New York, March 1, 2026, 00:57 (EST) — The market has closed.
- Nasdaq dropped 0.92% Friday, dragged lower by a hotter wholesale inflation reading and Nvidia’s latest slump.
- Oil is in focus as traders prepare for a volatile open, following U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran that left Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei dead.
- Key U.S. factory numbers and jobs data land this week, while late-season results are due from Broadcom and Costco.
Nasdaq faces a fresh threat this week after a U.S.-Israeli strike killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, rattling nerves over possible fallout for oil and inflation. Tehran fired missiles back, claiming the Strait of Hormuz was shut—stoking anxiety about supply shocks. 1
It’s a big deal for a market still trading on rate bets. If crude jumps quickly, that can feed inflation expectations and drive bond yields higher. Growth stocks, especially the expensive ones, usually get hit the hardest when yields climb.
OCBC strategist Christopher Wong flagged that the strike “raises geopolitical risk premia as markets head into Monday’s open,” cautioning that risk assets might be in for a jolt of volatility. In trader lingo, that’s a “risk-off” move—meaning investors pull back from riskier bets and shift into traditional safe harbors like government bonds or gold. 2
Nasdaq Composite shed 210.17 points, or 0.92%, to finish at 22,668.21 on Friday as investors wrestled with fresh concerns over AI, tariffs, and geopolitics. Nvidia lost 4.2%, with Zscaler tumbling 12.2%. On the upside, Netflix soared 13.8%, Dell rallied 21.9% following earnings. “We were reminded there are still some cracks out there,” said Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at Carson Group. 3
Worries about rates flared after January’s wholesale inflation numbers came in hotter than expected. Producer prices in the U.S. climbed 0.5% last month, and the core gauge jumped 0.8% — a signal firms are passing along higher costs from tariffs and services. “Wider margins for producers could add some upside for consumer costs,” said Ben Ayers, senior economist at Nationwide. He doesn’t see the Fed moving off pause when it meets in March. 4
AI, which had fueled previous Nasdaq surges, isn’t looking quite so unstoppable now. Nvidia’s latest results landed with a thud on Thursday—Nasdaq slid 1.18%, and the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index lost 3.2%. “It feels like an Nvidia hangover that’s specific to the AI space,” said Michael Green, chief strategist at Simplify Asset Management, speaking to Reuters. 5
Late Friday, OpenAI announced plans to raise $110 billion in fresh funding, pushing its valuation to $840 billion, according to Reuters. Amazon, Nvidia and SoftBank are among the investors. The news again puts the spotlight on just how much money is pouring into compute infrastructure: OpenAI and Amazon have also inked a deal for 2 gigawatts’ worth of Amazon’s Trainium chips. Microsoft’s existing partnership with OpenAI stays unchanged, Reuters noted. 6
Oil is right back at the center of the Nasdaq story. According to Reuters, OPEC+ is set to meet Sunday and could look at boosting April output by more than the planned 411,000 barrels per day, after Saudi Arabia and the UAE stepped up exports ahead of possible supply snags. Prices climbed to roughly $73 a barrel on Friday — that’s a level not seen since July, Reuters noted. 7
S&P Global flagged a busy slate of PMI surveys this week, with those snapshots of business activity landing before Friday’s widely watched U.S. jobs data. ISM manufacturing is up first on Monday. Wednesday brings ADP private payrolls and ISM services. Nonfarm payrolls hit on March 6. 8
Earnings remain a catalyst, particularly with everyone watching for evidence that AI investment is starting to deliver returns. Broadcom reports Wednesday, Costco’s on deck for Thursday, and MongoDB is also set to post results, Kiplinger notes. 9
The risk is pretty clear: a prolonged conflict with Hormuz bottlenecked means crude prices might jump. That would nudge inflation expectations higher and could put the Nasdaq’s biggest, most rate-exposed names under pressure—even if their underlying business doesn’t really shift.
After Sunday’s OPEC+ call, traders look for an initial steer from futures, then spend the week adjusting positions ahead of the March 6 payrolls print—and waiting to see what that does to yields.
