Stocks erase losses; oil prices leap

Oil prices leaped Monday on worries that war with Iran could clog the global flow of crude and make inflation even worse.

- By Stan CHOE

U.S. stocks, meanwhile, swung from sharp losses to a tiny gain.Crude prices jumped more than 6%, which will probably mean higher prices soon at gasoline pumps. That would hurt not only U.S. households, whose spending makes up the bulk of the U.S. economy, but also businesses with big fuel bills.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell as much as 1.2% at the start of trading, and cruise lines and airlines led the way lower. But U.S. stocks quickly erased those losses, in part because past military conflicts haven't usually created sustained drops for the market, and the index finished the day with a gain of less than 0.1%.

The Dow Jones industrial average dipped 73 points, or 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.4%. Both also came back from steep early losses.

Prices for natural gas remained higher, meanwhile, which could raise heating bills for the remainder of the winter, after a major supplier of liquefied natural gas to Europe said it would stop production because of the war. Gold climbed 1.2% as investors looked for safer things to own and as U.S. officials tried to persuade the world that this war will not last forever.

“This is not Iraq,” U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Monday. “This is not endless.”