On Monday, March 30, 2026, a television station broadcast remarks from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, USA.
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of S&P500 It fell on Monday, weighed down by further rises in oil prices and a sharp decline in tech goods, as traders held off on Chairman Jerome Powell’s comments on inflation.
The composite index fell by 0.39%, registering its third consecutive loss, and settled at 6,343.72. The S&P 500 has fallen more than 9% from its closing high. The decline was led by the technology sector, which fell more than 1%. On the other hand, sectors such as finance and utilities rose. of Nasdaq Composite It fell 0.73% to 20,794.64. of Dow Jones Industrial Average It added 49.50 points (0.11%) to close at 45,216.14.
of CBOE Volatility Indexotherwise known as Wall Street’s fear gauge, topped 30 during the session.
US crude oil prices also rose at the beginning of the week, West Texas Intermediate Futures It rose 3.25% to $102.88 per barrel, its highest closing price since July 19, 2022. brent crude oil futures It rose 0.19% to $112.78 per barrel, reaching a record monthly gain of 55% for the period.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said on Monday that despite rising energy prices, inflation expectations remain “firmly anchored beyond the short term.” He said central banks “could eventually face the question of what to do here,” but stressed that “we haven’t really faced it yet because we don’t know what the economic impact will be.”
yield of 10 year treasury I made a gaffe after hearing those comments. The benchmark yield was last down 9 basis points to 4.35%.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has given investors some hope that the war with Iran may be nearing an end. In a post on Truth Social on Monday, the president said the United States is “in serious discussions with a new, more rational administration to end military operations in Iran,” adding that “significant progress has been made.”
But the president also said that if a peace deal is not reached “soon” and the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened “immediately,” the US will “end our nice ‘sojourn’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating the power plants, oil wells, and Kharg Island (and possibly all the desalination plants!) that we have deliberately not yet ‘touched’.”
This comes after President Trump said on Sunday that Iran had accepted most of the United States’ 15-point plan to end the war and that Iran had agreed to allow 20 additional oil ships to cross the strait.
“Investors are just getting used to kind of a new anomaly where the market tends to be bad on Thursdays (and) Fridays and strong on Mondays (and) Tuesdays,” said David Wagner, head of equities at Aptus Capital Advisors.
Over the past 90 business days, the market’s cumulative returns from Thursday to Friday have lagged those recorded from Monday to Wednesday by about 7%, with most of that divergence occurring since February 28, when the war broke out, Wagner said.
“It’s like you’re preparing for bad news…You tend to do some risk-taking towards the end of the week to avoid risk, and then again at the beginning of the week. It looks like some of the risk-taking is being taken off the table a little earlier than in the past few weeks,” he said.
Wall Street is coming off a losing week, with the Dow and Nasdaq tipping into correction territory as concerns persist among traders that soaring energy prices could harm the economy. The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 all posted their fifth consecutive week of declines.
Markets will be closed on Friday for Good Friday, but the March employment statistics are scheduled to be released on the morning of the same day.
