MARKET SNAPSHOT
U.S. stocks fell Friday, while oil prices edged higher. A selloff in the Treasury market continued, sending yields higher, as traders remained concerned about the inflation impact of the war in Iran and implications for the Fed's policy response. The U.S. dollar strengthened. Gold slipped, ending the week with a decline that was its steepest since 2011. Silver also fell.
MARKET WRAPS
EQUITIES
U.S. stocks declines accelerated into the close Friday as the war in the Middle East showed no signs of winding down.
The three major stock benchmarks fell sharply, suffering a third day of losses, led by the Nasdaq composite, which dropped 2% and now stands about 9.5% below its record. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1%, and the S&P 500 lost 1.5%.
All three major indexes fell for a fourth straight week, the first time that has happened for the Dow industrials since 2023.
The latest declines came as the U.S. sends additional Marines to the Mideast and Iran projects defiance, with the new supreme leader declaring that "safety must be taken away" from the country's enemies. President Trump again lashed out at NATO members for not joining a U.S. effort to open the Strait of Hormuz.
On Thursday, U.S. officials sought to calm markets, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent saying the U.S. is considering removing sanctions from Iranian oil at sea. That would free up about 140 million barrels of oil and offer some reprieve to U.S. allies.
Asian equities saw mixed and relatively stable trade on Friday.
In China, the Shanghai Composite and Shenzhen Composite both fell 1.2%, while the ChiNext Price Index rose 1.3%.
South Korea's Kospi ended 0.3% higher, though Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index closed 0.9% lower.
Japan's equity market was closed due to a holiday.
Alibaba fell 6.3% after its fourth-quarter earnings disappointed and Xiaomi slid 8.6% after announcing a higher-than-expected price tag for its new SU7 model.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 finished 0.8% lower on widening worries about the impact of the Iran conflict. The fall led to a third consecutive weekly loss that put it on course for what is shaping up as its worst month in almost four years. Friday's losses were led by heavyweight financial and materials stocks.
In New Zealand, the S&P/NZX 50 Index dropped 0.5%.
COMMODITIES
Brent crude oil futures rose 8.8% to $112.19 a barrel on the week, buoyed in part by a 3.3% uptick seen in futures Friday.
It marks the fifth consecutive week that Brent crude futures have finished higher. Geopolitical instability has continued to give Brent crude support, with investors nervous about new military flare-ups over the weekend.
"Market participants have strengthened their defensive positioning amid the possibility of further military escalation," said Antonio Di Giacomo of XS.com.
WTI crude closed up 2.3% to $98.32 a barrel Friday, finishing the week with a small loss.
Gold futures settled down 9.5% to $4,570.40 a troy ounce for the week, and was down $30.30 or 0.66% for the day.
The $482.10 loss is the largest single-week dollar decline gold has ever had, while percentage-wise it's the biggest slide since September 2011.
While gold has posted a negative week, many analysts forecast that the longer-term outlook remains positive as other markets tumble. As John Caruso of RJO Futures said in a note, "we've got significant signs of a labor slowdown, high energy costs, a no longer accommodative Fed, and persistent uncertainty around the M.E. war operations."
Silver fell 2.2% on Friday and also posted losses for the week.
TODAY'S TOP HEADLINES
Fed's Waller says he doesn't support rate hikes, sees inflation cooling in the second half of the year
The Federal Reserve doesn't need to raise interest rates because inflation is likely to cool in the second half of the year, Federal Reserve governor Christopher Waller said Friday.
Waller said that inflation was high but didn't get worse last year after the Trump White House enacted tariffs. That tells him that underlying inflation likely improved as tariffs pushed prices higher.
"I think once we get past tariffs and maybe the second quarter, you're going to see inflation come back down. I don't think there's a need for rate hikes," he said in an interview on CNBC.
U.S. Gas Exporters Stand to Be the Big Winners of the Energy Crisis
American energy companies are poised to play an even more pivotal role in global flows of liquefied natural gas-and rake in the profits-as Iran targets its neighbors' exports.
LNG facilities in Qatar, the second-biggest supplier of LNG globally, are expected to be offline for months-and won't resume production at prewar levels. National oil company QatarEnergy, which had already declared force majeure earlier this month, said strikes by Iran on Wednesday and Thursday caused extensive damage to its Ras Laffan hub.
