syrian backers Russia and Iran. The US dollar dropped half a yen, while gold and oil prices rallied hard, though dealers said the early panic calmed when a US official called the attack a "one-off". MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan were down 0.5% but above the early low. E-mini S&P 500 futures lost 0.3% in an unusually sharp move for Asian hours, but Japan’s Nikkei reversed course again to be up 0.4%. US President Donald Trump ordered the strikes against a Syrian air base controlled by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in response to a deadly chemical attack in a rebel-held area on Tuesday, a US official said. Facing his biggest foreign policy crisis since taking office in January, Trump took the toughest direct US action yet in Syria’s six-year-old civil war. Investors h...
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