{"id":5328,"date":"2026-04-30T23:09:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T23:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/?p=5328"},"modified":"2026-04-30T23:09:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T23:09:11","slug":"oil-prices-whipsaw-while-stocks-hit-new-highs-amid-u-s-iran-blockades-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/?p=5328","title":{"rendered":"Oil prices whipsaw while stocks hit new highs amid U.S.-Iran blockades – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The U.S stock market motored to more records Thursday as profits keep piling up for\u00a0Alphabet, Caterpillar and other big businesses. The gains came after the latest whipsaw moves for oil prices, which surged toward their highest levels since\u00a0the war with Iran\u00a0began only to quickly regress.<\/p>\n

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The S&P 500 rallied 1% and topped its prior\u00a0all-time high\u00a0to close out its best month in more than five years. The\u00a0Dow\u00a0Jones Industrial Average leaped 790 points, or 1.6%, while the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.9% to its own record.<\/p>\n

The S&P\/TSX composite index was up 645.94 points, or 1.94%, closing at 33,964.33.<\/p>\n

Alphabet led the way and rallied 10% after the owner of Google and YouTube reported profit for the latest quarter that almost doubled analysts\u2019 expectations. Investments in artificial intelligence \u201care lighting up every part of the business,\u201d CEO\u00a0Sundar Pichai\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the latest company to\u00a0deliver fatter profits\u00a0for the start of 2026 than analysts expected, even with very high oil prices and uncertainty about the economy.<\/p>\n

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Wall Street\u2019s strength followed manic swings in the oil market, where prices surged overnight on worries that the\u00a0Iran war will affect the flow of crude\u00a0for a long time. Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz to oil tankers, keeping them pent up in the Persian Gulf and away from customers worldwide, while a U.S. Navy blockade is preventing Iran from selling its own oil.<\/p>\n

Traders are buying and selling contracts for different kinds of oil, going out for many months. In the most actively traded part of the market for Brent crude, for delivery in July, the price got as high as $114.70 per barrel overnight. It then fell back toward $107 before settling at $110.40, nearly unchanged from the day before.<\/p>\n

So far during the war, the peak price for the most actively traded Brent contract is $119.50, which was set last month.<\/p>\n

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In a less actively traded corner of the Brent market, the price for a barrel to be delivered in June briefly went above $126 overnight before pulling back toward $114.<\/p>\n

Brent\u2019s price is still much more expensive than its roughly $70 level from before the war. But the morning\u2019s easing in prices and the continuing flood of better-than-expected profit reports from U.S. companies helped keep Wall Street at its records.<\/p>\n

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Caterpillar soared 9.9%, Eli Lilly jumped 9.8% and O\u2019Reilly Automotive leaped 8.4% after all delivered profits for the latest quarter that topped analysts\u2019 expectations. That\u2019s big because stock prices tend to follow the track of corporate profits over the long term.<\/p>\n

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Still, a better-than-expected result isn\u2019t always enough to boost a stock\u2019s price if it\u2019s already shot much higher.<\/p>\n

Meta Platforms\u00a0tumbled 8.7% even though the company behind Facebook and Instagram made more profit last quarter than expected. Investors focused more on its increased forecast for how much it will spend on data centers and other investments as it builds out its AI capabilities.<\/p>\n

Doubts are still high among some investors about whether all the AI spending by Meta and other companies will produce enough profit and productivity to make it worth it.<\/p>\n

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