Market Open: Stocks Higher, President Trump Tells CNBC He's Pausing Strikes On Iran, Oil Tumbles 3/23/26

I'm Jessica Ettinger CNBC, Wall Street rallies out of the open. As oil prices fall, President

Trump says the US and Iran have held productive talks. US crew down to $84 a barrel. It's

lowest in about two weeks. The Dow is up 631 points. It's being led higher by shares

of Home Depot up almost 3%. The S&P 500 index up 86 points. The NASDAQ up 345 points. Checking

shares of NVIDIA, they're up 2.5% this morning. All we did is retake last Thursday Friday's

decline. So there's still a lot to be proven, but the market understands you can't get too

far away from the possibility that that deescalatory moment is not necessarily an all-clear,

it's enough to essentially say that let's not get too negative right in here.

That's CNBC's Mike Santoli. President Trump telling CNBC he's pausing strikes on Iran for

five days as talks continue. He spoke on the phone with CNBC's Joe Kernan.

I ask him who you negotiate. You know, you've said that there's very few people left

alive to negotiate with him. He said that there are representatives and that they've been

intense discussions and that the optimistic that by Friday something more tangible could be

announced. And CNBC's David Faber has what the president wrote in a social media post.

The president says both sides have had, quote, very good and productive conversations

regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East.

Now in response, Iran's state media said the president has back down on targeting the

country's power plants amid threats from Iran. And perhaps even more importantly, they say there

have been no direct or indirect communications with the U.S. Asked about that on another network.

The president said he's said he's not sure what the Iranians are referring to because the most

recent talks happened. airline and cruise line shares were popping after they have been beaten

down by higher oil prices and higher fuel prices. Gold plunging as investors leave the safe haven

trade. The metal had a long run up, but it's now back down to around where it was last Thanksgiving,

a little more than $4,000 an ounce. Chicago Fed president Austin Goolsbee tells CNBC whether the fed

raises or lowers interest rates has everything to do with inflation. If everybody starts expecting

inflation is going to remain high. The price of gasoline specifically has a very high impact

on individuals' expectations of what inflation is going to be over the next year.

To have already been operating at an inflation rate that was uncomfortably high and stuck well

above the target and now to add something that might be a lasting gasoline price shock,

I think this is as I say an intense moment and we have to hope that this does not prove to be a

lasting impact on the economy. Walmart taking digital shelf labels that show an item's price

to all of its stores while some lawmakers are concerned that with the touch of a button Walmart

could engage in surge pricing for items, even raising them only for certain hours of the day.

Some states already have a ban on dynamic pricing. Digital tags reduce employee times spent

updating paper tags. And Amazon has its biggest hit ever at the box office over the weekend since

buying MGM with Project Hail Mary. Jessica Eringer CNBC.