The Dow Jones Industrial Average
The 30-stock average lost over 85 points to settle at 46,58575, while the S&P 500 Index
Trump on Tuesday warned "a whole civilization will die tonight," in a post on Truth Social if Iran does not reopen the major shipping route before 8 p.m. ET tonight. The new threat follows Trump's call for the U.S. military to destroy all of Iran's bridges and power plants if the deadline is not met during a press conference on Monday.
"We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end," Trump wrote on Tuesday.
Investor sentiment was impacted further after multiple media outlets reported that the U.S. carried out strikes on Iran's Kharg Island overnight, attacking Tehran's major oil shipment facility. Crude oil futures were slightly changed at close on Tuesday, with the West Texas Intermediate rising to settle at $112.95 per barrel, while international benchmark Brent Crude ticked lower to end trading at $109.62 a barrel.
The U.S.-Iran war is beginning to impact U.S. consumer expectations, the New York Federal Reserve's March survey showed Tuesday, as food and gas prices climb higher.
"Year-ahead expectations about households' financial situations also deteriorated, with a larger share of households expecting a worse financial situation (the highest since April 2025) and a smaller share of households expecting a better financial situation in one year from now," the New York Fed said in a statement.
The war, and its long-term economic impacts, led UBS to slash its year-end target for the S&P 500 Index to 7,500 from its previous 7,700 -- implying a return of about 9.5% in 2026.
"We have become more cautious on equity markets that are highly sensitive to disruptions to energy supplies, including Europe, the Eurozone, and India," wrote Ulrike Hoffmann-Burchardi, global head of equities at UBS, in a Tuesday note to clients.
However, Hoffmann-Burchardi warned against investors fully withdrawing from risky equities, as "recent corporate and economic developments have also served as a reminder of why investors should remain engaged in markets, given the potential positives for risk assets over the medium and longer term."
One of the few bright spots on Wall Street on Tuesday was Broadcom
"This groundbreaking partnership with Google and Broadcom is a continuation of our disciplined approach to scaling infrastructure: we are building the capacity necessary to serve the exponential growth we have seen in our customer base while also enabling Claude to define the frontier of AI development," said Krishna Rao, chief financial officer at Anthropic, in a blog post late Monday.
For Wednesday, investors will broadly react to the the ultimate outcome of President Donald Trump's 8:00 p.m. deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz. Delta Air Lines
