{"id":199919,"date":"2026-03-02T01:46:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T01:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/199919\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T01:46:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T01:46:07","slug":"oil-prices-surge-stock-futures-slide-after-u-s-strikes-iran-nbc-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/199919\/","title":{"rendered":"Oil prices surge, stock futures slide after U.S. strikes Iran \u2013 NBC Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"

The price of oil surged Sunday after U.S. and Israeli strikes <\/a>on Iran, which killed its supreme leader<\/a>.<\/p>\n

U.S. crude oil soared 12%, while Brent, the international oil benchmark, surged 14% after trading began at 6 p.m. ET. Sunday.<\/p>\n

Even before the weekend’s escalation, oil prices had risen 17% this year off President Donald Trump\u2019s ramped-up rhetoric against the Iranian regime. The Trump administration has also ratcheted up sanctions on Iran in recent months.<\/p>\n

While Iran’s oil production is estimated to be less than 5% of global output \u2014 most of which goes to China because of U.S. sanctions \u2014 it has major influence over the Strait of Hormuz, a critical passageway for more than 20% of the world’s daily oil demand. <\/p>\n

A closure or restriction there can quickly rock the global oil market, and it would be among the worst-case scenarios for the oil market, longtime industry analyst Andy Lipow said Sunday. <\/p>\n

On Friday, U.S. crude oil closed at $67.02 per barrel. Sunday’s increase of more than $8 per barrel could directly lead to higher prices for consumers at gas stations as soon as this week, some analysts say. <\/p>\n

Retail gas prices move about 2.5 cents for every $1 move in the price of crude oil, so already a 20 cent-per-gallon increase could be on the horizon.<\/p>\n

Stock futures also plunged, with futures that indicate where the S&P 500 will trade Monday dropping 1.1% and Nasdaq 100 futures sliding 1.2%. Dow futures dropped more than 500 points. <\/p>\n

The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.3%, and the price of precious metals soared, with gold hitting $5,350, an indication that investors and traders are flocking to “safe haven” assets in the wake of the conflict. <\/p>\n

“The scale [of Iran\u2019s retaliation] has been a big, big surprise,” Jorge Le\u00f3n, head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad Energy, told NBC News on Saturday. “This is a totally different world from what the market was anticipating.”<\/p>\n

For prices to fall, the market will most likely need tensions to ease and most traffic in the Strait of Hormuz to resume.<\/p>\n

On Saturday and Sunday, at least six of the leading cargo shipping companies said they were halting or diverting ships that were originally set to sail through the key waterway. <\/p>\n

Crude oil may not be the only commodity affected.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile much of the focus is on crude oil, Qatar is the second largest exporter of [liquified natural gas] behind the USA,\u201d Lipow wrote in a note. \u201cLNG tankers are also being diverted away from the region,\u201d he added. “A disruption in LNG would result in higher natural gas prices, especially in Europe.”<\/p>\n

Natural gas prices rose about 2% in early trading.<\/p>\n

Allie Canal contributed.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPresident Donald Trump announced in a video message overnight Friday that the United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The price of oil surged Sunday after U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, which killed its supreme leader.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[19378,48,52,51,47,50,49],"class_list":{"0":"post-199919","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-iran","9":"tag-la","10":"tag-la-headlines","11":"tag-la-news","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","14":"tag-los-angeles-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}