Higher Gas Prices for Longer: 8 Key Items Shaping the Stock Market Thursday

These are the early headlines and other items poised to influence the market at the start of the trading day. As we share this collection of market drivers, U.S. equity futures point to a modest gain when trading begins later on Thursday morning.

1. The United States and Iran are edging toward a limited, temporary agreement to halt their war, sources and officials said on Thursday, with a draft framework that would stop the fighting but leave the most contentious issues unresolved. The emerging plan centres on a short-term memorandum rather than a ‌comprehensive peace deal, underscoring deep divisions between the two sides and signalling that any agreement at this stage would be an interim step. (Reuters)

As we see it, the key to the above is that the most contentious issues between the U.S. and Iran remain in place, including enriched uranium. It also doesn’t help that President Trump threatened Iran on Wednesday with “higher-level” military strikes if it doesn’t accept a peace deal. While we too are hopeful, we don’t let hopium dictate our moves with the Portfolio, especially since we continue to see indications that the fallout from the U.S.-Iran war will continue to be felt.

2. Even if peace breaks out in the Middle East, it will be months before the oil market returns to anything resembling normal — and much of the industry may never be the same. The lag in restoring operations after the largest supply disruption in history will keep oil prices elevated for months, and will likely add a smaller premium for well over a year, experts say. (Barron’s)

Even if the Strait of Hormuz opened right away, pump prices will likely remain higher — maybe a lot higher — than pre-war levels at least through the midterm elections. (

Axios)

That suggests consumers will continue to tighten their belts, which means they will maintain selective spending and efforts to stretch their spending dollars. On Wednesday night, Costco (COST) shared a stellar April sales report, confirming not only our thoughts on how it is positioned with consumers, but also how it continues to win spending market share. We’ll have more on that in a standalone alert later on Thursday morning.

3. Maersk has warned that the impact of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz would be increasingly felt in global trade in the coming months, with the world’s second-largest container shipping line concerned about a potential collapse in consumer demand. The Danish group said its costs had increased by $500mn per month because of disruption in the strait, but that so far it had been able to pass these on to customers through higher freight rates. (FT)

Another indication that the supply chain fallout from the U.S.-Iran war will not be resolved in the short term and that inflation pressures in that supply chain are persisting. On Wednesday, Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee flagged concerns rising about tangled supply chains and more persistent price increases. In our Costco note out later on Thursday morning, we’ll recap the input and output price comments captured by S&P Global in its April PMI reports. And yes, those findings echo Maersk’s comments above.

4. McDonald’s missed Wall Street estimates for growth in quarterly U.S. comparable sales on Thursday, as low-priced meal deals and limited-time offers failed to draw diners whose budgets have been strained by higher fuel and grocery ‌costs. After several years of price hikes, operators in the fast-food industry have been forced to rely more on value-driven promotions to revive demand as customers cut back spending. (Reuters)

While McDonald’s (MCD) shares are trading higher on Thursday morning on the back of a quarterly beat, the closely watched U.S. comp sales are likely to come into focus during the company’s earnings call on Thursday morning. But when we factor in the 6.4% fall in North American comp sales reported this morning by Papa John’s (PZZA) for Q1 2026 and the quarterly miss at Shake Shack (SHAK) , we can see the toll of renewed inflation pressures, especially on lower income consumers. Comments about pricing and margins from these three companies and others like them are what we’ll be watching.

5. Fortinet Inc. shares rose as much as 24% in post-market trading after the cybersecurity company raised its full-year revenue outlook above expectations, following its largest billings expansion in over three years… “We are seeing strong demand driven by heightened ransomware and nation-state activity alongside rapid digitalization.” (Bloomberg)

We have been vocal about the dark side of AI as a tailwind for not only for an accelerated pace of cyberattacks but also a wider array. Fortinet (FTNT) management backed that thinking on Thursday night’s earnings call:

… customers invest in and upgrade their network security solutions to defend against sophisticated attacks that are growing in both speed and complexity due to the availability of AI tools. AI is expanding the attack surface and increasing performance requirements, which is driving higher and more durable security spend across networking, SASE and security operations.

We continue to think cybersecurity should be a part of every investor’s portfolio, and we continue to favor the diverse exposure we have through the First Trust Nasdaq Cybersecurity ETF (CIBR) .

6. OpenAI may be moving from selling artificial intelligence tools to buying the people who can make them work inside large companies. The ChatGPT maker’s new joint venture with private equity investors is in advanced talks on three acquisitions of services companies that help businesses deploy AI, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Anthropic, OpenAI’s chief rival in enterprise AI, is pursuing a similar path through its own private equity-backed venture, Reuters said. (PYMNTS)

While companies like ServiceNow (NOW) will position themselves as the “AI Control Tower” for the enterprise, the above is likely to renew questions and concerns about software companies. The thinking had been that AI companies would partner with software companies and their customer reach into the enterprise. An M&A strategy focused on service companies at OpenAI, Anthropic, and potentially others could force a change in that thinking.

7. Economic data today per TipRanks: Challenger Job Cuts Report (April), Initial & Continuing Jobless Claims (Weekly), Productivity & Unit Labor Cost (Q1 2026), Construction Spending (February, March), EIA Natural Gas Inventories (Weekly), Consumer Inflation Expectations (April), Consumer Credit (March).

8. Companies reporting on Thursday per TipRanks: AM – Canada Goose (GOOS) , Datadog (DDOG) , GATX (GATX) , Grainger (GWW) , Installed Building Products (IBP) , Lamar Advertising (LAMR) , McDonald’s (MCD) , Papa John’s (PZZA) , Peloton (PTON) , Radware (RDWR), Shake Shack (SHAK) , Tapestry (TPR) , Trex (TREX) . PM – Airbnb (ABNB) , AMN Healthcare (AMN) , Block (XYZ) , Cloudflare (NET) , CoreWeave (CRWV) , Gilead (GILD) , GoodRx (GDRX) , Lyft (LYFT) , Motorola Solutions (MSI) , Post (POST) , Sony (SONY), Synaptics (SYNA) , Toast (TOST) , Warner Music (WMG) .