The situation in the Middle East has raised concerns about inflation, and Nasdaq technology stocks led the decline before trading

On March 2nd, the Nasdaq index led the decline of the US blue chip index before the market opened. Ipek Ozkardeskaya, an analyst at Ruixun Bank, said that the Middle East conflict could push up oil prices, raise inflation expectations, and bond yields, thereby putting pressure on the valuations of price sensitive tech companies such as NVIDIA, Microsoft, Apple, and Alphabet. Prior to trading, Nvidia fell 1.6%, Alphabet and Apple fell 2.7% and 1.2% respectively, and Nasdaq futures fell 1.5%.