Late-night silver drops 4%, Brent crude rises 8%, US oil and gas, defense stocks surge, NATO states it will not participate in US-Israel military action against Iran

As of 11:02 PM Beijing time on March 2, the U.S. stock market’s three major indices opened lower collectively, with the decline narrowing to within 1%.

Large tech stocks showed mixed performance, with Nvidia up about 2%, Microsoft up over 1%, Apple down 0.05%, Amazon and Tesla down about 1%, and Google down over 2%.

According to Cailian Press, Nvidia is strategically investing an additional $4 billion in the optical communications sector, causing Lumentum and Coherent to surge.

Apple’s official Chinese website launched new products, including the new iPhone 17e, starting at 4,499 RMB.

The U.S. oil and gas sector rose collectively, with ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil up over 4%.

Aerospace and defense stocks surged significantly, with RCAT up over 30%, AVAV up over 19%, KRMN up over 13%, Kratos Security & Defense up over 11%, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies up over 3%.

The drone concept sector exploded, with Red Cat Holdings soaring over 26%, Ondas and AeroVironment up over 17%, AgEagle Antenna Systems up over 15%, and Unusual Machines up over 12%.

The airline and cruise sectors declined across the board, with Carnival Cruise and Norwegian Cruise down about 10%, United Airlines down over 2%, and Delta Air Lines down about 2%.

The storage sector continued to decline, with Seagate Technology down nearly 7%, SanDisk and Western Digital down over 5%, and Micron Technology down nearly 3%.

Chinese concept stocks mostly declined, with the NASDAQ China Golden Dragon Index down 2.28%, Canadian Solar down over 7%, WeRide down over 6%, iQIYI, Meituan, and Xiaomi each down about 4%, and Alibaba, JD.com, Baidu, and others experiencing varying degrees of decline. BYD (002594) bucked the trend, rising 5%.

Gold and silver prices sharply dropped in the short term, with spot gold falling to $5,323 per ounce. Spot silver once dropped 5%, currently down 4.04%, at $89.9 per ounce.

In terms of oil prices, Brent crude surged 8% to $78.96 per barrel. WTI crude rose over 7% to $71.93 per barrel.

According to CCTV News, on March 2 local time, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview that the U.S. and Israel’s military actions in Iran are still in the initial stages and may last for several weeks. He also announced that NATO will not participate in the U.S. and Israel’s military operations in Iran.

As geopolitical conflicts ignite HALO (an acronym for heavy assets, low attrition rate) trading, the U.S. stock market faces some pressure. Professor Li Huihui from Lyon Business School in France believes there are two main pressures: inflation and interest rate re-pricing. When oil prices jump, markets immediately worry about “re-inflation,” which raises real interest rates and term premiums, unfavorable to high-valuation, long-duration tech growth stocks. Meanwhile, the impact of AI on software business models continues, and the decline in software sector market value itself indicates a “valuation system change.”