Here are 4 forces that drove a tough week for stocks
SkimNews Take
A simultaneous oil shock and AI-stock unwind shows how concentrated positioning had become — one geopolitical headline and a few tech prints were enough to hit both commodity and growth exposures at once.
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- Stocks logged a second straight weekly loss as the S&P 500 slipped 0.6% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 2.1%, driven by escalating Middle East tensions, AI-spending skepticism, and healthcare developments.
- Oil prices surged for a third consecutive week, with WTI crude jumping more than 8% and Brent crude gaining nearly 10%, after Trump warned Iran would pay "many times over" for the deaths of three U.S. service members and threatened to bomb Iranian bridges and power plants.
- Brent crude briefly topped $100 a barrel on Thursday after Houthi militants claimed attacks on Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea — the first time above $100 since before the U.S.-Iran interim ceasefire last month — pushing the 10-year Treasury yield to its highest level since January 2025.
- Alphabet shares fell 7% on Thursday despite beating revenue and earnings estimates and posting 82% Google Cloud growth, as investors zeroed in on management's raised capex outlook of $195–$205 billion for the year.
- Intel reported its strongest quarterly revenue growth since 2011, with data center revenue jumping 59%, but disappointed investors by not announcing a major foundry customer; shares closed down nearly 8% on Friday, ending the week down 3%.
- GE Vernova missed EPS estimates but posted 88% order growth driven by AI data center demand and ended the week down roughly 4.1%, while Dover fell 5.6% after AI-exposed businesses accounted for only about 25% of its expected 2026 revenue.
- Eli Lilly rose 1.4% for the week on late-stage data for triple-acting retatrutide — showing greater weight loss than Zepbound and Wegovy — and its plan to file it as a biologic, while Johnson & Johnson gained 4.1% after the FDA approved its Ottava robotic surgery system months ahead of expectations.
Why it matters: The oil surge pushed the odds of a Fed rate hike from 13% to nearly 35% in a single week — the CME FedWatch tool now prices in a quarter-point increase at next week's Fed meeting, putting monetary policy directly in the crosshairs of a geopolitical crisis markets had largely dismissed after the recent U.S.-Iran ceasefire.
