Oil prices keep rising and weigh on Wall Street
[September 09, 2026] By
STAN CHOE
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks fell Tuesday in their return to trading from
a three-day weekend after the latest fighting in the war with Iran
pushed oil prices higher.
The S&P 500 sank 0.6%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 628
points, or 1.2%, and the Nasdaq composite dipped 0.3%.
They felt pressure from rising oil prices after a barrel of Brent crude
briefly climbed as high as $99.46. It later settled at $97.92, up 0.9%,
to continue its run from roughly $72 in early July as increased fighting
in the Middle East keeps the global flow of oil constricted.
More expensive oil has worsened worries about the high inflation
weighing on people and companies across the country, which gives extra
heft to a couple reports coming later this week. On Thursday, the U.S.
government will release its August report for inflation at the wholesale
level, which economists expect will show an acceleration to 5.4% from
4.7% in July.
The more closely watched report on inflation that U.S. consumers are
feeling will arrive on Friday. That update will show how much more
people are paying for groceries, clothes and other costs of living than
a year earlier, and economists expect it eased a bit to 3.3% from July’s
3.4% inflation rate. That, though, remains well above the 2% target that
the Federal Reserve has set as its goal.
This week's updates on inflation will be the last before the Fed meets
next week to decide whether to cut, raise or hold interest rates steady.
The traditional move for the Fed when inflation is high is to raise its
main interest rate. That in turn would filter out into the rest of the
bond market, make it more expensive for companies and people to borrow,
slow the overall economy, undercut prices for investments and hopefully
rein in inflation.
But President Donald Trump has been lobbying for lower interest rates
instead, which could give the economy — and inflation — an extra kick.
The Fed’s new chairman, Kevin Warsh, has meanwhile said he wants to give
financial markets fewer clues about what the Fed plans to do with
interest rates in the short term.
That all has traders betting on a nearly 60% probability the Fed will
raise its federal funds rate at the conclusion of its next meeting on
Sept. 16, according to data from CME Group.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.79% from
4.78% and is near its highest level since the autumn of 2023.
Higher Treasury yields put more pressure on companies to grow their
profits in order to lift their stock prices.
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Specialists Dilip Patel works on the floor of the New York Stock
Exchange, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki
Iwamura)
 On Wall Street, Boston Scientific
fell 5.9% after saying that a network outage earlier this summer
caused by a cybersecurity incident means it's unlikely to meet
forecasts for sales and profit for the third quarter and for the
fully year of 2026. It expects to make back some of the revenue as
it continues to ramp operations globally, fulfill customer orders
and reduce remaining backlogs, but it doesn't yet know the full
impacts.
Shares of Novartis that trade in the United States
tumbled 13.9% after the Swiss pharmaceutical company gave a
discouraging update on a study of a therapy for people living with
myotonic dystrophy type 1, a neuromuscular disease.
Qualcomm helped limit the market's losses after rising 3.2%. It
announced a deal to collaborate with Amazon on large-scale AI data
centers. The deal also gives Amazon the right to acquire up to 25
million of Qualcomm's shares at $161.26 per share.
In stock markets abroad, Japan’s Nikkei 225 sank 1.7% under the
weight of losses for major exporters, which were hurt by the
continued rise for the Japanese yen against the U.S. dollar.
A stronger yen erodes the value of sales made in U.S. dollars when
Toyota Motor, Panasonic Holdings and other exporters translate them
back into the Japanese currency. The Bank of Japan is also scheduled
to meet next week on interest rates, and speculation is climbing
that it could raise interest rates, which could further strengthen
the yen.
In China, indexes fell 0.4% in Hong Kong and rose 0.2% in Shanghai
after the world’s second-largest economy said its exports jumped 25%
year-on-year in August, driven by strong demand for autos and high
tech items.
___
AP Business Writers Matt Ott, Elaine Kurtenbach, Chan Ho-him and
Yuri Kageyama contributed to this report.
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