Oil Falls Back Near $80 as the Iran Standoff Cools. 3 Tech Stocks That Could Benefit the Most.

Crude oil has fallen back toward $80 a barrel, down from above $100 at the peak of this year's U.S.-Iran conflict, after the two sides moved closer to reopening the Strait of Hormuz and let shipments flow again.

The drop matters well beyond the gas pump. Surging oil had pushed U.S. inflation back above 4% and led traders to start pricing in the risk of a Federal Reserve interest rate hike later this year. As crude retreats, those inflation and rate fears are cooling -- and that has fueled a sharp rally in technology stocks, with the Nasdaq Composite jumping and Wall Street's main gauge of volatility sliding.

Lower rates, or even just lower odds of higher rates, tend to lift one group more than any other: highly valued growth stocks, whose worth rests on profits expected years down the road.

Here are three technology stocks that stand to benefit the most.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. Snowflake

Few large software stocks are as sensitive to the direction of rates as Snowflake (NYSE: SNOW). The data-cloud company is still unprofitable on a generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) basis, and its stock trades at about 17 times trailing sales -- a price that assumes years of rapid growth still to come. When the market frets less about higher rates, the distant profits baked into a valuation like that get discounted less heavily.

Fortunately, barring the fact that it remains unprofitable, it has shown significant progress in some key areas recently.

In its fiscal first quarter of 2027 (the period ended April 30, 2026), Snowflake's product revenue rose 34% year over year to $1.33 billion, and remaining performance obligations (contracted revenue it hasn't yet recognized) climbed 38% to $9.21 billion.

And management recently raised its full-year product revenue outlook, now pointing to 31% growth.

As of this writing, the data stock has nearly doubled from its April low, so the easy money may already be made. But of the three names here, Snowflake may be the most direct bet on fading rate fears.

2. Salesforce

Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) is a more measured version of the same idea.

The enterprise software company is solidly profitable and generates billions in free cash flow, so its shares aren't priced anywhere near as aggressively; it trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of about 12 -- a fraction of where it was a few years ago. That cheaper starting point means less rate-driven upside, but also less to give back if the relief proves short-lived.

In the meantime, Salesforce's business continues to perform well. Revenue in Salesforce's fiscal first quarter of 2027, which also ended April 30, 2026, rose 13% year over year to $11.1 billion, and its Agentforce line -- the company's push into artificial intelligence (AI) agents -- reached $1.2 billion in annual recurring revenue, more than tripling from a year earlier.

3. Oracle

No company here is spending like Oracle (NYSE: ORCL). The database and cloud giant is racing to build data centers for AI customers, and the bill is staggering. Free cash flow ran to negative $23.7 billion in fiscal 2026, and the company has guided for about $70 billion in net cash outlay for capital expenditures in fiscal 2027. To pay for it, Oracle is leaning on its balance sheet and the capital markets, with plans to raise billions more in equity and debt.

That puts the cost of borrowing at the center of the story. When the threat of higher rates recedes, financing a build-out this size gets cheaper -- and cheaper energy from falling oil may ease the cost of running so many data centers.

And the demand is there to justify the spending, at least for now. Oracle's cloud infrastructure revenue jumped 93% year over year in its fiscal fourth quarter (the period ended May 31, 2026), and its backlog of contracted business swelled to $638 billion.

The bottom line

Of course, if the Strait of Hormuz gets disrupted again, or if underlying core inflation remains persistently stubborn, oil could climb and rate-hike fears could return. And the Federal Reserve meets this week, adding another layer of uncertainty.

So, I'd be wary of treating a few good days as a reason to chase these stocks.

Still, if cheap oil prices do hold, more speculative stocks like Snowflake and Oracle could benefit more than a conservatively valued tech stock like Salesforce. But since Salesforce is already cheap and profitable, it may be the easiest of the three to own, no matter where crude goes next. After all, it's the businesses underneath that investors should focus on.

Daniel Sparks and his clients have no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Oracle, Salesforce, and Snowflake. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.