Oil hits $90 per barrel, stocks continue to drop as escalating Iran war shocks markets

Shortly after that report, President Donald Trump took to Truth Social, posting that “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”

Stocks also sharply dropped. At the opening bell, the S&P 500 fell more than 1.6%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 900 points and the Nasdaq Composite tumbled 1.4%.

Markets also fell after a grim jobs report showed the economy shed 92,000 jobs in February and included downward revisions to the last two jobs reports.

“The pace of job gains over the last few months is still dramatically slower than it was in 2024 and much of 2025,” said Elyse Ausenbaugh, head of investment strategy at J.P. Morgan Wealth Management. “Add higher oil prices given conflict in the Middle East and renewed tariff uncertainty to the convoluted jobs market story, and you have a tricky, stagflationary mix of risks in the backdrop for the Fed.”

Earlier in the week, Qatar’s state-run energy firm also cut production of liquified natural gas and other energy products.

Currently, hundreds of ships containing oil and LNG are stuck off the coast of Iran, unable to pass through the Strait of Hormuz to the global market as tensions continue rising between the U.S., Israel, Iran and neighboring countries.

More than 20% of the world’s daily oil supply normally flows through the strait off Iran’s southern coast.

“On day six of the conflict, commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remained virtually nonexistent,” JPMorgan Chase commodities analysts wrote in a note Friday morning. “The market is shifting from pricing pure geopolitical risk to grappling with tangible operational disruption, as refinery shutdowns and export constraints begin to impair crude processing and regional supply flows.”

Iraq has also cut production by 1.5 million barrels per day, JPMorgan’s analysts said, adding that another 4 million barrels per day overall could be disrupted by the end of next week if the situation continues.

Since the war began last weekend, the price of U.S. crude oil has surged more than 30%. In turn, that has driven up gas prices for consumers. The current national average of around $3.32 per gallon, as of Friday morning, is up nearly 35 cents from Sunday, according to price-tracking service GasBuddy and AAA.

U.S. natural gas prices also jumped more than 4% on Friday. Wholesale gas prices, called RBOB, also moved higher by 2%.