Driven by intertwined bearish factors including US-Iran geopolitical tensions, surging crude prices and climbing US Treasury yields, three major US stock benchmarks closed sharply lower on Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 620.72 points or 1.21%, with Nasdaq and S&P 500 falling in tandem. Most tech giants, Chinese concept stocks and quantum computing shares retreated while Meta outperformed, and commodities diverged sharply between rising oil and falling precious metals amid rising risk aversion across global markets.

Most leading US tech names retreated in intraday trading: Nvidia shed 3.62%, Microsoft dropped 3.17%, followed by declines of Amazon, Netflix, Apple and Alphabet; Tesla edged down merely 0.01%, while Meta jumped 4.24% as the sole bright spot in large-cap tech space. After a long rally, the quantum computing sector saw widespread profit-taking: Rigetti, D-Wave, IonQ and IBM all dipped, with IBM losing 7.17% despite its USD10-billion investment plan for quantum business. US-listed Chinese equities also slumped, as Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index lost 2.47%, with Futu, Tiger Brokers, Bilibili, NIO, PDD and Alibaba down over 2% on average amid broad fund outflows.

Multiple macro indicators dominated market sentiment. While US President Trump hinted a possible Iran peace deal by this weekend, US House passed a bill restricting presidential military power against Iran, keeping geopolitical uncertainties high and lifting international crude prices: WTI rose 2.41% and Brent climbed nearly 2%. Robust US May ADP employment and steady service sector expansion pushed the 10Y Treasury yield near 4.5% and 30Y close to 5%. CME FedWatch data priced in a possible 25bp Fed rate hike before year-end, evaporating previous rate-cut hopes and dragging equities down.

The Fed’s Beige Book reflected uneven US economic recovery: gains mainly accrued to high-income households while middle and low-income groups squeezed spending amid elevated inflation. In primary market, SpaceX set its IPO price at $135 to raise USD75 billion, and Anthropic hired top global banks for its upcoming multi-billion listing.

Commodity market showed stark divergence: geopolitical premium fueled oil rally, whereas higher bond yields weighed on bullion, with COMEX gold down 1.34% and silver tumbling 3.50%. In the short run, Iran-US negotiation progress and US yield swings will keep steering global asset pricing.