U.S. stock futures sank Wednesday night as President Donald Trump didn’t offer investors any new indications of de-escalation in the conflict with Iran, but again laid out a timetable of finishing the operation “very shortly.”
Nasdaq futres fell 1.66%; S&P futures sank 1.33%; Dow futures sank 1.11%.
Big tech stocks fell in overnight trading. Micron down 4%; SMCI, TSMC, AMD down around 3%; Broadcom, Tesla, Palantir, Nvidia, Alphabet, Meta down over 2%.
Crude-oil prices surged higher, reversing some declines from earlier in the week. Brent crude, the global benchmark, was up more than 6% at around $107.67 a barrel for the June contract in recent trade, FactSet data showed. West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, was up about 4% to roughly $104 a barrel.
The market “had been trading on anticipation,” Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management, wrote in a note Wednesday night. “But when Trump spoke, he did not validate that future. He disrupted it.”
“So oil did what oil always does when the illusion cracks. It surged, not because the war suddenly worsened, but because the market had prematurely priced in the expectation that it would end,” Innes said.
The Strait of Hormuz is key to world energy markets, with Asian nations like China, India and Japan being the top destinations for oil and gas shipped through it. In 2024, 84% of crude oil and 83% of liquefied natural gas shipped through the strait went to Asian markets, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Yet while Asia is especially reliant on the strait, analysts say a “sequential” shock to global oil supplies is fast approaching. Disruptions to the flow of oil through the strait over the past four weeks will unleash a shock that will run from east to west, with much of the world taking a hit in April, according to analysts at J.P. Morgan.
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