US stocks ended another week in the red as the war raging through the Gulf region rolls on with no end in sight and US equity markets keep falling.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) lost roughly 1.7% on Friday to clinch its longest losing streak since 2022, while the Dow (^DJI) shed an equal 1.7%, or roughly 800 points, on Friday. The two indexes have now lost 7% and 6%, respectively, on the year.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) slid a steeper 2.2% on Friday for a year-to-date loss of roughly 10%.

Calendar highlights

Friday’s jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics will headline a busy economic calendar, with the central question for investors set to be whether payrolls numbers will normalize after the whiplash of 130,000 jobs added in January and 92,000 jobs lost in February.

Investors will also get reads on market sentiment and expectations from the Conference Board on Tuesday, as well as additional labor market reads from the JOLTS report on Tuesday and the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas on Thursday.

In the corporate world, quarterly results from NIKE (NKE) on Tuesday will lead an otherwise sedate week in earnings reports.

Investors will also get results from USA Rare Earth (USAR) and Trilogy Metals (TMQ), two of the country’s main critical minerals players, on Monday and Friday, respectively, as the market prepares for President Trump’s now-delayed meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

As the Iran war enters its fifth week, the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed, choking off roughly 15 million to 16 million barrels of oil per day from the market. Oil prices just keep climbing, with Brent crude (BZ=F) and US WTI crude (CL=F) up more than 45% and 50%, respectively, over the past month.

“I don’t think you really compare this with any disruption in the past,” BP chief economist Gareth Ramsay said earlier in the week, adding that the disruption of the Strait of Hormuz is “every analyst’s study piece, or worst nightmare that we thought could never happen.”

The conflict is showing no signs of ending anytime soon. On Thursday, President Trump announced he was pushing back for a second time the deadline for Iran to come to the table before the US strikes the country’s domestic power infrastructure — yet oil has rallied and stocks have fallen anyway.

The only thing that matters now, strategists told Yahoo Finance, is how long Iran is willing to choke off Persian Gulf oil, and how long the rest of the world will let it go on.

In a televised interview on Tuesday, Iranian parliamentary speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said the Strait of Hormuz “cannot be the same as before and return to its previous conditions.”

In January, it was a steep surprise to the upside; in February, an even steeper surprise to the downside.

For investors, the biggest question of the week will be: Is March the month where the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ marquee nonfarm payrolls report goes back to results anywhere near estimates?

As of Friday, economists are looking for payrolls growth of 50,00 jobs, with little change to the current no-hire, no-fire regime that is dominating the US labor market — and little effect yet from the economic effects of the war in Iran.

“We tend to think that with businesses already running lean on new hiring demand, a more severe shock than seen thus far to energy prices or confidence would be needed in order to break out of the current low-hire/low-layoff equilibrium,” BNP Paribas senior US economist Andrew Husby wrote in a recent client note.

That’s not to say the war’s economic headwinds won’t drag on the labor market. Instead, those effects may just not have shown up yet, according to Goldman Sachs US economist Pierfrancesco Mei.

“Accounting for both job gains in the energy industry and job losses elsewhere, we estimate that higher oil prices will reduce payroll growth by roughly 10k per month on net through year-end,” Mei wrote in a client note on Thursday.

The Federal Reserve may be signaling caution, but bond markets are increasingly pricing in a more hawkish position from the committee.

The 10-year Treasury (^TNX) yield, which moves inversely to bond prices, jumped as high as 4.48%, its highest level since July, as President Trump’s postponement of strikes on Iranian infrastructure failed to calm investor anxieties. On the short end of the curve, 2-year Treasury yields climbed to 4% on Friday.

Notably, those short-term yields have diverged from oil prices. After tracking barrel prices through the first few weeks of the conflict, 2-years — often taken as a measure of the Fed’s expected policy path — have gained more than 30 basis points since the Fed’s meeting, even as oil remained roughly flat.

Given the post-meeting split between short-term rates and oil prices, “we think markets are now anticipating a more hawkish Fed reaction function and, possibly, a broader commodity shock,” wrote Aditya Bhave, director and global economist at BofA Global Research.

