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Financial Markets 03/16 15:25
NEW YORK (AP) -- A drop in oil prices on Monday helped send the U.S. stock
market to its best day since the war in Iran began.
The S&P 500 climbed 1% for its biggest gain in five weeks. The Dow Jones
Industrial Average added 387 points, or 0.8%, and the Nasdaq composite jumped
1.2%.
The driver for markets once again was the price of oil. A barrel of
benchmark U.S. crude fell 5.3% to settle at $93.50, easing some pressure off
the economy after topping $102 earlier in the morning. Brent crude, the
international standard, fell 2.8% to $100.21 per barrel after earlier getting
as high as $106.50.
It's a reprieve, for now at least, after oil prices spiked from roughly $70
before the United States and Israel began their attacks on Iran. In response,
Iran has nearly halted traffic through the narrow Strait of Hormuz, where a
fifth of the world's oil typically sails from the Persian Gulf to customers
worldwide. That has oil producers cutting production because their crude has
nowhere to go.
The worry in financial markets is that if the strait remains closed for a
long time, it could keep enough oil off the market to drive inflation up to a
debilitating level for the global economy.
President Donald Trump over the weekend demanded that other countries hurt
by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz "take care of that passage" and said his
country "will help - A LOT!"
European countries, meanwhile, want to know more about Trump's plans for the
war on Iran and when the conflict might end as they weighed his demand.
The U.S. stock market has a track record of bouncing back relatively quickly
from military conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, as long as oil prices
don't stay too high for too long. Many professional investors are expecting
that to be the case again, which has helped keep U.S. stock prices near their
record levels.
For all its dramatic swings over the last couple weeks, including several
that struck hour to hour, the S&P 500 is only 4% below its all-time high.
Escalations have been mounting quickly in the war, to be sure, but that
could suggest "both sides are facing growing constraints that may prevent a
long conflict," according to Paul Christopher, head of global investment
strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.
On Wall Street, stocks of companies with big fuel bills helped lead the
market thanks to falling oil prices. Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings steamed
5.1% higher, while United Airlines climbed 4.2% to trim their big losses for
the year so far.
National Storage Affiliates leaped 30% after Public Storage said it would
buy its 69 million rentable square feet in an all-stock deal valued at $10.5
billion. Public Storage fell 1.7%.
Dollar Tree rose 6.4% after reporting a stronger profit for the latest
quarter than analysts expected, even as fewer shoppers visited its stores.
Nebius Group, a Dutch AI cloud company, saw its stock that trades in the
United States leap 15% after announcing a five-year infrastructure contract
with Meta Platforms that could be worth up to $27 billion.
Nvidia, whose chips are powering much of the world's move into
artificial-intelligence technology rose 1.6% as its CEO, Jensen Huang, talked
up the tech's possibilities at an AI conference and said he foresaw $1 trillion
in demand for AI chips through 2027. It was the strongest single force lifting
the S&P 500.
All told, the S&P 500 rose 67.19 points to 6,699.38. The Dow Jones
Industrial Average added 387.94 to 46,946.41, and the Nasdaq composite climbed
268.82 to 22,374.18.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose modestly in Europe, including a 0.5%
return for Germany's DAX, following a mixed finish in Asia.
Stocks jumped 1.4% in Hong Kong but slipped 0.3% in Shanghai.
In the bond market, Treasury yields eased as falling oil prices took some
pressure off inflation worries. A report showing a weakening of manufacturing
activity in New York state also weighed on yields.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.22% from 4.28% late Friday.
Yields, though, are still higher than they were before the war, when the
10-year Treasury yield was at just 3.97%. Traders have pushed back their
expectations for when the Federal Reserve could resume its cuts to interest
rates because of the spike in oil prices caused by the war.
Such cuts would give the economy and job market a boost, and they're
something Trump has angrily been calling for, but they would worsen inflation.
Traders see virtually no chance of the Fed announcing a cut to rates after its
next meeting concludes on Wednesday, according to data from CME Group.
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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
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