Market is stuck in limbo, Iran war isn’t only cause

CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Thursday the stock market looks poised to be stuck in a holding pattern as the conflict in the Middle East continues and other sources of uncertainty crop up.

“Until then, the bottom line is we have to face the fact that the market’s in limbo,” Cramer said on “Mad Money.” “I hate limbo, but I accept that there’s always a lot of limbo in 2026 so far and we need to learn to live with it if we’re ever gonna get to the promised land of higher prices. And you’ve got to stay in if you want to get there too.”

Cramer’s comments came on the heels of a volatile session on Wall Street. The S&P 500 fell 0.5% after a brief reprieve during Wednesday’s session that sent the broad-market index 0.8% higher. At its lows Thursday, the S&P 500 was down by roughly 1.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq Composite also closed lower, albeit off their lows.

Stocks struggled in the face of surging oil prices Thursday, with U.S. crude surpassing $80 a barrel as the U.S.-Iran war caused traders to fear a prolonged disruption to global fuel supplies. Oil was much more tame in Wednesday’s session when stocks rallied.

“It’s easy to see how this happened, though,” Cramer said. “Earlier this week, Wall Street figured the war with Iran wouldn’t do too much economic damage, but today the price of [West Texas Intermediate] crude shot up above $80 again. … This kind of action is just too hard for people and they’re selling even though I’m telling you you shouldn’t. Stay in.”

Cramer said making matters worse for investors is the potential for more restrictive artificial intelligence chip export policies. On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration is drafting a plan that would give the U.S. government more control over these chip exports. The rules would potentially prohibit any international AI chip shipments without approval from the White House, which Cramer said sounds a lot like the Biden-era policy the Trump administration ditched last year.

“This rumor is why the market lost a key leadership mid-day,” Cramer said of the subsequent decline in semiconductor stocks.

As an example, he pointed to shares of leading AI chipmaker Nvidia, a holding in his Charitable Trust, the portfolio used by the CNBC Investing Club. The world’s most valuable stock was up in morning trading, then dropped by as much as 2.8% on the report, before managing to eke out a slight gain. Advanced Micro Devices, another AI chipmaker, closed out the session 1.3% lower. 

“Nobody wants to touch the semis if their total addressable market is about to get clubbed by the government,” he said.

Overall, Cramer offered a mixed picture of a market grappling with ample unknowns.

“Now, the good news is that the price of oil can come down, and this semiconductor stuff, maybe it gets spiked,” he said. “The bad news is that there’s a war on and it’s not a stable setup for a rally as much as we liked to think it is.”