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THURSDAY US STOCKS: A SEA OF RED AND THE RED SEA

Wall Street started the day deep in red territory as big tech earnings failed to impress and widening hostilities in the Middle East renewed inflation worries and lowered the likelihood of a near-term, lasting peace agreement between Washington and Tehran.

All three major U.S. stock indexes slid more than 1% at the opening bell.

In early going, the big losers are airlines .SPCOMAIR, communication services .SPLRCL, consumer discretionary .SPLRCD and retail .SPXRT.

Industrials .SPLRCI and energy stocks .SPNY showed rare glimpses of green.

On Wednesday, after-hours earnings reports from two members of the "Magnificent Seven" cadre of AI-related megacaps—Alphabet GOOGL.O and Tesla TSLA.O—didn't satisfactorily clear the sky-high expectations bar.

Alphabet reported its cloud computing business posted its strongest growth ever, but the company's spending plans did little to assuage skepticism surrounding the massive investment in the nascent AI technology. Its shares were down 6.2%.

Tesla's stock slid 12.7% after the EV-maker reported negative free cash flow for the first time in more than two years.

The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran has metastasized through the region, with Iran-backed Houthis claiming they have attacked Saudi tankers in the Red Sea, creating another supply bottleneck.

Makers of war machinery .SPCOMAED were clear outperformers, rising 4.0%.

Brent crude LCOc1 hit $100 per barrel for the first time since May amid shipping disruptions related to the spreading Middle East conflict, returning inflation fears to the front burner and raising the likelihood of a rate hike from Warsh & Co before year-end.

A report from the Labor Department showed an unexpected 10.5% drop in weekly jobless claims, to their lowest level since 1969.

Here's where things stood at 10:02 a.m. EDT:

(Stephen Culp)

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