Stock market today: Dow rises, S&P 500 and Nasdaq slip as war uncertainty drives oil prices higher

Micron (MU) led semiconductor stocks lower in afternoon trading after modest dip-buying in the morning was short-lived.

Shares of the memory chip maker fell 9%, while Sandisk (SNDK) shed 8%, Intel (INTC) dropped 4%, AMD (AMD) fell 2.8%, and Nvidia (NVDA) declined by about 1%.

The rout on Monday showed continued weakness in the industry following an algorithm breakthrough Google (GOOG, GOOGL) announced last week that makes it more efficient to run artificial intelligence models by cutting the amount of memory required.

That led to a sell-off in chip names last week that resumed on Monday as investors questioned whether Google’s TurboQuant algorithm could ease the chip shortage and push prices lower.

On the other side of that debate, RBC Capital Markets analyst Srini Pajjuri wrote in a note that memory chip pricing could remain strong through 2027.

“AI data center component demand continues to be strong with no signs of a slowdown on the horizon,” Pajjuri said, as reported by Investor’s Business Daily. “Tight supply conditions are extending visibility through the year and are leading to price inflation in many cases.”

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on Monday that he views interest rates as being in a “good place” to respond to the oil shock stemming from the Iran war, reiterating that the central bank is taking a “wait-and-see” approach to policy.

His remarks at a Harvard University event came as traders pared back their bets of a Fed rate hike at the April meeting, from a 6.2% chance seen a week ago to a 2.6% chance priced in today.

Powell also stated that, at this time, he does not see a risk of contagion in private credit markets that could spread to the wider financial system, Yahoo Finance’s Jennifer Schonberger reports.

“We’re looking for connections to the banking system, and things that might, you know, result in contagion. We don’t see those right now,” Powell said. “What we see is a correction … and certainly there’ll be people losing money and things like that, but it doesn’t seem to have the makings of a broader systemic event.”

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Monday’s rebound showed signs of fading as the S&P 500 (^GSPC) slipped from positive to negative territory, falling nearly 0.2% in afternoon trading.

The tech-exposed Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) also dropped 0.5% after earlier gaining as much as 0.6%.

Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) trimmed gains of as much as 1%, rising 0.3%.

Oil prices also trimmed gains but stayed in green territory with Brent crude (BZ=F) futures hovering above $107 per barrel. West Texas Intermediate (CL=F) traded near $103.

Crypto stocks may be nearing a bottom, say Bernstein analysts.

“The combination of geopolitics and temporary crypto weak sentiment is offering big discounts” on crypto stocks, Bernstein’s Gautam Chhugani and his team wrote.

Shares of trading platforms Coinbase (COIN) and Robinhood (HOOD), as well as fintech Figure Technology Solutions (FIGR), have all fallen roughly 60% from their all-time highs as cryptocurrencies have slid from last year’s record levels.

Bernstein maintained an Outperform rating on the three stocks while lowering their price targets on expectations of weak first quarter results later this spring.

“We believe, we will see a bottom in crypto stocks into weak Q1 earnings,” the team wrote.

The analysts expect Coinbase’s earnings per share to grow by 23% in 2026, driven by a stablecoin boom, new product launches, and an expected crypto recovery.

They also see “stronger resilience,” particularly in Robinhood and Figure, given that their revenues are largely unlinked to crypto. Figure is a pure-play blockchain tokenization business, while crypto-linked revenue makes up only about 20% of Robinhood’s revenue.

“In our view, these businesses offer exposure to trillion dollar markets with years of growth ahead – prediction markets, stablecoins, tokenized real world assets, crypto derivatives and further beta on crypto recovery from the bottom,” Chhugani wrote.

Nasdaq Inc. (NDAQ) will shorten the window of time needed for newly public companies with large market caps to be included in its Nasdaq 100 index (^NDX) under a new “fast entry,” the exchange operator said Monday.

As of May 1, companies whose market caps rank within the top 40 members of the Nasdaq 100 will be eligible for inclusion in the index within 15 trading days after an IPO, drastically shortening the current timeline of roughly three months after going public before inclusion.

