Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on July 21, 2026 in New York City. <\/p>\n
Spencer Platt | Getty Images<\/p>\n
Stock futures fell early Wednesday as investors looked ahead to another busy day of corporate earnings, with several major technology and industrial companies set to report.<\/p>\n
Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average<\/a> dipped 90 points, or around 0.2%. S&P 500 futures<\/a> and Nasdaq-100 futures<\/a> were down 0.3% and 0.8%, respectively.<\/p>\n Earnings take center stage again on Wednesday, with reports due from ServiceNow<\/a>, International Business Machines<\/a>, Tesla<\/a>, Texas Instruments<\/a>, Alphabet<\/a> and AT&T<\/a>. Investors will be watching closely for updates on AI spending, cloud demand, corporate technology budgets and the outlook for the second half of the year.<\/p>\n Investors remain focused on whether strong demand for AI infrastructure and software will continue to justify elevated valuations across the technology sector as earnings season accelerates.<\/p>\n “Q2 earnings season is ramping up, but with most hyperscalers yet to report, the market is still waiting for the definitive read on how AI investment is being monetized and translated into future capital spending,” said Julia Hermann, global market strategist at New York Life Investment Management.<\/p>\n The major U.S. averages snapped a three-session losing streak<\/a> on Tuesday, supported by better-than-expected earnings from blue-chip companies including 3M<\/a> and General Motors<\/a>, which helped ease concerns about the health of corporate America. Chipmakers also fueled the rally, with the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH)<\/a> climbing 4% as investors rotated back into artificial intelligence-related names.<\/p>\n Fed rate hike bets rise as oil jumps <\/p>\n Investor attention is also attuned to developments in the U.S.-Iran war. <\/p>\n At the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ meeting in the Philippines on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said<\/a> Washington remained committed to diplomacy, but accused Tehran of violating the two sides’ agreement over the Strait of Hormuz. <\/p>\n “The problem we’re having right now is that they’re not serious about talks,” he said. “If they’re serious, we’re serious. If they’re not, then we will do what is necessary to protect our interests and also the interests of our allies.”<\/p>\n Tuesday saw the U.S. Central Command carry out its 11th consecutive night of strikes against Iran. <\/p>\n Centcom forces targeted Iranian military operations centers, maritime capabilities, aircraft hangars, drone storage facilities, and military logistics infrastructure.<\/p>\n The military unit said the strikes had been completed to “further degrade Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.”<\/p>\n Rubio said Wednesday that the strait \u2014 a critical shipping route for oil and other vital commodities \u2014 remains a sticking point in bilateral talks, alleging that Iran “demands the right” to control the waterway. Allowing this to happen would set “a very dangerous precedent” for the world, he argued. <\/p>\n “With no breakthroughs regarding Iran, the\u00a0market focus returned to inflation over the last 24 hours, as Brent crude closed above $90\/bbl for the first time in over a month, reviving fears about a wider stagflationary shock. And this morning\u00a0we’ve seen a further rise above $92\/bbl, so there’s little sign of oil prices easing as the U.S. confirmed overnight they’d completed an 11th consecutive evening of strikes against Iran,” Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid said in a note on Wednesday morning. <\/p>\n Oil extended its recent rally<\/a> as escalating tensions in the Middle East raised concerns about potential supply disruptions. Global benchmark Brent crude<\/a> futures climbed 2% to $92.89 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate<\/a> gained 2% to $86.01.<\/p>\n As energy prices continued to climb, investor bets on hawkish Federal Reserve policy measures mounted. <\/p>\n “The probability of a July hike was back up to 26% by [Tuesday’s] close, the highest since last week’s downside surprise in the U.S. CPI print<\/a>,” Reid wrote on Wednesday.\u00a0“It was at 45% the day before CPI and as low as 10% the day after.”<\/p>\n As of Wednesday morning, money markets were pricing in a 24.1% chance of a rate hike from the Fed this month, and a 69% chance of at least a quarter-point hike in September, according to the CME’s FedWatch tool. <\/p>\n In Asia, South Korea’s Kospi<\/a> led gains in the region, advancing over 5% while the Kosdaq rose 2%. Japan’s Nikkei 225<\/a> added 0.34%, while the Topix was little changed. Australia’s benchmark S&P\/ASX 200<\/a> was up 0.12%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index<\/a> was down 0.66%, while the CSI 300 rose 0.15%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on July 21, 2026 in New…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":951419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[291588,42179,68226,41909,4740,133,64,81,960,91320,144,9233,7994,152483,8116,170,7995,135,91322,143,7997,91321,145,7996,51320,134,16285,141,51305,67,132,68,146,108600],"class_list":["post-951418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-lco26u","tag-3m-co","tag-alphabet-class-a","tag-att-inc","tag-australia","tag-breaking-news-markets","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-chicago","tag-dow-jones-fut-sep25","tag-dow-jones-industrial-average","tag-general-motors-co","tag-hang-seng-index","tag-ice-brent-crude-oct25","tag-international-business-machines-corp","tag-japan","tag-kospi-index","tag-markets","tag-nasdaq-100-fut-sep25","tag-nasdaq-composite","tag-nikkei-225-index","tag-sp-500-fut-sep25","tag-sp-500-index","tag-sp-asx-200","tag-servicenow-inc","tag-stock-markets","tag-suppress-zephr","tag-tesla-inc","tag-texas-instruments-inc","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-vaneck-semiconductor-etf","tag-wti-crude-sep25"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=951418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/951419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=951418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=951418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=951418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}