CNBC Business News Update - Market Close: Stocks Plunge, Oil Higher, Airline And Cruise Line Shares Lower On Higher Fuel Prices 3/12/26

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

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I'm Jessica Eddinger, CNBC. Wall Street opens Friday morning after an ugly day for stocks as oil prices rose again. The Dow plunged 739 points, 1.5%. Goldman Sachs led it lower. Those shares were down more than 4%. The S&P 500 index down 103 points, 1.5%. The NASDAQ down 404 points, 1 and 3 quarters percent. shares of Nvidia fell one and a half percent. The declines are kind of grudging and orderly. I'm not sure if that's necessarily a good thing at this point. We are going to make likely a new closing low in the S&P for the year. That's CNBC's Mike Santoli and all three major averages made closing lows for the year.

Companies who shares hit fresh all-time highs on a down day for the major averages include Chevron, Phillips 66, Valero and Duke energy. Brent crude settled above $100 a barrel for the first time Thursday since the summer of 2022 after the Russian attack on Ukraine. U.S. crude hit $98 a barrel. Airlines and cruise lines tanked. Their shares fell with jet fuel and diesel prices soaring. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC that the Strait of Hormuz cannot yet be opened by the U.S. Navy. It'll happen relatively soon, but it can't happen now. We're simply not ready. all of our military assets right now are focused on destroying Iran's offensive capabilities. With no passage through the Straits of Hormuz, 20% of the world's oil is sitting dormant.

A take on all this in the markets from BCA research is Marco Poppich on CNBC. I think the market is not reacting enough because there is a very large percent probability that it does last quite long. Iran would have to basically withstand considerable pain in order for them, to maintain the closure of the straits. So the U.S. is going to shift into a punitive air campaign. I mean, President Trump basically said it. He said he's going to rain death, fire, and fury on Iran, and they will do that. You know, anybody who thinks that Iranians can do this for six months,

he's basically making an assessment that this regime is willing with effectively turning the country into a parking lot. Rapid and Energy's Bob McNally tells CNBC forget six months. In 30 days, this won't look good. I'm prefacing everything with, I hope I'm wrong. wrong. But when my team and I sat down last June to model this exact scenario with a military officer helping us, the maximum most pessimistic disruption duration of Hormuz we could get to is 30 days. And if the Secretary of Energy is correct, we'll be into our worst case 30 days without a full flow of

Hormuz. That is about the worst thing you can imagine in global oil and energy markets. It's something that can't happen and it's happening. Gas prices were climbing again with the national average for a gallon of regular sitting at $3.60 on Thursday, according to AAA. Americans are paying 35 cents more per gallon than they were a week ago Thursday. Flights are already getting more expensive with the spike in jet fuel prices as Airlines Institute fare increases to try to balance their costs. United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said last week, on the sidelines of an event,

that higher fares were likely on the way. On Friday's watch list, we get GDP, gross domestic product, the latest on U.S. economic growth. We get another inflation measure with the personal consumption expenditures report, and we'll get the Joel's report on job opportunity and labor turnover. Jessica Ettinger, CNBC. Before the first pitch, CNBC Sports Michael Ozanian goes deep on the latest numbers. We're going to have payrolls well over $300 million. Official MLB team valuations revealed in Squackbox on C&S.

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