Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) at the opening bell in New York on March 12, 2026. <\/p>\n
Timothy A. Clary | Afp | Getty Images<\/p>\n
Stocks were under pressure on Thursday as oil prices added to their surge on supply disruption worries while the Iran war continued.<\/p>\n
The Dow Jones Industrial Average<\/a> fell 602 points, or 1.3%. The S&P 500<\/a> lost 1.1%, while the Nasdaq Composite<\/a> shed 1.3%.<\/p>\n Crude prices continued to climb after Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei \u2014 who was appointed on March 9 \u2014 said that the Strait of Hormuz should remain closed as “tool to pressure the enemy<\/a>.” West Texas Intermediate futures<\/a> traded 9% higher at around $95 per barrel. Brent crude futures<\/a> advanced 8% to roughly $100 per barrel.<\/p>\n Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC Thursday that the U.S. Navy is “not ready” to escort oil tankers<\/a> through the Strait, though he said it will likely be able to do so by the end of the month. Traffic there has practically reached a standstill<\/a> as the conflict in the Middle East escalates.<\/p>\n Overnight, three additional foreign vessels were hit in the Persian Gulf<\/a>, according to authorities. That comes after three separate ships, including one in the Strait, had been struck Wednesday<\/a>.<\/p>\n U.S. forces on Tuesday sunk 16 mine-laying Iranian ships<\/a> near the Strait. Insurance company Chubb<\/a>\u00a0was announced as the lead underwriter for a U.S. government-led program to\u00a0provide insurance<\/a>\u00a0to ships attempting to traverse the key passageway.<\/p>\n “Iran’s strategy of sowing economic chaos in the Gulf is working as tankers come under attack and Hormuz stays shuttered, pushing Brent up toward $100,” said Adam Crisafulli of Vital Knowledge. “The U.S. and Israel have military dominance and Iran’s missile\/nuclear programs may be degraded, but Tehran’s hardline [government] is firmly entrenched, and it’s plan now seems to be leveraging oil to push Trump further down an offramp.”<\/p>\n To help ease energy costs, Wright said late Wednesday that the U.S. will release 172 million barrels of oil<\/a> from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It will take about 120 days to deliver the fuel.<\/p>\n The International Energy Agency also on Wednesday agreed to a coordinated release of 400 million barrels of oil<\/a> in an effort to combat the supply disruption caused by the war. Oil prices remained higher in the previous session, however, amid worries that the conflict could be drawn out<\/a>.<\/p>\n President Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0earlier this week said that the war will end “very soon<\/a>,” which had caused a reprieve in surging oil prices after they topped $100\u00a0a barrel.<\/p>\n The S&P 500<\/a> and the 30-stock Dow declined on Wednesday as investors remained wary of the impact of the U.S.-Iran war on oil prices<\/a> throughout the day, as higher costs stoke fears of inflation. Despite the ongoing conflict, the S&P 500’s pullback has been relatively tame with the benchmark just 3.2% off its record reached in January.<\/p>\n Selling was broad on Thursday, with banks and tech stocks in the red. Morgan Stanley<\/a> led financials lower after capping private credit fund withdrawals<\/a>. Energy stocks, including Chevron<\/a> and Exxon Mobil<\/a>, were among the few stocks in the green.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) at the opening bell in New…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":650440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[269155,266351,133,81,37911,37912,77,69,91320,144,37924,250645,269371,51317,51,152483,259093,250818,83,262599,64216,207579,135,13201,10403,91322,143,50,141578,25608,37913,263657,276215,91321,145,134,16285,52,67,261697,259090,37914,108600],"class_list":["post-650439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-lco26k","tag-lco26q","tag-breaking-news-markets","tag-business-news","tag-chevron-corp","tag-conocophillips","tag-donald-j-trump","tag-donald-trump","tag-dow-jones-fut-sep25","tag-dow-jones-industrial-average","tag-exxon-mobil-corp","tag-fidelity-nasdaq-composite-index-track","tag-frontline-plc","tag-halliburton-co","tag-headlines","tag-ice-brent-crude-oct25","tag-invesco-db-oil-fund","tag-invesco-qqq-trust","tag-iran","tag-ishares-sp-100-etf","tag-lp","tag-marathon-petroleum-corp","tag-markets","tag-morgan-stanley","tag-mosaic-co","tag-nasdaq-100-fut-sep25","tag-nasdaq-composite","tag-news","tag-occidental-petroleum-equity-warrants-exp-3rd-august-2027","tag-oracle-corp","tag-phillips-66","tag-proshares-ultra-bloomberg-crude-oil","tag-rtx-corp","tag-sp-500-fut-sep25","tag-sp-500-index","tag-stock-markets","tag-suppress-zephr","tag-top-stories","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-brent-oil-fund","tag-united-states-oil-fund","tag-valero-energy-corp","tag-wti-crude-sep25"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}