Equities Fall Intraday, Oil Prices Climb as Traders Monitor Middle East Developments
US benchmark equity indexes were lower intraday and oil prices jumped as fighting in the Iran war flared up again.The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1% at 49,011.4 after midday Monday, while the S&P 500 lost 0.5% to 7,196.7. The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.3% to 25,038.8. The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 reached new peaks in the previous session.Barring energy, all sectors were in the red, led by materials.Brent crude jumped 6.1% to $114.79 per barrel, while West Texas Intermediate crude rose 4% to $106.13.The US military destroyed six Iranian boats in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday after Tehran attacked US Navy ships and commercial vessels, CNN reported, citing Admiral Brad Cooper, the head of the US Central Command.Tehran fired missiles and drones at the United Arab Emirates, the UAE's Defence Ministry said in a post on X earlier in the day.US President Donald Trump's initiative to escort commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz began on Monday. Two US-flagged vessels passed through the strait, the Central Command said Monday, after denying claims from Iran that a US ship had been hit.Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said no commercial vessels or oil tankers had transited the narrow waterway, CNN reported.Meanwhile, the Israeli military reportedly issued an evacuation order for 10 villages in southern Lebanon."Notwithstanding the recent powerful rallies in stocks, challenges remain to finding resolution for the conflict and in our view persist as a potential negative overhang to market performance with news flow from the Middle East, the price of oil, and supply chain disruptions adding to inflation risks near term," Oppenheimer Asset Management Chief Investment Strategist John Stoltzfus said in a report. "That said, stock prices in the US continue to reflect in our view an appreciation for the fundamentals that matter most for revenue and profit growth."S&P 500 companies' quarterly earnings and revenue growth accelerated compared with figures from a week ago, Oppenheimer Asset Management said Monday.In company news, Norwegian Cruise Line (NCLH) lowered its full-year earnings outlook on Monday amid higher fuel costs and weak consumer demand due to the Middle East conflict, while the cruise operator's first-quarter revenue fell short of market estimates. The stock was down 8.9% intraday, the second-worst performer on the S&P 500.EBay (EBAY) shares were up 5.6%, among the best performers on the S&P 500, after video game retailer GameStop (GME) proposed to acquire the e-commerce company in a cash-and-stock deal worth about $55.5 billion. Shares of GME slumped 7.7%.Palantir Technologies (PLTR), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Disney (DIS), Uber Technologies (UBER), Shopify (SHOP), Pfizer (PFE) and McDonald's (MCD) are among major companies that are scheduled to release quarterly financials this week.Traders will be looking ahead to fresh labor market data later this week, beginning with the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for March on Tuesday, followed by the ADP employment report for April on Wednesday. The Challenger Job Cut report and the government's nonfarm payrolls data, both for last month, are scheduled to be released on Thursday and Friday, respectively."Focus shifts from Big Tech to consumer-facing earnings and macro validation," Saxo Bank said in a report. "US earnings from Disney, Airbnb (ABNB), and McDonald's will test demand resilience, while the US jobs report will determine whether strong growth can sustain current equity levels."US Treasury yields were higher intraday, with the 10-year rate up seven basis points at 4.45% and the two-year rate rising 8.5 basis points to 3.98%.Gold fell 2.2% to $4,540.50 per troy ounce, while silver declined 3.7% to $73.62 per ounce.
