U.S. stock futures are pointing higher Thursday morning, with the Nasdaq 100, S&P 500, and Dow Jones all in the green after a rough Wednesday. Investors are bracing for the May Producer Price Index and weekly jobless claims data due before the open, but the bigger story might be what's happening in the Middle East.

Tensions between the U.S. and Iran have escalated sharply. President Donald Trump warned that Tehran would "pay the price" for stalled peace talks, and the two countries have now traded direct military strikes. The instability is spreading—Kuwait temporarily closed its airspace amid incoming Iranian attacks. It's the kind of headline that usually rattles markets, but so far, futures are holding up.

The 10-year Treasury yield is at 4.53%, while the two-year sits at 4.12%. According to the CME Group's FedWatch tool, markets are pricing in a 98.3% chance that the Federal Reserve will leave rates unchanged at its June meeting. That's about as certain as it gets.

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) and Invesco QQQ Trust ETF (QQQ), which track the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100, respectively, were higher in premarket. SPY was up 0.81% at $731.39, while QQQ advanced 1.38% to $703.29.

Stocks In Focus

Oracle (ORCL)

Oracle Corp. (ORCL) dropped 8.87% in premarket trading despite reporting better-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter results. The company's remaining performance obligations rose, but the CFO warned that gross margins would be lower in fiscal 2027. That forward-looking caution spooked investors more than the beat.

Oxford Industries (OXM)

Oxford Industries Inc. (OXM) fell 6.61% after reporting mixed first-quarter results. The company raised its FY2026 earnings guidance but narrowed its sales outlook, leaving investors unimpressed.

CoreWeave (CRWV)

CoreWeave Inc. (CRWV) was up 1.35% after announcing plans to offer $3.5 billion in aggregate principal amount of senior notes due 2032, denominated in both dollars and euros. The AI cloud company is raising capital to fund its expansion.

Visa (V)

Visa Inc. (V) edged up 0.37% after announcing a partnership with OpenAI to enable AI agent payments. It's a small move, but the strategic implications are big—Visa is positioning itself at the intersection of AI and payments.

Adobe (ADBE)

Adobe Inc. (ADBE) gained 0.39% ahead of its quarterly earnings report after the bell. Wall Street expects earnings of $5.82 per share on revenue of $6.46 billion.

Cues From Last Session

Wednesday was a rough day for stocks. Most S&P 500 sectors closed lower, with industrials, materials, and information technology taking the biggest hits. Consumer staples and energy were the outliers, managing to close in the green.

Insights From Analysts

BlackRock remains overweight on U.S. equities, citing "contained damage to global growth from the Mideast conflict and strong earnings expectations – particularly in tech." The firm sees the AI boom as a key driver, saying it's "lifting U.S. corporate earnings, underpinning our U.S. equity overweight." BlackRock specifically favors "AI beneficiaries," like infrastructure and semiconductor equipment companies.

But it's not all rosy. BlackRock warns of persistent macro challenges, including sticky inflation and the transition to new Federal Reserve leadership. They're "closely watching how new Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh will address this mix of strong jobs growth, an uptick in job vacancies, and mounting wage pressure." The firm also notes that "macro anchors investors have relied upon – like stable inflation expectations – are lost." As a result, they're underweight long U.S. Treasuries and advise building portfolios around exposures rather than traditional asset class labels.

Upcoming Economic Data

Here's what's on the docket for Thursday:

• Initial jobless claims for the week ending June 6, due at 8:30 a.m. ET.
• May Producer Price Index and core PPI data, also at 8:30 a.m. ET.

Commodities, Crypto, And Global Equity Markets

Crude oil futures were trading lower by 1.03% in early New York trading, hovering around $89.10 per barrel. Gold rose 0.36% to about $4,086.20 per ounce, still well below its record high of $5,595.46. The U.S. Dollar Index was up 0.10% at 100.05.

Bitcoin (BTC) was trading 2.68% higher at $62,868.61 per coin over the last 24 hours.

Asian markets were mixed on Thursday. Australia's ASX 200 and India's Nifty 50 rose, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng, Japan's Nikkei 225, South Korea's Kospi, and China's CSI 300 declined. European markets were mostly higher in early trade.