Jobs Go Missing While Oil Goes Vertical
- David Halseth
- 10 hours ago
- 2 min read
For the week ended 3/7/26.
Well, good morning and welcome to the first full week of market activity while the conflict in the Middle East continues to escalate. While this has obviously had a major impact on oil prices, we’ll get to that in a moment. First, let’s take a look at the latest jobs data – and it was a doozy.
Bottom line: the U.S. economy lost 92,000 jobs in February, an unexpected and fairly widespread downturn for a labor market that has been showing signs of strain across multiple sectors. That’s quite a reversal from January’s gain of 126,000 positions. And not to beat up on the economic seers among us, but the highly esteemed group of professionals polled by the Wall Street Journal had a consensus expectation of 50,000 jobs gained. Needless to say, the miss was… significant.
As expected, the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.4%, from 4.3% in January. Yes, this remains low by historical standards – the average unemployment rate over the past 30 years sits around 5.5% - but it also highlights growing cracks in a labor market that has struggled to generate consistent job growth in recent months. And yes, a meaningful portion of that hesitation continues to stem from the uncertainty surrounding AI-driven productivity gains.
Now, back to commodities—and specifically black gold. The Bloomberg Commodity Index surged 8.1% last week, driven primarily by escalating conflict involving Iran. Several crude oil benchmarks jumped more than 20%, as fears of supply disruptions intensified with the Strait of Hormuz at least partially shut down, raising legitimate concerns about global oil availability. Frustrating as this may be – especially given the United States is now a net energy exporter – the reality remains that oil is a globally traded commodity. It’s fungible, and at the end of the day, global supply and demand dictate pricing.
Thanks largely to these geopolitical tensions (along with continued concerns surrounding federal debt levels), both U.S. stocks and bonds declined last week, falling 2.0% and 1.0% respectively. And not to pile on poor old bonds, but I must point out, again, that this asset class is not providing the diversification benefits it once did when equities decline. Investors increasingly need to find that diversification elsewhere. The good news? Domestic markets didn’t fall nearly as far as international ones. Global property stocks dropped 3.8%, while international equities plunged 6.9%.
Looking ahead, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will attempt to release February’s CPI data on Wednesday. Expectations – yes, once again from those economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal – are for inflation to tick slightly higher to 3.1%. Meanwhile, Treasury note and bond auctions later this week should provide further clues about the market’s outlook for inflation and the future direction of interest rates.
With that, have a great week – and stay frosty.
Interesting data point of the week.
