Stocks are getting crushed. Near 2:30 p.m. EST, the Dow was down more than 400 points and oil broke to a new 12-year low around $26.07 a barrel.
And then: BOOM! Near 2:50 p.m. EST, the Dow was down just 220, the S&P 500 was off 18 points, and the Nasdaq was down 13.
And it looks like it all comes from this tweet from Wall Street Journal OPEC correspondent Summer Said:
OPEC is ready to cooperate on a cut, but current prices are already forcing non-opec producers to at least cap output, says UAE Energy min
— Summer Said (@summer_said) February 11, 2016
Right now, financial markets are all about oil prices. And any sign that OPEC — the 13-state cartel led by Saudi Arabia that has been a big part of flooding the market with oil — is going to pull back production to balance the market has the chance to make everything go nuts.
And so here we are.