By Heard Editors
What Happened in Markets Today
Iran's attacks on energy infrastructure continue. Qatar's LNG hub Ras Laffan was hit twice, once on Wednesday and then again Thursday morning local time. State-owned QatarEnergy said the strikes caused "extensive further damage." A refinery in Saudi Arabia's port city of Yanbu was also struck by a drone. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the U.S. may lift sanctions on Iranian oil already at sea in a bid to lower prices.
Oil briefly hit $119 a barrel. Brent crude futures settled at $108.65 a barrel, up 1.2%. U.S. benchmark WTI futures fell 0.2% to $96.14 a barrel. The spread between the two benchmarks are at a multi-year high. Brent is based on the price of seaborne cargoes, making them more sensitive to the Middle East supply disruption. By comparison, U.S. oil production is flowing as usual and domestic inventories actually rose last week, according to EIA's update on Wednesday.
Central banks in Europe held interest rates steady. These include the European Central Bank and its counterparts in the U.K., Switzerland and Sweden. Earlier this week, rate-setters in Canada, Japan and the U.S. all made the decision to keep rates unchanged. The Bank of England signaled that it is prepared to raise rates to curb the Iran War's inflationary effects if necessary. The 10-year U.K. bond yield rose past 4.87%, hitting a 14-month high. The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield rose again to 4.281%.
Investors sold off precious metals. Gold fell 5.9% to $4600.70 a troy ounce on rising concerns about inflation and higher-for-longer interest rates. Silver fell 8.2%. Gold miner Newmont was the second worst performer on the S&P 500, shedding 6.9%.
Stocks fell. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.4%, or 204 points. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq each shed 0.3%.
This analysis comes from the Journal's Heard on the Street team. Subscribe to their free daily afternoon newsletter here.
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 19, 2026 16:50 ET (20:50 GMT)
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