Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq fall as Iran war jitters return with another oil surge

President Trump announced the replacement of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem with Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin.

“I am pleased to announce that the Highly Respected United States Senator from the Great State of Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin, will become the United States Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), effective March 31, 2026,” wrote Trump on social media.

Kristi Noem will be moving to serve as Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, a new security initiative that will be announced on Saturday.

Futures on US oil (CL=F) crossed $80 for the first time since January 2025 in midday trading on Thursday, breaking through a key resistance level as the growing conflict in Iran has sent prices surging throughout the week.

West Texas Intermediate crude, the US pricing benchmark, gained more than 7.5% today to trade above $80.20 at around 1:25 p.m. ET. Futures on the international benchmark Brent (BZ=F) have picked up a smaller 4.5% to trade above $85 for the first time since July 2024.

WTI and Brent have now gained more than 20% and more than 17%, respectively, as the Iranian conflict has forced traffic through the key global chokepoint, the Strait of Hormuz, to stand still and increasingly impacted major energy infrastructure, such as Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura refinery, which is now offline.

The war has impacted countries throughout the Gulf, from Oman and Bahrain to Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.

Saudi Arabia is attempting to divert its oil flows through its East-West Pipeline that passes through the country to the Red Sea, but the pipeline can only absorb roughly 5 million to 7 million barrels per day against the roughly 20 million bpd that crosses through the Strait of Hormuz on a normal day.

When so-called core PCE inflation came in a 3% for December, dovish members of the Fed were quick to attribute the uptick to the White House’s tariff regime — but they’re looking at the wrong variable, according to Bank of America economists Aditya Bhave and Stephen Juneau.

Tariffs have contributed roughly 50 basis points to core PCE inflation, “but that’s only half the Fed’s inflation problem,” the economists wrote in a client note published Thursday morning. More worrying, they wrote, is sticky services inflation that “warrants caution from the Fed.”

If the Fed were to continue easing with deeper rate cuts, the central bank would be taking “the risk that a 30-50bp inflation overshoot gets entrenched,” Bhave and Juneau wrote.

Traders are currently pricing in a 97.3% chance that the Fed will leave the target rate unchanged at 3.5% to 3.75% in its upcoming March meeting, with expectations remaining that the Fed will cut rates by 25 to 50 basis points by the end of the year.

The Federal Reserve said it lifted its 2018 enforcement action against Wells Fargo (WFC), following its determination that the bank had met all required conditions.

For nearly a decade, Wells Fargo was required to demonstrate that it had improved its governance and risk management programs and vet that work through two third-party reviews.

The termination of the enforcement action came nine months after the Fed lifted Wells Fargo’s $1.95 trillion asset cap last June, freeing the bank to compete more aggressively against major Wall Street investment players.

Wells Fargo stock was down 3% on Thursday as financial services stocks were beaten down across the board amid a widespread sell-off in stocks.

Bond yields are jumping with crude oil (CL=F, BZ=F) this week, but the move is looking bigger than a simple inflation scare (due to higher energy prices).

Since the weekend missile strikes on Iran, the US 10-year yield (^TNX) is up 18 basis points (its biggest weekly jump since May), while WTI just hit $79 a barrel — pushing toward its highest levels since mid-2022 and on track for its biggest weekly gain since the March 2022 Russia-Ukraine shock.

The tell is in the bond market math. Bond yields move for two reasons — expected inflation (so-called breakevens) and the inflation-adjusted return (real yields, often inferred from TIPS).

This week, breakevens are only up about 5 basis points, while real yields are up about 12 basis points. Translation: Investors aren’t just pricing inflation — they’re demanding more compensation to own long-term bonds (what’s called the term premium), and they’re dialing back expectations for Fed rate cuts.

And yes, WTI near $80 is a big deal. That level can flip the macro narrative from a short-lived spike to higher-for-longer energy costs — especially if any disruption risk around the Strait of Hormuz starts to look persistent.

Software stocks bounced back on Thursday as the artificial intelligence fears that had shocked the industry throughout much of February subsided.

The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) is up 5% over the past five days, outperforming a 1% loss for the S&P 500 (^GSPC) during the same period.

Several of its holdings also saw outsized gains on Thursday as sentiment changed. Last week, Anthropic (ANTH.PVT) announced new AI integrations that connect with several software products, which helped ease concerns.

Salesforce (CRM) stock rose 5% in early trading, while Intuit (INTU) gained 5%, Adobe (ADBE) added around 3%, and CrowdStrike (CRWD) also rose 3%. Online travel service Booking Holdings (BKNG) rose as much as 9%, marking its biggest intraday jump since April of last year.

The court system is pushing tariff refund claims forward, ordering that the Justice Department can’t delay the issue and that the government must refund all illegally collected tariffs. The rulings come as a blow to the Trump administration, which is all but guaranteed to appeal the issue.

