Higher Oil Prices Can't Keep Stocks Down: Stock Market Today

Stocks closed higher on Tuesday even as higher energy costs loom over the March Fed meeting. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. Profit and prosper with the best of Kiplinger's advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and much more. Delivered daily. Enter your email in the box and click Sign Me Up.You are now subscribedYour newsletter sign-up was successfulWant to add more newsletters?Delivered dailyKiplinger TodayProfit and prosper with the best of Kiplinger's advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and much more delivered daily. Smart money moves start here.Sent five days a weekKiplinger A Step AheadGet practical help to make better financial decisions in your everyday life, from spending to savings on top deals.Delivered dailyKiplinger Closing BellGet today's biggest financial and investing headlines delivered to your inbox every day the U.S. stock market is open.Sent twice a weekKiplinger Adviser IntelFinancial pros across the country share best practices and fresh tactics to preserve and grow your wealth.Delivered weeklyKiplinger Tax TipsTrim your federal and state tax bills with practical tax-planning and tax-cutting strategies.Sent twice a weekKiplinger Retirement TipsYour twice-a-week guide to planning and enjoying a financially secure and richly rewarding retirementSent bimonthly.Kiplinger Adviser AngleInsights for advisers, wealth managers and other financial professionals.Sent twice a weekKiplinger Investing WeeklyYour twice-a-week roundup of promising stocks, funds, companies and industries you should consider, ones you should avoid, and why.Sent weekly for six weeksKiplinger Invest for RetirementYour step-by-step six-part series on how to invest for retirement, from devising a successful strategy to exactly which investments to choose. Stocks opened comfortably higher Tuesday, but lost steam as the session wore on as market participants weighed the latest developments in the Middle East. Rising oil prices were also in focus as the Federal Reserve kicked off its March meeting.At the close, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was 0.1% higher at 46,993, the broader S&P 500 was up 0.3% at 6,716, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite had gained 0.5% to 22,479.While the central bank is widely expected to keep rates unchanged, Wall Street will be watching to see how higher energy costs will impact the Fed's inflation forecast and rate-cut plans.Become a smarter, better informed investor. Subscribe from just $107.88 $24.99, plus get up to 4 Special IssuesProfit and prosper with the best of expert advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and more - straight to your e-mail.Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice - straight to your e-mail.Today, front-month West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose 2.9% to settle at $96.21 per barrel, and are now up nearly 44% for the month to date. Gas prices are rising fast, too, with the average price of a gallon of regular gas 30% higher than a month ago, at $3.79, according to AAA.Higher gas prices have begun to weigh on consumer sentiment, as evidenced by the University of Michigan's preliminary Consumer Sentiment Index for March, which was released last Friday.The index was down 1.9% vs February, with gasoline prices having "the most immediate impact felt by consumers," says Surveys of Consumers Director Joanne Hsu.Arguably "the most serious economic risk of the war for the U.S. if the conflict drags on," writes the Kiplinger Letter team, is higher inflation sparked by rising energy costs."The economy is likely strong enough to stay out of recession, even though higher gas prices would probably crimp spending by many consumers," the group says. "But if high fuel prices last longer and filter through the economy more broadly, inflation could prove painful and force the Federal Reserve to nix plans to trim interest rates," which could pressure housing and other rate-sensitive sectors.According to CME FedWatch, futures traders are now expecting the first rate cut of 2026 to come at the September meeting. Just a few weeks ago, betting odds favored June.You can follow along with all the latest news and updates on our March Fed meeting live blog.Rising travel demand is helping to offset higher fuel costs for Delta Air Lines (DAL, +6.5%) and American Airlines Group (AAL, +3.5%). Both industrial stocks closed comfortably higher Tuesday after the companies raised their respective first-quarter revenue guidance.Delta now expects (pdf) first-quarter revenue to be up in the high single-digit percentage range, an improvement over its previous forecast for year-over-year growth of 5% to 7%.Demand has been "really, really great," Delta CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC.American Airlines, meanwhile, anticipates Q1 revenue growth of greater than 10% thanks to "stronger-than-expected demand." Its previous guidance called for revenue growth of 7% to 10%.Over in the tech sector, Snowflake (SNOW, +0.1%) edged higher after BofA Securities analyst Koji Ikeda reiterated a Buy rating and a $275 price target on the artificial intelligence (AI) data cloud platform operator – representing implied upside of 57% to current levels.The bullish note follows a meeting between Ikeda and members of Snowflake's leadership team, which left the analyst "incrementally more positive" that its initiatives will "drive upside" to product revenue.Looking for more timely stock market news to help gauge the health of your portfolio? Sign up for Closing Bell, our free newsletter that's delivered straight to your inbox at the close of each trading day.Ikeda believes SNOW's outlook on its position within the AI data and business intelligence world could lead to a "much bigger and more profitable" future, and believes "more beat-and-raises are to come."Qualcomm (QCOM, +1.7%) was another tech stock that closed higher after the chipmaker raised its quarterly dividend by 3.4% to 92 cents per share. The company also said its board of directors approved a new $20 billion stock buyback program, which equates to more than 14% of its current market cap.QCOM is known as a dependable dividend grower, having increased its quarterly payout for 22 straight years. This has helped it generate a total return (price change plus dividends) of 15% over the past three years, though this is well below the S&P 500's total return of 76%.Wall Street, for the most part, doesn't seem too encouraged by the company's near-term prospects either. Of the 35 analysts covering QCOM who are tracked by S&P Global Market Intelligence, 11 have it at Buy or Strong Buy, 21 call it a Hold and three say it's a Sell or Strong Sell. This works out to a consensus Hold recommendation.Susquehanna analyst Christopher Rolland recently downgraded Qualcomm to Neutral from Positive – the equivalents of Hold and Buy, respectively – citing several near-term headwinds. Among them is the ongoing shortage of memory chips, which impacts the production of smartphones and mobile devices that use QCOM's Snapdragon processors and is expected to drag on revenue.Profit and prosper with the best of Kiplinger's advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and much more. Delivered daily. Enter your email in the box and click Sign Me Up.With over a decade of experience writing about the stock market, Karee Venema is the senior investing editor at Kiplinger.com. She joined the publication in April 2021 after 10 years of working as an investing writer and columnist at a local investment research firm. In her previous role, Karee focused primarily on options trading, as well as technical, fundamental and sentiment analysis.