(Updates with index/price moves, macroeconomic data and company/geopolitical news from the first paragraph.)
US equity indexes rose on Wednesday as government bond yields fell and crude oil climbed amid concern that hostilities between Washington and Tehran are taking a turn for the worse.
The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.5% to 26,217.83, the S&P 500 climbed 0.5% to 7,666.60, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.6% to 53,061.95.
All sectors, except real estate, rose. Materials and communication services topped the gainers.
The additional strikes Tuesday on Iran led to Tehran attacking Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait even though US President Donald Trump had warned that Iran would be "hit much harder" if it retaliated to the first strikes in over a month. "They will be hit again at a much harder and higher level, but it will not be the biggest attack of them all, that is waiting in the wings and, when it is over, there will be very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran!" Trump posted on Truth Social on Tuesday.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Iran will "continue to feel the squeeze" from the United States until it drops any nuclear weapons ambitions and ends support for armed groups in the Middle East, the Associated Press reported.
The Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps said two oil tankers exploded after hitting a mine and are now on fire, Al Jazeera, a Middle Eastern broadcaster, reported Wednesday.
The Iranian attacks "constitute a flagrant violation of sovereignty," the United Arab Emirates' Foreign Ministry said in a statement, Al Jazeera reported. The ministry reiterated its "support for all measures aimed at safeguarding" the "security and stability" of countries pulled into the war, the news report said.
The front-month US West Texas Intermediate crude oil contract rose 0.6% to $90.75 per barrel, and global benchmark North Sea Brent climbed 0.8% to $95.37 per barrel. Both crude types were down by more than 0.5% earlier in the session.
Most US Treasury yields fell. The 10-year yield declined 1.6 basis points to 4.78%. The two-year yield declined 2.7 basis points to 4.37%.
Gold futures advanced 0.9% to $4,436.3, and silver futures marched 0.9% higher to $65.94.
Meanwhile, ADP's monthly measure of private payrolls showed a 38,000 increase in August, below a 47,000 gain expected in a Bloomberg-compiled survey, following a 46,000 increase in July. Service-providing jobs climbed 48,000, with education and health services jobs up 45,000, while manufacturing sector jobs contracted 17,000.
"Pay can tell us a lot about today's choppy hiring," said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP. "To understand hiring patterns, you have to look deeply into where pay growth is accelerating, where it's slowing, and for whom. Once-predictable wage growth has been overtaken by the complexities of demographic change, persistent inflation, and AI's effects on jobs."
New orders for US factory goods rose 0.9% in July, above expectations for a 0.7% increase in a survey compiled by Bloomberg and following a 0.2% decrease in June. Excluding a 2.3% increase in transportation orders, new orders would have been up 0.6% after a 0.1% decline in June.
Dell Technologies (DELL) jumped 16%, the top gainer on the S&P 500, after the company reported higher fiscal Q2 non-GAAP adjusted earnings and revenue, and raised its fiscal 2027 guidance.
Palo Alto Networks (PANW) sank 9.3%, the worst performer on the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, as the cybersecurity firm's fiscal Q4 adjusted gross margin declined year over year.