Oil Prices Rise +80% Since December - When Will It End?

Thursday, March 26th, 2026

Pre-market futures are back down this morning, after closing Wednesday in the green. Again, we have a light week of economic reports until next week (“Jobs Week”), while earnings reports will follow once the quarter ends next Monday. The Dow is currently -394 points, the S&P 500 is -59 and the Nasdaq -274 points at this hour. The small-cap Russell 2000 is -30 points.

Notes on “Progress” in Iran: Reflected in Oil Prices

The Iran War appears to exist on two separate tracks simultaneously. On the one hand — with which Wall Street chose to align its sentiment yesterday — a peace plan is being forged by President Trump and unnamed officials in Iran. Denials from the Middle Eastern theocracy, along with calls to negotiate with Vice President JD Vance instead, have muddied those waters somewhat.

On the other hand, Israel continues its aggressive attacks on Iran, focused on dismantling its nuclear weapons program before a peaceful resolution can be reached. Experts say this will require (American) boots on the ground in order to accomplish this, while sentiment in the U.S. homeland for this conflict continues to sour. According to Pew Research polls, roughly 60% of Americans do not support Trump’s handling of the war, and that number threatens to increase if the U.S. increases the number of soldiers brought to the region.

Key to this is Iran having choked off the Strait of Hormuz, which normally delivers 20% of global oil supply per day. As the war comes up on its one-month anniversary, gasoline prices in the U.S. are up roughly $1 per gallon. This is perhaps the main element to American rejection of the war as it stands today, and even a peace agreement tomorrow would result in weeks of strain on oil prices until supply chains can be restored.

We see the results of this most clearly in spot oil prices, which are up again this morning. West Texas Intermediate (WTI), even as it does not include any oil from the Middle East, has risen +76% from December lows to $94.30 per barrel (/bbl) at this hour. Brent crude, which typically runs somewhat more expensive than WTI, is up +88% from December lows to $107.80 this morning.

Weekly Jobless Claims Remain Disciplined

Another week of a “low hire/low fire” employment market is presented by this morning’s Initial Jobless Claims, which hit the expected +210K exactly for last week. This follows an unrevised +205K, which is the lowest tally of new jobless claims we’ve seen since the earliest weeks of the year. In 2025, we saw a range of between +192K new jobless claims Thanksgiving Week and +265K the week of Labor Day.

Continuing Claims are even more impressive: +1.819 million claims two weeks ago (one week in arrears from Initial Claims, as per normal) is the lowest weekly figure we’ve seen since May of 2024, and follows a downwardly revised +1.850 million the prior week. The highest level we’d reached here was 1.97 million back in late July of last year.
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