Stocks Mostly Lower as Oil Prices Rise Above $100

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WSJ Staff

Fri, March 13, 2026 astatine 11:59 AM CDT 1 min read

Oil prices edged supra $100 and stocks crushed little arsenic Iran stepped up its attacks successful the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. planned to determination warships and further Marines to the Middle East.

Brent crude, the planetary lipid benchmark, roseate supra $101 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S benchmark, moved higher to $96.30. U.S. banal indexes were mostly little and basal to decorativeness the week down much than 1%.

Oil had drifted little earlier successful the time aft the U.S. allowed countries to acquisition sanctioned Russian crude already astatine oversea arsenic portion of efforts to avert an vigor crisis. There are astir 121 cardinal barrels of Russian lipid astatine sea, according to information supplier Kpler, astir equivalent to 5 oregon six days of the proviso usually expected to travel retired of the Strait of Hormuz.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the U.S. was moving to wide the Strait of Hormuz but didn’t specify however it would reconstruct the travel of trade. Oil analysts forecast longer-lasting upheaval.

Less than a cardinal barrels a time are present going done the strait, mostly aboard Chinese- and Russian-controlled tankers, according to lipid traders and tanker owners. That compares with 20 cardinal barrels a time successful mean times.

Gross-domestic merchandise grew 0.7% past quarter, according to the latest authoritative estimate, acold little than economists expected. The dollar strengthened modestly.

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