Stocks are selling off globally this morning as unhappy investors see the price oil rising again—because of renewed conflict in the Middle East—and President Trump’s inability to rein in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. There’s also a total meltdown in semiconductor stocks—a bad sign for the SpaceX IPO on Friday. The VIX fear index is up 24% over the last five days. “There seems to be no single cause, rather a general sense of increasing risk,” UBS’s Paul Donovan said this morning.
The S&P 500 declined 2.64% on Friday, a huge drop. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was even worse, down 4.18%. The Philadelphia semiconductor collapsed 10.26%. This morning, S&P futures rose 0.35% prior to the opening bell—perhaps suggesting that retail investors might once again step in to buy the dip.
Brent crude was $97 per barrel this morning, up sharply on news that Iran and Israel had resumed bombing each other.
In Europe, the Stoxx 600 was down 0.75% in early trading and the U.K.’s FTSE 100 was down 0.4% before lunch.
Asia: South Korea’s KOSPI down an astonishing 8.29%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 3.85%. India’s Nifty 50 was down 0.9%. China’s CSI 300 was down 2.14%.
