NEW YORK — A roller-coaster day for oil prices showed how they’re dictating where financial markets and maybe even the global economy are heading. Stocks tumbled in Europe and Asia when oil prices shot higher early on Thursday, but U.S. stocks pared their sharp losses as the day progressed and oil prices fell back.

The morning began with the shock of Brent crude, the international standard, briefly rising above $119 per barrel, up from roughly $70 before the war with Iran began.

The jump followed intensified attacks by Iran on oil and gas facilities around the Persian Gulf in response to an Israeli attack on an important Iranian natural gas field. They worsened fears that the war could knock out oil and gas production in the Middle East for a long time, which would mean high prices could last a while and cause inflation to rip higher around the world.

Stock indexes dropped 3.4% in Japan, 2.8% in Germany and 2.7% in South Korea. But oil prices pared their big gains as the day progressed, the latest in their hour-to-hour swings since the war began.

Brent oil settled at $108.65, up only 1.2% from the day before, and then eased further as trading continued.

After briefly topping $101, a barrel of benchmark of benchmark U.S. crude settled at $96.14 and then fell toward $94.

That helped stocks on Wall Street pare their own losses, which were already more modest than in Europe and Asia because U.S. companies are less reliant on oil from the Middle East.