Stocks fell mostly lower on Wednesday as investors continued to monitor hour-to-hour updates to the U.S.-Iran war and its potential impacts on energy prices.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
The West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose again on Wednesday, adding more than 4% to settle at $87.25 per barrel. Meanwhile, international benchmark Brent crude futures gained about 5% to close at $91.98 per barrel. These gains in oil prices came even after the International Energy Agency announced Wednesday it would release an unprecedented 400 million barrels of oil from its more than 30 member countries' reserves to mitigate global supply disruptions stemming from the conflict in the Middle East.
"The oil market challenges we are facing are unprecedented in scale, therefore I am very glad that IEA Member counties have responded with an emergency collective action of unprecedented size," IEA Executive Director Faith Birol said in a statement on Wednesday.
Barclays equity strategist Emmanuel Cau wrote in a note to clients on Wednesday that a prolonged conflict in the region could keep oil prices near recent highs, as the key shipping route along the Strait of Hormuz becomes apart of Tehran's strategy against the United States.
"Trump suggesting the way may be ending soon, post an extraordinary surge in oil volatility, may imply his 'pain threshold' has been reached, in our view," Cau wrote, referring to President Donald Trump's comments this week at the conflict is nearing its completion. "The longer the oil spike persists, the higher the downside risk to earnings and valuations."
Elsewhere, consumer prices rose in-line with economist expectations for February, data from the Bureau of Statistics showed Wednesday, offering a final reading on inflationary impacts to American wallets before the start of the Iran war in March.
The consumer price index rose by a seasonally adjusted 0.3% for the month, bringing the annual rate to 2.4%. Excluding food and energy prices, core CPI rose by 0.2% in February and 2.5% year-over-year -- also coming in-line with estimates.
The inflation reading is also one of the last ahead of the Federal Reserve's next monetary policy decision on March 18, of which the majority of market participants are expecting policymakers to hold interest rates, according to CME Group's FedWatch tool.
On the earnings front, Oracle
"Thank God we have these coding tools now that allow us to build a comprehensive set of software, agent-based software, to implement, to automate a complete ecosystem like healthcare or financial services," Larry Ellison, co-founder, technology chief and executive chairman at Oracle, said during the company's earnings call with analysts. "That's what we're doing at Oracle. That's why we think we're a disruptor. That's why we think the SaaS apocalypse applies to others but not to us."
Looking ahead, market participants will watch the latest developments from escalating war in the Middle East as they prepare for Friday's personal consumption expenditures reading for January.
