Dow sinks 300 points, oil heads to $90 as Iran war fears grip Wall Street

The Dow tumbled nearly 300 points Wednesday, but the rest of the market remained calm, even as the price of oil got back to rising.The blue-chip index pared losses, sliding 0.6% to 47,417.27.The Nasdaq rose 0.1%, and the S&P 500 fell 0.1%, for a second day of modest moves following a wild stretch caused by the war with Iran.Since the start of the war, extreme moves for oil prices have triggered sharp swings up and down for financial markets worldwide, sometimes by the hour.Oil prices briefly spiked to their highest levels since 2022 this week because of the possibility that production in the Middle East could be blocked for a long time, which in turn raised worries about a surge of debilitating inflation for the global economy.The International Energy Agency said Wednesday that its members will release a record amount of oil, 400 million barrels, from stockpiles they’ve set aside for emergencies.Such moves push downward on oil prices in the near term, but it’s likely that only a full resumption of the flow of oil and natural gas from the Persian Gulf area will fully ease the market.

That has investors worldwide anxiously awaiting the end of the war.The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, settled up nearly 5% at $91.98.A barrel of benchmark US crude gained more than 4% to $87.25.Worries are centered on the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway off Iran’s coast where a fifth of the world’s oil sails on a typical day.

The war has halted most of that traffic, which means storage tanks for crude in the region are filling up because the oil has nowhere else to go.That in turn is pushing oil producers to say they’re cutting their output.The United States said it took out more than a dozen minelaying Iranian vessels Tuesday, and the Islamic Republic vowed to block the region’s oil exports, saying it would not allow “even a single liter” to be shipped to its enemies.All this is happening at a time when inflatio...