Closing Bell Overtime: 8/25/26

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**Michael Santoli** (1:00)
The bell's bringing an end to the trading day. At the NYC, the Big East Conference bringing the bell. And at the Nasdaq, it's Northern Trust closing out the trading day. Welcome to Closing Bell Overtime, live from Studio B at the Nasdaq Market site. I'm Mike Santoli. Melissa Lee is off today. Stocks finished the day in the green, but markets do seem to be in something of a holding pattern ahead of Nvidia earnings and Porsche at Jackson Hole. That's later this week. The Dow up 160 points. The S&P 500 finished higher by about a third of a percent. The Nasdaq higher by about two thirds of 1%.
Oil falling on the day on hopes for reopening of the straight of Hormuz. We're going to get into all that coming up. Bond yields moving lower along with oil prices. The big stock story of the day is Dick's Sporting Goods losing 30% of its value, dragging Nike and others down with it. Much more on this name is coming up. And we're also awaiting several earnings reports, Intuit, Zoom and Box, all due out in the next few minutes.
All right, we start with oil moving lower today after a statement from Iran and Oman saying they have discussed a framework that could provide practical basis for moving forward when it comes to reopening the straight of Hormuz. Pippa Stevens has those details. Hi Pippa.

**Pippa Stevens** (2:12)
Hey Mike. So this would include the creation of a temporary joint corridor and traffic management. Now the announcement was pretty light on specifics, but there would presumably be some sort of fee, which likely would not be palatable for other Gulf nations and countries more broadly. Given passage was freely available prior to the war. Now oil was down before this midday announcement, building on yesterday's losses with economic D-day seen as pretty much a non-event in the energy market. The New York Times also reporting the State Department is preparing to send diplomats back to the Middle East, after which the department confirmed it's adjusting staffing at certain posts in the region, seemingly pointing to a lack of near-term escalation. Now this is within the backdrop of this limbo of more oil getting out of the strait than at the lows of the war, but less getting out than prior to the war. Now the tightness in product markets that's pushed up gasoline and diesel futures, fueling interest in refining stocks, Marathon Petroleum, Valera and Phillips 66, all having a big year. But now Jeffrey is pointing out that short interest is also on the rise in the crack ETF which tracks the space. So perhaps Mike, a little bit of cooling enthusiasm for some of those names.

**Michael Santoli** (3:22)
Yeah. I wonder if folks are starting to wonder if it's as good as it gets for those refiners. In fact, product markets also softened up today.
I did see wholesale gasoline on the downside.

**Pippa Stevens** (3:35)
That's right. We did see some weakness there at building on yesterday's losses as well. But it does seem like there's now been a lot of exuberance and attention on the tightness in the fuel markets. And so that's pushed up the mid-cycle cracks to about $35, which some people say is probably not sustainable longer term. And so perhaps these valuations have become a little bit stretched. But as we continue to talk about, it really comes down to whether or not these US refiners especially can maintain these utilization rates north of 97 percent, particularly once we enter what's usually a turnaround season. Then also, I would just point out the big move in European natural gas, because we did see those prices close at about 68 euros per megawatt hour. That's the highest in more than three years. And right now, it's supposed to be injection season, but with prices where they are, a lot of those cargoes are still going to Asia. So the question becomes whether or not TTF needs to move higher in order to incentivize more of those cargoes, especially with EU mandates for how full their storage should be by October 1st, when the withdrawal season typically starts to begin.