Tuesday, March 24, 2026…4:10 PM ET
[4:00 PM ET closing prices for stocks; 3:50ish for commodities and bonds.]
Tale of the Tape at the gas pump, nationwide averages, courtesy of AAA.
Fri., Feb. 27…regular gas $2.98…diesel $3.75
Tues., Mar. 24…reg. $3.97…diesel $5.34*
*Reminder…the all-time high for diesel was set back on 6/19/22, $5.81, months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
June 2022 was also the high for the consumer price index, 9.1%.
It’s not good that diesel, critical to the supply chain, is surging as it is.
WTI crude futures were up 5% to $92.75 early this afternoon, recovering some of the sharp losses from yesterday. U.S. allies including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have taken a firmer stance against Iran following attacks on their territories, with reports suggesting Riyadh could consider military action if its infrastructure is targeted. There are also signs Gulf States may move closer to joining the conflict, which would mark a major escalation.
Oil then backed off, to me rather stupidly, on some comments from President Trump in the Oval Office that the market seemed to take as a real positive, including Trump saying Iran had offered a “present” as a show of good faith in negotiations. He wouldn’t detail the gift, “worth a tremendous amount of money,” but confirmed it was related to energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz.
Yesterday, Chevron CEO Mike Wirth, speaking at a conference, said: “There are very real, physical manifestations of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz that are working their way around the world and through the system that I don’t think are fully priced into the futures curves of oil.”
The market is trading on “scant information” and “perception,” Wirth said. The physical supply of oil is tighter than the futures contracts suggest, he said.
“We got a lot of oil and gas now that is not flowing into the market,” the CEO added. “There really is a difference in terms of physical supply this time versus prior incidents.”
It will take time to rebuild inventories even if the Strait reopens, Wirth said.
“How quickly that production can actually come back online is an uncertainty that we’re going to have to deal with as we go forward. It’s going to take some time to come out of this.”
This is Chevron’s CEO. He kind of knows something about the topic.
—
As the markets soared yesterday, oil plummeting, the White House appeared to tamp down speculation surrounding the potential negotiations between the United States and Iran, with Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, telling the BBC in a statement:
“These are very sensitive diplomatic discussions and the U.S. will not negotiate through the press. This is a fluid situation, and speculation about meetings should not be deemed as final until they are formally announced by the White House.”
Iran then launched more missiles and drones targeting Israel and Gulf Arab states Tuesday.
Prime Minister Netanyahu said Israel will continue to strike Iran and Lebanon even as the U.S. considers a ceasefire. “There’s more to come,” he said.
The Israeli military says it struck the main security headquarters of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has been talking about the war this week to his counterparts in Azerbaijan, Egypt, Oman, Pakistan, Russia, South Korea, Turkey and Turkmenistan, his office said.
Pakistan is making a push to mediate an end to the war, and Trump has spoken with Pakistan’s army chief Asim Munir about the conflict, according to reports. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a social media post on Tuesday that Pakistan would be “honored” to mediate the talks.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he’s also discussed the Iran war with Trump, including the conflict’s impact on the Strait, a key route for India’s energy imports.
But Arab countries in the Persian Gulf decided they did not want to act as mediators as long as Iran continued to attack their countries.
The New York Times reported that four Iranian officials said Araghchi told Steve Witkoff that Iran was not interested in a temporary cease-fire and wanted a sustainable peace deal, with guarantees that the United States and Israel would not attack it again. The officials said the Iranians also sought specific economic sanctions relief from Washington, a topic that, in negotiations before the war, American officials said would only happen after Iran delivered on its nuclear and other commitments in any agreement.
But, as the Times reported, Trump’s characterization of these as “productive conversations” seemed to overstate the current state of the talks.
Israel pounded Beirut’s southern suburbs saying that it was targeting infrastructure used by the Iran-linked Hezbollah.
Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry said it had destroyed 19 Iranian drones targeting its oil-rich Eastern Province.
Today, the spokesman of Iran’s top military command said that its armed forces will fight “until complete victory.”
The comments by Maj. Gen. Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi of the Khatam-al Anbiya Central Headquarters appeared related to President Trump’s announcement that there were negotiations ongoing between Tehran and Washington.
Iranian state television quoted Aliabadi as saying: “Iran’s powerful armed forces are proud, victorious and steadfast in defending Iran’s integrity, and this path will continue until complete victory.”
The general didn’t say what “complete victory” would look like, but it appeared likely that Iran’s military was trying to warn against offering concessions in any possible negotiations with the U.S.
Iran also named a former Iranian Revolution Guard member as the new secretary of the country’s Supreme National Security Council, replacing Ali Larijani, who was killed by an airstrike.
Iranian state television identified the new secretary as Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr.
Iran signaled it does not intend to restore normal conditions in the Strait.
Dow Jones -84…-0.2% [46123]
S&P 500 -24…-0.4% [6556]
Nasdaq -184…-0.8% [21761]
Oil (WTI) $91.80…Brent $103.70
Gold $4400
Silver $69.50
Bitcoin $69,330 [4:00 PM ET]
U.S. 2-yr. 3.92%
U.S. 10-yr. 4.39%
Japanese 10-yr. 2.25%
Back Wed.
Brian Trumbore
