Stocks are moving higher to close out the month, but the first quarter is still poised to be the worst for major indexes since 2022; crude oil prices rose again amid reports that President Trump is willing to end the Iran war without the Strait of Hormuz being reopened; gas prices have topped $4 a gallon on average for the first time in four years; Unilever and McCormick announced a merger of Unilever's food brands with McCormick; and Netflix is reportedly interested in adding more NFL games to its live sports calendar as it enters the last year of its Christmas broadcasting deal. Here's what you need to know today.

Stock futures are pointing to a higher open for the final trading session of the first quarter as a volatile month of trading fueled by concerns about the impact of the Iran War draws to a close. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq were each up 1% recently. The major indexes, which turned in a mixed performance on Monday, are on track to post their biggest quarterly losses since the second quarter of 2022. The Nasdaq Composite, S&P 500 and Dow enter Tuesday's session down a respective 10.5%, 7.3% and 5.9% for the quarter. Crude oil prices continued to rally this morning (more on that below), while gold futures were up roughly 1% at $4,580 an ounce. The 10-year Treasury yield, which affects interest rates on all sorts of loans, was at 4.32% this morning, losing ground for the second straight day after rising to an 8-month high of 4.44% on Friday. Bitcoin was trading around $66,500 recently, down from overnight highs above $68,000.

Crude oil futures rose further above $100 a barrel this morning amid the latest developments in Iran. The Wall Street Journal reported late Monday that President Trump has told people close to him that he could be willing to end the war with the Strait of Hormuz still closed, as pushing negotiations to the point that the Strait is reopened would extend the conflict. The plan would likely be to end the war with significant damage done to Iran's navy and missile capabilities, with political pressure to reopen the Strait to free trade likely coming later from the U.S. and potentially European allies. Late last week, Trump pushed back his deadline for the Strait to be reopened as part of ceasefire talks to April 6, after previously threatening to bomb Iranian power plants if the Strait wasn't open by certain dates. West Texas Intermediate futures, the U.S. crude oil benchmark, were little changed recently at $103 per barrel, after moving as high as $107 earlier in the session, trading at their highest levels since 2022.

As oil prices have surged, so have prices at the pump and elsewhere in the economy for Americans. According to the American Automobile Association, the average price for a gallon of gas is at $4.02 a gallon as of Tuesday morning. That's up more than $1 from a month ago, just as the Iran war got underway, and the highest point for gas prices since mid-2022, when oil prices had surged following Russia's invasion of Ukraine and post-pandemic travel demand picked up in the U.S. The average price of a gallon of hass is above $5 in California, Washington and Hawaii, while its above $4.90 in Oregon and Nevada.

Unilever (UL) is combining its food brands with McCormick (MKC), creating a new food conglomerate worth more than $60 billion. Under the terms of the transaction announced early Tuesday by the two companies, McCormick will pay Unilever $15.7 billion in cash, and Unilever and its shareholders will own 65% of the combined company at the closing of the deal. Several media outlets had reported overnight that a deal was close to being announced. The deal will put well-known Unilever brands such as Knorr and Hellmann's under the same corporate umbrella as McCormick's spices and sauces. "This transformative combination accelerates McCormick's strategy and reinforces our continued focus on flavor," McCormick CEO Brendan Foley said in the release. Also Tuesday, McCormick posted better-than-expected results for the first quarter. McCormick shares were up 1.5% in recent premarket trading, while Unilever's U.S.-listed shares rose less than 1%.

Netflix (NFLX) is looking to double the size of its NFL offerings to four games, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The streaming giant is in the final year of a three-year agreement to broadcast two games on Christmas, and is reportedly interested in adding two others, potentially an international game during the opening week of the regular season, and another that the NFL has considered adding on the day before Thanksgiving. Other streaming partners including Alphabet's (GOOGL) YouTube and Amazon (AMZN) are also exploring the idea of adding more games to their agreements, the Journal reported. Streaming companies have increasingly turned to live sports in recent years as a new area of content that could draw in new subscribers because of their consistent live viewership numbers.

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