Liz Moyer and Peter Nurse

Investing.com — U.S. stock opened lower Wednesday as investors digested key economic reports and monitored developments in Ukraine.

At 9:45AM ET the index fell by 34 points (or 0.1%), while the was at 0.3% down and the plunged 0.5%.

Wall Street’s main indices ended higher on Tuesday. The blue-chip closed 338 points higher, or 1%, and the broad-based gained 1.2%. Both registered their fourth consecutive day of gains. While the rose 1.8%.

There were also signs that the talks between Russia and Ukraine in Turkey had made progress Tuesday, which helped to set the mood. However, optimism has quickly turned into skepticism, with a Pentagon spokesman saying Ukraine’s capital Kyiv remains under threat even after Russia promised to scale back military operations there. 

“Nobody should be fooling ourselves by the Kremlin’s now-recent claim that it will suddenly just reduce military attacks near Kyiv or any reports that it is going to withdraw all its forces,” John Kirby said. It’s “a repositioning, not a real withdrawal” from positions around the Ukrainian capital.

Investors are also interested in a number of data releases. The Federal Reserve is currently weighing whether to raise interest rates aggressively at its May meeting.

The 2-year Treasury yield briefly climbed above the 10-year due to expectations of steep interest rate rises. This is often interpreted as an indicator of a coming recession.

The March report revealed that employers created 455,000 new jobs in March. This is slightly more than the consensus predictions. Meanwhile, for the fourth quarter, the reading was 6.9% which compares with 7.1%.

Micron Technology (NASDAQ) was a company that traded higher in the corporate sector after it provided a strong forecast for the current quarter. This suggests that there is still high demand for data centers.

Lululemon (NASDAQ) will be also in the limelight after Lulemon beat quarterly forecasts and announced a $1 Billion stock buyback plan. 

The oil price rose on Wednesday after a retreat of two days. It was reaffirmed by data showing that stocks had fallen sharply last Friday, bringing back the tight nature and volatility of the market.

The industry group, the, reported that U.S. crude inventories dropped by 3,000,000 barrels during the week ending March 25, according to data. Data from the is expected later in this session.

The oil market had dropped sharply this week on progress in the Ukraine/Russia peace talks as well as demand worries over fresh Covid-19 lockdowns in China, the world’s largest crude importer. 

U.S. crude oil futures were trading 3.8% higher at $108.27 per barrel by 9:51 ET. Contracts rose 3.8% to $111.81 

The price rose 0.9%, to $1,931/oz.

Original publication at 7 AM ET. Updated: