S&P 500 drops 1%, heads for fourth-straight losing week as losses mount from Iran war impact

Stocks fell on Friday as traders kept monitoring the Iran war, with the major averages on pace to record another losing week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 478 points, or 1%. The S&P 500 fell 1.5%, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 2.1%.

The moves come after Iran and Israel exchanged strikes overnight, while the former also launched new attacks against energy sites in the Persian Gulf region. The Wall Street Journal reported, citing U.S. officials, that the Pentagon is sending thousands of additional Marines to the Middle East.

The selling ramped up in the afternoon, after Reuters reported that Iraq has declared force ‌majeure on all oilfields ​operated ​by foreign ⁠companies.

“If this is an escalation involving troops on the ground, then we’re probably in for at least a couple more weeks of this sort of market of higher oil prices, high gas prices; you’re hanging on every headline about energy infrastructure in the region,” Baird investment strategist Ross Mayfield said to CNBC. “Quite frankly, equity markets haven’t sold off in a way that would reflect this sort of event yet, so there could still be some some downside ahead.”

President Donald Trump also continued his attacks on NATO, calling it a “paper tiger” without the U.S. “Now that fight is Militarily WON, with very little danger for them, they complain about the high oil prices they are forced to pay, but don’t want to help open the Strait of Hormuz, a simple military maneuver that is the single reason for the high oil prices,” he said in a Truth Social post.