Stocks fell broadly on Friday, adding to steep declines for the week, as a surprise drop in U.S. jobs from the Labor Department added to already brewing anxieties over the United States-Israeli war with Iran and its long-term effects on oil prices.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
Driving stocks lower, the West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures spiked above $90 per barrel on Friday to end the week up 35% as investors worried an extended conflict in the Middle East could have long-term impacts on global energy supplies. International benchmark Brent crude futures also rose to a fresh 52-week high on Friday, settling above $92 per barrel.
Those concerns were heightened after President Donald Trump wrote in a social media post on Truth Social that the war will only end with "unconditional surrender" from Iran.
"The market is shifting from pricing pure geopolitical risk to grappling with tangible operational disruption," wrote Natasha Kaneva, head of global commodities research at JPMorgan, in a note to clients, quoted by CNBC.
Major U.S. airlines continue to fall lower on rising fuel costs, with United Airlines
Providing another shock to an already jittery Wall Street, the U.S. economy lost 92,000 nonfarm payrolls in the month of February, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday, coming in well below January's downwardly revised print of 126,000. Moreover, the unemployment rate ticked higher to 4.4% as key sectors like healthcare saw a loss of 28,000 positions.
However, Jefferies economist Thomas Simons called the February report "a perfect storm of temporary drags coming together following an above-trend print in January."
"Looking through the weather-impacts sectors and the [Kaiser Permanente strike in Hawaii and California], which ended on February 23, this is still a poor jobs number," Simons added. "We do not think that this a harbinger of progressively worse jobs prints coming down the road, but the risk of a downturn has certainly increased."
For next week, key earnings reports include Oracle
