U.S. stock futures are slightly lower in premarket trading as investors await key consumer inflation data and continue to monitor the U.S.-Iran war and oil prices.

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 9% 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. Crude is modestly higher today after reports that three carrier ships were hit by projectiles near the Strait of Hormuz.

February’s consumer price is due with economists projecting that headline CPI rose 2.4% on a year-over-year basis, which is the same as January.

On the corporate front, Oracle (ORCL) shares are up 10% after the cloud infrastructure company gave strong fiscal third quarter results and lifted its revenue guidance for fiscal 2027.

• Oil (/CL) – Oil prices are up almost 4.5% near $87.00 a barrel, despite a report that there would be a historic release of emergency reserves from the International Energy Agency. Reuters reported that the IEA would recommend the release of strategic oil stocks that would exceed 100 million barrels per day in the first month. It came after The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday evening that the IEA had proposed the largest ever release of oil from its strategic reserves, exceeding the 182 million barrels that its member states put on the market following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Countries are set to decide on Wednesday whether to release emergency oil stocks.

• Gold (/GC) – Gold Futures are down 1% near $5200, as the Dollar firmed up and Yields rose.

• Bitcoin (/BTC) – The Crypto Future is down about 1% near 69,600 in premarket trading.

• VIX – The CBOE Volatility Index was down 2.2% on Tuesday and settled at 24.93 as stocks were lower in choppy trading.

• U.S. Dollar (/DX) – The dollar is up 0.2% to 99.

• JPMorgan upgrades Oracle (ORCL) to Overweight from Neutral

• DZ Bank upgrades CrowdStrike (CRWD) to Buy from Sell

• Barclays upgrades Nike (NKE) to Overweight from Equal Weight

• No notable downgrades

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