Oil Prices Plunge and Stocks Surge After Cease-Fire Deal 43%
By The New York Times0%
4/8/2026, 4:02:27 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 17 faulty reasoning types, including Pessimism Bias, Optimism Bias, and Appeal to Authority, with Post Hoc (False Cause) as the most egregious example at 22% saturation with 108 hits. Analysis detected 655 faulty-reasoning hits from 492 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 46.7% and a BS Rank of 43% (9,580 of 16,813 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 57.00% of the article peer group.
Oil Prices Plunge and Stocks Surge After Cease-Fire Deal
Oil prices plunged and stocks surged on Wednesday as investors cheered a last-minute cease-fire agreement in the war on Iran that offered hope that energy shipments from the Persian Gulf would resume soon.
The cease-fire deal came 90 minutes before a deadline set by President Trump for Iran to accede to his demands or risk widespread devastation.
The deal calls for a two-week period when the United States would suspend strikes on Iran, and Tehran would allow vessels and tankers carrying oil, gas and other commodities to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for transit of oil and gas.
Here is the latest:
Oil prices fall sharply.
The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, traded at about $95 a barrel, plunging 13 percent after the cease-fire news.
The price remained about 30 percent higher than they were before the war.
West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, fell to around $96 a barrel, down about 15 percent.
The price of this grade of oil is more than 40 percent up since the start of the war.
For the past five and a half weeks, investors and analysts have been focused on the strait of Hormuz, which normally carries as much as one-fifth of the world's oil supply.
Shipping traffic exiting the Persian Gulf through the strait has been effectively halted since the war began, and restoring the flow of energy via the waterway could take time.
Stocks jump.
Stocks rose around the world on Wednesday.
The Stoxx 600, a broad European index, bounced 3.5 percent.
Futures on the S&P 500 were 2.5 percent higher, pointing to a strong open when stocks resume trading in the United States.
Stocks in Asia, where countries import vast quantities of oil and gas, posted big gains.
Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 5.4 percent, while South Korea's benchmark Kospi Index rose nearly 7 percent.
Markets in Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China all posted significant increases.
Gasoline prices continue to rise.
U.S. gas prices rose again on Wednesday, jumping to a national average of $4.16 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club.
The increase has raised the cost for drivers by 40 percent since the war began.
Gas prices don't move in lock step with crude, usually trailing increases or drops by a few days.
Diesel prices have increased even more quickly and stood at $5.67 on Wednesday, up 51 percent since the start of the war.
What they are saying: 'Normalization will take months, not weeks'
"Presuming traffic begins to flow through Hormuz, trade flow normalization will take months, not weeks," said Zhuwei Wang, the director of research and analysis at S&P Global Energy.
High prices have already led to cutbacks in energy usage, which is expected to continue, he added, and the strait will face "persistent threats" for the foreseeable future.
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