Oil hits $90 per barrel, stocks continue to drop as escalating Iran war shocks markets – NBC News
Shortly after that report, President Donald Trump took to Truth Social, posting that “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”
Stocks also sharply dropped. The S&P 500 closed down more than 1.3%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 453 points, or 1%, and the Nasdaq Composite tumbled 1.6%.
All three major indexes now sit firmly in negative territory for the year. It was the Dow’s worst week since April 2025.
For the S&P 500, it was the worst week since October.
Markets also fell after a grim labor market report showed the economy shed 92,000 jobs in February and included downward revisions to the previous two employment reports.
“The pace of job gains over the last few months is still dramatically slower than it was in 2024 and much of 2025,” said Elyse Ausenbaugh, head of investment strategy at J.P. Morgan Wealth Management. “Add higher oil prices given conflict in the Middle East and renewed tariff uncertainty to the convoluted jobs market story, and you have a tricky, stagflationary mix of risks in the backdrop for the Fed.”
All of the downbeat economic news comes as the Trump administration tries to combat an affordability crisis that consumers have been facing down since Trump took office again.
On the campaign trail in 2024, Trump pledged to “cut your energy costs in half within 12 months.” But inflation spiked after the president introduced sweeping tariffs in April. Despite the administration walking back some of those, inflation remains above 2%, which the Federal Reserve considers an acceptable level.
Administration officials have also said that gas prices would come down after they captured Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and worked to open up that country’s economy. But oil companies have been skeptical about investing in Venezuela.
On Thursday, Trump told Reuters that gas prices will “drop very rapidly when this is over, and if they rise, they rise, but this is far more important than having gasoline prices go up a little bit.”
