This week's war impact on markets was an oil rally that ran all week and accelerated into Friday's close. December Brent settled up 3.1% at $116.72 a barrel — its highest close since April 29 and up 6.2% on the week — while West Texas Intermediate for December delivery rose 3.8% to $103.27, a 4.3% weekly gain, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Journal and Bloomberg both attributed the move to the same cluster of conflict news: Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia's Shaybah oil field and King Fahd International Airport in Dammam on Wednesday, Saudi Aramco's evacuation of its Dhahran headquarters on Thursday, and the rising expectation of renewed US-Iran strikes after the November elections. Figures below were checked Friday, October 23, 2026, at 4:20 PM Central Time — snapshots, not live prices.
What pushed Brent to $116.72 this week?
Risk, not a current shortage — that is the answer the reporting gives. The Wall Street Journal reported that total Middle East oil shipments have recovered above pre-war levels: flows through the Strait of Hormuz and alternative routes averaged more than 24 million barrels a day in the week through October 18, above the pre-war 23.3 million, according to Kpler. But flows through Hormuz itself, at 12.65 million barrels a day, remained about 26% below the 17.15 million pre-war baseline. Ritterbusch & Associates told the Journal the market's ability to shrug off the improved total flows reflected "an increased geopolitical risk premium" as threats multiplied, and ING said prices were being supported more by the risk of renewed disruption than by current supply, adding that its earlier $80 fourth-quarter Brent view now looks unattainable.
The week's news kept adding to that premium. Reuters reported Aramco ordered its Dhahran headquarters evacuated as fighting with the Houthis intensified and the Houthis pushed toward Bab el-Mandeb, and that a pipeline valve shutdown in Libya cut output at the Hamada and Tahara fields. The Journal reported Iran warned that renewed US and Israeli strikes would trigger a wider response against airports, pipelines and other economic infrastructure across the Gulf, while Washington deployed a third carrier strike group and additional Marines and moved some personnel away from regional bases. Bloomberg, via Rigzone, added that traders were reluctant to hold short positions into the weekend and quoted CIBC's Rebecca Babin: "Weekend escalation fears are adding fuel."
How did defense stocks perform this week?
Mixed on Friday, strong across the week for two of the three majors. Lockheed Martin rallied 2.42% to $604.18 on Friday — its fourth consecutive daily gain — on a day when the S&P 500 fell 0.52%, according to MarketWatch. RTX fell 1.90% to $191.01 and Northrop Grumman slipped 0.16% to $551.44. Against last Friday's closes recorded in this series, Lockheed at $604.18 is well above its $552.09 close on October 16 and Northrop is above its $519.86, while RTX at $191.01 sits below its $193.92 close a week earlier. All three companies reported third-quarter results during the week of October 20–22, so this week's moves combine earnings reactions with the wider escalation backdrop; the reporting opened for this briefing did not attribute Friday's individual defense moves to a single new contract or conflict headline, and none is claimed here.
What happened to gold and natural gas?
Gold fell even as oil surged — the week's clearest safe-haven surprise. Spot gold fell 0.6% to $3,998.35 an ounce by late morning in New York on Friday, slipping below $4,000 for the first time since mid-July, and December futures settled 1.3% lower at $4,007.90, Reuters reported via Kitco. Bullion fell 4% on the week, its steepest weekly decline in over four months. Reuters attributed the fall to the oil rally itself: higher energy prices fuelled inflation concerns and reinforced expectations that the Federal Reserve could raise rates in December — traders put that probability at 78%, per CME FedWatch — which works against a non-yielding asset. Analyst Jim Wyckoff also told Reuters that margin calls from the technology selloff prompted some investors to sell gold and silver to cover losses elsewhere.
US natural gas told the opposite geographic story. November Henry Hub futures held at $2.775 per MMBtu after a 4.5% fall on Wednesday, as forecasts for exceptionally mild US weather through early November outweighed the global gas crisis, according to TradingNews' summary of the week's trading and EIA data. The EIA reported storage rose 77 billion cubic feet in the week ended October 16 to 3,644 Bcf, 1.0% above the five-year average. Europe remains in a different market: the Dutch TTF benchmark reached €88.41 per megawatt-hour, its highest since December 2022, Qatar has lost 17% of its LNG capacity, and EU storage stood at 74.47% against a typical mid-October level near 86% — but US LNG feedgas hit a record 18.9 Bcf a day with export plants already at capacity, so that tightness cannot pull more American gas overseas.
How did food and shipping markets move?
Wheat fell sharply despite fresh Black Sea fighting — peace-talk momentum beat war risk this week. CBOT December wheat settled little changed at $6.25 a bushel on Friday, Dow Jones reported via Morningstar, but GrainCo's Friday snapshot put the contract at $6.24, down 40 cents on the week, with Matif December down €12.50 to €234. GrainCo attributed the sell-off to public signs of momentum in Russia-Ukraine peace talks — the two sides have agreed in principle to resume three-way talks with the US on November 10, and President Zelenskyy has said he would support a freeze along current lines — compounded by stagnant buying, with US wheat sales for the season at the lowest on record. Dow Jones noted Black Sea fighting gave European wheat some support overnight, including Friday's sinking of the cargo ship Khoryv off Constanta, but the most active US contract still ended flat, and fund selling weighed on grains all week.
Shipping risk itself did not ease. Seven cargo ships have been hit in two weeks off Romania and Bulgaria, by the counts reported in this site's coverage of the Khoryv sinking, and Hormuz transit remains well below baseline — keeping freight and insurance costs elevated even as grain prices fell.
What happened to the broader stock market?
US equities ended a turbulent week lower on Friday. The S&P 500 fell 0.52% to 7,623.68, modestly below last Friday's 7,659.44 close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.23% to 52,215.16, and the Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.21% to 25,955.34 after Thursday's 2.6% fall, per MarketWatch data in the daily market digest. The digest attributed Friday's selling to surging oil, escalating Middle East tensions and a 10-year Treasury yield near 5.00%, while the week's dominant equity story remained doubt about the scale and financing of AI infrastructure spending, sharpened by Meta's results. The war's channel into the wider market ran through energy and rates: oil above $116 keeps inflation pressure alive into next week's Federal Reserve meeting and the October 29 PCE inflation report, both flagged in the reporting above.
War & Markets publishes weekly. Figures are snapshots checked at the time shown above — not live prices, and not financial advice. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security or commodity.
