(Zonebourse.com) – Futures contracts on the S&P 500 (-0.2%) and the Nasdaq-100 (0.1%) augur a hesitant start to the session on Wall Street this Wednesday, shared between a still worrying situation in the Middle East and encouraging private job creation in May in the United States.
“The lack of progress in negotiations between the United States and Iran, combined with new military exchanges across the region, continues to support flows towards safe havens,” underlines Bas Kooijman, CEO of DHF Capital, who thus highlights the firmness of the dollar.
“Continuing tensions are also keeping energy prices high, fueling fears that inflationary pressures could persist longer than expected,” he continued.
Oil prices are thus on an upward trend, the barrel of WTI (West Texas Intermediatee) advancing 1.7% to 96.2 USD while the barrel of Brent rose 2.5% to 98.3 USD, thus approaching the symbolic bar of 100 USD.
“Oil markets will likely remain very sensitive to geopolitical developments and progress in negotiations,” warns Konstantinos Chrysikos, head of customer relationship management at Kudotrade.
“While persistent disruptions continue to support prices, any credible breakthrough and return to normal export conditions from the Middle East could gradually bring down crude prices,” he hopes.
Encouraging private job creation in May
However, in an encouraging signal for the American economy, the business services firm ADP indicates that the American private sector generated 122,000 jobs last month, a number roughly in line with the average estimate of economists, which was 117,000.
It specifies that eight of the ten supersectors generated jobs in May and that companies of all sizes hired, in particular the smallest (less than 20 employees) and the largest (more than 500), which created 49,000 and 40,000 jobs respectively.
“Hiring was more widely distributed in May than in recent years. The labor market continues to show sustained momentum as the summer hiring season approaches,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP.
Still on the subject of today’s American data, operators must still take note, shortly after the opening, of the composite PMI indices of S&P Global and ISM of services for the month of May, as well as industrial orders for April.
“These releases could offer new insight into economic momentum and influence expectations regarding the future direction of monetary policy, potentially generating volatility in the foreign exchange and bond markets,” warns Bas Kooijman.
Palo Alto and Medtronic expected to be in the green after their quarterly
In stock news, Palo Alto Networks is expected to decline at the opening, the day after the cybersecurity solutions group published figures that were better than expected for its 3rd financial quarter, allowing it to raise its annual objectives.
On the other hand, Medtronic’s quarterly results should receive a favorable reception, in view of off-day transactions, the medical technology group having notably ended its 2025-2026 financial year with the strongest annual growth in its revenues in ten years.
On the sidelines of this publication, it announced strategic investments in two unlisted companies, specializing in the development of intracardiac catheter technologies for intracardiac echocardiography (ICE), in order to strengthen its Affera system.
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source: AOF
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