Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq edge up as oil tops $100 again, Fed meeting kicks off

Yahoo Finance’s Ines Ferré reports:

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Software is broadly green today and notably outperforming chips — but the chart that matters most still hasn’t changed.

The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) popped to $87 shortly after the open, only to be met with swift rejection — a reminder that the $87 to $89 zone remains the first real hurdle for any software comeback.

That’s the same basic setup I wrote about on Monday.

Today’s bounce helps, but it doesn’t settle the bigger question of whether software can turn a tradable rebound into leadership. What the space likely needs is a loud, sector-wide signal that AI is driving real revenue and margin upside — not just demos and promises — so investors can stop treating software as a service (SaaS) like dead money.

We’re not there yet. But under the surface, some names are starting to act better.

From the Feb. 23 big low, Cloudflare (NET) is up 25%, Datadog (DDOG) 25%, CrowdStrike (CRWD) 23%, and Intuit (INTU) 28%. Even with Microsoft (MSFT) and Salesforce (CRM) in the red today, plenty of smaller names are flashing green this month: ServiceNow (NOW) is up 9% in March, Palantir (PLTR) 13%, and Palo Alto (PANW) 14%.

Energy is the best-performing large-cap sector again today, with the Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLE) up over 1.5%, having earned its 16th record intraday high of the year.

It’s the same message I shared late last week, when I wrote that energy is no longer dead money. This is no longer just an oil headline trade — it’s a sector acting like a leader. And investors have several industries within the sector to choose from.

The integrated giants remain the backbone. Exxon Mobil (XOM) is up over 1.5% today and more than 30% in 2026 — and it’s already posted 17 intraday record highs this year. Then there’s Shell (SHEL), which is up over 2% today and over 25% this year, while ConocoPhillips (COP) is nearly matching Exxon’s year-to-date performance.

But the strength is not stopping there.

In refiners, Marathon Petroleum (MPC) is up 2% today and 18% month to date, while Valero Energy (VLO) has climbed 45% this year, logging 15 intraday record highs.

In pipelines and midstream, Antero Midstream (AM) is up over 30% this year with 13 intraday records, while Williams Companies (WMB) has posted 15 intraday highs of its own in 2026.

And in oil services, Liberty Energy (LBRT) is jumping nearly 5% today and up 70% this year, with Baker Hughes (BKR) up nearly 4% on the session.

Energy was already the leading sector this year before the war. The breadth of this move suggests there’s more to come — even without triple-digit oil.

The European Union is set to restart delayed ratification proceedings for its trade deal with the US, European Parliament trade committee chair Bernd Lange told Bloomberg on Tuesday.

Under the terms of a deal struck between the US and Europe in July 2025, the EU agreed to remove all tariffs on US industrial products in return for a 15% levy on its own. At the time, Bloomberg reported, EU leadership defended the lopsided deal as a way to avoid a prolonged trade war with Washington and, therefore, its largest trading partner.

Ratification of the deal has been delayed, however, as the EU has repeatedly stalled proceedings, citing President Trump’s threats to annex Greenland and uncertainty surrounding the US Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the president’s use of IEEPA tariffs.

Since the Supreme Court ruling, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer has launched investigations into major US trading partners, including the EU, as Washington looks for ways to replace the struck-down IEEPA tariffs.

The EU has also not yet received a guarantee from the Trump administration that any new non-IEEPA tariffs would comport with the terms Brussels and Washington agreed to in July. EU lawmakers, Lange told Bloomberg, only agreed to move forward after inserting an amendment stating that the deal won’t take effect until the US agrees to honor the terms set in July.

The trade committee will vote on the ratification measure on Thursday, Bloomberg reported, before a full plenary vote in late March or April.

Nebius (NBIS) stock fell 10% on Tuesday after the AI infrastructure company announced it was raising $3.75 billion in convertible debt following major deals with Meta (META) and Nvidia (NVDA).

Nebius announced it will sell convertible senior notes to institutional buyers in two series: $2 billion due 2031 and $1.75 billion due 2033. The neocloud company, which provides cloud services specifically built for artificial intelligence, said it intends to use the funds to finance business growth by building data centers and buying chips.

