Updated on: August 20, 2026 / 12:00 PM EDT
/ CBS News
A rise in oil prices on Thursday sent worries about inflation and yields in the bond market higher, erasing some of the relief the U.S. Treasury Department created the day before. A drop for Walmart following its latest profit report helped drag the U.S. stock market lower.
The S&P 500 slipped 0.4% and is on track for a fourth loss in the five days since setting its all-time high last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 430 points, or 0.8%, as of 10:15 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.7% lower.
The bond market remains the center of action after yields charged higher through the summer on worries about high inflation, gargantuan government debts and other factors. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made a move Wednesday that jolted financial markets to at least double the size of his department's planned purchases of longer-term Treasurys from Sept. 9 through Nov. 4, but more signals arrived quickly to push worries higher.
The U.S. government's debt topped $40 trillion Wednesday, a staggering record that arrived just months after the national debt first blew past the $39 trillion mark in April, because Washington continues to spend far more money than it brings in.
The price for a barrel of Brent crude, considered the international benchmark, climbed almost 2% Thursday to $93.90 per barrel. U.S. staple West Texas Intermediate crude was also up about 2%, trading at about $86.
Oil prices have been rising steadily since the beginning of August amid growing uncertainty about when the war with Iran will allow oil tankers to freely exit the Persian Gulf again.
The Vatican expressed "serious concerns" Thursday about problems with the implementation of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon, following a meeting between Pope Leo XIV and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun.
During a private, 30-minute meeting at the Vatican, Aoun urged the pontiff to support Beirut's push to secure the withdrawal of Israeli forces from south Lebanon envisaged under the agreement, the Lebanese presidency said in a statement posted on X.
"The Holy See, whilst welcoming the signing of the document, has expressed serious concerns about the difficulties being encountered in implementing it, and has pledged its support for efforts to that end," the Vatican said in a statement, according to the AFP news agency.
Lebanon and Israel engaged in U.S.-sponsored talks after the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the war in March by attacking Israel. Israel responded with massive airstrikes and a subsequent, ongoing ground invasion.
The framework agreement reached in June calls for the disarmament of Hezbollah, a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces and the deployment of the Lebanese army to the currently-Israeli-occupied region of southern Lebanon, starting in "pilot zones."
Despite a weeks-long lull in fighting, Israel has kept up intermittent strikes and heavy demolition operations in the south. Israel forces are operating in a strip of territory that stretches about six miles inside the Lebanese border.
Aoun called on the head of the Catholic Church to "support Lebanon's efforts to achieve a full Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Lebanese territories, paving the way for the reconstruction of what Israel has destroyed," according to the Lebanese presidency's statement.
An Iranian official said Thursday that President Trump's newly asserted plan to wage "economic warfare" on Iran is the result of American failures on the battlefield.