U.S. stocks in the military and oil & natural gas sectors surge, gold prices spike then retreat, silver plunges straight down! Qatar Energy announces suspension of production, European natural gas prices soar

Editor | Cheng Peng, Du Hengfeng Proofreader | Jin Mingyu

The three major U.S. stock indices opened lower but quickly recovered, with declines narrowing to within 1%. As of the report, the Dow fell 0.27%, the Nasdaq dropped 0.23%, and the S&P 500 declined 0.23%. A total of 3,249 stocks declined, while 1,941 stocks rose.

Technology stocks mostly fell, with Qualcomm, AMD, and Tesla down over 3%, Amazon, Micron Technology, and Google down over 2%.

The Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index dropped 1.96%. Most popular Chinese concept stocks declined, with Kingsoft Cloud down 4.2%, Alibaba and Bilibili down over 2.5%.

As of the report, Norwegian Cruise Line stock fell 10.61%, Carnival Corporation dropped 10.57%, and Royal Caribbean Cruises declined 5.76%.

Following the outbreak of conflict in the Middle East, U.S. aerospace and defense stocks rose collectively, with RCAT up over 26%, AVAV up over 17%, KRMN up over 12%, Kratos Defense & Security Solutions up over 8%, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies each up about 3%.

U.S. oil stocks strengthened, with Western Oil up over 2.2%, ExxonMobil up over 1.8%, and Chevron up over 1.2%.

U.S. liquefied natural gas companies also saw gains, with Cheniere Energy up 6.2% and NextDecade up 17.8%.

On March 2 local time, European natural gas prices surged significantly, briefly rising over 57% during trading.

As of the report, the European benchmark natural gas—Dutch near-month futures—rose 50%, trading at €46.19 per megawatt-hour.

In news, on March 2 local time, QatarEnergy announced that due to drone attacks on two of its energy facilities that day, it has decided to suspend liquefied natural gas production.

Qatar’s natural gas reserves rank third globally, making it one of the world’s most important natural gas producers. In 2025, Qatar exported 82.2 million tons of liquefied natural gas.

Iran controls the vital global energy shipping route, the Strait of Hormuz. Due to Iran’s announcement banning all ships from passing through the strait, the risk of disruption to international oil supplies has increased. International crude oil futures prices surged sharply on March 1.

As of the report, WTI crude oil rose nearly 6%, and Brent crude oil increased over 7%.

After the opening of the new trading week on March 1 Eastern Time, NYMEX April gold futures broke through $5,300 per ounce, reaching a high of $5,409 per ounce during trading, up over 2%. May silver futures also surpassed $94 per ounce.

By the evening of March 2 Beijing time, as of the report, spot silver prices plummeted, dropping over 5.8% to $89.58 per ounce. Spot gold also surged but then pulled back, with gains narrowing to 0.81%, with the maximum daily increase exceeding 2.6%.