Brent Rose 34% as War Shocks Left Stock Indices Higher

By Olivia Hart

Brent crude gained 34% from February 27 to November 6, 2026, while the S&P 500 rose 7% and the Nasdaq 100 rose 8%, according to Indicatr’s TradingView analysis. The daily-close study covers eight months and divides the conflict’s market impact into four phases.

On February 28, US and Israeli strikes on Iran started a war that remains ongoing. According to Indicatr, the Strait of Hormuz has been closed or contested most of the time, and the study uses February 27 as its pre-war baseline.

What happened across the eight months?

Indicatr’s end-of-period results show:

• Brent: up 34%, with a peak gain of 60% on October 23.
• Nasdaq 100: up 8%, with a peak gain of 25% on October 6.
• S&P 500: up 7%, with a peak gain of 14% on October 6.

Brent’s percentage gain was roughly four to five times either stock index’s, although all three finished above their pre-war levels. The study measures daily closes rather than intraday prices.

Stock investors ended the period ahead, but Brent produced the larger move.

How did the market move through four phases?

Indicatr’s timeline provides the sequence behind those headline returns:

• Shock, February 27 to March 30: Brent rose 49% in one month. The S&P 500 fell 7.8%, and the Nasdaq 100 fell 8.1%.
• Stocks look through it, March 30 to June 1: Both indices bottomed on March 30, with Brent at $109, six sessions before the April 8 ceasefire. On April 15, both closed at record highs while Brent remained 30% above its pre-war level. From March 30 to June 1, the S&P 500 gained 20% and the Nasdaq 100 gained 33%.
• Peace trade and relapse, June 1 to August 31: A deal pushed Brent below its pre-war level, to $71 on July 1. The deal fell apart in early July, and Brent rose 42% to $101 by July 23. The S&P 500 gained 1%; the Nasdaq 100 lost 3%.
• Second escalation, since September 1: Brent closed at $117 on October 23, the highest close of the war. The Federal Reserve raised rates on September 16, its first hike since 2023. The Nasdaq 100 fell 15% from October 6 to November 5. The S&P 500’s largest single-day drop, 4.4% on November 5, came from an AI-chip sell-off after the midterm elections, not the war.

The timing and policy backdrop mattered as much as the war headlines.

What do the 16 oil spikes show?

Indicatr counted 16 days when Brent closed at least 5% higher. The S&P 500 fell on 12 of them. On the 16 days when Brent fell 5% or more, the S&P 500 rose on 14.

Twenty sessions later, the S&P 500 stood higher after 12 of the 16 oil spikes, or 75% of the cases. It was also higher 20 sessions later on 68% of all days. Three of the four misses occurred during the war’s first six sessions, on March 2, March 6 and March 9.

• Positive examples: Indicatr describes March 27 and April 2 as two of the war’s scariest days. Brent jumped 6.2% to $106 on March 27 and 9.0% to $109 on April 2. Twenty sessions later, the S&P 500 was 12.6% and 9.8% higher, respectively.
• Negative examples: After the first three spikes, on March 2, March 6 and March 9, the S&P 500 was 7.8%, 1.9% and 2.6% lower 20 sessions later. Indicatr says the worst case was unknown during the conflict’s opening days, and the initial selling continued for four weeks.

Indicatr’s operating conclusion is blunt: “Headlines move the day, not the trend.” The author also says the start of a conflict differs from later shocks; buying the first spikes would have been early.

Peace headlines were no more dependable. After the April 8 ceasefire, Brent rose 18% within four weeks; after the July 1 low, it rose 42% within three weeks. Oil headlines moved stocks almost daily in both directions, but over 20 sessions their effect was limited.

Buying after an oil spike was no better than buying after an ordinary day.

How much can one war prove?

Indicatr sets a hard limit: “That is a case study, not a statistical law.” The evidence covers one conflict, eight months and 16 spike days. Its 20-day windows overlap, and the spikes arrived in clusters, limiting any claim that the sample establishes an independent trading rule.

Other drivers operated throughout: AI earnings, Federal Reserve policy and the midterm elections. The chart shows what happened at the same time, not what caused it. The analysis also does not identify the July deal or the ceasefire terms.

The underlying series are TradingView daily closes for TVC:UKOIL, a Brent crude oil CFD; SP:SPX; and NASDAQ:NDX. Event dates came from news reports. The war remained ongoing, and the chart’s status date was November 9.

The sample tests timing, but it cannot establish causation.

What should investors watch now?

Indicatr says the autumn stock problem was no longer oil itself. Inflation, interest rates and the AI-chip sell-off had become the larger pressure points, pointing to second-round effects rather than oil alone.

Indicatr plans to apply the same format to the 2022 Russia-Ukraine shock and to stock behavior after every major geopolitical shock since 1990. Until that broader test arrives, investors should treat the 75% result as a case-specific warning, not a rule for buying oil-shock sell-offs.