Wall Street’s positive reaction to Saturday’s U.S. bombings in Iran suggests the oil-rich Mideast state is “not as relevant” to the stock market as it used to be, CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Monday. Indeed, U.S. oil benchmark West Texas Intermediate and global standard Brent were modestly lower early Monday, and the S & P 500 pushed higher. Both crude contracts came off their multi-month highs seen overnight following several sessions of volatile trading since Israel first attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities on June 13. On Monday afternoon, both WTI and Brent moved further to the downside — off more than 5% around 1:50 p.m. ET — after Iran claimed that it struck a U.S. military base in Qatar with missiles. Qatar’s military said, however, that its air defense successfully intercepted the missile attack, and no casualties were reported. The market has drifted between green and red for parts of Monday’s session, but spiked higher in afternoon trading as oil moved sharply lower. It’s a reflection of the dynamic the Club has called out over the past week as the Israel-Iran conflict escalated: Oil prices will heavily influence the stock market in a tense geopolitical moment like this. @CL.1 1D mountain WTI one day trading Oil analyst Helima Croft said in a CNBC interview that energy traders are looking for an off-ramp to the conflict, and some people might view this Iranian attack as being able to say, “OK, we’re done for now.” In a likely worst-case scenario for the oil market, Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz, the only way to ship crude from the oil-rich Persian Gulf to the rest of the globe. Around 20% of global crude consumption flowed through the waterway last year, according to the Energy Information Administration . President Donald Trump said in a social media post Monday that “everyone” should keep oil prices low, and doing otherwise would “play into the hands of the enemy.” “I’m just saying to myself, ‘Did nothing happen this weekend?’ And I think that the answer is, this is not China. This is not rare earth. This is not Taiwan,” Cramer said on “Squawk on the Street,” before the U.S. market officially opened for trading. “It’s not strategic. It is tactical, and given that it is tactical, people just say, ‘All right. Let’s see how that plays out.'” U.S. stocks ultimately opened higher Monday in the first session since the U.S. on Saturday struck three Iranian nuclear sites and entered Israel’s war with Iran. “This is not as relevant to our markets as it might have been at one time,” Cramer said. The S & P 500 was up more than 0.7% at Monday’s highs of the session. .SPX 1D mountain S & P 500 one day trading One of the biggest reasons for the measured reaction, according to Cramer, is that the global energy market looks a lot different now than it did decades ago, thanks to the rise in U.S. oil production. At the moment, it doesn’t look like the U.S. will see any substantial oil supply shocks, with Cramer saying there’s a belief that the U.S. has “plenty of oil.” As investors monitor the Middle East, Cramer pointed to a flurry of positive headlines for individual companies that have lifted their stocks. They included strong earnings Friday from grocery giant Kroger , a report of potential consolidation in the banking sector, and Melius Research’s upgrade of chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices . “There’s nothing which just says, ‘[Iran] is going to cast a pall on the following companies.’ So, I want very much to find out where the Achilles’ heel is for the market. But it’s not stablecoins. It’s not mergers. It’s not anything.” (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
