5 things to know before the stock market opens Wednesday

Happy Wednesday. It’s CJ, back for another edition. The weather’s starting to cool down outside our Englewood Cliffs bureau, and, being a native Californian, I always get excited at the thought of a real autumn. But if you’re still in a tropical mindset, read on for news of a Caribbean deal.

Stock futures are lower this morning after a mixed day on Wall Street.

Here are five key things investors need to know to start the trading day:

Oil prices dropped for a fifth straight day Tuesday after President Donald Trump said delegations from the U.S. and Iran had a “very good” three-hour meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. Earlier in the day, Iran reportedly suggested it could reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if the U.S. eases its military pressure and lifts its blockade on Iranian ports.

Here’s what to know:

• U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures are now on their longest losing streak since February, while Brent crude futures are on their longest losing streak in more than a year.
• Still, fuel prices are at record highs. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said yesterday that the Trump administration is considering fully or partially banning diesel exports to help ease prices — something Trump said he’s pushed for in internal administration discussions.
• House lawmakers have introduced a slew of new bills this month aimed at lessening the impact of gas and fuel prices on Americans’ budgets, including floating a tax deduction.
• The Nasdaq Composite closed at a record for a second straight session yesterday, while the S&P 500 finished the day relatively flat.
• Follow live market updates here.

Trump defended his decision to go to war with Iran in his Tuesday address to the United Nations General Assembly, saying he now has a “big decision” to make on whether to make a deal with Tehran or “annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly.” Iran’s military responded to Trump’s comments this morning, calling his threats a sign of “strategic desperation.”

In his speech, Trump also touted a new military deal with the leaders of Greenland and Denmark that allows the U.S. to expand its military presence on the island. The agreement, signed on the sidelines of the U.N. gathering yesterday, follows repeated calls from Trump during his second term for the U.S. to take control of Greenland.

But it wasn’t just geopolitics: Trump repeated his pledge not to “stifle growth” of artificial intelligence, which he dubbed “super intelligence.” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei are expected to brief the U.N. Security Council in a meeting this week.

Speaking of the frontier AI labs, Anthropic and OpenAI both announced new, lower-cost models on Tuesday. For OpenAI, that’s coming in the form of additional tiers to its GPT-6 family, while Anthropic is unveiling Claude Opus 5.5, its latest in its new Claude 5.5 model family.

The two labs are facing ongoing pressure from companies and startups offering cheaper open-weight models, particularly as cost-conscious customers look to rein in their AI spending.

The releases are the companies’ first rollouts since Amodei called for an industry-wide slowdown in developing advanced AI in response to growing fears about the technology’s safety. Altman and SpaceX’s Elon Musk quickly backed Amodei’s push for deceleration.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said yesterday that it canceled about 315,000 Affordable Care Act marketplace enrollments that covered roughly 760,000 people last month. The agency alleged there were unauthorized enrollments into the program, which Vice President JD Vance characterized as “rampant fraud.”

As CNBC’s Annika Kim Constantino reports, it’s unclear how many of those 315,000 enrollments involved people who weren’t eligible to receive coverage. The Trump administration has made widespread accusations of fraud in national health programs.

Anchors are aweigh on a new travel tie-up. Royal Caribbean is taking a 50% equity stake in Sandals in a $3 billion deal, the two companies announced today. The agreement, which is expected to close early next year, values Sandals at $6 billion.

As CNBC’s Contessa Brewer reports, Royal Caribbean has been aiming to diversify its vacation offerings beyond its luxury cruises and private destinations. Shares of the cruise company fell 6% in Tuesday’s session amid reports that it was nearing a deal with the Caribbean resort chain.