What Happened?
A number of stocks fell in the morning session after President Trump declared the Iran ceasefire "over" and threatened fresh strikes, sending oil prices soaring and triggering a broad risk-off move.
Business services (staffing, consulting, payment processing, and outsourcing firms) are a bet on the pace of economic activity, so they tend to fall when growth expectations wobble.
A crude spike (Brent +7.5% to $79.65) revives inflation fears, and the accompanying jump in global bond yields raises the discount rate applied to these companies' future cash flows.
Also, corporate clients typically freeze discretionary spending on consultants and temporary labor when geopolitical uncertainty clouds the outlook. With Fed minutes due and officials having signaled possible further rate hikes, the sector's dual sensitivity to both slower activity and higher rates left it firmly in the red.
The stock market overreacts to news, and big price drops can present good opportunities to buy high-quality stocks.
Among others, the following stocks were impacted:
- Office & Commercial Furniture company MillerKnoll (NASDAQ:MLKN) fell 5.3%. Is now the time to buy MillerKnoll? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
- Office & Commercial Furniture company Interface (NASDAQ:TILE) fell 5.1%. Is now the time to buy Interface? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
- Professional Staffing & HR Solutions company Robert Half (NYSE:RHI) fell 4.9%. Is now the time to buy Robert Half? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
Zooming In On MillerKnoll (MLKN)
MillerKnoll’s shares are quite volatile and have had 18 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The biggest move we wrote about over the last year was 8 months ago when the stock gained 8.2% on the news that comments from a key Federal Reserve official hinted at a potential interest rate cut in December.
John Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, signaled he was open to lowering the fed funds rate—the key interest rate that banks charge each other for overnight loans—to support the job market.
Speaking at an event, Williams stated that he sees “room for a further adjustment” for interest rates, which immediately shifted market expectations. Following his remarks, the perceived likelihood of an interest rate cut at the Federal Reserve's December meeting flipped from unlikely to more likely than not.
The prospect of lower borrowing costs sent a wave of optimism through the markets, leading to a rally in major indices like the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the Nasdaq Composite.
MillerKnoll is up 5.1% since the beginning of the year, but at $19.20 per share, it is still trading 16% below its 52-week high of $22.86 from February 2026. Despite the year-to-date gain, investors who bought $1,000 worth of MillerKnoll’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at only $423.47.
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