NEW YORK (AP) — Oil prices are rising Monday as the war with Iran threatens to drag on for longer, but the U.S. stock market is nevertheless holding near its record heights.
The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil climbed 1.7% to $102.99 after President Donald Trump called Iran’s latest proposal to end their war “totally unacceptable” on Sunday. The rejection raises the stakes for Trump’s upcoming trip this week to China, where he could urge President Xi Jinping to pressure Iran into making concessions. Xi has leverage because China is the biggest buyer of Iran’s sanctioned crude oil.
The war has already sent the price for a barrel of Brent up from roughly $70 and delivered a blast of painful inflation through the global economy. That’s because it has shut the Strait of Hormuz, keeping oil tankers stuck in the Persian Gulf instead of delivering crude to customers worldwide.
Still, the U.S. stock market has been setting records recently on hopes that the war will not keep oil prices high for very long. U.S. companies are also producing even bigger profits than analysts expected, while signals suggest the U.S. economy is holding up even though households are feeling discouraged.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 was virtually unchanged from its record set Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 73 points, or 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.1% lower.
Mosaic helped drag on the market after the fertilizer company reported much weaker results than analysts expected. The company is seeing prices for its products surge, but it’s also contending with much higher prices for sulfur and other raw materials that it uses because of logistics snarls created by the war with Iran.
Mosaic’s stock sank 2.3%.
Helping to moderate that loss was Fox, which rose 3.6% after reporting stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected
Outside of earnings reports, Beazer Homes USA soared 29.6% after Dream Finders Homes offered to buy it in a deal valuing it at roughly $704 million. A combination would create the country’s seventh-largest homebuilder, and Dream Finders is asking Beazer’s shareholders to push its management to OK the deal after making several attempts itself.
Dream Finders slipped 0.6%.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Europe and Asia. France’s CAC 40 fell 0.8%, and South Korea’s Kospi soared 4.3% for two of the world’s bigger moves.
In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady. The 10-year yield remained at 4.38%, where it was late Friday.
Yields have moderated a bit this month, but they remain well above where they were before the war began. Higher yields can raise rates for mortgages and other kinds of loans going to U.S. households and businesses, which in turn can slow the economy. Higher yields also tend to push downward on prices for stocks and other kinds of investments.
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AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed to this report.
