Dow Jones drops over 900 points, U.S. chip stocks decline across the board, oil prices surge 10%, Trump says he will not reach any agreement with Iran

On March 6, the U.S. stock market’s three major indices opened sharply lower. As of press time, the declines continued to widen, with the Dow down nearly 2%, the Nasdaq down 1.49%, and the S&P 500 down 1.65%. The VIX fear index reached a high not seen in over four months, currently at 28.57 points, up 4.82 points intraday.

All-star tech stocks in the U.S. market declined across the board, with the tech giants all falling. Facebook dropped over 3%, Tesla and Amazon fell more than 2%. Most chip and semiconductor concepts declined, with ASML dropping over 5%, TSMC down nearly 3%, and AMD down about 2%.

U.S. oil stocks performed strongly, with Battalion Oil surging as much as 50%, U.S. Energy up over 15%, Western Oil up over 3%, and ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil rising nearly 2%. U.S. crude oil ETFs soared over 10%, with weekly gains approaching 30%.

Chinese assets defied the trend and strengthened, with the China Golden Dragon Index up 0.44%. Among well-known stocks, JD.com rose over 5%, NetEase up over 4%, XPeng Motors and ZTO Express up over 2%, while Pony.ai fell more than 8%. Bilibili and Dingdong Maicai declined over 3%.

In precious metals, gold and silver prices increased. As of press time, spot gold rose 0.22% to $5,095.80 per ounce, and spot silver gained 3% intraday, trading at $84.78 per ounce.

Oil prices continued their upward momentum. WTI crude oil rose 10.27% to $89.33 per barrel, reaching a new high since April 2024. Brent crude increased 7.11% to $91.48 per barrel, also hitting a new high since April 2024.

According to Xinhua News Agency citing Iran’s Mehr News Agency on March 6, a U.S. oil tanker was hit and caught fire in waters near Kuwait.

Xinhua News Agency also reported that U.S. President Trump claimed on social media on March 6 that “no agreement will be reached with Iran unless it surrenders unconditionally.” He also said that the U.S. and its “many allies” should “make Iran great again!”

According to Xinhua Finance, on March 6, the U.S. released several economic data points: the February unemployment rate was 4.4%, versus an expected 4.3% and previous 4.3%. January retail sales month-over-month declined 0.2%, versus an expected decline of 0.3% and previous flat. The February average hourly wage year-over-year increased 3.8%, slightly above the expected 3.7% and previous 3.7%; the monthly increase was 0.4%, versus an expected 0.3% and previous 0.4%. February non-farm payrolls decreased by 92,000, significantly below expectations, with the previous figure revised from 130,000 to 126,000.

Following the release of the data, the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury fell sharply, while spot gold surged, leading traders to increase bets that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates at least once by 2026.

According to Cailian Press, after the data was released, traders now estimate the probability of a Fed rate cut in June has risen to about 50%, up from 35% before the employment data was announced.