US stocks open lower with no Iran peace breakthrough in sight
NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — Wall Street stocks opened lower on Thursday as oil spiked, with investors losing faith in the immediate prospects for peace in the US-Israel war on Iran.
International benchmark Brent North Sea crude jumped 4.4 percent to $106.67 per barrel on Thursday morning, while the main US oil contract, West Texas Intermediate, rose 3.9 percent to $93.81.
US President Donald Trump warned Tehran to engage in talks “before it is too late,” but Iran has publicly rejected US overtures. Both sides have kept up their attacks, with Israel claiming it killed the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ navy.
About five minutes into trading, all three major US indices were in the red.
The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite was down 1.1 percent to 21,687.19, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.4 percent to 46,233.83 while the broad-based S&P 500 dropped 0.8 percent to 6,542.41.
Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital, told AFP that oil prices were the main “driving forces” of the market at the moment.
“Oil prices can’t stay this high for much longer before they have a negative effect on inflation and, of course, on the economy as well,” he said.
High fuel prices typically have a knock-on inflationary effect on goods that need to be transported by road or air, and can also cool economic activity by raising production costs.
Memory chip manufacturers’ stocks were hit hard on Thursday after new research from Google parent Alphabet on more efficient ways to use AI-related storage.
Micron Technology lost 3.2 percent in early trade, with Western Digital falling 2.7 percent and Sandisk slipping 4.7 percent.
