NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market and oil prices are holding relatively steady Tuesday, for now, following their stunning swings up and down since the war with Iran began.
The S&P 500 edged down 0.1% in early trading, a day after careening from a sharp early loss to a solid gain
by the end of trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 34 points, or 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.1% higher.Calm was also
holding in the oil market, which has been the center of action for financial markets because of worries about the potential for long-term disruptions to the energy industry in the Middle East.
The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international benchmark, was sitting at $91.81. That’s down 7.2% from its settlement price the day before, but much of that decline happened before the end of Wall Street’s trading day on Monday. A barrel of benchmark U.S. crude was also sitting close to where it was during the last moments of Monday’s trading for the U.S. stock market, and it was at $88.57.
Oil prices plunged Monday from a high of nearly $120 per barrel, its most expensive level since 2022, after President Donald Trump told CBS News he thinks “the war is very complete, pretty much.” That raised hopes that the war may end sooner than later, which could allow oil to flow freely again from the Middle East to customers around the world.
But Trump’s comments later Monday, after the U.S. stock market finished trading, were not as clear about when the war may end. And a spokesperson for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, Ali Mohammad Naini, said that “Iran will determine when the war ends.” Iran launched new attacks Tuesday at Israel and Gulf Arab countries, keeping pressure on the Middle East in a war started by Israel and the United States.
That has Wall Street waiting for the next signal about how long the war may last.
One point where Trump remained clear was his desire to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. The war has caused blockages in the strait, a narrow waterway off Iran’s coast where a fifth of the world’s oil sails on a typical day, and that’s been a central reason for the swings in oil prices.
“If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far,” Trump said in a posting on his social media network late Monday.
The U.S. stock market has a history of bouncing back relatively quickly from past military conflicts, as long as oil prices don’t stay too high for too long. Uncertainty about whether that may happen again has led to huge swings rocking financial markets worldwide, often hour-to-hour.
If oil prices stay very high for very long, household budgets already stretched by high inflation could break under the pressure. Companies would see their own bills jump for fuel and to stock items on their store shelves or in their data warehouses.
Stock markets in Asia and Europe jumped in their first chance to react to Trump’s comments from late Monday. Indexes leaped 5.3% in South Korea, 2.2% in Hong Kong and 2.2% in Germany.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 rose 2.9% after the government released revised economic data that showed Japan’s economy grew faster than initially estimated in the final quarter of last year, boosted by solid business investments.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 4.11% from 4.12% late Monday.
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AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott and AP Videographer Ayaka McGill contributed.
