New York, March 2, 2026, 15:01 EST — Regular session
- Ford shares slid hard in afternoon action, trailing the broader market.
- Oil’s surge squeezed consumer-facing stocks, especially autos.
- Friday brings the U.S. jobs report, but traders are also tracking new headlines on crude supply disruptions.
Ford Motor shares dropped roughly 5% to $13.38 in Monday afternoon trading, underperforming the broader major U.S. indexes.
Oil and gas prices jumped, rattled by escalating conflict in the Middle East, and that resurgence of inflation fears hit already uneasy investors.
That’s significant for automakers: vehicles are expensive purchases, usually bought on credit, and when fuel or loan costs jump, demand can shift fast.
The S&P 500 barely budged, with strength in megacap tech offsetting declines tied to the conflict. “At times when there is nervousness, people will go to the leaders in the market,” said Joe Saluzzi, co-head of equity trading at Themis Trading. Reuters
Moves were mixed among automakers: General Motors dropped roughly 1.3%, Stellantis tumbled 5.6%, and Tesla barely budged.
Still, if the oil shock drags on, things can get dicey quickly. Brent crude—the go-to global benchmark—spiked up to 13%, then gave back some of that surge. Analysts flagged the risk of more energy-market swings as the conflict grinds on. JPMorgan, for one, sees Brent topping $100 if shipping through the Strait of Hormuz gets tangled for several weeks.
Ford faces another recall headache. Just last week, the automaker said it would pull back 4.3 million U.S. pickup trucks and SUVs to address a software glitch that may shut down trailer brakes and trigger failures of exterior lights. Ford’s fix: an over-the-air update, letting owners patch the issue remotely. So far, the company said, it knows of 407 related incidents. No crashes have been linked.
Investors are weighing if Ford can actually make software a competitive advantage, rather than just another expense. “The software thing is 10 times bigger” than electric vehicles or the China threat, chief executive Jim Farley said in a recent interview, as quoted by InsideEVs. InsideEVs
Outside of geopolitics, eyes are on U.S. labor numbers this week — a major hurdle for risk assets. According to a Reuters poll, forecasters anticipate a 60,000 job gain for February. Strategists point out that this figure could sway the timing of a Federal Reserve rate cut, a decision with outsized impact on rate-sensitive corners like autos.
Friday brings the next major data point: the U.S. Employment Situation report for February drops at 8:30 a.m. ET. Traders are also watching crude, scanning for any indication that the conflict’s impact on supply could stretch beyond what’s currently factored in.
