U.S. equities are little changed Wednesday as Brent crude trades around $100 per barrel for the first time since July, keeping inflation and Fed policy at the center of the market debate. Around 6:00 a.m. ET, S&P 500 futures were approximately flat, Nasdaq 100 futures were up about 0.2% and Dow futures were modestly lower. Tuesday, the Dow fell 1.18%, the S&P 500 declined 0.58%, the Nasdaq lost 0.32% and the Russell 2000 fell 0.5%. Markets currently assign roughly a 60% probability of a 25-basis-point Fed hike next week.
Treasury yields edged higher Tuesday, with the 2-year up 2 basis points to 4.39%, the 10-year up 1 basis point to 4.79% and the 30-year up 1 basis point to 5.25%. The 10-year is around 4.81% this morning and the 30-year near 5.26% as higher oil prices reinforce inflation concerns. The DXY has eased toward 98.6 from Tuesday’s 98.86 close, while the dollar is near ¥153, close to a seven-month low, as expectations for a Bank of Japan hike and continued unwinding of yen-funded carry trades support the Japanese currency.
October WTI gained 2.74% Tuesday to $93.99 and is near $94.5 this morning, while Brent briefly traded above $100. Renewed attacks involving Iran, U.S. forces and Iran-backed Houthis have increased risks to both Strait of Hormuz and Red Sea supply routes. U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve inventories have meanwhile fallen to 285.4 million barrels, the lowest since November 1982. December gold fell 1.66% Tuesday to $4,402.50 but has rebounded toward $4,445 this morning as geopolitical demand offsets the pressure from higher rate expectations.
Today’s U.S. calendar is relatively light, with June Employer Costs for Employee Compensation due at 10:00 a.m. ET and Treasury’s latest long-duration bond-buyback announcement also in focus. The larger tests arrive Thursday with August PPI and Friday with August CPI and real earnings. Those are the final major inflation releases ahead of the September 15-16 FOMC meeting.
Company News by GICS Sector
Sector performance remained defensive Tuesday, although Energy and Utilities outperformed. Energy led with a 1.02% gain, followed by Utilities +0.85% and Real Estate +0.02%. Technology declined 0.19%, Communication Services fell 0.29%, Consumer Staples lost 0.48%, Consumer Discretionary declined 0.49% and Industrials fell 0.51%. Health Care was the weakest sector at -2.55%, followed by Financials -1.43% and Materials -0.91%. Breadth was even at 1:1 on the NYSE, while Nasdaq breadth was negative at 1.75:1.
Information Technology
- Qualcomm (QCOM +~2% premarket) is extending Tuesday’s gain after announcing a major AI infrastructure partnership with Amazon (AMZN). Amazon could purchase as much as $60 billion of Qualcomm AI data-center chips and related products under the long-term agreement, while Qualcomm granted Amazon warrants worth roughly $4 billion that vest alongside purchases and carry an exercise price of $161.26 per share. Qualcomm is targeting approximately $15 billion of data-center chip revenue by 2029, with Amazon joining Microsoft and Meta among the customers backing its move beyond smartphones.
- Nvidia (NVDA) and Arm Holdings (ARM) are also modestly higher premarket as AI hardware continues to outperform software. Nvidia, Qualcomm and Arm were up between roughly 0.2% and 1.7% in early trading. Tuesday’s session showed the same divergence: the S&P software-and-services index fell 1.4% while investors continued to favor semiconductor and data-center infrastructure exposure.
- Salesforce (CRM -~4% Tuesday), Intuit (INTU -~4%) and ServiceNow (NOW -5%) remain under scrutiny following another sharp software selloff. OpenAI’s release of GPT-6 Astra has revived concerns that increasingly capable general-purpose AI models could compete directly with functionality currently sold by specialized enterprise-software vendors.
- Apple (AAPL) takes center stage today with its first major product launch under new CEO John Ternus. Apple is widely expected to introduce its first foldable iPhone, potentially priced above $2,000, along with new Pro models and Apple Watch updates. IDC expects Apple could capture approximately 40% of the foldable-phone market by the end of 2027, despite entering the category years after Samsung and Huawei. Apple fell 1.2% Tuesday ahead of the event.
- Oracle (ORCL) reports fiscal first-quarter results Thursday after the close. Oracle previously guided to 27%-29% total revenue growth, 58%-64% cloud revenue growth and adjusted EPS of $1.72-$1.76. Investor attention will center on AI cloud infrastructure demand, remaining performance obligations and funding requirements for Oracle’s aggressive data-center buildout.
