[New York Stock Market] Stocks tumble as oil tops $100 a barrel...Wall Street 'fear gauge' surges by double digits

[Financial News]

U.S. stocks in New York plunged across the board on the 12th local time.
After the Strait of Hormuz was blockaded and international oil prices broke above $100 per barrel, the big tech stocks that had been supporting the market collapsed, sending all major indexes sharply lower.
Investor sentiment turned extremely fragile.
The Cboe Volatility Index (VIX), often called Wall Street’s "fear gauge," jumped 12.6%.

Stock indexes dropped sharply under the shock of surging oil prices.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) plummeted 739.42 points, or 1.56%, to 46,677.85, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (S&P 500) slid 103.18 points, or 1.52%, to 6,672.62.
Technology and small-cap stocks suffered even steeper losses.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Stock Market (Nasdaq) tumbled 404.16 points, or 1.78%, to 22,311.98, and the Russell 2000 Index of 2,000 small-cap stocks plunged 53.91 points, or 2.12%, to 2,488.99.
Tech and small-cap shares were hit hard by worries that the Federal Reserve System (Fed) might halt interest-rate cuts in the face of soaring oil prices.
With international oil prices breaking above $100 a barrel and no resolution in sight to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, concerns grew that a prolonged period of high oil prices would derail the Fed’s plans to cut rates.
When interest rates stay elevated, the present value of future earnings for technology companies declines. Small caps are among the most sensitive to high rates and often have weaker balance sheets, so if rates fail to fall as expected, they face a heightened risk of a wave of bankruptcies.
Investor sentiment was extremely jittery. VIX surged 3.06 points, or 12.63%, to 27.29.

Even the big tech names could not hold up on the day.
Only Palantir Technologies, whose dual identity as an artificial intelligence (AI) and defense stock has been in focus, managed to gain, closing up $1.90, or 1.25%, at $153.50.
Market-cap leader Nvidia Corporation fell $2.89, or 1.55%, to $183.14, while Alphabet Inc., strong in both AI hardware and software, ended $5.15, or 1.67%, lower at $303.55.
Apple Inc. dropped $5.05, or 1.94%, to $255.76, and Microsoft (MS) slipped $3.02, or 0.75%, to close at $401.86.
Amazon retreated $3.12, or 1.47%, to $209.53, and Tesla, Inc. plunged $12.81, or 3.14%, to $395.01.

The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, through which as much as one-third of the world’s fertilizer supply passes, sent shares of chemical and fertilizer producers listed in New York sharply higher.
CF Industries, which dominates the nitrogen fertilizer market, soared $15.87, or 13.21%, to $136.00. It recorded the biggest gain among all 500 components of the S&P 500 Index that day.
Dow, a leading chemical company, also jumped $3.21, or 9.34%, to $37.58, while Mosaic, whose main products are phosphate and potash fertilizers, surged $2.21, or 7.58%, to $31.36.
Earlier, the United Nations (UN) warned in a report on the 10th that the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and sanctions on Russia and Belarus over the war in Ukraine are causing severe disruptions in the supply of fertilizer raw materials.

dympna@fnnews.com Reporter Song Kyung-jae Reporter