The S&P 500 was little changed on Monday morning, holding near the record it set on Friday even as oil prices surged and dragged down some of the market’s most fuel-sensitive names. At 10:15 a.m. Eastern time, the benchmark was virtually unchanged, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 102 points and the Nasdaq composite was flat.
The move came as Brent crude climbed 6.7% to $97.22 a barrel after renewed fighting threatened the U.S.-Iran ceasefire. For Philip Finale, who was working on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, the market’s calm looked almost defiant. Energy costs were hitting hard where investors expected them to hurt most: United Airlines fell 2.9%, and Carnival dropped 2.7% as the oil spike filtered straight into the outlook for companies that burn through fuel every day.
That is why the morning mattered. Higher oil prices have already helped push inflation higher around the world, and they can also lift bond yields, a combination that usually weighs on stocks priced for steady growth. Yet Wall Street is still hovering close to records, and the market’s biggest stocks continue to carry much of the load. The top 10 stocks now make up nearly half of the S&P 500’s total market value, a concentration that has not been seen in 40 years.
Even so, the day was not one-note. Nvidia rose 4.8% after Jensen Huang unveiled product updates and said the company’s next-generation artificial-intelligence platform, Vera Rubin, is ramping into full production. Science Applications International Corp. jumped 12.8% after reporting bigger profit than analysts expected for the latest quarter. Those gains helped offset the oil shock, but they did not erase the split running through the market: investors were rewarding companies tied to artificial intelligence and earnings surprises while punishing those exposed to fuel costs.
What happens next now turns on two things moving at once. Traders are watching whether oil stays elevated and whether the United States and Iran can reach an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. If neither happens soon, the pressure on airlines, cruise operators and smaller stocks is likely to build, even if the S&P 500 keeps floating near its high.