Consumer Discretionary
- GameStop (GME +0.6% premarket) reported second-quarter revenue of $790.2 million, down from $972.2 million a year earlier but above consensus expectations. Collectibles revenue jumped 57% to $356.3 million and now represents 45.1% of total sales, exceeding the contribution from new video-game hardware and software. GameStop raised its full-year adjusted EBITDA outlook to more than $650 million and ended the quarter with approximately $5.4 billion of cash, securities and digital assets, plus a $4.9 billion investment in eBay shares.
- Chewy (CHWY) reports fiscal second-quarter results before the open. Investors will focus on active-customer growth, Autoship penetration, margins and whether pet spending remains resilient despite broader evidence of more selective discretionary consumption.
- Starbucks (SBUX) remains in focus as investors increasingly shift from evaluating its traffic turnaround to assessing profitability. Comparable sales have now risen for four consecutive quarters and increased 7.9% in the most recent quarter, but investment in staffing and stores has reduced global operating margin to 12.9% from 15.8%, making margin recovery the next major test for CEO Brian Niccol’s turnaround.
Health Care
- Amgen (AMGN -9.8% Tuesday) suffered its worst session in more than two decades after Novartis’ experimental Lp(a)-lowering drug pelacarsen failed to reduce cardiovascular events in a Phase III study. The failure raised questions about Amgen’s competing olpasiran program, which targets the same cardiovascular-risk pathway. BMO Capital also downgraded Amgen to Market Perform, adding to the selling pressure.
- Roivant Sciences (ROIV +~20% Tuesday) moved sharply higher after experimental pulmonary-hypertension therapy mosliciguat met the primary and secondary endpoints in a Phase II study. Pulmonary vascular resistance improved 56.3% versus placebo, six-minute walking distance improved by 35.2 meters and a marker of cardiac stress declined 53.2%. Roivant has already begun a roughly 375-patient Phase III study.
- Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY) reported positive mid-stage results for experimental CAR-T therapy arlo-cel in heavily pretreated multiple-myeloma patients. The study met its primary overall-response endpoint and a secondary endpoint measuring complete elimination of detectable cancer in some patients. Bristol Myers said detailed data will be presented at an upcoming medical meeting.
Energy
- Exxon Mobil (XOM), Chevron (CVX), ConocoPhillips (COP), Occidental Petroleum (OXY) and the major U.S. refiners remain supported by crude prices near their highest levels since July. Brent briefly exceeded $100 as renewed attacks threatened both Gulf and Red Sea export routes, while Hormuz flows have recently fallen below 2 million barrels per day after temporarily recovering to 8-9 million barrels per day in late August.
- Higher crude is being partially offset by demand destruction. Sinopec’s research arm estimates Chinese oil demand will decline 8.9% in 2026, led by an 8.7% reduction in gasoline consumption and an 11.4% decline in diesel demand as high prices and electric-vehicle adoption weigh on fuel use.
Financials
- Robinhood (HOOD) is expanding further into prediction markets through a new arrangement with OG.com and Crypto.com. Robinhood will route certain football event contracts through OG.com’s federally regulated exchange and will acquire equity interests in both OG.com and Crypto.com. Prediction markets generated a meaningful portion of Robinhood’s recent transaction growth and have become an increasingly important customer-acquisition channel.
- Coinbase (COIN -3.1% Tuesday) and Strategy (MSTR -4.4%) fell as bitcoin slipped below $80,000 while rising Treasury yields reduced appetite for higher-beta financial assets. Crypto-linked equities remain sensitive to both the Fed outlook and ongoing congressional negotiations over digital-asset market-structure legislation.
- JPMorgan Chase (JPM) is expanding its corporate-banking business into Greece as part of a broader European buildout. JPMorgan has increased staffing in its corporate-banking operation across Europe, the Middle East and Africa by roughly 25% over the past two years, with Greece’s improving economic backdrop driving the latest expansion.
Consumer Staples
- Casey’s General Stores (CASY) is modestly lower after reporting fiscal first-quarter diluted EPS of $7.37, up 27.7% year over year. Inside same-store sales increased 3.2%, prepared-food and dispensed-beverage comps rose 4.8%, and inside gross margin improved to 42.2%. Fuel same-store gallons declined 0.3%, but fuel gross profit increased 19.6% as margins rose to 47.8 cents per gallon.
Industrials
- ABM Industries (ABM) reported record quarterly revenue of $2.3 billion, up 4.2%, with adjusted EPS rising 27% to $1.04 and adjusted EBITDA increasing 11% to $139.6 million. ABM raised the midpoint of its full-year adjusted EPS outlook and increased its free-cash-flow expectations after generating $128.4 million of free cash flow during the quarter.
