Midday Fly By: Rising oil prices, falling employment sink stocks

Stocks are down sharply at midday, adding to weekly declines, after the February jobs data showed unexpected job cuts and rising unemployment. Nonfarm payrolls fell by 92,000 in February, missing the growth of 55,000 that economists predicted, and the unemployment rate rose to 4.4% from 4.3%. Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate futures broke above $89 per barrel after President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post that there won’t be a deal to end the U.S.-Iran war without an “unconditional surrender.”

Get caught up quickly on the top news and calls moving stocks with these five Top Five lists. 

1. STOCK NEWS:

• President Trump and Secretary Hegseth are said to be meeting with the CEOs of defense companies today at the White House as Trump proclaims there “will be no deal with Iran except unconditional surrender”
• Marvell (MRVL) received a pair of upgrades and a number of price target hikes from Wall Street firms after its results and guidance were strong
• JPMorgan says Costco’s (COST) “core story remains intact” following the membership club retailer’s fiscal Q2 report
• Gap (GAP) shares are trading lower after Old Navy and Athleta missed comparable-store sales estimates in Q4
• Day One Biopharmaceuticals (DAWN) announced an agreement to be acquired by Servier for $21.50 per share in cash

2. WALL STREET CALLS:

• Marvell (MRVL) was upgraded to Buy at Benchmark and BofA on expectations for accelerating data center demand
• Karman (KRMN) upgraded to Overweight at Piper Sandler
• Okta (OKTA) upgraded to Outperform at BMO Capital
• Wedbush (TTD) to Underperform, says impact of OpenAI partnership overestimated
• Zoetis (ZTS) downgraded to Hold from Buy at Nephron Research

3. AROUND THE WEB:

• Private equity firms including Blackstone (BX) and TPG (TPG) have expressed interest in acquiring Whitestone REIT, Reuters reports
• China has approved Pfizer’s (PFE) GLP-1 treatment Xianweiying for weight management in adults, Reuters says
• Carlyle (CG) and CVC have agreed to hand UBS (UBS) some of their performance fees in return for the bank selling the firms’ products to wealthy individuals, FT says
• Meta (META) has hired the engineering team from Atma Sciences, the startup that makes the vibe coding app Gizmo, earlier in 2026 to join its Superintelligence Labs, Business Insider reports
• The Pentagon has notified Anthropic it has determined the company and its products are a risk to the U.S. supply chain, Bloomberg says

4. MOVERS:

• Samsara (IOT) gains after reporting Q4 results and providing guidance for Q1 and FY27
• ASP Isotopes (ASPI) increases after announcing Quantum Leap Energy has entered into a non-binding MOU with a large publicly traded U.S. energy company
• Western Alliance (WAL) declines after being informed by Jefferies that payments of $126.4M owed to the bank pursuant to a forbearance agreement will not be paid as agreed
• REalloys (ALOY) falls after announcing a 2.7M Spot Secondary
• Ingram Micro (INGM) lower after announcing am 8.999M Spot Secondary

5. EARNINGS/GUIDANCE:

• Algonquin Powers (AQN) reported Q4 results and backed its guidance for FY26
• Embraer (EMBJ) reported Q4 results, with revenue beating consensus
• Immuneering (IMRX) reported Q4 results, with CEO Ben Zeskind commenting that “2025 was a transformative year”
• SunCar Technology (SDA) reported preliminary results for Q4
• Methode Electronics (MEI) reported Q3 results and narrowed its guidance for FY26

INDEXES:

Near midday, the Dow was down 1.18%, or 566.51, to 47,388.23, the Nasdaq was down 0.77%, or 176.09, to 22,572.89, and the S&P 500 was down 1.01%, or 69.05, to 6,761.66.