US Markets Slide Fourth Week as Iran War Pushes Oil to $107
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- US stock markets posted their fourth straight weekly decline on Friday, with the Dow losing more than 400 points, the S&P 500 slipping 1.5%, and the Nasdaq falling 2%.
- The Russell 2000 entered correction territory after dropping 2.7% on Friday — the first major US index to do so this year, falling more than 10% from its recent high.
- Brent crude oil surged to $107 a barrel from a pre-conflict average of roughly $70, while US crude hit $98 a barrel, pushing the national gas price average to $3.88 a gallon and above $5 in California, Washington, and Hawaii.
- The Strait of Hormuz remains blocked in retaliation for US-Israel strikes, with Iran striking Qatar's Ras Laffan — the world's largest LNG facility — after Israel attacked Iran's South Pars gasfield earlier in the week.
- President Trump publicly attacked NATO allies as "COWARDS" on social media for refusing to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, telling reporters that "you don't do a ceasefire when you're literally obliterating the other side."
- The Pentagon deployed approximately 2,200 Marines to the Middle East on Friday, though the White House did not specify what missions the deployment would support.
Why it matters: The Russell 2000's entry into correction territory signals small-cap companies are absorbing the heaviest losses in the four-week market slide, with oil at $107 and a blocked Strait of Hormuz feeding cost increases through to gas prices, shipping, airlines, and farming. With both sides targeting Gulf energy infrastructure and the President publicly feuding with NATO over allied refusal to help reopen the waterway, the conflict is widening from a military operation into a sustained economic shock.
