STOCK EXCHANGE: Wall Street opened lower – Investors fear escalation in the Persian Gulf

Stock markets in the United States opened lower on Wednesday.

Shortly after the opening, the S&P 500 index was down 0.3 percent, the Nasdaq was down 0.3 percent, and the Dow Jones was down 0.5 percent.

Stock futures turned from rising to falling in the afternoon Finnish time, when fears of an escalation in the Iran war began.

Iran said on Wednesday that the US and Israel had struck the South Pars natural gas field in the Persian Gulf. For example, Bloomberg reported on the topic.

It is one of the largest gas production areas in the world, which Iran shares with Qatar. This would be a significant escalation in the war, as the aggressors of the war have not previously attacked energy production areas directly. According to Iran, the target of the attacks was also an oil facility located near the city of Asaluyeh.

The price of crude oil was rising again with the news. During the day, the price of a barrel of Brent crude oil rose by almost five percent above 108 dollars. In the morning, the price was still falling in the $100 range. European natural gas futures prices were down 1.8 percent in the afternoon.

Iran has already threatened its opponents with retaliatory strikes.

Chip giant Nvidia from the beginning of the week already painted a trillion, i.e. a thousand billion dollars worth of sales for this year, but later the CEO Jensen Huang clarified that taking into account all products other than AI chips, the turnover will be even bigger. Nvidia’s share was down 0.1 percent at the stock market opening.

Known for its sportswear Lululemon gave weaker-than-expected guidance for this year, and the stock was up 1.4 percent on the stock exchange. The company is looking for a new managing director as a turnaround agent, but, to the disappointment of investors, there has been no news yet.

The streaming giant Netflix the share was up 0.1 percent. Citi’s analysts gave the stock a buy recommendation and predicted that the company would raise the prices of its services in the United States.

Investors’ eyes will later turn to the Fed, which is scheduled to announce its interest rate decision at 20:00 Finnish time. The market almost certainly expects the central bank to keep the interest rate unchanged in the range of 3.50-3.75 percent. The main interest is the CEO who will step down in May Jerome Powell in the comments and how the Fed sees interest rates developing in the rest of the year.

Military operations in the Middle East in March have created uncertainty in inflation and interest rate forecasts. The Fed is expected to lower the key interest rate in October at the earliest, but interest rate movements priced until the fall are mostly a coin toss.