The debt offering follows two landmark deals with Meta and Nvidia that the company inked in March, valued cumulatively at $29 billion, which have driven the stock 32% higher over the past month.

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The US stock market rose into the green at the start of Tuesday’s trading session as escalating conflict in the Middle East pushed oil prices higher.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) led gains with a pick-up of roughly 0.9%. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) and Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) both picked up a slightly slimmer 0.6%.

Brent crude futures (BZ=F) traded near $102 at the open after an earlier jump higher, while West Texas Intermediate (CL=F) crude traded near $94. Early Tuesday morning, the national average for US diesel topped $5 a gallon for the first time since December 2022.

The energy price outlook will complicate the outlook for the Federal Reserve, which begins its two-day meeting on Tuesday, with its second policy decision of the year and comments from Chair Jerome Powell expected on Wednesday. Markets are pricing in 99% odds of rates remaining at current levels, according to CME FedWatch.

In the corporate world, Tencent (TME), DocuSign (DOCU), and Oklo (OKLO) will report earnings on Tuesday.

For successfully navigating one of the hottest media M&A deals in years, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) CEO David Zaslav is set to be paid up to roughly $886 million if Paramount Skydance (PSKY) closes its acquisition of the storied film studio and streaming platform, according to regulatory filings.

Just before the end of February, Warner Bros. agreed to a full acquisition by Paramount Skydance at $31 per share in a deal valued at about $110 billion.

The announcement brought to a close a high-stakes battle between Paramount and streaming giant Netflix (NFLX) for control of Warner Bros., during which both offered increasingly better terms.

If the deal closes, Zaslav will receive $517.2 million in unvested equity that would trigger if and when the sale goes through, along with $115.8 million in vested equity and roughly $34.2 million in cash. The Warner Bros. CEO will also get roughly $335.4 million in tax reimbursements.

Gunnar Wiedenfels, the chief financial officer of WBD, is set to receive $120 million in total compensation.

Chief revenue officer Bruce Campbell and streaming and games CEO Jean-Briac Perrette are set to receive $121.5 million and $142 million, respectively.

As several of the world’s major central banks prepare to make a decision over where to guide rates this week, policymakers find themselves facing the dual pressure of an energy crisis spurred by the war in Iran: upward pressure on headline inflation and a growth shock potentially coming down the road.

That has thrust the world’s major central banks into a familiar — and deeply uncomfortable — position.

Just as inflation pressures were easing and policymakers were preparing to move toward rate cuts, a surge in energy prices (BZ=F, CL=F) driven by disruptions in the Middle East is complicating the global outlook. The result is a worsening policy dilemma: rising inflation risks on one side, and slowing economic growth on the other.

That trade-off will be in focus this week as the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of England all hold closely watched policy meetings. Switzerland’s central bank is also set to decide on rates.

Economists broadly expect all four institutions to keep borrowing costs unchanged, adopting the wait-and-see stance Fed Chair Jerome Powell has emphasized over the past year. But the renewed energy shock — tied to attacks on infrastructure and shipping disruptions that have roiled global oil markets — is already shifting expectations about how quickly policymakers can move to support growth.

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Mastercard (MA) is buying the stablecoin infrastructure provider BVNK in an acquisition valued at roughly $1.8 billion. Shares remained roughly flat on the news.

The deal “further expands Mastercard’s end-to-end support of digital assets and value movement across currencies, rails and regions,” Mastercard said in a press release announcing the deal, adding to the payments giant’s push into digital assets.

Earlier in March, Mastercard announced a partnership network with a host of digital assets and cryptocurrency firms, including Circle and Binance, designed to connect the digital assets world to Mastercard’s traditional payments infrastructure.

Today’s deal to acquire BVNK furthers Mastercard’s ambitions to build “highly secure and compliant payment orchestration between fiat and digital currencies across multiple chains,” Mastercard said in its press release.

Bloomberg reports:

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Delta (DAL) stock rose 4% after the airline raised its revenue target for the first quarter due to growing consumer and corporate demand. Delta also said it is well-positioned to weather the current environment of higher fuel costs.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

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The US national average for diesel prices crossed $5 per gallon on Tuesday to reach $5.044, marking a new level of stress for the US fuel market spurred by the war in Iran.

