Stock market today: Live updates

Stock futures oscillated around the flatline early Wednesday, as investors awaited key consumer inflation data and continued to monitor the U.S.-Iran war and oil prices.

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were 32 points, or less than 0.1%, higher around 4:30 a.m. ET. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures added around 0.1%. Earlier, futures tied to all three major indexes were in negative territory.

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 have grown in recent months. Economists polled by Dow Jones anticipate that headline CPI rose 2.4% on a year-over-year basis.

On Tuesday, both the S&P 500 and 30-stock Dow closed lower, while the Nasdaq Composite inched 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.

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.

“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.”

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 and then after Energy Secretary Chris Wright wrongly said the U.S. Navy had escorted a tanker through the Strait of Hormuz.

The rally resumed on Wednesday morning — despite reports of a potentially historic emergency oil release by IEA countries — as both global benchmark Brent crude and U.S. crude prices jumped around 2.5% to trade above the $85 threshold.

In a Wednesday morning note, analysts at Goldman Sachs said the IEA’s proposed oil release, reported to exceed the 182 million barrels of oil released after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, 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.

Overnight, it was reported that American forces had sunk several Iranian ships, including 16 minelayers, near the Strait of Hormuz, as Tehran was seeking to mine the critical shipping route at the center of concerns around oil supplies.

“We really think that the critical factor remains the war’s duration, so these releases of the IEA’s stocks really buys us a few days, but in reality, really it all depends on the opening of the Strait of Hormuz,” Sasha Foss, energy market analyst at Marex, told CNBC’s “Europe Early Europe” on Wednesday morning.

“This conflict needs to end by the end of the week. Otherwise, we’ll see oil prices spike back up over $100,” Foss said.