Stocks tumble and oil prices rise as US-Iran ceasefire uncertain before deadline
Stock Market Wall Street (Matteo Colombo/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Stocks dipped and oil prices rose in early trading on Monday as tensions mounted in the Strait of Hormuz, putting pressure on the ceasefire between the U.S and Iran a day before it’s set to expire.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 25 points, or 0.07%, while the S&P 500 dropped 0.1%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq declined 0.1%.
U.S. Marines seized an Iran-flagged container ship in the Gulf of Oman on Sunday, according to CENTOM, just a day after two Indian ships came under fire in the Strait of Hormuz.
A potential second round of peace talks between the U.S. and Iran remained in doubt on Monday. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said Monday that Iran has not yet made any decision regarding additional talks.
West Texas Intermediate futures, the benchmark index for U.S. oil prices, climbed more than 4% on Monday, registering at about $87 a barrel.
The escalating tensions appeared to reverse a brief thaw on Friday, when a senior Iranian official declared the strait “completely open” for tanker traffic. Within minutes, President Donald Trump celebrated the announcement as a major breakthrough.
The glimmer of relief for the critical waterway sent stock prices soaring and oil prices plummeting on Friday.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaks during a press conference following the Federal Open Markets Committee meeting at the Federal Reserve on January 28, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A jobs report to be released on Wednesday will provide a key barometer of the U.S. economy as policymakers grapple with a combination of elevated inflation and sluggish hiring.
The labor market slowed sharply last year, prompting interest rate cuts at the Federal Reserve and concern among some observers about the nation’s economic prospects.
The U.S. added an average of 49,000 jobs each month in 2025, which marked a staggering decline from 168,000 monthly jobs added over the prior year.
Economists expect employers to have hired 55,000 workers in January, amounting to a slight uptick from 50,000 hires in December. Still, the anticipated performance would barely register above the lackluster hiring of a typical month last year.
In a bright spot, however, the unemployment rate remains low by historical standards. Unemployment stood at 4.4% in December, and economists expect that level to have been left unchanged in January.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics delayed the release of the January data due to a partial government shutdown last week, which helps explain why the jobs report is set to be issued on a Wednesday in the middle of the month, rather than its customary release on the month’s first Friday.
The jobs report will arrive weeks after a series of job cuts that slashed tens of thousands of workers combined at a handful of name-brand companies.
Amazon said last month it planned to cut about 16,000 employees as it seeks to “strengthen” its business by reducing “layers” and “bureaucracy” within its workforce.
A day earlier, UPS announced it plans to cut as many as 30,000 employees this year. Pinterest also unveiled an effort to slash 15% of its staff, according to a securities filing. The company boasts about 4,500 employees worldwide, a securities filing shows.
So far, the cooling labor market has avoided widespread job losses, making the recent flurry of layoffs an outlier, analysts previously told ABC News. The high-profile cuts reflect trends in tech and some other sectors, however, where companies have reversed a pandemic-era hiring blitz and pivoted in response to artificial intelligence.
The Fed slashed interest rates three consecutive times last year in an effort to boost the flagging labor market. In January, the Fed opted to hold interest rates steady, taking a cautious approach due in part to elevated inflation.
The benchmark rate stands at a level between 3.5% and 3.75%. That figure marks a significant drop from a recent peak attained in 2023, but borrowing costs remain well above a 0% rate established at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Still, Fed Chair Jerome Powell appeared to view the economy in a favorable light, saying it is expanding at a “solid pace” during a Jan. 28 press conference.
“While job gains have remained low, the unemployment rate has shown some signs of stabilization,” Powell added.
Futures markets expect two quarter-point interest rate cuts this year, forecasting the first in June and a second in the fall, according to CME FedWatch Tool, a measure of market sentiment.
President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, February 20, 2026. (Aaron Schwartz/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A 10% global tariff took effect on Tuesday, marking the first duty enacted by President Donald Trump after a recent Supreme Court decision invalidated most of his levies.
