Financial Markets Wall Street

Oil prices got back to jumping, while sinking technology stocks dragged Wall Street lower amid uncertainty about what the Federal Reserve will do to get high inflation under control. The S&P 500 fell 1.5% Wednesday after briefly erasing all of an earlier drop of 1.2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 2.2%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 1.7%. The price of Brent oil leaped back above $88 per barrel to add further pressure on inflation. The Fed pledged again to get inflation back down to 2%, but it offered few clues on how it would do so after holding interest rates steady.

Wall Street was poised for a rebound and oil prices fell modestly even as the U.S. said it had conducted a “heavy wave” of strikes against Iran. Futures for the S&P 500 jumped 0.5% before the bell Thursday, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4%. Futures for the tech-heavy Nasdaq climbed 1.3%. Markets appeared to shift their focus toward mostly solid corporate earnings while still absorbing the Federal Reserve’s decision a day earlier to leave its benchmark borrowing rate alone for the time being. Microsoft shares soared more than 9% after it breezed past Wall Street profit expectations. Oil prices fell about 1%.