Fighting continues in Middle East
On Thursday, the fighting continued, and thousands more US troops neared the region. Iran, meanwhile, tightened its grip on the crucial Strait of Hormuz. It may be creating something like a "toll booth" for tankers to get past the narrow waterway, which typically sees a fifth of the world's oil exit the Persian Gulf through it to customers worldwide.
The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil climbed 4.8% to settle at $US101.89 as hopes dimmed for a potential return to normal for the strait. That's up from roughly $US70 before the war began. Benchmark US crude rose 4.6% to $US94.48 per barrel.
"They better get serious soon, before it is too late," Trump said on his social media network Thursday morning about Iran's negotiators, "because once that happens, there is NO TURNING BACK, and it won't be pretty!"
Just minutes after Wall Street finished its trading for the day, Trump softened his talk a bit. He said he was delaying his threat to "obliterate" Iranian power plants to April 6, allowing more time for talks.
"Talks are ongoing and, despite erroneous statements to the contrary by the Fake News Media, and others, they are going very well."
Oil prices trim gains
After that, oil prices trimmed some of their gains, and Brent crude fell back toward $US100 per barrel. US government Treasury bond yields also pared their big jumps in the bond market.
High Treasury yields and disruption in the bond market were big factors that Trump named a year ago when he backed off his initial threats for global tariffs made on "Liberation Day". The moves caused critics to allege Trump always chickens out, or "TACO," if financial markets show enough pain.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury jumped as high as 4.43% Thursday from 4.33% late Wednesday and from just 3.97% before the war started. That's a significant leap for the bond market, and it's already sent rates higher for mortgages and other kinds of loans for US households and businesses, which slows the economy.
US unemployment grows
A report on Thursday morning said slightly more US workers filed for unemployment benefits last week, though the number is still low compared with historical figures.
A slowing job market would typically encourage the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates to juice the economy. But hopes have cratered on Wall Street for a possible cut to interest rates this year, even though traders came into 2026 forecasting several. That's because lower interest rates carry the risk of worsening inflation, and the spike in oil prices has heightened those worries.
On Wall Street, tech stocks were the heaviest weights on the market.
All told, the S&P 500 fell 114.74 points to 6,477.16 and is 7.2% below its all-time high set a couple months ago. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 469.38 to 45,960.11, and the Nasdaq composite sank 521.74 to 21,408.08.
In stock markets abroad, Germany's DAX lost 1.5%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng sank 1.9% and South Korea's Kospi dropped 3.2%. Japan's Nikkei 225 had one of the world's milder losses, at 0.3%.
The Associated Press
