By Sinéad Carew and Amanda Cooper
NEW YORK/LONDON, June 9 (Reuters) – MSCI’s global equities gauge managed a small gain on Tuesday with little support from Wall Street where heavyweight technology stocks stumbled while investors opted for safer bets, and oil prices settled lower as updates from the Middle East brought little clarity on progress toward peace.
On Monday, Iran and Israel had boosted hopes that tensions would ease as they said they would stop attacking each other. But U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Iran had shot down a U.S. Apache helicopter that was patrolling the Strait of Hormuz overnight, and he vowed to respond, without providing details.
This was after Israel attacked the historic port city of Tyre in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, killing at least eight people. Iran had warned on Monday that it would resume hostilities if Israel continued to attack its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said oil stockpiles in the world’s largest economies were headed toward their lowest levels since at least 2003. The EIA also said it expects global oil demand to decline in 2026, reversing its earlier forecast for an increase.
In equities, trading in Wall Street’s main indexes was choppy, with the S&P 500’s heavyweight technology sector falling as much as 5.5% before closing with a 1.8% loss for the day. Sahak Manuelian, managing director for global equities trading at Wedbush Securities, said investors were selling technology stocks and rotating into more defensive sectors such as real estate, utilities and healthcare.
“Today we tried to rally early, and it was very, very short-lived,” said Manuelian, adding that investors were shedding stocks that had gained a lot recently and preparing for the highly anticipated market debut of Elon Musk’s SpaceX this week.
“Investors are looking at their portfolios and seeing how much tech has moved and then also coming to grips with the SpaceX IPO, which is scheduled for this Friday, and probably have to bookmark some dollars for that. They’re trying to take some profits off some of these other things that have run so much in such a short period of time and probably looking to see where they can chase alpha in other sectors of the market,” Manuelian said.
INFLATION AND RATE WORRIES
Investors were also bracing for the scheduled release of consumer inflation data on Wednesday, according to Gene Goldman, chief investment officer at Cetera, who sees inflation concerns putting the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policies in the spotlight.