2026-03-21
6 分钟Hey listeners, it's Saturday, March 21st.
I'm Hannah Aaron-Lang for The Wall Street Journal.
And this is What's News in Markets,
our look at the biggest stock moves of the week and the news that drove them.
Let's get to it.
The vibes in financial markets did not get much better this week.
There were a lot of big losers, including gold and the companies that mine the precious metal,
chipmaker Micron Technology, in spite of its eye-popping earnings, and Supermicro Computer,
whose co-founder got on the wrong side of U.S. prosecutors this week.
But more on that later.
First, let's talk about oil, which is really all
that anyone is talking about since the war in Iran began three weeks ago.
At the beginning of the week, U.S. stocks shrugged off energy concerns,
rising with hopes that perhaps a coalition of countries would work together to open the Strait of Hormuz,
the key thoroughfare for a fifth of the world's oil supply.
But the mood shifted on Wednesday, when the Federal Reserve announced its latest move on interest rates.
Policymakers opted to leave rates unchanged, which is pretty much what Wall Street expected.
But then, at a press conference after the decision,
Fed Chair Jerome Powell made remarks that investors didn't find very comforting.
He highlighted the inflation risks posed by the war in Iran