Brent Ends 34% Above Pre-War Level as Stocks Recover

Brent crude closed 34% above its pre-war level after eight months, while the S&P 500 gained 7% and the Nasdaq 100 rose 8%. The study measures daily closes from Feb. 27 to Nov. 6, with Brent reaching a war-period gain of 60% on Oct. 23.

US and Israeli strikes on Iran began Feb. 28, and the Strait of Hormuz has been closed or contested most of the time since, according to the analysis. Indicatr’s TradingView study tracks Brent, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 from the Feb. 27 close, the last before the war. It found: “Oil is a third higher than before the war, and both stock indices are higher too.”

The analysis confines itself to market behavior rather than political interpretation. For oil-market participants, the Strait of Hormuz provides the operational focus; the source offers no production, capacity or shipping-volume figures.

What did the war do to oil and stocks in four phases?

• Shock, Feb. 27-March 30: Brent rose 49% in one month. The S&P 500 fell 7.8% and the Nasdaq 100 lost 8.1%.
• Stocks looked through it, March 30-June 1: Both indexes bottomed on March 30 while Brent stood 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 the March low to June 1, the S&P 500 gained 20% and the Nasdaq 100 rose 33%.
• Peace trade and relapse, June 1-August 31: A deal pushed Brent below its pre-war level to $71 on July 1. The deal collapsed in early July, and Brent rose 42% to $101 by July 23. Stocks moved little: the S&P 500 gained 1%, while the Nasdaq 100 fell 3%.
• Second escalation, from September 1: Brent closed at $117 on Oct. 23, the highest close of the conflict. The Federal Reserve raised rates on Sept. 16, its first increase since 2023. The Nasdaq 100 then fell 15% from its Oct. 6 high to Nov. 5.

The S&P 500’s largest single-session decline, 4.4% on Nov. 5, came from an AI-chip sell-off following the midterm elections rather than from the war itself.

Taken together, the four phases show that the opening shock hurt equities, while later oil moves mostly changed short-term risk appetite.

Did a 5% Brent spike predict a stock move?

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

The longer window offered less direction. Twenty sessions after an oil spike, the S&P 500 stood higher in 12 of 16 cases, or 75%. Across all days, it stood higher 20 sessions later 68% of the time, leaving a spike day about as useful for buying as an ordinary day.

Three of the four exceptions occurred within the war’s first six sessions, on March 2, March 6 and March 9.

• Positive examples: Brent gained 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: Twenty sessions after the March 2, March 6 and March 9 spikes, the S&P 500 was 7.8%, 1.9% and 2.6% lower. The opening days offered no clear view of the worst case, and the stock sell-off continued for four weeks.

The practical lesson is that an oil spike alone did not tell traders where stocks would be 20 sessions later.

Did peace headlines provide a safer signal?

Indicatr found little difference between war and peace headlines. Oil moved stocks almost every day in both directions, but those moves barely mattered over 20-session windows. His conclusion was direct: “Headlines move the day, not the trend.”

The opening of a conflict remained different from later rallies. Buying the first three spikes would have meant entering before the four-week stock sell-off developed.

Peace signals also failed to offer lasting direction. Brent rose 18% within four weeks of the April 8 ceasefire and 42% within three weeks of its July 1 low. By autumn, inflation, interest rates and the AI-chip sell-off mattered more to stocks than the oil price itself.

The broader signal came from inflation, rates and technology earnings, not from the oil headline of the day.

What does this case study establish?

The evidence covers one conflict, eight months and 16 spike days. The author describes it as a case study rather than a statistical law. Its 20-day windows overlap, and the oil spikes came in clusters.

Stocks also responded to AI earnings, Federal Reserve decisions and the midterm elections. The chart therefore records events that occurred together without establishing that oil shocks caused the equity moves.

The dataset uses TradingView daily closes for TVC:UKOIL, the Brent CFD, SP:SPX and NASDAQ:NDX. Event dates come from news reports. The war remained ongoing, with Nov. 9 designated as the status date. Indicatr plans to apply the same format to the Russia-Ukraine shock of 2022 and to stock behavior after major geopolitical shocks since 1990.

This episode offers a market narrative, not a trading rule or causal law.

The watch item is Strait of Hormuz access and whether renewed oil spikes again feed inflation, rate pressure and a broader equity drawdown.