S&P 500 Falls 1.6% as Reports of Hormuz Strait Incidents Mount
Key Facts
The S&P 500 fell 1.6% at 11:48 a.m. Eastern time on Friday, October 30, while the Nasdaq dropped 2.5% and the Dow Jones fell 0.7%, according to the Associated Press. The decline coincided with reports of tanker incidents in the Strait of Hormuz, but the news agency said a wave of technology-stock selling weighed on the market. TipRanks attributed to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a statement that two tankers had tried to cross the strait, “encountered incidents” and were stopped. Tehran said the tankers had taken the southern route, which it considers unauthorized. In a separate account, the Associated Press reported that the IRGC claimed a supertanker carrying more than 2 million barrels struck a sea mine, exploded and caught fire, but the agency could not independently verify the claim.
The agency also reported that the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency had reported an incident involving a tanker about 25 nautical miles northeast of Khasab, Oman. The agency did not identify who was responsible and said the crew was safe and the vessel continued sailing to its next port. In another incident, Oman’s Maritime Security Centre said it had evacuated 25 crew members from a vessel that came under attack and caught fire near Musandam Governorate. It was unclear whether this was the same vessel cited in the Iranian and British reports. The U.S. military said U.S. forces had cleared mines from “all internationally recognized main transit routes” in the strait, rejecting the IRGC’s account of mines.
Technology stocks were another source of pressure on the market, with the Associated Press reporting that sector selling pushed U.S. indexes lower amid heavy losses among chipmakers. Intel shares fell 28.6% after the company forecast fourth-quarter earnings below analysts’ expectations. The company attributed the weak outlook to pressure in the personal-computer market, which hurt demand for its processors. The agency quoted a portfolio manager as saying investors had entered a phase in which they were demanding that companies prove returns on their investments in artificial intelligence. Friday’s losses followed a 0.3% decline in the S&P 500 on Thursday, its first drop in four days. The agency attributed Thursday’s decline mainly to a fall in Alphabet shares after a report showed weaker-than-expected growth.
In energy markets, Brent crude rose 1.9% to $112.86 a barrel during Friday’s session, according to the Associated Press. The rise in crude coincided with reports of the maritime incidents, but the agency did not attribute the price move to those incidents alone. The move puts oil prices at the forefront of market monitoring of developments in shipping through the strait, while responsibility for the tanker incident reported by the British agency remained unidentified. It was also unclear whether the different incident reports involved the same vessel. The Associated Press said the IRGC had not presented the sea-mine account carried by the agency in a form that could be independently verified. At the same time, the U.S. military’s denial regarding mine removal offered a competing account of the safety of the main transit routes.
On the economic and monetary-policy front, the Federal Reserve left its target interest-rate range at 3.75% to 4% on October 28, after a 10-to-2 vote. The Fed said in its statement that inflation remained elevated. The decision comes against the backdrop of U.S. growth data cited in the previous report, but the material available here does not include the GDP figure in that draft. On the diplomatic front, Iranian media reported that Qatari mediators had returned to Tehran for talks with Iranian officials in an effort to end the war with the United States and Israel, according to the Associated Press. Tehran had acknowledged receiving a message from the U.S. vice president but had not responded by Thursday. The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis is scheduled to publish its next estimate of gross domestic product on November 25, 2026.