Nasdaq futures – US stock futures fell Wednesday as investors waited for the May CPI reading and reassessed the risk of renewed US-Iran hostilities. Nasdaq 100 futures led the drop after another tech slide, while gold slipped and oil steadied after fresh strikes that further c
Wednesday looked like the market was bracing for two things at once: the next inflation number, and the next turn in a US-Iran standoff that keeps interrupting hopes for peace.
US stock futures retreated faster as the day went on. Nasdaq 100 futures (NQ=F) were down 1.7%, extending Tuesday’s sell-off in tech. S&P 500 futures (ES=F) sank 1.2%, while futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM=F) fell around 1%.
The pullback in tech wasn’t subtle. Traders appeared to be sticking with a rotation out of the AI trade. with fresh jitters tied to concerns around OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) and Anthropic (ANTH.PVT) and their upcoming mega-IPOs. Against that backdrop, attention narrowed toward the May CPI report—scheduled for release at 8:30 a.m. ET—because the print is expected to intensify pressure on growth stocks if consumer inflation comes in hot.
The forecast is stark: prices rising 4.2% since last May. If that holds, it would mark the hottest annual reading in over three years. Markets would almost certainly translate that into stronger bets for an interest-rate hike landing this year.
CPI also sits uncomfortably close to the broader anxiety in markets about whether the war with Iran could force the Federal Reserve to stay tighter for longer. The expectation is that rising energy costs could flow into higher prices. tightening the link between geopolitics and monetary policy at the exact moment investors are trying to price the next move.
That tension showed up in commodities too. Gold slid past $4,200 as US-Iran hostilities drove a sell-off. Bullion fell as much as 2.1% to around $4,173 an ounce on Wednesday, after dropping 1.6% in the previous session. The decline accelerated after the US launched strikes against Iran in retaliation for the downing of a US military helicopter. adding to uncertainty over efforts to end the war that has roiled global markets and raised inflation risks.
Oil, by contrast, pulled back from losses after renewed strikes muddied the already fragile picture. Brent (BZ=F) crude climbed as much as 2% to trade above $93 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate (CL=F) rallied to $90—both had slumped in the previous session.
The sequence matters because it keeps changing the odds for any negotiation. The overnight round of violence came after a US Apache helicopter was downed on Monday near the Strait of Hormuz. Early Wednesday. President Trump posted on social media that Iran had “taken too long” to negotiate and would have to “pay the price.” Oil prices gained after that post.
After the bell on Wednesday, investors will also be watching a company tied directly to the AI churn and its economics. Oracle (ORCL) is set to report its earnings results. The focus is on details of Oracle’s cloud business, which counts OpenAI as a customer, as the AI trade continues to fluctuate.
Oracle’s position is tied tightly to OpenAI’s scale. The Sam Altman-helmed AI startup signed a $300 billion, five-year deal with Oracle in 2025.
For the quarter, expectations call for earnings per share (EPS) of $1.97 on revenue of $19 billion, based on a Bloomberg analyst consensus.
But the week’s bigger test for investors may arrive Friday, when Elon Musk’s SpaceX (SPCX) is expected to price its IPO—the expected largest public offering in history.
In the background, the US-Iran military timeline kept pressing on everything from risk appetite to inflation calculations. Tensions between the two sides ramped back up with strikes traded overnight. The US Central Command said the “self-defense strikes” on Iran were conducted under President Donald Trump’s direction in response to an Apache helicopter being shot down off Oman. Centcom described the action as “The mission is a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression,” posting on X.
Iranian reports pointed to new targets. Iran’s Mehr news agency said several explosions were heard on Qeshm Island and along Iran’s southern coast. Iran’s state-run IRIB News later reported that Iran launched a drone strike on the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. IRIB also reported that Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz had been struck. with at least six explosions. along with strikes in the Jask region near the narrow waterway.
Officials on both sides kept signaling they weren’t backing down. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a post on X that Iran “will leave no attack or threat unanswered.”
The market sensitivity to that rhetoric is easy to see when you track the pressure on the energy route. The latest clashes threaten a fragile ceasefire and risk extending the near-total closure of Hormuz. described as a vital transit point for energy shipments from the Middle East to global markets. Gold’s slide also traced back to the same worry: instability that could make inflation harder to tame.
Gold has already been under pressure even before Wednesday’s latest move. The metal is about a fifth below where it was trading before the Iran war broke out at the end of February. Its decline through its 200-day moving average—a widely watched measure of long-term momentum—has triggered additional selling as it’s seen as an important level watched by institutional investors.
Oil traders, meanwhile, are left trying to weigh brief bursts of calm against a chain of new strikes. The fresh US strikes imperil the stability of a shaky ceasefire in the region and the negotiations for a more lasting accord between the warring parties. Trump has repeatedly said that peace talks are on track. and he pointed to earlier flare-ups that involved Israel and Iran exchanging attacks.
For now. the market’s message is blunt: investors are stuck between a CPI number that could push interest-rate expectations higher and a US-Iran conflict that keeps making those expectations feel less controllable. And in the middle of that. tech—especially the AI-linked names investors are already rotating through—remains where the bruising keeps showing up first.
stock market today Nasdaq futures S&P 500 futures Dow futures CPI May US Iran truce inflation risks AI trade rotation Oracle earnings SpaceX IPO gold slides oil rebounds Strait of Hormuz