Oil prices are falling by more than 10% Friday, and Wall Street is rallying toward another record after Iran said the Strait of Hormuz is fully open again for oil tankers carrying crude from the Persian Gulf to customers worldwide.
The S&P 500 climbed 1% as US stocks raced toward the finish of a third straight week of big gains, the longest such streak for the index since Halloween. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 722 points, or 1.5%, as of 10 am Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.1% higher.Stocks have jumped 12% since hitting a bottom in late March on hopes that the United States and Iran can avoid a worst-case scenario for the global economy despite their war.
The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which may only be temporary, is the clearest signal yet for optimism, and President Donald Trump said in a speech late Thursday that the war “should be ending pretty soon.”
The price for a barrel of benchmark US crude dropped sharply immediately after Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, posted on X that the passage for all commercial vessels through the strait “is declared completely open” as a ceasefire appears to be holding in Lebanon.
He said it would stay open for the remaining period of the ceasefire. US oil tumbled 10.2% to $81.88.
Brent crude, the international standard, dropped 10.3% to $89.09.
To be sure, it remains above its $70 level from before the war, indicating some caution is still embedded in financial markets.
