Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. <\/p>\n
NYSE<\/p>\n
Stock futures fell slightly Wednesday, as investors awaited key consumer inflation data and continued to monitor the U.S.-Iran war and oil prices. <\/p>\n
Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average<\/a> were down 93 points, or 0.2%. S&P 500 futures<\/a> and Nasdaq 100 futures<\/a> slipped around 0.1% each. Earlier, futures tied to all three major indexes were in negative territory. <\/p>\n Investors are awaiting February’s consumer price index due Wednesday, seeking clues on the strength of the U.S. market and economy, particularly after signs of a weakening labor market<\/a> have grown in recent months. Economists polled by Dow Jones anticipate that headline CPI rose 2.4% on a year-over-year basis.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, both the S&P 500<\/a>\u00a0and 30-stock\u00a0Dow<\/a> closed lower, while the\u00a0Nasdaq Composite<\/a>\u00a0inched up 0.01% on the day. Nine of the eleven S&P 500 sectors ended the session in negative territory, while communication services and technology posted narrow gains. <\/p>\n The broad market index is up 0.6% week to date, as fears about the Iran war have slightly eased, particularly after U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday signaled that the conflict could end soon.<\/p>\n “I think we’re in a period where we had a bear market already in software, the Mag Seven, and in crypto. I think that’s already taken out a lot of speculation,” Tom Lee, head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors, said Tuesday afternoon on CNBC’s “Closing Bell.”<\/p>\n Oil prices have taken dramatic swings week to date, surging to nearly $120 a barrel on Monday amid rising fears around the war in Iran. Prices slid on Tuesday, first on hopes that a group of nations would turn to emergency crude reserves<\/a> and then after Energy Secretary Chris Wright wrongly said<\/a> the U.S. Navy had escorted a tanker through the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n The rally resumed<\/a> on Wednesday morning \u2014 despite reports of a potentially historic emergency oil release by IEA countries \u2014 as both global benchmark Brent crude and U.S. crude prices jumped around 2.5% to trade above the $85 threshold. <\/p>\n In a Wednesday morning note, analysts at Goldman Sachs said the IEA’s proposed oil release would offset 12 days of their estimated 15.4 million barrels per day of export disruption. They said this could take $7 off of oil prices, assuming 50% of the emergency stock releases remain in OECD commercial storage. <\/p>\n