Traders work at the New York Stock Exchange on March 3, 2026.
NYSE
Stock futures rose on Wednesday morning, hinting at a tentative recovery after a volatile previous session.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 158 points, or 0.3% by 6:21 a.m. ET, reversing losses seen overnight. S&P 500 futures gained 0.4%, while Nasdaq-100 futures moved 0.5% higher after also falling on Tuesday night.
Major stock averages closed in the red on Tuesday, albeit far off their lows of the day. The S&P 500 slipped about 0.34%, while the Dow lost roughly 403 points, or 0.8%. At one point, the Dow Industrials fell more than 1,200 points. The Nasdaq Composite closed down 1%.
Each of the S&P 500’s 11 sectors closed lower. Materials was the worst-performing sector, dropping 2.7%, followed by industrials, down nearly 2%. Investors throughout the session weighed concerns about how rising oil prices could potentially affect the U.S. economy and future monetary policy decisions.
President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the U.S. would provide risk insurance to all maritime trade through the Persian Gulf, in an effort to get tankers moving through the Strait of Hormuz. Tanker traffic through the Strait — the world’s most vital transit route for crude oil — came to a halt after the Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander threatened to set fire to ships attempting the route.
Meanwhile, Israel said it had launched another round of attacks on Tehran, with the country’s defense minister vowing to “crush” the Iranian regime’s capabilities.
Brent crude oil futures pared back larger gains to trade 1.4% on Wednesday morning, while West Texas Intermediate crude futures advanced around 0.9%. Both ended Tuesday’s trading off their session highs.
“We are in the headline-watching business at the moment, with competing stories shifting market sentiment an hourly basis yesterday,” Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid wrote in a Wednesday morning note. “From a market perspective, the main issue is that there’s no sign of either side de-escalating, and if anything it looks as though things are still ratcheting up.”
As U.S. futures pointed to a positive open on Wall Street, stocks listed in Europe also staged a recovery on Wednesday.
“Amid all the noise we might be seeing some opportunities start to emerge in markets for longer term investors, in our view, especially if we start to see energy prices stabilize and potentially moderate in days and weeks ahead,” said James McCann, senior economist at Edward Jones, in a note.
Heading into Wednesday, traders will be watching the ADP private payrolls report. The Dow Jones consensus calls for 48,000 jobs added in February, up from 22,000 in January.
On the earnings front, traders will look for quarterly results from Abercrombie & Fitch, Broadcom and Okta.