Pre-Markets Take Cues from Spot Oil Prices

Tuesday, March 10th, 2026

With assurances that the war in Iran will be a short-lived “excursion,” oil prices yesterday pulled back from their highest levels in almost 20 years — the first drop in oil prices since the U.S. and Israel initiated their attacks on Iran a week and a half ago. This helped moved markets forward to start the new trading week: +0.50% on the blue-chip Dow, +1.38% on the S&P 500 and +0.38% on the tech-heavy Nasdaq.

We began early-morning trading in decent shape today, as well, but this has turned back down into the red at this hour: -0.32% on the Dow, -0.28% on the S&P 500, -0.15% on the Nasdaq and -0.64% on the small-cap Russell 2000. Oil prices are also higher than where they were in the early trading hours, but still -4% on the WTI and -5% on Brent crude — to $90.75 per barrel (/bbl) and $93.64/bbl, respectively.

Early Monday, we saw these oil prices elevated as high as $119/bbl, which was beyond the heights we saw in the months following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine four years ago. We’d have to go back to the first half of 2008, when we saw oil prices up as high as $147/bbl, prior to the financial collapse in the second half of that year.

Retail Numbers Healthy for February…

The National Retail Federation (NRF), the world’s largest retail trade association, released its monthly numbers in this morning’s NRF Retail Monitor for February. On both headline and core (which subtracts restaurant checks, autos and gasoline from their tally), we saw growth of +0.3%, 10 basis points (bps) higher month over month.

Year over year, +6.2% on headline and +5.9% on core followed the +5.7% and +5.5%, respectively from the January NRF report. This was led by Digital Products +1.0% last month, followed by Clothing & Accessories +0.7% and Health/Personal Care +0.5%. Only Home Furnishings came in negative for February: -0.3%.

…but Optimism Dips

Early this morning, the NFIB Small-Business Optimism Index came up slightly short of estimates for February: 98.8 versus 99.5 expected, and lower for the second-straight month: 99.3 and 99.5 previously. Generally, we’ve been rangebound between 98 and 100 — we moved slightly above this threshold last summer and hit a near-term low 95.8 last April, during “Liberation Day” tariff initiatives.

What to Expect from Today’s Stock Market

Again, we’ll keep a close eye on what’s going on in Iran today, particularly the Strait of Hormuz, which normally brings 20 million barrels of oil through it per day but no longer does. Will the narrative on the U.S. goals for Iran change again? It’s worth keeping eyes and ears open. Notes from the Pentagon this morning is that the heaviest bombing on the Middle Eastern country comes today.

Existing Home Sales for February are expected to pull back slightly to 3.86 million seasonally adjusted, annualized units from the previous level of 3.91 million, which was the weakest month for existing home sales in a year and a half. We’d have to go back to October of 2023 to find a lower headline number than what’s forecast for last month.

Oracle ORCL reports fiscal Q3 earnings results after today’s close. Expectations are for double-digit growth on both top and bottom lines, and the tech giant looks for its third earnings beat in the past four quarters. Shares are up +1% this morning ahead of the print, but -21% year to date.

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