Index inclusion can be intensely important for major public companies, as index fund and ETF managers that offer products tracking indexes are required to buy stock in any new companies added to the index.

More than $30 trillion in assets is benchmarked to the S&P Dow Jones, Nasdaq, and FTSE Russell indexes, which are all considering potential changes that would speed up inclusion processes for newly listed companies, according to Bloomberg.

The Nasdaq 100 is “tracked by more than 200 investment products with over $600 billion in assets under management globally,” the company said Monday.

The rule changes come as Elon Musk’s SpaceX (SPAX.PVT) and the flagship AI developers OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) and Anthropic (ANTH.PVT) all consider 2026 IPOs. All three are expected to be blockbuster offerings.

SpaceX is reportedly targeting a $75 billion raise for a valuation of $1.75 trillion, according to Bloomberg, blowing out of the water the current largest IPO on record in Saudi Aramco’s $29 billion raise. Such a valuation would immediately place SpaceX within the top 10 most valuable public companies, according to Yahoo Finance data.

Bond yield dropped on Monday as Fed Chair Powell said inflation expectations remain “well anchored”, despite the recent surge in oil prices.

Yields on the 2-year Treasury dropped by as much as 10 basis points to 3.83%, while the 5-year fell to 3.97%. The 10-year Treasury (^TNX) also declined by as much as 10 basis points to 4.33%.

Powell’s comments appeared to ease inflation worries as oil has surged beyond $100 per barrel since the Iran conflict broke out on Feb. 28.

“Energy shocks have tended to come and go pretty quickly,” said Powell during a talk at Harvard.

“By the time the effects of tightening in monetary policy take effect, the oil price shock is probably long gone, and you’re weighing on the economy at a time when it’s not appropriate,” said Powell.

He added that the “tendency is to look through any kind of a supply shock,” though the critical point is to monitor inflation expectations.

Bond yields have been rising since the war in Iran began, as higher oil prices have stoked inflation fears and pushed markets to scale back expectations for Fed rate cuts. If oil and broader inflation remain elevated, the Fed would be less able to cut rates and may have to keep them higher for longer to rein in price pressures.

“Inflation expectations do appear to be well anchored beyond the short term,” said Powell.

“We will eventually face the question of what to do here, but we’re not facing them yet because we don’t know what the economic effects will be,” he added.

Shares in Alaska Air Group (ALK) lost roughly 8% Monday morning after the airline said rising fuel costs would lead to an even greater first quarter adjusted loss.

In a securities filing Monday morning, Alaska Air said the refining margins on fuel from Singapore, the airline’s “lowest cost” source, have surged by roughly 400% since early February, from an average of ~$0.45 to ~$2.25 per gallon.

Given the surge in fuel pricing, the airline expects a drag on earnings per share of at least $0.70, according to the filing. Alaska Air is now expecting a first quarter adjusted loss of $1.50 to $2 per share, the company said.

The airline’s first quarter has also been beleaguered by a series of other external events, Alaska Air said Monday. Political violence and unrest in Mexico’s Puerto Vallarta, as well as rainstorms and flooding in Hawaii, have led to “demand pullback … including during peak West Coast Spring Break travel periods.”

“Absent impacts from fuel, Puerto Vallarta, and Hawaiʻi storms, Air Group’s results would have exceeded the midpoint of original guidance,” the company said Monday.

The US stock market opened higher on Monday as Wall Street headed into a holiday-shortened trading week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) led the way up with a gain of roughly 1%. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose roughly 0.8% while the tech-exposed Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) gained 0.6%.

Oil prices climbed on Monday after President Trump told the Financial Times that his preference would be for the US to control the oil industry in Iran “indefinitely” and threatened to strike electricity and water infrastructure in the country.

This week, investors will get labor market readings from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), the ADP private payrolls report, and the critical March jobs report.

Nike (NKE), USA Rare Earth (USAR), and Trilogy Metals (TMQ) all report earnings this week.

Oil prices turned down after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the US is “going to retake control of the straits” and hinted at potential security escorts in an interview with Fox News on Monday morning, as reported by Bloomberg.