In a change-up that would have been unthinkable before the start of the war, traders are now pricing in 22% odds of a quarter-point hike by the end of 2026.

On top of a largely stagnant labor market, look around the US economy — and the vibes just aren’t great.

Readings from the University of Michigan showed that consumer sentiment in March hit the gauge’s lowest level since December as the war in Iran has soured perceptions of the US economy.

Not that it’s particularly surprising. The major equity indexes have given up all of their 2026 gains, and gold is down 12% since the start of the war. The national average for gasoline prices at the pump is within $0.03 of $4 per gallon, and price increases in diesel are making shipping more expensive.

“Consumers are really going to be reacting not just to the geopolitical shock itself, but really on what’s happening throughout the economy,” the survey’s director, Joanne Hsu, told Yahoo Finance.

Tuesday’s readings from the Conference Board will give investors another data point with which to benchmark satisfaction levels in the US stock market following the dour reading from U-Mich.

Economic and earnings calendar

Economic data: Dallas Fed manufacturing activity, March (0.2 previously)

Earnings calendar: ICON Public Limited Company (ICLR), Terns Pharmaceuticals (TERN), Centessa Pharmaceuticals (CNTA), Allied Gold Corporation (AAUC), Fermi (FRMI), USA Rare Earth (USAR)

Economic data: FHFA housing price index, month-on-month, January (+01.% expected, +0.1% previously); MNI Chicago PMI, March (55.1 expected, 57.7 previously); Conference Board consumer confidence, March (88 expected, 91.2 previously); Conference Board present situation, March (120 previously); Conference Board expectations, March (72 previously); JOLTS job openings, February (6.85 million expected, 6.946 million previously); JOLTS job openings rate, February (+4.2% previously); JOLTS quits rate, February (+2% previously); JOLTS layoffs rate, February (+1% previously); Dallas Fed services activity, March (-3.2 previously)

Earnings calendar: NIKE (NKE), McCormick & Company (MKC), TD SYNNEX Corporation (SNX), FactSet Research Systems (FDS), PVH Corp. (PVH), RH (RH), POET Technologies (POET)

Economic data: MBA mortgage applications, week ended Mar. 27 (-10.5% previously); ADP employment change, March (+40,000 expected, +63,000 previously). Retail sales advance, month-on-month, February (+0.4% expected, -0.2% previously); Retail sales ex auto and gas, February (+0.3% expected, +0.3% previously); S&P Global manufacturing PMI, March final reading (52.4 previously); ISM manufacturing, March (52.3 expected, 52.4 previously); ISM prices paid, March (70.5 previously); ISM new orders, March (55.8 previously); ISM employment, March (48.8 previously); Business inventories, January (+0.1% previously)

Earnings calendar: ConAgra Brands (CAG), Lamb Weston Holdings (LW), MSC Industrial Direct Co. (MSM), UniFirst Corporation (UNF), Cal-Maine Foods (CALM)

Economic data: Challenger job cuts, year-on-year, March (-71.9% previously); Imports, month-on-month, February (+0.1% expected, -0.7% previously); Exports, month-on-month, February (-2.3% expected, +5.5% previously); Initial jobless claims, week ended Mar. 28 (210,000 previously); Continuing claims, week ended Mar. 21 (1.819 million previously)

Earnings calendar: Acuity (AYI)

Friday

Economic data: Change in nonfarm payrolls, March (50,000 expected, -92,000 previously); Change in private payrolls, March (+55,000 expected, -86,000 previously); Change in manufacturing payrolls, March (-12,000 previously); Average hourly earnings, month-on-month, March (+0.3% expected, +0.4% previously); Average hourly earnings, year-on-year, March (+3.8% expected, +3.8% previously); Unemployment rate, March (+4.4% expected, +4.4% previously); Labor force participation rate, March (62.1% expected, 62% previously); S&P Global US services PMI, March final reading (51.1 previously); S&P Global US composite PMI, March final reading (51.4 previously)

Earnings calendar: Trilogy Metals (TMQ)

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