Laura Bessarati

pushing back towards $110 US a barrel.

That's boosting prices to their highest level in about three weeks.

Now, remember, it did peak in early March at just under $120 US a barrel.

So we're really pushing towards those levels once again.

And mind you, oil started the year at $60 a barrel, roughly.

So it's about doubled since the start of this year.

Yeah, it's almost a sea of red everywhere else.

Financials have actually only improved in the last little while because they were down for most of the session as well.

And of course, gold prices have been going backwards.

They were down about 1% overnight.

So the Aussie gold subsector is down roughly 3%.

So plenty of those big gold mining names down like Northern Star and Evolution Mining.

So

if you look at the worst performance list, a lot of mining names, even outside of the gold space as well.

So that's really dragging our market lower today.

And look, we heard yesterday that Iran has sent a new proposal over to the US.

Now, the White House said US officials are discussing the latest proposal, but maintained red lines on any deal to end the war.

And perhaps they're going to come out with something in the next couple of days, but we'll have to wait and see if that counter offer does eventuate.

Today, we also got the latest weekly read on consumer confidence, and it showed that confidence actually rose slightly, climbing three and a half points to its highest level since mid-March.

But don't get excited because if you zoom out, it's still sitting near historic.