Wall Street slides as Middle East uncertainty weighs on sentiment [View all]

Source: Reuters

Wall Street's main indexes fell sharply on Thursday as investors worried ​about escalation in the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, which has sent oil prices soaring and exacerbated inflation concerns.

U.S. President Donald Trump ‌said Iran must make a deal or face a continued onslaught. But a senior Iranian official told Reuters the U.S. proposal for ending nearly four weeks of fighting is "one-sided and unfair," while stressing that diplomacy had not ended.

The lack of clear signs of progress sent oil prices up more than 5%. As a result, stock indexes erased their gains from ​the prior session when investors had been betting on a de-escalation in the four-week war.

"The back and forth seems to ​be happening at a quicker pace. On top of it, we don't know who Trump is negotiating with," said ⁠Doug Beath, global equity strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute, adding that uncertainty about the war was causing investors to sell equities. "There's a lot ​of conflicting signals, and it's really the fog of war, the uncertainty of all of it that's driving this."

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/business/us-stock-futures-slip-middle-east-war-de-escalation-remains-uncertain-2026-03-26/