What’s News in Markets: Campbell’s Snack Problem, Centene Sinks, Petco Optimism

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0:33Xavier Martinez:It's Saturday, March 14th. I'm Xavier Martinez for The Wall Street Journal, and this is What's News in Markets, our look at the biggest stock moves of the week and the news that drove them. Let's get into it. This week, the oil markets largely determined where stocks went, and the direction kept changing. Oil hit$100 a barrel Sunday night for the first time in nearly four years, But it fell sharply after President Trump suggested that the war with Iran may be close to an end. That, in turn, lifted major indexes, which started the week on the upswing. But that optimism didn't last. Iran escalated its attacks on the Strait of Hormuz, which effectively choked off traffic through the narrow waterway.

1:15Xavier Martinez:Oil flows dropped to under a million barrels a day, a fraction of the roughly 20 million that passed through in normal times. Midweek, the International Energy Agency slashed its oil supply outlook and coordinated a record release of emergency reserves. 400 million barrels from member nations, with the U.S. contributing 172 million from its strategic reserve. Oil briefly dipped on the news, then climbed right back above$100 a barrel by Thursday and into Friday, dragging down stock indexes. Even a relatively benign inflation report, which showed that February price pressures came in steady, failed to really lift sentiment.

1:57Xavier Martinez:The worry now is that sustained oil prices at these levels could reignite inflation and push the Fed to hold off on rate cuts. Brent crude oil ultimately ended the week at$103.14 a barrel, its highest settlement value since August 2022. And the major indexes all finished the week lower than they started. The Dow shed 2%, the S &P 500 lost 1.6%, and the Nasdaq fell 1.3%.

2:31Xavier Martinez:Campbell's continues to have a tough time winning customers on price, making it one of the week's worst stock performers. The soup and snack maker slashed its fiscal year outlook on Wednesday as weak appetite for its snacks weighed on its second quarter sales. Snack net sales fell 6%, driven partially by declines in chips and pretzels. Shares fell 7.1 % on Wednesday. Campbell's CEO acknowledged that the snack recovery is, quote, taking longer than anticipated. The company is now planning more promotions, possible price cuts, and what the CEO calls, quote, accelerated cost-saving initiatives. In other words, sell more, spend less, charge less.

3:14Xavier Martinez:That's exactly what its rival PepsiCo plans to do. Last month, the company announced plans to slash prices by as much as 15 % on some of its salty snacks, including Lay's and Cheetos. For the week, Campbell's stock ended down 16%. This week's results are just the latest chapter in a much longer slide. The stock has lost about a third of its value in the past six months.

3:44Xavier Martinez:Another stock suffering this week was Centene Corp., a managed care company that's caught up in the Medicaid rate turmoil. Health insurance stocks have been under pressure for a while now. Investors have grown wary after unexpected cost spikes and margin collapses, while insurers have been pressuring states to raise Medicaid reimbursement rates to keep up with those rising costs. Centene is squarely in the middle of that fight, with analysts also concerned about continued declines in the number of Affordable Care Act enrollees. While Centene reaffirmed its earnings guidance at a healthcare conference on Tuesday, that did not buoy investors.

4:21Xavier Martinez:Shares dropped 16 % that day and ended the week down 21%. The stock sell-offs of both Centene and Campbell's this week also underscore another emerging trend. Normally, when geopolitical tensions flare, investors rotate into so-called safe haven stocks, your consumer staples and healthcare names, for example. But that's not happening this time. Instead, energy and tech stocks have so far outperformed during the war with Iran.

4:54Xavier Martinez:One outperformer this week was Petco Health and Wellness. Investors cheered when the pet supplies company forecast a possible return to sales growth this year as it moves to the third phase of its turnaround plan. The retailer expects revenue growth for 2026 to come in somewhere between flat and 1.5 percent, a reversal of the 2.5 percent decline it registered last year. The stock soared 35 percent on Thursday. Petco CEO Joel Anderson, who took the helm in 2024 with a mission to return the company to sustain profitability, brought in a new leadership team last year with aims to improve in-store merchandise.

5:36Xavier Martinez:The company also has shuttered stores to cut costs. In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Anderson said the retailer is bringing back cheaper pet food and expanding their own private label brands. It's also adapting to changing consumer behaviors, focusing on pet parents who treat their dogs and cats like children, celebrating birthdays, and holidays with their fur babies. Petco ended this week a winner, up 52 percent. And now you know what's news in markets this week. You can read about more stocks that moved on this week's news in our live markets coverage on WSJ.com. Today's show is produced by Alexis Moore with supervising producer Jana Heron.

6:21Xavier Martinez:I'm Xavier Martinez. Have a great weekend and see you next Saturday.

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