👋 Good morning! Oil provided investors with yet another eventful day in the markets. Barrels of Brent (BZ=F) spent part of the day in the $110s, but stocks recovered most of their steep intraday losses, closing only moderately in the red on Thursday.
The S&P 500 (^GSPC) and the Nasdaq (^IXIC) lost 0.3%, while the Dow (^DJI) fell 0.4%.
On the agenda this morning:
🛢️ The war in Iran's new phase is tough for oil
🚕 Uber and Rivian plant a flag in rush for robotaxi turf
⚠️ Complacency warnings start to sound
⛽️ Gary Cohn is worried about gas prices
🤖 Would you let AI pick your stocks?
📆 What we're watching Friday: We've got an empty economic and corporate calendar, leaving a vacuum for the ups and downs of the oil market.
The key thing to watch for: signs of deescalation.
Thursday afternoon delivered comments from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that hinted at a quicker-than-expected conclusion to the war, and comments from President Trump that "We're not putting troops anywhere."
If there's a theme that's sure to move markets, it's this one.
The price of diesel is advertised at a gas station Thursday, March 19, 2026, in Hyattsville, Md. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough) ·ASSOCIATED PRESS
Oil prices spent most of Thursday above $110 per barrel as attacks on energy infrastructure escalated on both sides, before receding as the White House looked for ways to calm the energy markets.
But with Bloomberg data showing prices touching the conflict's $119 high, it’s clear that the escalation has ushered in a new phase of the conflict, one in which the energy industry’s delicate underbelly is in play, previously seen as something of a red line.
A key White House remedy for the high prices was steeped in irony: a possible plan to remove sanctions on Iranian oil, just as the Russian ones were lifted. With bomb-based “kinetic” coercion efforts, perhaps economic coercion is negligible, and useful in the other direction to bring prices down. After Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent floated the idea and a potential second release of oil reserves, prices did calm slightly.
Still, Wall Street sees the path for $130 oil futures as one that could come "easily," as a BMO analyst put it. Spot prices in the Middle East for actual physical oil are already nearing $170, which could spill over into the "paper" futures.
Uber's new partnership, along with its prior deal to outfit its vehicles with Nvidia technology, highlights the tech industry's excitement around a new kind of commercial transportation. It also underscores how the top players in the space, from Uber to Waymo (GOOG, GOOGL), to Tesla (TSLA) — all face technological roadblocks even as they must clear obstacles unique to their respective brands and operations.
Well before Tesla's recent pivot to the Cybercab, Uber's endgame was to get to autonomous driving, cutting out the controversy and expense of contracted humans.
Meanwhile, Tesla is essentially leapfrogging that entire contract-driver phase, just as Uber is farming out its automotive side to Rivian. But Tesla will need consumer buy-in from all the people who have never owned a Tesla, don't have its app, resent CEO Elon Musk, and perceive the company as rolling out potentially premature tech.
Move fast and break things feels different when you're inside the thing, moving at 65 mph.
On the other hand, people already use Uber for ride-hailing. It may not have its own in-house autonomous EV, but it's got the network effect that its competitors (mostly) don't have.
In an aerial view, oil storage tanks are seen at the Big Spring Refinery on March 19, 2026, in Big Spring, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images) ·Brandon Bell via Getty Images
Even as the war in Iran stretches into its third week, and oil prices continue to climb, belief in a swift conclusion to the conflict remains widely held. But the market vibes are shifting even if stocks aren’t. Analysts are issuing louder warnings about the mismatch in expectations.
JPMorgan strategists said in a note earlier this week that they see complacency in how investors assume a swift conclusion to the war, disregarding risks to the stock market.
The danger is not simply that oil prices are rising, but that the cost increase is so great that it destroys demand for all the commercial activity that relies on fossil fuels, pressuring corporate profits.
For every sustained 10% increase in oil prices, JPMorgan estimates that GDP growth could be cut by 0.15% to 0.20%. Bank of America analysts made a similar point in a note after this week’s Fed meeting.
“We continue to believe the rates market is too focused on upside inflation risks & insufficiently worried about downside growth risks, largely stemming from the recent oil price shock.”
Should we pay attention to these warnings? Sure. We read all we can. But knowing whether they’re correct as ideas, correct in prescription and what to do, or merely bumps in Wall Street’s big price discovery machine remains, literally, the trillion-dollar question.
🗣️ Quote of the day
Click to watch Cohn on Yahoo Finance. ·Yahoo Finance
"There's nothing more instantaneous to a consumer than standing there holding down the gas nozzle and watching the numbers tick on the pump ... And if they were paying $80 a week ago, and they're paying $85 this week and they were paying $60 a month ago, they know that 'I lost $20 of disposable income in filling up this tank of gas."
— Gary Cohn, former Goldman Sachs president and COO and former Director of the National Economic Council, speaking about how high gas prices are recessionary.
🤖 One last thing
We've all been wondering when (if?) AI will start to be taken seriously as a stock-picking tool for either individuals or ETFs.
DataTrek's Jessica Rabe kicked the tires on the question this week, noting the "remarkably few" options available, even as the tools take jobs and increasingly difficult tasks.
The largest one, with just over $100 million in assets under management, is an IBM Watson model from back when AI was called "machine learning." Two phrases we haven't heard in years!
But seriously, it's fascinating to see how open this space is, how mixed the performance is, and how different the holdings are.
Rabe’s view? Until we see better performance, adoption will probably remain low.
What about you, though? Would you use AI to manage your portfolio — or buy an ETF with stocks picked by Claude or ChatGPT?
