Stock futures fell on Thursday morning as oil prices surged amid uncertainty over the resolution of the U.S.-Iran conflict. Investors continue to monitor developments in the Middle East after Iran ruled out direct talks with the U.S. despite senior officials in Tehran reportedly reviewing a proposal to end the war. Moreover, on Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump warned Iran to “better get serious soon, before it is too late.” Futures on the Nasdaq 100 (NDX), the S&P 500 Index (SPX), and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) were down 0.92%, 0.72%, and 0.67%, respectively, at 8:25 a.m. EDT on March 26.
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New trading tool for QQQ bullsAfter yesterday’s decline, oil prices surged this morning due to persistent geopolitical tensions. At the time of writing, the international oil benchmark Brent (CM:BZ) was up 4.86% to trade at $107.19 per barrel, while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude (CM:CL) increased 4.22% to $94.13 per barrel.
During Wednesday’s regular trading, the three major indexes ended higher on hopes of a ceasefire. The Dow Jones and the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.66% and 0.77%, respectively, while the S&P 500 gained 0.54%.
Turning to trending stocks, Snap (SNAP) stock was down more than 1% in Thursday’s pre-market trading after the European Union said it was investigating the social media platform for allegedly not taking enough measures to protect children using the app. Qualcomm (QCOM) stock fell 1.4% after Bernstein downgraded its rating for the chipmaker to Hold from Buy, citing memory headwinds.
Also, Sandisk (SNDK) stock was down about 4% while shares of fellow memory chipmakers Micron Technology (MU) and Western Digital (WDC) fell more than 3% and 2%, respectively, after Google (GOOGL) unveiled its new AI model that could reduce the memory required to run large-language models.