A prolonged outage will have major ramifications for energy markets. The stoppage in Qatar means the world is losing nearly 12 billion cubic feet a day of natural-gas supplies, analysts say-about one-fifth of global LNG supplies. Once the war stops, it will have fewer cargoes from Qatar to heat homes and power industries.
Banks Ready to Put Billions to Work After Regulatory Win
America's banks are dusting off their spending wish lists.
After scoring a victory with regulators, lenders are preparing to put billions of dollars in potentially freed-up capital to use. Their top priorities aren't complicated: make more loans, invest in their businesses, give money back to shareholders and strike deals.
A hotly anticipated series of regulatory rules proposed Thursday would, in totality, lower the amount of extra capital that banks must hold as safety buffers. The plans are subject to a 90-day comment period before they can be finalized, so they could still change.
Week Ahead for FX, Bonds: PMI Data to Show Middle East War's Impact on Sentiment
Provisional purchasing managers' surveys for March in the U.S. and Europe in the week will provide a key gauge of how the ongoing war in the Middle East has impacted sentiment and business activity.
"This is significant because it's one of the first economic indicators we'll get that cover the period since the conflict began," Deutsche Bank economists said in a note.
Inflation data from the U.K., Japan and Australia will also be watched closely as concerns grow about the impact of prolonged high energy prices.
UBS Secures Bank License for Its Campaign to Expand U.S. Wealth Arm
UBS received a license to offer full-service banking in the U.S., part of a plan to tap rich Americans for their deposits and investments, and extend its reach in the world's biggest wealth market.
The national bank charter, approved by U.S. regulators Friday, should help the Swiss bank expand beyond its traditional clientele of the superrich into a pool of affluent and not-quite-ultrawealthy clients.
The Americas are already UBS's biggest region for wealth management, accounting for around half of invested assets and revenue. But the region has a much higher cost base, and scaling up in banking is a way to gather more deposits and make the region more profitable.
Tech Exec Accused of Smuggling High-End Nvidia Chips to China
Employees of a U.S. server maker helped smuggle machines with high-end Nvidia chips to China and used dummy devices to deceive an American inspector, according to a U.S. indictment unsealed Thursday.
The server maker, Super Micro Computer, said it placed co-founder and Senior Vice President Yih-Shyan "Wally" Liaw on leave after learning of his alleged role in the scheme involving billions of dollars of servers. Super Micro said it placed a second employee on leave and fired a contractor.
Shares of Super Micro were down 26% when the market opened Friday.
Unilever in Talks to Separate Food Business and Combine It With McCormick
Unilever, the maker of Dove deodorant and Hellmann's mayonnaise, is in talks to separate its food business and combine it with spice maker McCormick.
Both companies confirmed the talks Friday after The Wall Street Journal reported them a day earlier.
The major strategy shift by Unilever would continue a trend of consumer conglomerates streamlining their businesses and would leave U.K.-based Unilever focused on beauty, personal-care and home products.
Novartis to Buy Breast-Cancer Drug From Synnovation for Up to $3 Billion
Novartis struck a deal valued at up to $3 billion to buy an experimental breast-cancer drug from Synnovation Therapeutics, moving to bolster its oncology pipeline with a new treatment approach.
The Swiss drugmaker has turned to dealmaking to replenish its drug pipeline as it braces for what its chief executive, Vas Narasimhan, recently called the largest patent expiry in the company's history, with key products such as heart-failure treatment Entresto, platelet booster Promacta and leukemia drug Tasigna losing exclusivity.
The deal with Synnovation comes less than a month after Novartis completed its largest acquisition in a decade, the purchase of neuromuscular drug developer Avidity Biosciences for $12 billion, which in turn followed several smaller transactions in areas including cardiovascular and renal diseases.
Expected Major Events for Monday
05:00/JPN: Feb Convenience Store Sales
05:00/SIN: Feb CPI
21:00/SKA: Feb PPI
22:00/AUS: Mar Australia Flash PMI
23:30/JPN: Feb CPI (Nation), CPI ex-food (Nation)
All times in GMT. Powered by Onclusive and Dow Jones.
Write to us at singaporeeditors@dowjones.com
We offer an enhanced version of this briefing that is optimized for viewing on mobile devices and sent directly to your email inbox. If you would like to sign up, please go to https://newsplus.wsj.com/subscriptions.
This article is a text version of a Wall Street Journal newsletter published earlier today.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 22, 2026 16:30 ET (20:30 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Comments