US stocks climb to their best day since the Iran war began after oil
prices ease
[March 17, 2026] By
STAN CHOE
NEW YORK (AP) — A drop in oil prices on Monday helped send the U.S.
stock market to its best day since the war in Iran began.
The S&P 500 climbed 1% for its biggest gain in five weeks. The Dow Jones
Industrial Average added 387 points, or 0.8%, and the Nasdaq composite
jumped 1.2%.
The driver for markets once again was the price of oil. A barrel of
benchmark U.S. crude fell 5.3% to settle at $93.50, easing some pressure
off the economy after topping $102 earlier in the morning. Brent crude,
the international standard, fell 2.8% to $100.21 per barrel after
earlier getting as high as $106.50.
It’s a reprieve, for now at least, after oil prices spiked from roughly
$70 before the United States and Israel began their attacks on Iran. In
response, Iran has nearly halted traffic through the narrow Strait of
Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s oil typically sails from the
Persian Gulf to customers worldwide. That has oil producers cutting
production because their crude has nowhere to go.
The worry in financial markets is that if the strait remains closed for
a long time, it could keep enough oil off the market to drive inflation
up to a debilitating level for the global economy.
President Donald Trump over the weekend demanded that other countries
hurt by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz “take care of that passage”
and said his country “will help - A LOT!”
European countries, meanwhile, want to know more about Trump’s plans for
the war on Iran and when the conflict might end as they weighed his
demand.
The U.S. stock market has a track record of bouncing back relatively
quickly from military conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, as
long as oil prices don’t stay too high for too long. Many professional
investors are expecting that to be the case again, which has helped keep
U.S. stock prices near their record levels.
For all its dramatic swings over the last couple weeks, including
several that struck hour to hour, the S&P 500 is only 4% below its
all-time high.
Escalations have been mounting quickly in the war, to be sure, but that
could suggest “both sides are facing growing constraints that may
prevent a long conflict,” according to Paul Christopher, head of global
investment strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.
On Wall Street, stocks of companies with big fuel bills helped lead the
market thanks to falling oil prices. Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings
steamed 5.1% higher, while United Airlines climbed 4.2% to trim their
big losses for the year so far.
National Storage Affiliates leaped 30% after Public Storage said it
would buy its 69 million rentable square feet in an all-stock deal
valued at $10.5 billion. Public Storage fell 1.7%.
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Christopher Lagana works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange
in New York, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
 Dollar Tree rose 6.4% after
reporting a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts
expected, even as fewer shoppers visited its stores.
Nebius Group, a Dutch AI cloud company, saw its stock that trades in
the United States leap 15% after announcing a five-year
infrastructure contract with Meta Platforms that could be worth up
to $27 billion.
Nvidia, whose chips are powering much of the world’s move into
artificial-intelligence technology rose 1.6% as its CEO, Jensen
Huang, talked up the tech’s possibilities at an AI conference and
said he foresaw $1 trillion in demand for AI chips through 2027. It
was the strongest single force lifting the S&P 500.
All told, the S&P 500 rose 67.19 points to 6,699.38. The Dow Jones
Industrial Average added 387.94 to 46,946.41, and the Nasdaq
composite climbed 268.82 to 22,374.18.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose modestly in Europe, including
a 0.5% return for Germany’s DAX, following a mixed finish in Asia.
Stocks jumped 1.4% in Hong Kong but slipped 0.3% in Shanghai.
In the bond market, Treasury yields eased as falling oil prices took
some pressure off inflation worries. A report showing a weakening of
manufacturing activity in New York state also weighed on yields.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.22% from 4.28% late
Friday.
Yields, though, are still higher than they were before the war, when
the 10-year Treasury yield was at just 3.97%. Traders have pushed
back their expectations for when the Federal Reserve could resume
its cuts to interest rates because of the spike in oil prices caused
by the war.
Such cuts would give the economy and job market a boost, and they’re
something Trump has angrily been calling for, but they would worsen
inflation. Traders see virtually no chance of the Fed announcing a
cut to rates after its next meeting concludes on Wednesday,
according to data from CME Group.
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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
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