STORY: U.S. stocks ended lower on Wednesday, with the Dow unchanged, the S&P 500 slipping a quarter of one percent, and the Nasdaq losing half of one percent.
Wall Street erased modest gains as tensions flared in the Middle East.
Sources said the U.S. was preparing a partial evacuation of its embassy in Iraq, after a senior Iranian official said Tehran will strike U.S. bases in the region if nuclear negotiations fail and if conflict arises with the United States.
Investors also awaited more details on trade talks between the U.S. and China after President Donald Trump said a deal was (quote) "done," with Beijing to supply magnets and rare earth minerals.
But amid the trade developments and geopolitical tensions, BMO Chief Market Strategist Carol Schleif says the stock market continues to show resilience.
"It's clearly a market that wants to look through the short term, whether it's exhausted or not, but it wants to look through short term noise and and stick with the long term fundamentals. And the fact is is the fundamentals keep coming through solidly. You know people thought we'd see more inflation out of today's CPI report and it's not being passed on. I think companies are either- They either stocked up, they're figuring out how to absorb some of it or and or they understand that consumers are just the consumers, have had it with inflation. And so, there's a big risk to passing it on."
The latest data on consumer prices showed they increased only marginally in May, while economists expect inflation to accelerate in the coming months due to the Trump administration's import tariffs.
Stocks on the move Wednesday included GameStop which fell more than 5% after the video game retailer reported a decline in first-quarter revenue.
And shares of Starbucks added more than 4% after its CEO told the Financial Times that it received 'a lot of interest' for its China business.