Futures on Brent crude (BZ=F), the international pricing benchmark, traded around $114 per barrel, up 1.6% on the session after giving up gains earlier in the session, according to Bloomberg data. Those on the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude (CL=F) traded up by roughly 1% to change hands around $100.50 per barrel after a sight pullback on Bessent’s comments.

Speaking with Fox, Bessent said, “Over time, the US is going to retake control of the straits, and there will be freedom of navigation — whether it is through US escorts or a multinational escort” — adding to comments from the White House Monday morning hinting at potential directions for the war in Iran.

Earlier in the morning, oil prices popped upward after President Trump said on Truth Social that the US is “in serious discussions” to end the military operation in Iran, while at the same time threatening that if a deal is not reached shortly, the US would obliterate Iran’s key desalination and energy infrastructure.

Last week, President Trump pushed back his deadline for Iran before he would order those strikes to April 6, extending the end date for the second time.

The comments from Bessent are the latest in what has become a somewhat unusual intrusion into foreign policy by the Department of the Treasury. That said, the US Treasury has played an increasingly large role in the Middle East conflict, releasing sanctions on both Russian and Iranian oil-on-water in an attempt to add barrels to a market that is running at a deficit of around 12 million barrels per day.

Oil prices held near their session highs on Monday morning as a series of headlines from the Gulf stoked fears that the war could escalate sharply and that the market may get even tighter than it already is.

Futures on Brent crude (BZ=F), the international pricing benchmark, traded around $115 per barrel, up 2.6% on the session, according to Bloomberg data. Those on the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude (CL=F) traded up by 1.75% to change hands around $101.40 per barrel.

Two headlines have dominated the oil trade since futures opened for trading at 6 p.m. ET on Sunday.

The first of those is the entrance of the Houthis, an Iran-backed proxy militia based in Yemen, threatening safety in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait between Yemen and Djibouti. With the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed by the Iranian militia, Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline, which runs across the kingdom to the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea, has become the most important diversion path for crude supplies.

To get out of the Red Sea, oil tankers must transit the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, within striking distance of the Houthis. Insurance costs for Red Sea routes are climbing, and shipowners are already pulling back from sending their cargoes through the strait. If the Bab el-Mandeb were to be choked off, the global market would lose another 7 million barrels per day — the full capacity of the East-West Pipeline — of supply.

The second of those is renewed threats of widespread violence against Iran’s domestic infrastructure from President Trump, as well as an increasing number of US soldiers sent to the Gulf region. In a Truth Social post on Monday morning, Trump said the US is “in serious discussions” to end the military operation in Iran; however, he threatened that if a deal is not reached shortly, the US would obliterate Iran’s key desalination and energy infrastructure.

Iran’s strikes on aluminum plants in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain over the weekend pushed aluminum prices higher on Monday morning, as the industry braced for supply constraints.

The Middle East supplies around 9% of the world’s aluminum, which is used in automobiles, construction, and packaging, among other uses. On Saturday, two of the region’s top suppliers said they sustained damage to their facilities. Aluminum futures jumped over 4% to trade at $3,341.

Since the war in the Middle East began, aluminum prices have reached their highest levels since 2022, as the Strait of Hormuz closure has restricted exports to the US and Europe.

Shares of aluminum smelters also surged on the expectation of higher prices on Monday. Shares of US-based Alcoa (AA) and Century Aluminum (CENX) rose 9% in premarket trading.

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Aluminium maker Alcoa (AA) stock rose 8% before the bell on Monday after news broke that two Middle East aluminium makers had been hit by Iranian attacks, raising concerns about supply disruptions.

BJ’s (BJ) stock fell 10% before the bell as investor sentiment soured due to reports of sluggish mid-year consumer spending.

Leidos (LDOS) shares rose 6% during premarket hours today. A recent 13F filing revealed that UBS Group has reduced its stake in the company, selling 58,303 shares and holding 533,824 shares valued at about $96,301,860.

Strategy (MSTR) stock edged higher by 2% following bitcoins rise to $67,000. Strategy is one of the largest corporate holders of the cryptocurrency.

Reuters reports:

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Bloomberg reports:

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