{"id":550238,"date":"2026-03-21T01:58:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T01:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/550238\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T01:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T01:58:12","slug":"stock-markets-dip-for-another-straight-week-as-u-s-war-on-iran-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/550238\/","title":{"rendered":"Stock markets dip for another straight week as U.S. war on Iran continues"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Canadian and U.S.\u00a0stock\u00a0markets sank on Friday amid fears about the effects of the U.S.-Iran war on interest rates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dustin Reid, vice-president and chief strategist for fixed income at Mackenzie Investments, said markets were seeing risk-off moves amid higher energy prices and inflationary risks. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou’re seeing pricing for central bank hikes move further and further in that direction. So it’s having a pretty significant impact on all asset classes of course, and equities are no exception,\u201d he said. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The S&P\/TSX composite index was down 537.57 points at 31,317.41.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 443.96 points at 45,577.47. The S&P 500 index was down 100.01 points at 6,506.48, while the Nasdaq composite was down 443.08 points at 21,647.61.<\/p>\n

WATCH | Why inflation risks are a ‘dual crisis’:\"\"<\/p>\n

Iran war throws Canada’s economy into the unknown<\/p>\n

Worries have gotten so high that traders have cancelled nearly all their bets that the U.S. Federal Reserve could cut interest rates this year, according to data from CME Group. Some even think the Fed could raise rates in 2026, a scenario that was nearly unthinkable before the war began.<\/p>\n

Lower interest rates would give the economy and investment prices a boost, and they\u2019re something for which U.S. President Donald Trump has angrily been calling. Before the war, traders were betting heavily that the Fed would cut rates at least twice this year.<\/p>\n

But lower rates risk worsening inflation. And investors now see little room for central banks worldwide to cut interest rates to help their economies. Besides the Federal Reserve and Bank of Canada, central banks in Europe, Japan and the United Kingdom also held their interest rates steady this past week. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The May crude oil contract was up $2.68 US at $98.23 US per barrel.<\/p>\n

WATCH | The economic impact of the U.S.-Israel war contradicts Trump:\"\"<\/p>\n

The broken economic argument for Trump\u2019s war on Iran | About That<\/p>\n

The price of Brent crude has zigzagged sharply on its way from roughly $70 US per barrel before the war began to as high as $119.50 US this week. Big swings have struck hour to hour as financial markets try to handicap how long the war will last and how much damage it will do to oil and gas production in the Persian Gulf.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think that if we are at $120 [US] a barrel in Brent for a number of weeks or a month-plus, then we will probably start to move away from this inflation theme and start to move towards [questions about] what does it mean for global growth, what does it mean for corporate earnings … so it’ll be a different macro trading environment at that point,\u201d Reid said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Canadian dollar has … done OK,’ strategist says<\/p>\n

Stock\u00a0markets have a history of bouncing back relatively quickly from past conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, as long as oil prices don’t stay too high for too long.<\/p>\n

In the Canadian\u00a0stock\u00a0market, most sectors were in negative territory, with basic materials acting as the biggest weight. Consumer non-cyclicals was the only sector in positive territory.<\/p>\n

The Canadian dollar traded for 72.90 cents US compared with 72.84 cents US on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Canadian dollar has, maybe not surprisingly, done OK \u2014 better than OK over the last couple of weeks, keeping pace with the U.S. dollar broadly that has seen a pretty significant amount of safe haven flows,\u201d \u00a0Reid said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-550238","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}