Strait of Hormuz, big news! Gold and silver are surging! Iran: Shot down a U.S. military refueling plane!

The Strait of Hormuz has new updates.

On Thursday (March 12), major Western stock markets closed lower across the board, and all three major U.S. stock indexes fell by more than 1.5%. Technology stocks fell across the board: Intel fell by more than 5%, TSMC fell by 5%, Tesla fell by more than 3%, and Facebook fell by more than 2%.

Most Chinese concept stocks declined. The NASDAQ Golden Dragon China Index fell by 1.02%. In individual stocks, Hesai Technology fell by more than 5%, Century Internet fell by more than 5%, iQiyi fell by more than 4%, Atour fell by more than 4%, and Xiaoma Zhixing fell by more than 4%; Xiaopeng Motors rose by more than 3%, and Tencent Music rose by more than 2%.

This morning, after gold and silver opened, both surged collectively. As of the time of writing, spot gold is up by more than 0.3%, and spot silver is up by more than 0.4%.

WTI crude oil also opened slightly higher.

On the news front, there is major new news about the Strait of Hormuz.

On the 12th, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ravanji said in an interview with the media that Iran allows some countries’ ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

Ravanji said that some countries discussed with Iran issues related to navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, and that Iran cooperated with them, but countries that participate in aggression against Iran do not enjoy “safe passage rights” through the Strait of Hormuz.

Ravanji also said that Iran has not laid mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz.

Previously, Mujtaba Khamenei, Iran’s newly appointed supreme leader, issued his first statement after taking office on the 12th. He said that Iran will not give up on revenge, will continue to use the method of blockading the Strait of Hormuz, and called on neighboring countries in the region to close U.S. military bases as soon as possible.

U.S. intelligence agencies assess that the Iranian regime is still maintaining unity and shows no signs of an imminent collapse.

Insiders said that the assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies has long been relatively consistent: there has been no obvious split within the Iranian regime, nor any opposition force strong enough to shake the regime.

In addition, the Hatem Ambyar Central Command of Iran’s armed forces said in a statement that a U.S. military refueling aircraft was shot down by a missile fired by resistance groups in western Iraq, and all crew members were killed.

On the 12th, the U.S. Central Command said that a U.S. KC-135 aerial refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq. The incident occurred during the period when the U.S. and Israel launched military strikes against Iran. U.S. Central Command said that the incident was not caused by enemy fire or a friendly-force mistaken strike.