US STOCKS-Wall Street set for lower open as investors monitor US-Iran tensions

Updates to before markets open

By Johann M Cherian and Utkarsh Hathi

March 10 (Reuters) - Wall Street's stock index futures gave up early gains and slipped on Tuesday, following comments from U.S. officials that suggested escalating hostilities in the Middle East, a day after President Donald Trump hinted at an early end to the war.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that Tuesday would be the most intense day of strikes against Iran, while top U.S. general Dan Caine said that strikes were being carried out against Iranian mine-laying vessels.

Travel stocks slipped following the latest comments, with United Airlines UAL.O and Delta DAL.O down about 1% each in premarket trading, while cruise companies Carnival CCL.N and Royal Caribbean RCL.N fell 1.8% each.

Investors had hoped for an early de-escalation after Trump said on Monday that the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran could be nearing an end, sooner than his earlier four-to-five-week timeline. Crude and natural gas prices also eased from the worrying $120-per-barrel mark.

Iran, however, said it would continue its oil blockade through the region, prompting Trump to threaten stronger military retaliation.

The market's trying to determine "if this is going to be an extended war and that's why the market's just kind of up and down," said Thomas Hayes, chairman at Great Hill Capital, adding that constraints on energy supplies were likely to be a short-term factor.

Surging crude prices since the start of the conflict have revived concerns that the U.S. economy could slip into stagflation and complicate the Federal Reserve's work, as data also suggested the labor market was weakening.

Traders have priced in a potential 25 basis point rate cut around September, according to LSEG-compiled data.

At 08:49 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis YMcv1 were down 123 points, or 0.26%, S&P 500 E-minis EScv1 were down 15 points, or 0.22%. Nasdaq 100 E-minis NQcv1 were down 20.25 points, or 0.08%.

Global markets, including equities in Asia and Europe, rallied, while Wall Street's fear gauge, the CBOE's volatility index .VIX briefly turned positive. It was last down 0.32 points at 25.18.

Two inflation reports due later this week will be scrutinized for how inflation fared before the Middle East conflict, though unlikely to reflect the recent surge in energy and shipping costs.

Overall losses on Wall Street, since the start of the war, have been contained, as technology stocks .SPLRCT rebounded, making them the best performing sector on the S&P 500 .SPX this month with a 1.4% gain.

Chipmakers were higher on Tuesday, with SanDisk SNDK.O and Western Digital WDC.O up around 1% each.

Bunge BG.N gained 4.6% after the agribusiness firm said it expects earnings to increase to at least $15 per share by 2030 and announced a new $3 billion share repurchase program.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise <HPE.N> forecast second-quarter revenue above estimates. Shares of the networking equipment maker gave up gains and were last down 1.7%.

Investors are keenly awaiting results from enterprise software maker Oracle ORCL.N, expected later in the day, and will scrutinize any signs of debt-fueled AI-spending. Shares of the company were up 1.2%.

Crypto stocks such as Strategy MSTR.O added 2.3% and Coinbase COIN.O climbed 1.8%, tracking a 2.2% rise in bitcoin BTC=.

(Reporting by Johann M Cherian and Utkarsh Tushar Hathi in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

((johann.mcherian@thomsonreuters.com))