Stocks fell from their records Thursday after oil prices yo-yoed as Wall Street waits to see whether its hopes for a deal to end the Iran war are warranted or just wishful.
The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil settled at $100.06, down 1.2%, and continued its decline from more than $115 early this week. But it swung sharply before getting there, as Iran said it was reviewing the latest U.S. proposals on ending their war.
The hope is that an end to the war will reopen the Strait of Hormuz and allow oil tankers trapped in the Persian Gulf to resume delivering crude to customers. Oil and gasoline are still much more expensive than they were before the war began because of the Strait’s closure.
Brent’s price briefly fell near $96 per barrel on Thursday after a spokesperson for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said, “We expect an agreement sooner rather than later.” Pakistan has been mediating talks between the United States and Iran. But Brent later erased much of that drop and briefly topped $102, which in turn sent stocks lower on Wall Street.
The Standard & Poor‘s 500 index fell 0.4% from its all-time high set the day before. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 313 points, or 0.6%, and the Nasdaq composite slipped 0.1% from its own record.
Wall Street saw even sharper swings earlier in the war, when hopes rallied for a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, only to get quickly dashed. That could happen again. And Iran has created a government agency to vet and tax vessels seeking passage through the strait, a shipping data company reported Thursday, a move that could add to costs for fuel.
Despite all the uncertainties about the war, a powerful parade of U.S. companies reporting even bigger profits for the start of the year than analysts expected has helped support the U.S. stock market. Stock prices tend to follow the path of corporate profits over the long term.
Datadog leaped 31.3% to help lead the U.S. market after the monitoring and security platform for cloud applications topped analysts’ expectations for profit in the latest quarter.
Albemarle rose 3% after the lithium products and specialty chemicals company likewise delivered better-than-expected results. Taser maker Axon Enterprise rallied 10.6% after raising its forecast for revenue this year in part because of big growth for its counter-drone products.
On the losing end of Wall Street was Whirlpool, which tumbled 11.9% after reporting much weaker results than analysts expected. It’s instituting the largest price increases in a decade for its major appliances in North America, while accelerating cuts to its costs, as it contends with weaker confidence among U.S. consumers.
Shake Shack dropped 28.3% after its results for the latest quarter fell well below analysts’ expectations.
McDonald’s stock held steadier and slipped 0.1% after its revenue for the latest quarter edged past analysts’ expectations. CEO Chris Kempczinski said high gasoline prices and consumer anxiety over the Iran war could dent its sales this spring.
All told, the S&P 500 fell 28.01 points to 7,337.11. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 313.62 to 49,596.97, and the Nasdaq composite slipped 32.75 to 25,806.20.
In the bond market, Treasury yields rose after oil prices pared their drops. The yield on the 10-year Treasury climbed to 4.38% from 4.36% late Wednesday.
Higher yields can raise rates for mortgages and other kinds of loans going to U.S. households and businesses, which in turn can slow the economy. Higher yields also tend to push downward on prices for stocks and other kinds of investments.
The 10-year Treasury yield was at just 3.97% before the war.
Several reports on the U.S. economy came in mixed. One said more U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week, but the increase was not as bad as economists expected. Another report suggested that productivity for U.S. workers improved by only half of what economists expected for the latest quarter.
In stock markets abroad, indexes fell in Europe following a stronger finish in Asia. Stocks dropped 1.5% in London and 1.2% in Paris.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 roared 5.6% higher as trading in Tokyo resumed following a holiday and caught up with big gains for Asian markets from earlier in the week. It has soared nearly 71% in the last 12 months on strength for tech stocks, benefiting from the boom in artificial intelligence.
“I think it’s a kind of bubble because buying activity concentrated on leading AI, artificial intelligence stock and semiconductor-related stocks. It’s a situation where only semiconductor stocks are being bought,” said Takashi Hiroki, chief strategist at MONEX.
Choe writes for the Associated Press.
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