Wall Street opens Tuesday caught between a fresh oil shock and the year’s most important inflation report of the summer.

U.S. stock futures slipped early Tuesday. Dow futures fell 0.2%, S&P 500 futures declined 0.2%, and Nasdaq 100 futures shed 0.3%, extending Monday’s tech-led losses, according to premarket data reported by Yahoo Finance. AI-chip shares stayed under pressure, with newly listed U.S. shares of South Korea’s SK Hynix extending Monday’s slide after last week’s stock market debut. The Cboe Volatility Index, Wall Street’s fear gauge, jumped as much as 14% overnight to trade near 17.

Oil Jumps Again as the Hormuz Blockade Returns

Brent crude climbed above $86 a barrel by Tuesday morning, adding to Monday’s 9% surge — its steepest one-day gain since May 2020 — after President Trump said the US would reimpose a blockade tied to Iran and begin charging a 20% fee on cargo shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint that normally carries about a fifth of the world’s seaborne crude. WTI, the US benchmark, traded near $80, up more than 2% on the day.

The blockade takes effect at 4 p.m. ET Tuesday and covers Iranian coastal areas and ports, according to national-security reporters citing US officials. Trump framed the move as protection for global shipping, saying the US would act as the “guardian of the Strait of Hormuz” and would be “reimbursed” through the cargo toll — even though the US is not a party to the UN treaty that generally bars tolls on straits used for international navigation, and it remains unclear how Washington would collect the fee in practice.

Ship traffic through Hormuz had already fallen 52% week over week over the weekend, according to shipping-data firm Kpler, as vessels reroute or go dark to avoid the conflict zone. Both benchmarks remain well below the wartime highs of more than $100 a barrel touched in March, and futures markets still price Brent near $80 a barrel by December — a sign traders see the latest escalation as serious, but not yet a repeat of the worst case.

All Eyes on the June CPI Report

At 8:30 a.m. ET, the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the Consumer Price Index for June — arguably the most important data point of the summer for markets and for a Federal Reserve trying to decide its next move. Economists expect headline CPI to have edged down 0.1% for the month, pulling the annual rate to about 3.9% from May’s 4.2%, largely on a roughly 10% drop in June gasoline prices tied to a brief reopening of the strait earlier in the quarter. Core CPI, which strips out food and energy, is expected to hold near 2.9% year over year — still well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target for inflation — with a 0.2% monthly gain.

The irony is in the timing: Tuesday’s report reflects June’s calmer energy backdrop, not the blockade that just restarted. If oil stays elevated through July, the pass-through could show up in next month’s CPI instead — a delayed effect the Fed will be watching closely.

A Fed Caught Between a Hawkish Pivot and a Weak Jobs Report

The inflation print lands five weeks before the Federal Reserve’s July 28-29 meeting, after a volatile stretch for rate expectations. At his first meeting as Fed Chair on June 17, Kevin Warsh held the federal funds rate at 3.50%-3.75% for a fourth straight meeting, but the tone was unmistakably hawkish: nine of 18 policymakers penciled in at least one 2026 rate hike, and the post-meeting statement dropped its previous reference to further easing.

That hawkish shift was complicated two weeks later by a June jobs report that missed badly, with Non-Farm Payrolls rising just 57,000 against expectations of roughly 110,000. Bond traders have nonetheless kept lifting the odds of a July hike in recent sessions — a bet that a renewed oil shock, and the inflation risk it carries, could tip the balance back toward tightening even as the labor market cools.

Banks Kick Off Earnings, With High Expectations

Away from Washington and the Gulf, corporate America gets a reality check Tuesday morning. JPMorgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs all report second-quarter results before the open, with analysts expecting one of the strongest quarters on record for Wall Street’s biggest lenders.

What to Watch for the Open

  • 8:30 a.m. ET: the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the June Consumer Price Index.
  • 4 p.m. ET: the US blockade on Iran-linked shipping through the Strait of Hormuz takes effect, alongside the 20% cargo fee.
  • Pre-market earnings from JPMorgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.
  • Any comments from Fed officials on how they are reading the CPI print ahead of the July 28-29 FOMC meeting.

Tuesday’s session picks up where Wall Street’s best quarter since 2020 left off, now facing its first real test from an energy shock that shows no sign of fading before the Fed’s next meeting.

Sources: Yahoo Finance premarket and live markets coverage, July 13-14, 2026 (Grace O’Donnell, Jake Conley); Reuters reporting on the Strait of Hormuz blockade timeline via national-security correspondents; shipping-data firm Kpler; Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI release schedule; Federal Reserve June 17, 2026 FOMC statement and Summary of Economic Projections; Money.it International reporting on the June jobs report.