NEW YORK, March 26, 2026, 13:14 EDT
Stocks slipped through midday Thursday, dragged down by higher oil prices and growing skepticism that the Iran war will wrap up soon. The Nasdaq led the declines, shedding 1.3%. At 12:24 p.m. Eastern, the S&P 500 slid 1%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 319 points, or 0.7%.
Investors aren’t brushing off the shock anymore. Rising crude prices have brought inflation fears back into focus, sending the 10-year Treasury yield up to roughly 4.38% and erasing hopes for a Fed rate cut this year.
Brent crude pushed past $105 as Iran shot down any talk of negotiations with Washington and clashes persisted. The Strait of Hormuz—still the key bottleneck for roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and LNG—continues to hold markets on edge. Since late February, the S&P 500 has dropped almost 4%, but oil prices have surged more than 30%.
Hank Smith, who heads investment strategy at Haverford Trust, pointed out that traders can’t quite figure out if Washington and Tehran are edging closer to actual talks or just tossing signals back and forth. According to Smith, that uncertainty has been fueling the market’s big swings this week.
Tech and communications names took the hardest hit. Meta dropped 6.8%, while Alphabet slipped 2.3%. Early child-harm verdicts put Instagram and YouTube on the hook, piling more pressure on the Nasdaq.
Energy stood out, posting the strongest gains among S&P 500 sectors as crude prices moved higher. Olaplex took off, surging 51% after Henkel struck a $1.4 billion deal to acquire the hair-care brand.
The real issue: could pricier oil start to squeeze profits? LSEG’s numbers still peg first-quarter S&P 500 earnings growth close to 14%. Krishna Chintalapalli at Parnassus points out that U.S. firms have toughened up against geopolitical shocks.
Barclays isn’t budging. The firm bumped its S&P 500 earnings forecast to $321 per share and set a price target at 7,650—suggesting a potential 16% jump from where things stood Wednesday. HSBC Private Bank, for its part, reiterated its preference for U.S. equities versus other big markets.
The risk isn’t hard to spot. According to JPMorgan, each lasting 10% jump in oil knocks 0.15 to 0.20 percentage point off U.S. growth. With crude sitting near $110 through the rest of 2026, consensus profit forecasts could get cut by 2% to 5%. Barclays economist Jonathan Millar doesn’t see the Fed feeling assured about inflation before September—or even later.
Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities, chalked up the market’s moves to oil prices. Stocks, he said, will keep reacting to crude’s gyrations—at least until negotiations kick off.
