Iran-U.S. talks and Ukraine-Russia negotiations in focus — progress in

Geopolitics will be the main theme of the day, with markets watching the high-stakes talks between the U.S. and Iran, as well as Ukraine and Russia, that are being held in Geneva.

The talks between Kyiv and Moscow represent the latest round of the U.S.-brokered negotiations between the countries as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nears its 4-year mark.

The talks kicked off on Tuesday and are expected to enter their second and final day on Wednesday, with no concrete agreements yet reported. Russia reportedly struck Ukraine’s power infrastructure on Tuesday, drawing condemnation from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Washington’s and Tehran’s negotiations appear to be yielding more progress so far.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that the sides reached a general understanding on “guiding principles,” Reuters reported, though that does not mean a deal on the countries’ longstanding nuclear disputes is imminent.

Still, Araghchi’s comments eased fears of an immediate conflict in the region, with oil futures down on Wednesday.

U.S. stock futures were trading slightly up on Wednesday, led by the Nasdaq which gained 0.25%. That was after a tepid session for U.S. equities on Tuesday, which saw major averages post slim gains.

Investors remain jittery about the impact of artificial intelligence. The software sector, which has already been under pressure due to fears of disruption by AI tools, continued to fall on Tuesday, with leaders such as CrowdStrike and ServiceNow losing 3.6% and 1.1%, respectively.

In an interview with CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal, the CEO of leading European start-up Mistral AI, predicted that more than 50% of enterprises’ current software could be replaced by AI.

He made the comments on the sidelines of India’s AI Impact summit which will continue this week. Major announcements have come from the event so far, such as a pledge from Adani to invest $100 billion into data centers in the country by 2035. 

Also coming Wednesday will be consumer price inflation numbers from the UK, a day after jobs data showed the UK’s unemployment rate rose to a 5-year high while wage growth slowed in the last three months of 2025.

Shares of German multinational life sciences company Bayer will be in focus after its Monsanto unit said it had reached an agreement worth as much as $7.25 billion to resolve thousands of current and future lawsuits regarding concerns that its Roundup weedkiller caused cancer.

Anthropic rolled out Claude Sonnet 4.6. The new and improved AI model is the company’s second major product launch in less than two weeks.

China exports add to freight trade slump for the…