Markets on Wall Street retreated and oil prices jumped one other five per cent again early Thursday because the war in Iran approached its second week with no indication that the US and Israel were able to reduce their attacks.
Futures for the S&P 500 lost 0.5 per cent before the opening bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were 0.6 per cent lower. Nasdaq futures were also down 0.5 per cent. On Wednesday, the Dow declined 0.6 per cent to its lowest level the yr.
Oil prices initially shot greater than nine per cent higher as supply concerns worsened with Iranian attacks on business shipping across the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. campaign of airstrikes in Iran is now in its thirteenth day.
U.S. benchmark crude oil jumped US$4.52 to US$91.77 a barrel. Brent, the international standard, climbed US$5.34 to US$97.32 per barrel after briefly eclipsing the US$100 level.
Iran has escalated its attacks geared toward generating enough global economic pain to pressure the US and Israel to finish the war, targeting oil fields and refineries in a handful of Gulf Arab nations. Iran’s actions have effectively stopped cargo traffic through the narrow Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of all traded oil passes.
In response, the International Energy Agency agreed Wednesday to release 400 million barrels of oil, the biggest volume of emergency oil reserves in its history, in a bid to counter the war’s effects on energy markets. The U.S. planned to release 172 million barrels of oil next week from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve to combat steep prices.
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The IEA’s announcement got here a day after energy ministers from the Group of Seven — the leading industrialized nations of Canada, the US, France, Italy, Japan, Germany and Britain — met in Paris to have a look at ways to bring down prices.
However the continued strife and uncertainty have fueled speculation prices could push still higher, and that pulled markets across the globe lower.
In a report, Oxford Economics said “the swings in Brent crude oil prices over the past several days are eye-catching and odds are volatility will remain due to absence of a timeline for when the conflict will de-escalate and when the Strait of Hormuz, which is effectively closed, will see traffic begin to get well.”
The extent of volatility suggests that depending on news developments, oil prices could spike as high as US$140 per barrel, Oxford analysts said.
Because the start of the war, sharp moves for oil prices have triggered swings up and down for financial markets worldwide, sometimes by the hour. Oil prices briefly spiked to their highest levels since 2022 this week due to the chance that production within the Middle East might be blocked for a very long time, which in turn raised worries a few surge of debilitating inflation for the worldwide economy.
In Europe at midday, Germany’s DAX and Britain’s FTSE 100 were each relatively unchanged, while the CAC 40 in Paris lost 0.4 per cent.
During Asian trading, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell one per cent to 54,452.96. In South Korea, the Kospi lost 0.5 per cent to five,583.25, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gave up 0.7 per cent to 25,716.76.
The Shanghai Composite index shed 0.1% to 4,129.10 and in Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 dropped 1.3 per cent to eight,629.00.
In currency trading early Thursday, the dollar fell to 158.62 Japanese yen from 158.95 yen. The euro inched right down to US$1.1563 from US$1.1566.
© 2026 The Canadian Press