- Stocks careened from their session highs in the minutes before the closing bell.
- The Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq all suffered substantial setbacks.
- The sudden pullback followed reports of rocket fire in Baghdad.
The headlines will tell you that the Dow advanced by triple digits on Wednesday.
Dow Stumbles Into the Closing Bell; Gold & Oil Prices Bounce
But after the bellwether index flirted with a 300-point surge, the stock market’s record-setting day almost unraveled in the minutes before the closing bell.
The Nasdaq and S&P 500 suffered similar pullbacks, while the gold and oil prices bounced off their session lows.
Reports: Rockets Land in Baghdad Green Zone
The abrupt swing in risk sentiment coincided with on-the-ground reports of rocket fire in Baghdad’s Green Zone.
Fox News foreign correspondent Trey Yingst posted the following video on Twitter. Turn up the volume, and you can hear blaring sirens and an ominous “incoming” warning.
We broke this news as it happened with @BretBaier on Fox News Reporting
— Trey Yingst (@TreyYingst) January 8, 2020
A Reuters newsflash confirmed the strike, stating that police sources said multiple Katyusha rockets had fallen within the Green Zone of Iraq’s capital city and started a fire. According to the Iraqi military, no casualties had been reported.
Further details remain slim, but the new development comes just hours after President Donald Trump told Americans that Iran appeared to be standing down after launching a barrage of missile strikes that analysts described as “harmless.”
Trump’s comments helped ignite a phenomenal stock market rally as Wall Street gambled that the worst of the US-Iran military hostilities had already passed, particularly since Iran appeared to deliberately avoid killing US personnel.