Wall Street is modestly lower in premarket trading and oil prices settled despite lingering uncertainty about when the Strait of Hormuz will reopen to the global flow of oil again.
Futures for the S&P 500 ticked up 0.1% before the opening bell Tuesday, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average nudged down 0.1%. Nasdaq futures rose 0.3%.
Oil prices were on their way up again before suddenly reversing course early Tuesday. After being up about 2.5% early, Brent crude oil was down a few pennies at $87.61 a barrel, while U.S. benchmark crude ticked up a couple cents to $82.19 a barrel.
A day earlier, oil jumped more than 5% after U.S. President Donald Trump scoffed at demands from Iran that the U.S. pay for devastation caused by five months of war as one condition for reopening the strait.
Shares of major U.S. oil companies — including Chevron, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips — were close to unchanged early Tuesday after jumping 4.5% on Monday.
