Oil shot to its highest price since 2023 on Friday as the Iran war kept escalating, while a weak update on the U.S. job market highlighted the economy’s precarious position. It all raised the risk of a worst-case scenario for financial markets, and stocks are falling toward the finish of Wall Street’s worst week since November.

The S&P 500 dropped one per cent after a report showed U.S. employers cut more jobs last month than they created and after oil prices spiked above US$90 per barrel. It’s a combination that investors fear because neither the Federal Reserve nor any other central bank around the world has a good tool to fix both a weak economy and high inflation at the same time.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down…