Recent market volatility has been quite intense. Escalating tensions in the Middle East have directly stirred the energy sector. WTI crude oil once surged to more than $82, with the gain coming close to 8%, setting a new high in more than a year. However, after that, Trump stepped in and said he would take measures to ease oil-price pressure, claiming that during the attacks, Iran was actually proactively negotiating with the US and Israel. Those remarks immediately dragged oil prices down; in the end, it only rose 3.63%, to around $78.8, and still failed to hold above the $80 level.

What’s interesting is that Trump also mentioned that after the Iran conflict settles, the US will shift its focus to Cuba. On the other side, Iran is not backing down either. Ali Larijani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, said they are ready to respond to US ground actions and would be willing to pay any price to make US officials feel ashamed. This kind of escalation in tensions has indeed made the market a bit nervous.

In the Federal Reserve, St. Louis Fed President Bullard pointed to a key issue: if energy prices keep rising while economic activity slows, it will make the policy environment extremely complex. He specifically noted that higher gasoline prices would create inflationary pressure, which is something the Federal Reserve needs to take seriously. US 10-year Treasury yields have climbed for four straight days, and the market is clearly positioning itself for inflation and potential changes in central bank policy.

Stocks, meanwhile, broadly fell. The Dow fell 1.61%, the S&P declined 0.56%, and the Nasdaq dropped 0.26%. Small-cap stocks performed worse, with the Russell 2000 down 1.91%. European markets also slid across the board: German, French, and UK stocks fell 1.61%, 1.49%, and 1.45%, respectively. Tech stocks saw mixed moves—Microsoft rose more than 1%; Nvidia, Netflix, and Amazon posted modest gains; but Meta fell more than 1%, while Apple and Tesla also edged lower. By contrast, internet security stocks were standout performers: Okta rose 11%, and CrowdStrike climbed more than 4%.

Cryptocurrencies were also dragged down. Bitcoin, which had been over $70,000, has now pulled back to 76.81K, down 1.58% over the past 24 hours. Ethereum is no exception; it dropped from $2,075 to the current level of 2.28K, down 2.78% over the past 24 hours. Gold typically does well when geopolitical risk rises, but this time it fell 1.1% to $5,084.6 per ounce, failing to break above 5,100. This is somewhat unexpected, but it also reflects that worries about rising interest rates may be overpowering safe-haven demand—at times, gold may not be the best choice, especially in an environment where inflation expectations rise and real yields fall.

The US Dollar Index rose 0.29% to 99.06. The US dollar/yen rose 0.32%, and the EUR/USD fell 0.23%.

On the macro front, the Trump administration is pushing multiple policies. New tariffs are facing legal challenges. The attorneys general of New York State and Oregon said several states plan to team up to sue over the 10% import tariffs that will take effect on February 24. Separately, the US is also discussing a new chip export framework, considering requiring countries that want to buy large quantities of AI chips to invest in US AI data centers or provide security assurances.

There are also plenty of developments at the company level. Berkshire Hathaway holds $373.3 billion in cash, and it will restart its share buyback plan this week. The newly appointed CEO, Greg Abel, also announced that his entire annual salary will be used to increase the company’s stock holdings. OpenAI released the GPT-5.4 and GPT-5.4 Pro models, adding a Thinking mode that supports up to 1 million context tokens. Oracle is preparing a large-scale expansion of AI data centers; for this, it plans to cut thousands of jobs to ease funding pressure.

Data from the World Gold Council shows that in February, global gold ETFs recorded net inflows of $5.3 billion, setting a record for the ninth consecutive month of inflows. Global gold asset management size climbed to $701.0 billion, a historical high, with holdings of 4,171 tons. North America and Asia are the main drivers of inflows.

The US Department of Defense is also preparing for key mineral stockpiles. It is soliciting information for five minerals—lithium, nickel, tin, chromium, and tellurium—covering large procurement plans such as 550 tons of lithium carbonate and 3,500 tons of nickel. This reflects the US’s determination to strengthen supply-chain security.

The Federal Reserve will hold its meeting on March 17 to 18. The market is waiting to see how they will respond to these rapidly changing circumstances. The Trump administration claims it will take indefinite military action against Iran, and the uncertainty this brings to the global economy is still quite significant.