U.S. and World Stocks Meandered as Crude Oil Prices Retained Upward Bias

Barry Adams
11 Mar, 2026
New York City

Stocks on Wall Street lacked direction as investors reviewed the latest developments in the Middle East. 

The S&P 500 Index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite bounced around the flatline, and the joint U.S. and Israeli war on Iran showed no signs of abating. 

The White House claimed that the U.S. destroyed several Iranian ships, including 16 minelayers, in the Strait of Hormuz and added that the energy products will soon begin transiting through the Strait of Hormuz. 

The International Energy Agency, a consortium of nations in North America and Europe, is looking to release crude oil from its reserves, which could dampen crude oil prices. 

The agency's potential historic release of reserves may temporarily lower crude oil prices by $5 a barrel, but in the near term prices are likely to stay above $90 a barrel as Iran continues to successfully target the oil infrastructure of neighboring nations. 

Crude oil prices in New York advanced 2.5% to $85.60 a barrel, confirming uncertainty surrounding the resumption of energy product shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. 

Analysts are estimating crude oil prices to surpass $100 a barrel in New York if the conflict extends to the third week. 

On the economic front, the annual consumer price inflation in February likely advanced 2.4%, matching the increase in January and remaining at its lowest level since May 2025.

Meanwhile core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, is likely to stay unchanged at 2.5%. 

 

U.S. Movers 

AeroVironment, Inc. dropped 11% to $198.20 after the company reported its financial results. 

Revenue in the fiscal third quarter ending in January soared to $408 million from $167.6 million; net loss expanded to $156.6 million from $1.8 million; and diluted loss per share jumped to $3.15 from 6 cents a year ago. 

The drone maker booked $2.1 billion of new orders in the quarter, increasing its funded backlog to $1.1 billion and driving its book-to-bill ratio to 1.6 for the first nine months of the fiscal year. 

The current quarter was negatively impacted by goodwill impairment charges of $151.3 million, or $2.95 per diluted share, and $43.9 million, or $0.70 per diluted share, of intangible amortization and other related non-cash purchase accounting expenses as compared to $4.8 million, or $0.13 per diluted share, in the third quarter of fiscal 2025, the company noted in an announcement to investors. 

Oracle Corp. jumped 9.5% to $163.69, and the cloud infrastructure company reported better-than-expected fiscal third-quarter results. 

Total revenue in the quarter ending in February increased 22% to $17.2 billion, net income advanced to $3.7 billion from $2.9 billion, and diluted earnings per share rose to $1.27 from $1.02 a year ago. 

Cloud segment revenue rose 44% to $8.9 billion, and cloud infrastructure revenue soared 84% to $4.9 billion from a year ago, respectively. 

"Remaining Performance Obligations, or RPO, ended the quarter at $553 billion, up 325% from last year and up $29 billion from last quarter. 

Most of the increase in RPO in Q3 related to large-scale AI contracts where Oracle does not expect to have to raise any incremental funds to support these contracts, as most of the equipment needed is either funded upfront via customer prepayments so Oracle can purchase the GPUs or the customer buys the GPUs and supplies them to Oracle," the company noted in a statement released to investors. 

The company estimated fiscal fourth quarter revenue to rise between 18% and 20% and fiscal 2026 revenue of $67 billion and capital expenditures of $50 billion, unchanged from the previous guidance.