Oil prices are surging again, pushing diesel prices and interest rates to new highs and driving the stock market crazy.
A cynic might say: What did you expect? It’s September, historically a crummy month. And, oil and the Middle East are among the biggest problems.
Related: Pain at the gas pump rises as Middle East violence worsens
Here’s a list of all the issues as of Sept. 10:
- Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, jumped to $107.63 per 42-gallon barrel in London, its highest settlement price since May 19.
- Light sweet crude moved above $103 a barrel, its highest level since May 19.
- Gasoline prices jumped in the United States: $4.277 a gallon, per AAA Fuel Prices. $4.273 a gallon, according to GasBuddy They’ve risen about 5% so far in September and 51% so far in 2026.
- U.S. diesel prices were in worse shape: $5.9773 a gallon, according to AAA, up 67% year to date. That weighs heavily on truckers and farmers in the United States. A freight trucker might buy 300 gallons at a stop. The cost: nearly $1,800. A new credit may help.
- Bond yields are rising, which means mortgage rates and other consumer rates are moving up. The 10-year Treasury yield hit a 52-week high of 4.963% during the day. Why does it matter? Multiply the yield by 1.5 and you get a reasonable look at what a 30-year mortgage might cost. It was right at 7.07% on Sept. 10, according to Mortgage News Daily.
Stocks continue late-summer struggle
Stocks struggled for a fourth straight day as a result.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index dropped 45 points to 7,592. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 317 points to 52,064, and the Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 172 points to 26,082.
The S&P 500 is off 1.2% so far this month. The Dow is down 2.1%, and the Nasdaq has dropped 1.1%, modest losses to be sure. All three indexes have felt larger falls since hitting 52-week highs earlier this summer.
But it is also September. The month has been the weakest for the three indexes since 1950, according to the Stock Traders Almanac.
- Goldman Sachs doubles down on oil price forecast for 2026
- Is Trump’s big, splashy Venezuela oil deal real?
- Setting the Stage for Stagflation?
The Middle East conflict casts a long shadow
And it all dials back to the Middle East, where a big concern on Sept. 10 was that Houthi rebels based in Yemen were attacking Saudi Arabian port facilities on the Red Sea in hopes of taking control of the vital Bab al-Mandab Strait, at the southern end of the waterway.
A Houthi win could choke off a way to ship crude oil to Europe and elsewhere. And it would be a potentially serious setback for the Trump administration in its ongoing war with Iran and for Saudi Arabia.
Iran has warned this week of “a faster, heavier, and more painful response” to U.S. attacks, as hostilities between the two sides escalate.
President Trump himself has suggested the war could last at least until the November Midterm elections. If Republicans win, the Iranians will sue peace, he predicted.
