Weekend Market Report — March 7, 202
What a week. If you thought 2026 was going to be boring, the market just laughed in your face and lit a match.
The week opened with U.S. and Israeli forces continuing Operation Epic Fury against Iran, and markets spent every single session trying to figure out exactly how bad this gets. The answer, at least for now: pretty bad. By Friday’s close, the S&P 500 shed 2% on the week, the Dow fell 3%, and the Nasdaq lost 1.2%. All three major indexes are now in negative territory for the year. It was the Dow’s worst week since April 2025.
Friday alone was a gut punch. The Dow plunged 453 points to close at 47,501. The S&P 500 dropped 1.33% to settle at 6,740. The Nasdaq gave back 1.59% to end at 22,387. Two catalysts hit simultaneously: a horrible jobs report and oil surging above $90 a barrel. Never a great combination.
On the jobs front, nonfarm payrolls fell by 92,000 in February — a shocking miss — while the unemployment rate held at 4.4%. Job losses were concentrated in health care and information, and federal government employment has now shed 330,000 positions since peaking in October 2024. That’s a number that gets the stagflation crowd spinning up fast.
The real story of the week, though, was oil. WTI crude surged 35.63% — the biggest weekly gain in the history of the futures contract dating back to 1983 — closing Friday at $90.90 per barrel. Brent jumped roughly 28% for its biggest weekly gain since the early days of the pandemic. The Strait of Hormuz ground to a near standstill as Iranian forces targeted regional energy infrastructure and tankers. Qatar halted LNG production and declared force majeure. Saudi Arabia shut its biggest refinery. With roughly 20% of the world’s daily oil supply normally flowing through that narrow waterway, the market is now pricing in genuine disruption — not just risk. Qatar’s energy minister warned that oil could hit $150 a barrel if the situation continues. Nothing like a little light weekend reading.
Energy was the only sector showing any real life this week. Materials fell about 7%, while Consumer Staples, Health Care, and Industrials were all down roughly 5%. The VIX closed Friday at 29.49, up more than 24% on the day alone. Fear is officially back in the building.
There were a few bright spots. Marvell Technology jumped more than 10% on record earnings driven by surging AI chip demand. Defense names continued to attract buyers. But those were islands in a sea of red.
The setup heading into next week is genuinely complicated. The market has to weigh a war with no clear end date, oil prices that are now a legitimate inflation threat, a jobs market that just printed its worst month in recent memory, and a Fed that is almost certainly frozen in place.
The bulls will argue that markets historically shake off geopolitical shocks — and history does support that view. The bears will argue that $90+ oil layered on top of a weakening labor market is a different animal entirely. Both sides have a point. That’s what makes the next few sessions so interesting.
Stay tuned, and buckle up. It would be lovely if this flush helps print a short-term bottom.
See you in the morning.