Stock market today: S&P 500 clinches longest losing streak since 2022 as oil surges, ‘Magnificent 7’ stocks shed $300 billion

Stocks fell on Friday as oil prices held above $100 per barrel and bond yields moved higher.

The market sell-off came despite President Trump postponing planned strikes on Iran’s power infrastructure, as the US continues efforts to negotiate a ceasefire.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) dropped 1.7%, extending losses for a fifth week in a row in its longest streak of declines since 2022.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) dropped more than 1.7%, entering correction territory.

The Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) dropped 2.1%, sliding deeper into correction territory amid a broad sell-off in technology stocks.

As a group, the “Magnificent Seven” stocks lost roughly $870 billion in market cap over the past week.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) was on pace for its worst weekly losing streak since 2022, as technology stocks sank amid fears of higher inflation and a more hawkish Federal Reserve.

The broad-based index was down more than 1.6% in afternoon trading, on track for its fifth straight week of losses as surging oil prices have lifted inflation expectations.

Tech stocks sold off while bond yields rose. Brent crude (BZ=F) traded above $105 per barrel while West Texas Intermediate (CL=F) nearly touched $100.

Big Tech stocks accelerated losses on Friday amid fears of higher-for-longer interest rates, weighing on growth stocks.

Nvidia (NVDA), Amazon (AMZN), and Tesla (TSLA) all fell. Meta (META) extended losses from Thursday after a landmark ruling against the company over social media addiction.

Bond yields rose on Friday amid expectations of higher inflation from surging oil prices, as investors anticipate the Federal Reserve will not be able to cut rates this year.

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) dropped 4% to about $66,650 on Friday, erasing nearly all the gains accumulated during the Iran war.

The selling was due in part to outflows from spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds, along with the expiration of $14 billion in options contracts, which forced traders to unwind or adjust their positions.

The decline in bitcoin prices comes as investors went risk‑off, pushing stocks lower and bond yields higher, as hopes for a dovish Federal Reserve faded amid rising inflation risks from surging oil prices.

“If the dollar continues to strengthen alongside oil and yields, bitcoin may remain pinned or drift lower,” Nexo Dispatch analyst Iliya Kalchev wrote in a note to clients.

Strategists have highlighted the risk of further declines in bitcoin, even though it has been relatively resilient compared with stocks or gold since the start of the Iran war.

“The trend in the data suggests an increasing likelihood of further downside volatility, and the burden of proof remains on the bulls,” Sean Farrell, Fundstrat’s digital head of assets, wrote on Thursday.

“Stay nimble and maintain dry powder,” he added.

Federal Reserve Vice Chair Philip Jefferson is monitoring the situation in the Middle East, signaling he is ready to keep interest rates steady as the central bank watches how the war in Iran affects the economy.

Yahoo Finance’s Jennifer Schonberger reports:

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Gold (GC=F) futures rebounded by 3% on Friday, though they still on pace for their fourth week of declines.

The precious metal jumped to around $4,540 per ounce after getting hammered since the war in Iran started.

The recent sell‑off has erased most of gold’s year‑to‑date gains following a strong performance in 2025, as rising bond yields, expectations for higher-for-longer interest rates, and a firm US dollar weighed on the non‑yielding asset.

A liquidity crunch also contributed to the heavy sell-off.

“Gold’s decline was triggered by liquidity-driven deleveraging, not by a change in fundamentals,” said Sprott market strategist Paul Wong.

“Rising cross-asset volatility forced investors to raise cash and reduce exposure, prompting the sale of gold as a liquid source of capital,” he added.

Worries about the SaaSpocalypse returned on Friday.

The iShares Software Sector ETF (IGV) fell 2.8% after proving more resilient earlier in the week. Cybersecurity stocks Palo Alto Networks (PANW) and CrowdStrike (CRWD) led the way down with declines of more than 5% after details of Anthropic’s latest model were inadvertently released.

The broader downturn was driven by a couple of factors.

New agentic capabilities from startups like OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) and Anthropic (ANTH.PVT) continue to send shivers through the software industry amid concerns that companies will replace per-head software contracts with AI agents. As Bloomberg’s Rebecca Torrence has pointed out, software contracts have already gotten shorter as enterprise customers no longer want to commit to multiyear agreements, given the fast pace of AI’s evolution.