The price is up from $3.651 per gallon a month ago, according to AAA data.

Diesel is one of the mainstays of the US economy, fueling the trucks, trains, ships, and other transport that move goods across the country. Spikes in diesel prices or supply tend to ripple quickly through freight costs, agriculture, and ultimately consumer inflation.

While the war has put immense stress on crude oil prices (BZ=F), its impact may run even deeper in these areas, Goldman Sachs commodities strategists wrote in a note to clients published late Monday.

A mix of shutdowns at refineries in the Middle East, driven by both direct damage and precautionary measures, has taken roughly 2.2 million barrels per day of global refining capacity offline, strategists Yulia Zhestkova Grigsby and Daan Struyven said.

At the same time, the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has steeply cut into the roughly 3.3 million barrels per day of refined products that are typically exported through the key waterway. That’s along with the 12.8 million bpd of crude oil that exits the Strait to arrive at Asian refineries.

Higher tanker freight rates and natural gas prices (NG=F), along with a bevy of recently implemented global trade policies and tariffs, could also put upward pressure on refined products pricing.

“Prices have rallied much more for many refined products than for crude,” the strategists wrote. “While we see the largest direct effects from the hit to Persian Gulf refined products exports for European jet fuel and Asian naphtha, severe disruptions in medium-heavy crude supplies pose large downside risks to global production of diesel, jet fuel, and fuel oil.”

Nebius (NBIS) stock fell 5% during premarket hours on Tuesday after the AI infrastructure firm announced it will raise $3.75 billion via a convertible loan offering. This latest news follows announcements that Meta (META) has signed a deal with Nebius worth $27 billion, and Nvidia (NVDA) will invest $2 billion in the company.

Uber (UBER) stock rose 2% before the bell on Tuesday after Nvidia (NVDA) released news that the ride-hailing company will begin rolling out a fleet of Level 4 autonomous vehicles in Los Angeles and San Francisco in 2027.

Tandem Diabetes (TNDM) stock rose almost 5% during premarket hours on Tuesday after an analyst at Piper Sandler upgraded the company to Overweight from Neutral with a price target of $33, up from $21. The upgrade was based on Tandem’s pharmacy pricing benefit and its opportunities within international markets.

Micron Technology (MU) stock rose 1% before the bell today after surging 5% on Monday after the digital memory company announced plans to build a second chip manufacturing facility in Taiwan.

Bloomberg reports:

The largest oil market shock on record triggered by the war in the Middle East is set to have a greater impact on products such as jet fuel and diesel than on crude, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

“Prices have rallied much more for many refined products than for crude,” analysts Yulia Zhestkova Grigsby and Daan Struyven said in a note. The severe disruptions seen in supplies of so-called medium-heavy crude pose the risk of lower production of diesel, jet fuel and fuel oil, they said.

… “No products or regions are fully immune,” the Goldman analysts said. The war was hurting the ability of Persian Gulf producers to export refined products, spurring refinery outages, and slashing flows of the types of crude that are best suited to making fuels such diesel, they said.

“Nearly 60% of typical crude exports from the Persian Gulf are medium and heavy crude (typically used to produce jet fuel, diesel, and fuel oil), with much more limited alternative producers outside the Middle East,” they said.

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Reuters reports:

Citigroup cut its 12-month forecast for bitcoin (BTC-USD) and ethereum (ETH-USD), citing slow U.S. legislative progress that narrows the window for regulatory ‌catalysts expected to boost ETF-driven demand and broader institutional adoption.

Progress on ‌US crypto market-structure legislation has stalled in the Senate, with the Clarity Act’s chances of passage declining ​over disagreements on stablecoin rules and a shrinking window for approval in 2026.

The Wall Street brokerage lowered its 12-month bitcoin price forecast to $112,000 from $143,000 and its ethereum estimate to $3,175 from $4,304.

… Citi said that under a recessionary macro backdrop, bitcoin ⁠could drop to $58,000 and ether to $1,198, while its bull case, driven by stronger end-investor demand, puts bitcoin as high as $165,000 and ether at $4,488.

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Bloomberg reports:

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Bloomberg reports:

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