Yahoo Finance’s Washington correspondent Ben Werschkul reports:

Read more here.

Oil prices surged in a renewed rally Thursday morning, following 24 hours of relatively constrained trading, as the conflict engulfing the Middle East continued to expand.

Futures on Brent crude (BZ=F), the international pricing benchmark, rose by more than 3% to trade above $83.90 after crossing $84 later in the morning. US benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude (CL=F) gained more than 4% to trade above $77.70 after briefly touching $78.

The price pressures are twofold.

As the conflict enters its sixth day, the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively blocked. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps has said the Strait remains open but has increasingly threatened tankers that attempt to cross the critical global energy chokepoint.

President Trump’s announcement that the US would provide insurance and security guarantees to vessels transiting the strait provided some temporary relief to markets, but insurance insiders say there is too much uncertainty to spur any immediate renewal in crossings.

At the same time, the conflict has widened, drawing in Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Early Thursday morning, Israel ordered residents to leave southern Beirut in Lebanon as the IDF battles the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, and Azerbaijan vowed to respond to a drone attack.

Nvidia (NVDA) stock fell around 1% in the first half-hour of trading after the Financial Times reported that the firm had halted production of its H200 chip intended for the Chinese market.

The move suggests Nvidia doesn’t expect to sell the H200 chip in China anytime soon, after a protracted back-and-forth with Beijing and Washington over regulatory approval and export controls. While President Trump indicated that Nvidia would be able to sell the graphics processing unit (GPU) in January, Nvidia executives said in the most recent earnings call that they had not yet collected any revenue from the H200.

“While small amounts of H200 products for China-based customers were approved by the US government, we have yet to generate any revenue, and we do not know whether any imports will be allowed into China,” Nvidia CFO Colette Kress said.

According to the Financial Times, Nvidia supplier Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM) will reallocate manufacturing capacity from making H200 chips to making next-generation Vera Rubin hardware.

Read the full story from the Financial Times (premium).

The US stock market fell on Thursday morning as Wall Street failed to build on a rebound session, looking toward labor data ahead of Friday’s jobs report to temper ongoing concerns over conflict throughout the Gulf region.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) led the decline, losing roughly 0.7%, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) and the tech-exposed Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) lost roughly 0.3% and 0.4%, respectively.

In the oil markets, prices have begun to surge again after flatlining Wednesday. Futures on West Texas Intermediate (CL=F) traded around $76 a barrel, while Brent crude (BZ=F) traded above $83.

Friday’s monthly jobs report will lead headline the economic calendar for the week. In the corporate world, Costco (COST) and Marvell Technology (MRVL) will report results after the close on Thursday.

Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B) CEO Greg Abel bought over $15 million of the firm’s stock, according to a regulatory filing, and said he would use all of his take-home pay to keep doing so.

“I already have some shares, but the goal was to continue to demonstrate alignment with them,” Abel told CNBC. “As the CEO, I absolutely, obviously, believe in Berkshire. … I inherited a company that has an incredible foundation.”

Berkshire also restarted share buybacks on Wednesday. Berkshire policy says the company may repurchase stock “whenever the chief executive — after consultation with the chairman of the board Warren Buffett — believes that the repurchase price is below Berkshire’s intrinsic value,” per CNBC.

Abel told the outlet that he consulted with Buffett — from whom he took over at Berkshire in January — about the move.

Berkshire’s Class B shares rose in premarket trading after falling early this week in the wake of the company’s quarterly earnings report. In that report, Berkshire revealed its operating profit fell 30% in the period, which included a 54% decline in its insurance underwriting earnings.

Data released by the Labor Department showed that 213,000 people filed initial jobless claims in the week ended Feb. 28.

The count of claims, steady from the previous week’s revised level, was below economist expectations of 215,000 initial claims. The labor market signal comes ahead of Friday’s critical February jobs report.

Continuing claims for the week ended Feb. 21 totaled 1.86 million, overshooting consensus estimates of 1.84 million.

Rhode Island, Oklahoma, and Tennessee saw the largest increase in initial claims for the week ended Feb. 21, the Labor Department said.

On Friday, investors will get the week’s standout labor-market reading with the Bureau of Labor Statistics nonfarm payrolls report. Economists are expecting to see 55,000 jobs added in February, roughly in line with January estimates before the month’s adds printed at a blowout 130,000.

On Wednesday, data provider ADP reported 63,000 jobs added to private payrolls, exceeding estimates of 50,000. Layoff announcements also slid in February from the previous month to 48,307 from 108,435, according to a new report released Thursday from the global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

It’s not just employees that have to worry about AI stealing their jobs, or creating labor uncertainty; it’s also entire companies. Some economists say the fears of an AI job apocalypse are overblown but the stock market thinks otherwise.