The repricing of software stocks — among shares of other industries — due to AI disruption was the major theme in the market earlier this year until the war in Iran and subsequent rise in oil prices dominated headlines.

This week, that major risk event also hit tech names, as investors began changing their view on the Fed’s next interest rate move, expecting a higher chance of rate hikes than rate cuts this year.

Cruise-liner giant Carnival Corporation (CCL) cut its 2026 full-year outlook on Friday, sending shares falling by roughly 4%.

In a press release on Friday, Carnival set its adjusted earnings estimate for fiscal year 2026 at $2.21 per share from a previous forecast in December of $2.48, noting the “impact from recent changes in fuel prices.”

Analysts are looking for $2.37 per share, according to consensus estimates compiled by S&P Capital IQ.

Carnival noted that it is forecasting fuel costs based on estimates that the price of Brent crude, the international pricing benchmark, will average $90 per barrel through May, $85 per barrel in the third quarter, and $80 per barrel in the fourth quarter.

The company also noted that a strong first quarter “supported an increase to our full-year operational outlook of nearly $150 million, helping to mitigate the impact of higher fuel prices.”

The 10-year Treasury (^TNX) yield jumped to 4.46% on Friday, its highest level since July, as President Trump’s postponement of strikes on Iranian infrastructure failed to calm the bond market and lower oil prices.

The move is significant, given that the 10-year Treasury was around 3.96% before the start of the Iran conflict.

Yields move inversely to bond prices.

Strategists point to expectations of higher inflation, driven by surging oil prices, as the main force behind rising yields. Investors have scaled back expectations for Fed rate cuts anytime soon, as Brent crude remains above $100 per barrel, despite Trump’s suggestions that the US is negotiating with Iran.

“After months of expecting the Federal Reserve Board to cut interest rates this year, investors have returned to a familiar refrain: ‘Higher for longer,'” wrote Mike Dickson, head of research and quantitative strategies at Horizon.

That investor sentiment shift has been the main driver of the 2-year yield, which has climbed to 4%, up roughly 50 basis points since late February.

“Given the disruptions to natural gas, fertilizers, helium, etc., markets might also be anticipating a broader commodity shock, which would likely pass through into core inflation,” Bank of America economist Aditya Bhave wrote on Friday.

US stocks turned into the red again on Friday as oil rallied despite a second delay from President Trump on US strikes on Iran’s domestic power infrastructure.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) and Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) dropped 0.8%, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) lost a slightly slimmer 0.7%.

Oil prices rose more than 3% on Friday as investors increasingly view the war through alonger-term lens. Futures on the international benchmark Brent crude (BZ=F) traded above $104 a barrel, while those on the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (CL=F) crossed $97.

On Friday morning, the Senate passed a bill that will fund the TSA and other Department of Homeland Security operations, excluding ICE. The vote is the first step toward ending the partial federal shutdown that has roiled US airports.

After tracking oil prices through March, short-term Treasury yields have surged ahead of oil since the Federal Reserve’s March meeting — suggesting that expectations are shifting hawkish for the Fed.

Over the past 10 days since the Fed’s meeting, futures on the US oil benchmark, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude (CL=F), have remained flat, down less than 1% over that period. Those on international benchmark Brent (BZ=F) have lost roughly 3%.

In the rates market, however, two-year Treasurys have split off from oil, gaining roughly 30 basis points since the meeting.

The reaction in Treasurys can be at least partially attributed to more hawkish positioning from the Fed’s leadership, Bank of America US economist Aditya Bhave wrote in a client note Friday morning.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s comments after the Fed’s meeting skewed hawkish, and Fed governor Christopher Waller “sounded very concerned about the oil spike” in an interview he gave on March 20, Bhave wrote.

Given the post-meeting split between short-term rates and oil prices, “We think markets are now anticipating a more hawkish Fed reaction function and, possibly, a broader commodity shock,” Bhave wrote.

Oil prices could hit $200 per barrel if the war in Iran persists through the end of June, according to strategists from Macquarie Group.

If the war were to stretch well into the summer, the strategists wrote in a client note on Wednesday, prices would need to move high enough to “destroy an historically large amount of global oil demand,” likely requiring Brent crude prices above $200 per barrel and pushing US gasoline prices up to roughly $7 per gallon.

