Stocks face a growing list of threats — so why are investors staying so calm? Investors are well aware of the risks, but they have simply decided none are significant enough to force them out of the market Stocks have every reason to sell off, but they refuse to budge /iStockphoto On the surface, this looks like the easiest quarter stocks have had in years. The S&P 500 is up modestly in recent months and moving in a narrow lane, while the Cboe Volatility Index — known as Wall Street’s “fear gauge” — is snoozing near its lowest level of the year.
That’s despite the Iran war pushing oil prices above $100 a barrel, a new Federal Reserve’s interest-rate hike and artificial-intelligence executives publicly begging their own industry to slow down. Copyright ©2026 MarketWatch, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 AI leaders want to ‘pace the frontier’ as part of a safety slowdown.
My mother died from Alzheimer’s. Do I need long-term-care insurance? Is it too much to expect his sister to help?
Amazon, Palantir and 12 more top tech stock picks from UBS analysts It’s almost impossible to sell a condo unit these days: ‘I feel trapped’ Intraday Data provided by FACTSET and subject to terms of use. Historical and current end-of-day data provided by FACTSET. All quotes are in local exchange time.
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