{"id":59497,"date":"2026-03-06T16:38:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T20:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/oil-surges-8-amid-iran-tensions-as-feds-hammack-warns-of-inflation-stagnation\/59497\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T16:38:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T20:38:19","slug":"oil-surges-8-amid-iran-tensions-as-feds-hammack-warns-of-inflation-stagnation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/oil-surges-8-amid-iran-tensions-as-feds-hammack-warns-of-inflation-stagnation\/59497\/","title":{"rendered":"Oil Surges 8% Amid Iran Tensions as Fed\u2019s Hammack Warns of Inflation Stagnation"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Key Takeaways<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Brent Crude futures surged 8.52% to settle at $92.69 per barrel<\/strong> following reports that Iran is restricting ships linked to the <strong>US<\/strong> and <strong>Israel<\/strong> from passing through the <strong>Strait of Hormuz<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Federal Reserve official Beth Hammack<\/strong> labeled the February jobs report a &quot;disappointment&quot; and warned that there has been <strong>virtually no progress on inflation in the past two years<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>US Consumer Credit for January rose by only $8.05 billion<\/strong>, significantly missing the consensus estimate of <strong>$12.65 billion<\/strong>, signaling a sharp slowdown from the previous month&#39;s <strong>$25.20 billion<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>AI chipmaker Cerebras<\/strong> has reportedly tapped <strong>Morgan Stanley<\/strong> (<a href=\"\/stock\/MS\">MS<\/a>) to lead a <strong>$2 billion Initial Public Offering (IPO)<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Oracle<\/strong> (<a href=\"\/stock\/ORCL\">ORCL<\/a>) and <strong>OpenAI<\/strong> have ended plans to expand their <strong>Texas data center site<\/strong>, while <strong>Meta<\/strong> (<a href=\"\/stock\/META\">META<\/a>) is in talks to lease an expanded site from developer <strong>Crusoe<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Fed Signals Neutral Stance Amid Inflation Deadlock<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Federal Reserve<\/strong> official <strong>Beth Hammack<\/strong> stated Friday that while the economy remains in a &quot;reasonably good place,&quot; the <strong>February jobs report was a disappointment<\/strong>. Hammack noted that the <strong>labor market is stabilizing<\/strong> but expressed concern that <strong>inflation remains above target<\/strong> with almost no improvement over the last 24 months.<\/p>\n<p>The <strong>Fed<\/strong> is currently navigating &quot;two-sided risks&quot; to interest rates, with Hammack suggesting that current policy is <strong>&quot;right around neutral&quot;<\/strong> and not overly restrictive. <em>Market participants are closely watching the impact of rising energy costs<\/em>, as Hammack warned that higher oil prices could put <strong>upward pressure on inflation<\/strong> while simultaneously weighing down <strong>consumer spending<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h2>Energy Markets React to Middle East Escalation<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Brent Crude<\/strong> prices spiked by <strong>$7.28 to settle at $92.69<\/strong>, driven by heightening geopolitical friction in the <strong>Middle East<\/strong>. A senior military spokesperson in <strong>Iran<\/strong> announced that while the <strong>Strait of Hormuz<\/strong> remains open, ships with links to the <strong>US<\/strong> or <strong>Israel<\/strong> will be barred from passage.<\/p>\n<p>In response to the escalating situation, <strong>US officials<\/strong> confirmed that the <strong>aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford<\/strong> has moved from the <strong>Eastern Mediterranean<\/strong> through the <strong>Suez Canal<\/strong> and is now active in the <strong>Red Sea<\/strong>. <em>The shift in naval assets and the threat to shipping lanes have sparked fears of prolonged supply chain disruptions<\/em>, further complicating the global inflation outlook.<\/p>\n<h2>Tech and AI Sector Developments<\/h2>\n<p>In the technology sector, <strong>Cerebras<\/strong> is moving forward with a <strong>$2 billion IPO<\/strong>, selecting <strong>Morgan Stanley<\/strong> (<a href=\"\/stock\/MS\">MS<\/a>) to lead the offering. This move comes as <strong>AI infrastructure<\/strong> demand remains high, though some major projects are seeing shifts. <strong>Oracle<\/strong> (<a href=\"\/stock\/ORCL\">ORCL<\/a>) and <strong>OpenAI<\/strong> have reportedly scrapped plans to expand a massive data center in <strong>Texas<\/strong>, though reasons for the cancellation were not immediately disclosed.<\/p>\n<p>Conversely, <strong>Meta<\/strong> (<a href=\"\/stock\/META\">META<\/a>) is looking to increase its footprint by negotiating a lease for an expanded site with <strong>Crusoe<\/strong>. Meanwhile, <strong>Amazon<\/strong> (<a href=\"\/stock\/AMZN\">AMZN<\/a>) reassured its cloud customers that they can continue using <strong>Anthropic\u2019s Claude AI<\/strong> models, maintaining its competitive position in the <strong>generative AI<\/strong> market.<\/p>\n<h2>Consumer Credit and Trade Policy<\/h2>\n<p><strong>US Consumer Credit<\/strong> growth slowed to an annual rate of <strong>1.9% in January<\/strong>, with total credit increasing by <strong>$8.05 billion<\/strong>. This was a sharp decline from the downwardly revised <strong>$25.20 billion<\/strong> seen in December, as <strong>nonrevolving credit<\/strong> (such as auto and student loans) grew by only <strong>1.1%<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>On the trade front, the <strong>US Court of International Trade<\/strong> has suspended a March 5 order that directed <strong>Customs<\/strong> to issue immediate <strong>tariff refunds<\/strong>. <em>The legal pause comes as US Customs works on a formal system to process refunds<\/em>, according to reports from <strong>NPR<\/strong>, leaving businesses in a state of temporary uncertainty regarding the timing of their reimbursements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Key Takeaways Brent Crude futures surged 8.52% to settle at $92.69 per barrel following reports that Iran is restricting ships [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"rank_math_schema_Article":[],"rank_math_focus_keyword":[],"rank_math_description":[],"financial_data_references":[],"stock_symbols_mentioned":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[5012],"tags":[338,391,3710,3741,4147,4223,4462,4664,16458],"class_list":["post-59497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","tag-orcl","tag-amzn","tag-federal-reserve","tag-meta","tag-ipo","tag-inflation","tag-brent-crude","tag-iran","tag-cerebras"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}