On Friday, Brent (BZ=F) futures traded above $104 per barrel, holding onto roughly 3% gains on the day even after President Trump pushed back his deadline for striking Iranian domestic power infrastructure for a second time. US benchmark WTI crude (CL=F) held onto slightly higher gains to trade above $96 per barrel.

Earlier in the conflict, the two energy products reached prices not seen since the early months of 2022, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The Macquarie strategists, led by Vikas Dwivedi, assigned a roughly 40% probability to their bull case of $200 per barrel oil. More likely, the strategists wrote, is a situation in which the war ends by the beginning of April, oil prices moderate, economic costs remain small, and global growth only slightly slows.

“The market is still expecting President Trump to soon declare victory, with oil and gas futures heavily backwardated,” the strategists wrote. “However, given uncertainty about what victory looks like, and recent attacks on energy infrastructure, there is a risk that prices may need to move significantly higher first to incentivise a near-term deal.”

The US Senate passed legislation early on Friday to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, creating a path to end the partial government shutdown that created long lines and chaos in some of the nation’s biggest airports.

Airline stocks remained in the red in premarket trading despite hopes that the affected airports in Atlanta, Houston, and New York could soon see some relief.

Bloomberg reports:

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Unity Software (U) stock rose 12% before the bell on Friday after the videogame developer said it now expects first-quarter earnings to come in above its guidance.

TripAdvisor (TRIP) stock rose 3% during premarket hours today. The travel guidance platform recently added two new directors to its board as part of a new plan made in agreement with activist investor Starboard Value.

Coinbase (COIN) stock fell 3% before the bell on Friday. Coinbase and Better Home & Finance (BETR) announced on Thursday they would be teaming up to let homebuyers use their crypto holdings as collateral for down payments.

Bloomberg reports:

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) is at the intersection of two troubling trends roiling the technology sector, which has the stock on track for its worst quarterly performance since the global financial crisis two decades ago.

First, the software giant is doubling down on capital expenditures as Wall Street increasingly asks when investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure will produce more dramatic payoffs in revenue growth.

And second, investors are selling software stocks over fears that AI startups like Anthropic (ANTH.PVT) and OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) are creating agents that can replace products made by companies like Microsoft.

“There is this concern that rather than paying Microsoft, we’ll see more customers go directly to AI vendors, which could disrupt the core business, or at least pressure pricing and margins,” said Jonathan Cofsky, portfolio manager at Janus Henderson Investors, which holds the shares.

The company’s stock is down 24% in the first quarter, on pace for its biggest loss since its 27% drop in the fourth quarter of 2008. It’s by far the weakest performer among the Magnificent Seven tech giants to start the year, with an index tracking the group falling 13% over that time.

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Video game developer Unity (U) said it was exiting its non-strategic ad business on Thursday, sending its shares up more than 12% in premarket trading.

The announcement came alongside preliminary first quarter results that boosted expectations.

Unity expects to report revenue of $505 million to $508 million, up from previous guidance of $480 million to $490 million. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to grow 58% to be between $130 million and $135 million, versus prior guidance of $105 million to $110 million.

The gaming software maker also announced it would divest its ironSource Ads Network by the end of next month to enhance profitability and speed up revenue growth.

Wall Street started 2026 forecasting losses for the dollar (DX-Y.NYB), based in part on expectations that the Federal Reserve would keep cutting interest rates. But that dim view has turned bullish as the Iran war spikes oil prices.

From Bloomberg:

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Gold (GC=F) continued to march higher on Friday after President Trump reset the deadline for Iran to come to the table to agree on a ceasefire deal.

Bloomberg reports:

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Bloomberg reports:

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OpenAI‘s ChatGPT ads pilot in the United States has crossed the $100 million annualized revenue mark within six weeks of ‌launch, a company spokesperson said on Thursday, pointing to robust early ‌demand for the AI startup’s nascent advertising business.

Sam Altman-led OpenAI had said in January that ​it would start showing ads in ChatGPT to some U.S. users, ramping up efforts to generate revenue from the AI chatbot to fund the high costs of developing the technology. The ads were to be tested with users on the ‌company’s free tier and ⁠the lower-priced Go plan.

The ads are separate from the answers generated by ChatGPT and do not influence its outputs. User ⁠conversations are not shared with marketers, the company said at the time.

OpenAI has now expanded to over 600 advertisers, ​with nearly 80% of small- and medium-sized ​businesses signaling interest in ChatGPT ​ads, the spokesperson said.