Bloomberg News reports:

Read more here.

Trade Desk (TTD) stock jumped 19% before the bell on Thursday after reports emerged from The Information that OpenAI has had early talks to partner with the platform, which offers automated services for advertisers to place ads on a large scale.

The Information reports:

Read more here.

Block’s (XYZ) CFO Amrita Ah explained the mechanics behind the decision to lay off 40% of its staff to pursue AI-driven work functions in a call last night.

Some excerpts below.

What’s the read on the business since announcing the decision?

Ah: I mean, look, we’ve been on this journey for a little while. This is not just a fly-by-night decision for us or something that we took frivolously. We’ve been using tools, developing, actually, our own agents called codename Goose that we’ve been using now for 18 months, and so we see directly the power of automating our workflows and building faster using these tools, and that’s what gave us the confidence to do this. We can envision that other companies get on that journey as well. We also know that there is, you know, constraints on creativity, and that we are asking our teams to do more, but we’re also empowering them with all the most powerful tools in the world, so they can build the ways in which they will be getting more done with automation. And so that’s how we’ve chosen to go about it. We decided to take this more bold, upfront, decisive action so that we could rebuild and move forward from here, versus continuously being reactive and, you know, death by a 1,000 cuts through the intervals over the next couple of years. We wanted to make a bold move here so that we could frankly be more front-footed in our stance.

What did you see in the business that warranted doing this now?

I think it started with a few areas, a few disciplines, and it has now spread to really across every discipline within the business. The two that I would highlight are engineering and customer service. With our engineers, we are seeing a 40% increase in productivity and efficiency towards production code being shipped per engineer since September. I mean, this is the pace at which things are accelerating. We’d obviously seen increases before that, as people started to get their hands on tools, but even since September, we’ve seen a 40% improvement with customer service. 75% of Cash App’s customer service, questions, and answers are handled through automation, and oftentimes these agents actually get a customer to their answer faster. And so with strong NPS and CSAT scores, we’re actually able to automate a lot of this work, which then means we, the humans that are working at Block, can do more of the strategic work, more of the thinking, more of the things that involve taste and judgment, which is really a lot of the exciting work. So that’s some of what we saw over the past, you know, year plus. We’re now seeing designers able to push code into production. We now see accountants being able to use these tools to speed up our workflows and get to insights faster. And again, that’s part of what led to the decision.

What’s your advice to other CFOs wrestling with a decision like this?

Ah: I think it’s better to do it a little bit early than to do it too late. And I would encourage everybody, including my fellow CFOs, to just be curious and using the tools you often don’t get the aha moment until you realize you’ve automated a piece of your work, something that might have taken days before, can now take hours or less. You know, it is pretty powerful to see in action, and so I would say there’s nothing like just getting deep in it yourself. We as leaders now are not managing people; we are managing outcomes. And so in order to understand that, you need to actually get deep into the work. And as a CFO, you no longer are being prized on your finance acumen. You’re being praised on how you’re on your system thinking like how the work actually happens, and how it happens in a durable way, with integrity. And I think that is increasingly going to involve evolutions in the technology that we’re using to do our work.

Chipmaker Broadcom (AVGO) reported its first quarter earnings after the bell on Wednesday, beating expectations on the top and bottom lines and offering a better-than-anticipated Q2 outlook.

But that wasn’t enough to satisfy an already anxious Wall Street.

For the quarter, the company saw earnings per share (EPS) of $2.05 on revenue of $19.31 billion. That topped analysts’ estimated EPS of $2.03 and revenue of $19.26 billion.

Broadcom stock rose 6% before the bell on Thursday.

For the second quarter, Broadcom said it sees revenue of about $22 billion. Wall Street was expecting $20.5 billion.

The company also approved a new $10 billion share buyback.

“Broadcom achieved record first quarter revenue on continued strength in AI semiconductor solutions,” CEO Hock Tan said in a statement. “Q1 AI revenue of $8.4 billion grew 106% year over year, above our forecast, driven by robust demand for custom AI accelerators and AI networking.”

Tan added that AI revenue growth is accelerating and that the company anticipates Q2 segment revenue of $10.7 billion.

The AI trade has had a rocky start to the year with investors questioning Big Tech’s massive investments in the technology. But at the same time, announcements from Anthropic (ANTH.PVT) and OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) have rocked software stocks, as analysts raise concerns about whether AI will crush existing industries ranging from software-as-a-service companies like Salesforce (CRM) to cybersecurity firms like CrowdStrike (CRWD).

Oil rose again on Thursday as the US-Israeli war on Iran entered its sixth day, disrupting crude flows from importers. With all sides vowing to press on with the conflict, and the main importer, China, looking to conserve fuel.

Bloomberg News reports:

Read more here.