Asian shares tumble with South Korea’s Kospi down nearly 10% Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy. It’s a gloomy start to the week as attacks between the US and Iran in the Gulf continue. Tehran said it had closed the strait of Hormuz, while Donald Trump insisted the key shipping passage remained open and US officials said 20 ships were escorted through the waterway in the past 24 hours. For now, we remain hopeful that both parties would return to the negotiating table and traffic would start to flow through the strait. We are not looking for oil prices to go back to the March highs. This week would be an important week to determine which direction geopolitics takes. Focus would also be on US CPI [consumer prices index], particularly with oil prices threatening further inflationary pressure in the pipeline. It’s also likely to an important week for central bank speech with Warsh testimony in front of the House (Tuesday) and Senate (Wednesday). Market is still not sure whether Warsh sits on the hawkish or the dovish camp. Our view is that he sits in the credibility camp and hence would respond to the incoming data. 5.45pm BST: European Central Bank executive board member Isabel Schnabel speech 7pm BST: Bank of England chief economist Huw Pill speech Continue reading...