NEW YORK — If oil prices are any measure, Iran just flinched.
The price of oil tumbled Monday afternoon in an historical move as traders bet that Iran's decision to bomb a U.S. base in Qatar signals it is not planning to do the one thing that could really hurt America: Shut down the flow of oil by attacking crude shipments.
''When the response comes and it is muted, oil drops,'' said Tom Kloza, chief market strategist at consultancy Turner Mason & Co, calling the limited Iran response far short of what many traders feared. ''This rivals some of the historic selloffs.''
There's still plenty Iran could do to push prices back up, and the markets could be getting it all wrong, But oil analysts say there are plenty of reasons fear has receded.
Scary then calm
The price of West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, fell 7.2% to $68.51 per barrel in regular trading on Monday after Iran announced a missile attack on Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which the U.S. military uses. Traders were relieved because Iran said it had matched the number of bombs dropped by the U.S. on Iranian nuclear sites this weekend, a possible sign of a desire to deescalate the conflict.
The price of oil fell further after President Donald Trump announced that Israel and Iran had agreed to a ''complete and total ceasefire'' to be phased in over 24 hours. Oil fell an additional 3.5% to $66.10, and the price is now below where it was before fighting between Iran and Israel began over a week ago, when a barrel of U.S. crude was just above $68.
Markets were initially nervous Sunday as oil futures opened for trading. The price of Brent crude, the international standard, jumped 4% as traders anxiously watched the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway on Iran's southern border that legislators in Tehran were demanding be closed in retaliation. That would have walloped the global economy because much of world's crude and liquified gas passes through it.