(Peter Zenkl/Getty Images)

Stocks tumble as Brent crude closes above $100

Investors were plagued by inflation fears amid rising oil prices and ongoing private credit concerns.

The S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 fell as Brent crude oil closed above $100 per barrel for the first time in over 3 years after a flurry of attacks on ships sailing through or near the Strait of Hormuz. Energy was once again the best-performing sector, while industrials was the worst.

Inflationary fears due to rising prices have traders pessimistic about the odds of rate cuts this year.

Stocks that moved higher:

Occidental Petroleum continued to surge amid the war with Iran as its stock received a double upgrade and a price target hike from Wells Fargo.
Bumble skyrocketed on better-than-expected Q4 results and a strong first-quarter profit outlook.
Lightwave Logic soared after striking a deal to deploy its modulator technology on Tower Semiconductor’s platform.
Petco surged after forecasting upbeat full-year EBITDA guidance in its Q4 earnings report yesterday.
US chemical-slash-fertilizer companies CF Industries, Mosaic Co. , Dow, Inc., and LyondellBasell — for whom natural gas is a crucial input — rose, as these companies are poised to take advantage of pricing power in the absence of robust global competition as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz cuts off natural gas supply.
Firefly Aerospace soared after successfully launching Alpha Flight 7 as traders snapped up calls.

Stocks that moved lower:

A never-ending stream of private credit conniptions weighed on financial stocks Ares Management, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, KKR & Co., Goldman Sachs, and Apollo Global Management. Deutsche Bank, who revealed a $30 billion private-credit exposure, was hit particularly hard.
Dollar General tumbled after issuing mediocre same-store sales guidance in this morning’s earnings call.
Despite a revenue beat, software and agentic automation company UiPath dipped as guidance failed to excite analysts about longer-term growth.
Estée Lauder dipped as spiking oil prices have investors turning up their noses at fragrance stocks.
GlobalFoundries dropped amid a secondary offering of 20 million shares at $42 a share.

Luke Kawa2h

Hims & Hers sees surge turn sour in its biggest reversal since the 2025 stock market bottom

Hims & Hers erased gains of more than 5% in early trading to close down more than 7% on Thursday.

It’s the first time the telehealth company saw an intraday gain of 5% or more turn into a loss of 5% or more since April 8, 2025, which marked that year’s bottom for the S&P 500 amid the tariff-induced tumult.

Hims has been on an absolute tear this week after reaching a renewed partnership with Novo Nordisk to sell its weight-loss drugs, a pact that resolves the massive legal overhang that had been plaguing the stock. The momentum continued as Wall Street scrambled to boost its outlook on the shares following this arrangement.

There’s not much in the way of company-specific news to point to: Hims, like many other firms, tanked after the market opened as oil climbed.

Perhaps this is just a consolidation period — the so-called pause that refreshes — or a potential sign that the stock has squeezed all the juice it could out of one catalyst as the overall market wobbles under the weight of high oil prices brought about by the ongoing war in the Middle East.

Matt Phillips2h

Firefly Aerospace rockets higher as traders snap up calls

Firefly Aerospace shares soared after Wednesday’s successful liftoff of its Alpha rocket for the first time in almost a year was followed by a flurry of call buying in the options market.

Shortly before 3 p.m. ET on Thursday, roughly 36,000 call options on Firefly had changed hands, more than twice the average over the previous 20 days.

The Cedar Park, Texas-based designer and manufacturer of space launch vehicles has lost some serious altitude since its August 2025 IPO. It’s down about 60% since then, even after Thursday’s surge.

Vandenberg rocket launch visible across West Coast. Here's a recap

Luke Kawa

Woe de toilette

Spiking oil prices have investors turning up their noses at fragrance stocks

Estée Lauder and International Flavors & Fragrances are among the worst-performing stocks since the kinetic conflict in the Middle East started.

Saleah Blancaflor3h

Gas jumps $0.60 in under two weeks, hitting $3.60 as the market braces for possible $4 a gallon

Spring is just around the corner and gas prices just keep getting higher.

The national average for a gallon of regular gas is currently at $3.598, according to the American Automobile Association, jumping nearly $0.35 since last week.

The most recent prices are similar to the spring of 2024, while this is the first time it has gone above the $3.50 threshold since July 29, 2024.

While gas prices tend to increase during the warmer months, crude oil prices have played a major part in what consumers have been paying, at times exceeding $100 per barrel in the past few days.

To offset the rising energy costs due to the conflict in the Middle East, the US Department of Energy announced it would release 172 million barrels of oil from strategic reserves over the next four months as part of the larger effort to release 400 million oil barrels.

Prediction markets are pricing in an implied 62% chance that the price of gas exceeds $4.00 by the end of the month. Things may get even more expensive, though; markets are pricing in roughly even chances that gas finishes above $4.10, and even a 22% chance gasoline averages $4.50 per gallon by March 31.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

US gas prices jump to nearly $3.60 per gallon

While gas prices tend to increase during the warmer months, crude oil prices have played a major part in what consumers have been paying, at times exceeding $100 per barrel in the past few days.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

Max Knoblauch5h

Rivian announces R2 will start at $59,485 at launch, with lower cost trims set to arrive in 2027

EV maker Rivian on Thursday announced that its highly anticipated R2, which CEO RJ Scaringe has called “maybe the most important thing we’ve launched to date,” will start at $59,485 at launch.

The company is prioritizing pricier trims at first, with a lower-range $46,495 base model set to arrive in late 2027.

The nearly $60,000 launch price, and the timeline for the base model’s arrival, seem to be slightly different than what investors were hoping for, and Rivian shares are down 4% intraday on Thursday.

Rivian’s R2 is a midsize SUV, smaller than its R1S predecessor. The launch model will have an estimated range of 330 miles.

Rivian has said it expects R2 deliveries to begin in the second quarter of this year. The company has implied that it expects to make between 20,000 and 25,000 R2 deliveries in 2026.

Rivian Announces R2 Trims, Pricing - Kelley Blue Book