Brent crude slipped within twenty cents of $90 a barrel in early London trade Wednesday and U.S. equity futures hovered close to flat, as investors waited out the busiest earnings day of the first-quarter reporting cycle and positioned for a Bank of England decision Thursday that markets expect to deliver the year’s first European rate cut.

Brent for July delivery traded at $90.18 a barrel at 0730 GMT, down 38 cents on the session and roughly $2.50 below where it ended last week. West Texas Intermediate changed hands at $86.04. Both grades have now given back nearly two-thirds of the war risk premium built up in March, and several Wall Street desks shifted their second-quarter price decks lower over the weekend, with JPMorgan now penciling in $88 average Brent for the June quarter and Goldman Sachs cutting its end-2026 forecast to $84 from $92.

“The market is doing the OPEC+ rollback for them,” said Petra Lindqvist, head of energy research at Sundstrand Commodities in Stockholm. “Whether or not the cartel decides to claw barrels back in Vienna next month, the macro tape — soft Chinese demand, swelling U.S. inventories, a steady ceasefire — is already pricing crude as if those extra barrels never came on.”

The American Petroleum Institute’s industry survey late Tuesday pointed to a 4.7-million-barrel build in U.S. commercial crude stocks, which several traders cited as the catalyst for Brent’s overnight slip below $91. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s official inventory report was due at 10:30 a.m. Eastern.

S&P 500 e-mini futures were one point lower at 0700 GMT after the index closed Tuesday at 5,693, fractionally above its February record. Nasdaq-100 futures were flat. European equities opened mixed, with the Stoxx Europe 600 down 0.1 percent and London’s FTSE 100 flat ahead of the Bank of England.

Wednesday delivers the densest cluster of corporate reports of the season, with 51 S&P 500 companies on the calendar including Walt Disney Co., Uber Technologies Inc., Marriott International, McKesson, Emerson Electric and Occidental Petroleum. Pfizer Inc., which reported before the open Tuesday and beat consensus on both lines, lifted its full-year revenue guidance by about $800 million on stronger-than-expected oncology sales, sending the stock up 4.1 percent and giving the broader healthcare complex a tailwind into Wednesday’s trade.

“Pfizer was a useful data point,” said Daniel Okoye, chief U.S. equity strategist at Helverston Securities. “Companies that pulled or hedged guidance during the war are starting to put cleaner numbers back on the table, and the market is willing to pay up for clarity. The real test today is Disney, because parks bookings and advertising are both very direct reads on consumer and corporate confidence into the summer.”

FactSet’s blended first-quarter earnings growth estimate for the S&P 500 climbed to 8.1 percent year over year on Tuesday, up from 7.6 percent at the start of the week. Roughly 78 percent of index members have now reported, with 72 percent topping consensus on the bottom line. Defense, energy and large-cap technology have driven the upside; consumer discretionary names exposed to Gulf travel routes have lagged.

Treasury markets traded quietly. The 10-year yield held at 4.18 percent in early New York hours, the 2-year at 3.93 percent. Fed funds futures imply a 67 percent probability that the Federal Reserve will hold rates steady at the June 17 meeting, with the first cut now priced in for September. Minutes from the April 29-30 Federal Open Market Committee meeting were due at 2 p.m. Eastern and were expected to show policymakers debating how quickly the war-related inflation pulse fed through to core prices.

Across the Atlantic, the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee was widely expected to deliver a quarter-point cut Thursday, taking the bank rate to 4.50 percent. Sterling traded at $1.273 against the dollar. The euro firmed to $1.103, its strongest reading since mid-February, after preliminary April inflation out of Germany came in at 2.1 percent year over year, below the 2.3 percent consensus. The Japanese yen strengthened to 146.40 per dollar after Bank of Japan minutes showed an increasing share of policy board members open to a further rate increase before the summer.

Asian markets were broadly higher overnight as mainland Chinese investors returned from the Labour Day break. The Shanghai Composite gained 1.4 percent and the CSI 300 added 1.7 percent, helped by fresh property-sector measures unveiled by Beijing over the weekend and a 25-basis-point cut to the medium-term lending facility rate Tuesday morning. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 2.1 percent, led by tech platforms. Japan’s Nikkei 225 closed 0.5 percent higher, while South Korea’s Kospi added 0.7 percent.

“The China trade is finally getting some help from the policy side,” said John Reilly, a senior equity strategist at Citi in New York. “It is not the bazooka, but the combination of the MLF cut, the property package and a steadier yuan fix is enough to keep the reflation narrative alive for another few weeks. We are tactically adding to mainland exposure into the OPEC+ meeting.”

In commodities beyond crude, gold steadied at $2,498 an ounce after a three-session pullback. Copper traded 0.4 percent higher on the London Metal Exchange at $4.21 a pound following the Chinese policy moves. The Joint Maritime Information Center reported tanker transits through the Strait of Hormuz running at 99 percent of January averages, and London market war-risk premiums on Gulf hulls fell to 0.28 percent of insured value, the lowest reading since the conflict began.

Treasury Secretary Adrienne Caldwell was scheduled to brief congressional leaders Wednesday afternoon on the outcome of last weekend’s G7 finance ministers meeting in Washington, which produced a communique pledging coordinated support for Iraqi reconstruction financing and a review of secondary sanctions on Iranian oil exports. A senior Treasury official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said any sanctions changes would be “carefully sequenced” with ongoing Doha monitoring talks and were not expected before late June.

“Volatility has compressed about as far as it can go without a fresh catalyst,” said Layla Hassan, a Beirut-based regional analyst with Levant Macro Advisors. “Either the ceasefire wobbles, OPEC+ surprises in Vienna, or Chinese stimulus actually shows up in the hard data. Until one of those happens, the playbook is to clip coupons and trim hedges.”

Officials at the International Energy Agency said the next monthly oil market report would publish May 14, with traders watching closely for a downward revision to the 2026 global demand forecast.