By Martin Baccardax

U.S. stocks were back on oil watch Wednesday with investors eyeing headlines tied to the potential for coordinated support for global crude markets that could steady the nerves of a jittery market that remains focused on developments in the U.S. war with Iran.

The International Energy Agency, formed during the Arab oil embargo in 1974 with the aim of establishing collective action against supply disruptions, has proposed the release of around 400 million barrels of crude from the strategic reserves of its 32 members.

A formal decision on the proposal is expected later Wednesday, but reports suggested France has yet to agree on the move. President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, will host a virtual meeting of G-7 leaders prior to the announcement.

Investors weren't convinced it's enough, however, to offset the impact of standstill cargo traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, which now is at the risk of undersea mines placed by Iran, according to reports. Brent crude futures spiked firmly past $90 a barrel, global stock markets were turning red, and investor sentiment again has been captured by Iran war headlines.

Oracle shares, however, were moving in the opposite direction.

The cloud computing and software giant, which may also be one of the single most important stocks in the artificial-intelligence investment narrative, blasted Wall Street's forecasts for its fiscal third-quarter earnings and forecast current-year revenue in the region of $90 billion.

Its longer-term backlog swelled to more than $550 billion, as well, suggesting it remains confident in a business plan that will see it spend $50 billion building data centers this year as it scales-up its cloud infrastructure division alongside a multi-year agreement with ChatGPT maker OpenAI.

"A years-long list of remaining performance obligations positions Oracle as a key beneficiary of structural compute demand," said Jake Behan, head of capital markets at Direxion.

"In a quarter where traders were increasingly wary of the economics of the AI trade, Oracle's results suggest the demand side of the equation remains extremely strong," he added.

Whether that optimistic outlook, a rare bit of good news in the AI investment trade that has gone sour over the past few months, can bring investors back from their day-to-day focus on the Persian Gulf remains to be seen.

However, it does provide a hint that investors are looking to move past the Iran war headlines and revisit some of the key market concerns, such as AI, private credit, and Federal Reserve interest rates, that were left behind following the first U.S. attacks on Iran at the end of February.

They'll first need to look past a worryingly high level of market volatility, nearly all of it linked to Iran war headlines and the Persian Gulf region. The Cboe Group's VIX index is holding near 26, suggesting daily swings of 1.6%, or 108 points, for the S&P 500 over the coming month.

Stocks, it has to be said, remain remarkably resilient. The S&P 500 has fallen 1.4% since the start of the conflict, but is only 3% south of the all-time high it reached on Jan. 27.

U.S. Treasury bonds were active, as well, whipsawing between worries over risks tied to weaker domestic growth prospects and energy-related inflation pressures.

Benchmark 2-year Treasury note yields, the most-sensitive to changes in interest rate forecasts, have risen 20 basis points to 3.592% since the end of February, while 10-year notes were up 19 basis points at 4.164%.

The CPI inflation report for February, which is expected to show a modest renewal of headline price pressures, likely won't ease any of those concerns as the data Wednesday won't reflect the Iran war surge in global crude. Nor will it provide much in the way of policy signals for the Fed, which meets next week in Washington for its next decision on interest rates.

"The Treasury market is stuck between AI-driven job displacement and the ongoing conflict in Iran," said Lawrence Gillum, chief fixed income strategist at LPL Financial. "And ongoing uncertainty around the ultimate impact of AI on corporate credit markets continues to support a broadly cautious stance."

Write to Martin Baccardax at martin.baccardax@barrons.com

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March 11, 2026 06:41 ET (10:41 GMT)

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