Within hours of the high court’s ruling on Friday, Trump signed an executive order imposing a 10% tariff on nearly all imports for up to 150 days. The directive called for enforcement of the duty to begin at 12:01 a.m. ET on Tuesday, Feb. 24.
Soon after signing the order, Trump vowed to hike the global tariff to 15%. As of Tuesday, however, the president had not issued an executive order formalizing that increase.
Stocks ticked higher Tuesday morning, recovering some of the losses suffered a day earlier in the first trading session since Trump announced the tariff increase.
Trump enacted the 10% tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the White House to address “large and serious” balance-of-payments deficits, or disparities between a country’s total payments in transactions with other nations and its total earnings.
Under the measure, the president can also impose levies to “prevent an imminent and significant depreciation of the dollar.”
The Section 122 tariffs will result in price increases amounting to $800 in additional costs for an average U.S. household over the next 150 days, the Yale Budget Lab projected. In order to extend the across-the-board 15% tariff beyond that time window, Trump would need to secure Congressional approval.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Monday that Democrats would oppose an extension of Section 122 tariffs, which could deny Trump the 60 votes necessary to overcome a potential Senate filibuster.
In a social media post on Monday, Trump affirmed what he said was his authority to issue tariffs, saying he does not need to consult Congress before erecting new trade levies.
Trump also reiterated his commitment to his policy approach, warning other countries that they may face a “much higher Tariff, and worse.”
The high court ruled in their February 20 decision that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEPPA) does not authorize Trump to impose levies, nullifying a major swathe of tariffs issued by the president on April 2 of last year, which he dubbed “Liberation Day,” and a host of other measures.
If the Supreme Court had opted to uphold tariffs issued under IEPPA, the nation’s effective tariff rate would have remained at 16%, the Yale Budget Lab said. Taking into account the Section 122 tariffs, the effective tariff rate now stands at 13.7%, the group said.
A Nike logo is seen at the Nike flagship store, Dec. 20, 2019, in New York. (Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The federal agency that investigates workplace discrimination is seeking court enforcement of a subpoena it has issued to Nike as it pursues allegations that the athletic apparel maker has been discriminating against its white employees in its corporate diversity policies.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed its motion this week in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, where Nike has a factory that produces its famous AIR footwear technology.
The agency’s charges against Nike date to 2024, when commission member, and current Trump-appointed chair, Andrea Lucas alleged that Nike had been engaging in a pattern of discriminatory practices, including “race-based workforce representation quotas,” and hiring, promotion, demotion and firing decisions that were a function of “disparate treatment against White employees, applicants, and training program participants.”
In its filing, the EEOC says the charges were not triggered by internal complaints from workers, but were “based on publicly available information regarding Nike,” including the company’s public pledges to have “30% representation of racial and ethnic minorities at Director level and above in the U.S.,” and 35% representation across its entire U.S. corporate workforce.
The EEOC said in the filing that it has gone to court because the company provided some, but not all, of the data the agency requested on the racial and ethnic makeup of its workforce following the issuance of a subpoena last September.
“Respondent NIKE’s failure to comply with the subpoena has delayed and hampered the EEOC’s investigation of alleged unlawful employment practices under Title VII” of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the motion states.
In a statement to ABC News, a Nike spokesperson said that the EEOC’s move to seek court enforcement of the subpoena “feels like a surprising and unusual escalation.”
“We have had extensive, good-faith participation in an EEOC inquiry into our personnel practices, programs, and decisions and have had ongoing efforts to provide information and engage constructively with the agency,” the Nike statement said. “We have shared thousands of pages of information and detailed written responses to the EEOC’s inquiry and are in the process of providing additional information.”
Nike’s statement further said it is “committed to fair and lawful employment practices and follow[s] all applicable laws, including those that prohibit discrimination,” adding, “we believe our programs and practices are consistent with those obligations and take these matters seriously. We will continue our attempt to cooperate with the EEOC and will respond to the petition.”
