Dow futures crashed more than 1,000 points Sunday night, as oil prices surge past $100 a barrel for the first time since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Right now, the U.S.-Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz drive the chaos — and dow futures today point to one of the worst Monday opens in months. The WTI crude oil price jumped 26.5% to $114.9 per barrel, and the Middle East war markets sell-off has Wall Street firmly on edge.
Dow Futures Today Sink As Oil Prices Surge And War Shakes Markets
Strait Closure Triggers the Selloff
Dow futures fell 1,026 points, or 2.33%, with S&P 500 futures losing 2.05% and Nasdaq 100 futures also dropping 2.34%. Iraq, Kuwait, and the UAE all announced output cuts over the weekend — storage tanks are maxing out fast, and tankers right now refuse to transit the Strait of Hormuz after Iranian drone threats. About 20% of global oil supply moves through that narrow waterway. Rapidan Energy Group noted Sunday evening that the war already disrupted that flow for nine days — more than double the record set during the Suez Crisis of 1956–57.
Iraq’s southern oilfields dropped 70% in production, falling to just 1.3 million barrels per day from 4.3 million before the war. The WTI crude oil price also started 2026 below $60 a barrel, which makes the current levels hard to absorb. U.S. crude surged 35% last week, its biggest weekly gain in futures trading history going back to 1983, and Dow futures now carry the full weight of that shift heading into Monday.
Also Read: Oil Prices Top $110 Amid Iran War, Trump Shrugs Off Spike
Trump and Officials Push Back on Economic Alarm
Dow futures were already in freefall when Trump posted Sunday evening on Truth Social. The U.S. national average for a gallon of gasoline climbed 14% between last week and Saturday, per AAA data, and the administration wants to get ahead of the narrative right now.
President Donald Trump shared on Truth Social:
“Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace. ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!”
Energy Secretary Chris Wright had this to say:
“Higher prices are a small price to pay to get to a world where energy prices are returned back to where they were, and I’m talking weeks, certainly not months.”
Analysts Warn of Deeper Fallout
Source: Financial Times
At the time of writing, the Middle East war markets turmoil shows no sign of cooling, and analysts now throw out numbers that would have sounded extreme just two weeks ago. Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, said on X that the odds of gasoline hitting $4 a gallon in the next month now stand at 80%. Homayoun Falakshahi, lead crude research analyst at Kpler, also put a stark ceiling on it:
“Oil could rise to $150 a barrel by the end of March if travel through the strait doesn’t start flowing again.”
Source: FactSet / AAA / The New York Times
Rick Rieder, BlackRock’s CIO, wrote to clients on Friday:
“Markets are clearly jittery as the impact, and duration, of the war in the Mideast are very uncertain, with a potentially wide range of outcomes for economies and important market influences. These events are creating some extreme movements in areas of the markets as market participants are clearly looking to reduce overweight positions or hedge embedded risk.”
Dow futures today also face a heavy data calendar — inflation, employment, and GDP releases all land this week, and the WTI crude oil price nearing $120 overnight gives each report extra weight. As oil prices surge further and the Strait stays shut, dow futures have a lot more to price in before Friday.
