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postUS stocks nudged higher on Monday, as pressure built on the dollar and gold rallied to lead in a big week filled with a Federal Reserve rate decision and Big Tech earnings reports.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) added 0.3%, and the S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose 0.2%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) ticked up 0.1%, following back-to-back weekly losses.
The sign of a cautious optimism on Wall Street came after President Trump said he would send “border czar” Tom Homan to Minnesota to manage ICE operations after the fatal shooting of a protestor. Investors were weighing concerns that the political fallout from the death of Alex Pretti could derail efforts to avert a federal shutdown, a prospect that helped stoke appetite for haven assets.
A weak dollar could also spur the already relentless rally in gold (GC=F), which topped $5,000 an ounce for the first time on Sunday and continued to rise on Monday.
Earlier, the dollar (DX-Y.NYB) dropped to a four-month low amid speculation that the US — in a rare move — could work with Japan on intervening to halt the yen’s slide. The US currency added to a sell-off spurred by Trump’s aggressive push for Greenland, as he threatened Canada with new 100% duties over a China trade deal at the weekend.
Currencies have largely taken a back seat to stocks since the post-pandemic market rally took hold and investors focused on earnings growth, AI-driven optimism, and the steady resilience of US equities. That said, some analysts believe that may be starting to change as Trump keeps turning to trade threats.
This week’s flood of earnings could test that view, in particular, the potentially pivotal quarterly reports from four of the “Magnificent Seven” tech megacaps. Microsoft (MSFT), Meta (META), and Tesla (TSLA) are slated to post results on Wednesday, and Apple’s (AAPL) update is set to follow a day later. Eyes will be on AI spending plans, after Intel’s (INTC) downbeat outlook last week highlighted challenges to the AI buildout.
At the same time, the Fed’s policy decision looms at the end of its two-day meeting on Wednesday, where the central bank is widely expected to hold interest rates steady. Wall Street is wondering how long the Fed will wait to make its next rate cut amid division among policymakers and building tensions with the White House. Trump has hinted he could name his choice of replacement for Powell as soon as this week, with BlackRock’s (BLK) Rick Rieder tapped as the favorite.
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Apple leads Big Tech names higher
Apple (AAPL) stock climbed 2.6% Monday morning, while Meta (META) added 1.6% and Microsoft (MSFT) rose nearly 1%.
The three tech giants and Tesla (TSLA) are set to kick off Big Tech earnings this week with reports from the latter two firms on Wednesday after the bell as investors eye AI cloud spending.
Then, one from Apple on Thursday afternoon could reveal further details about the iPhone maker’s long-awaited AI strategy since it inked a partnership with Google (GOOG) to use Gemini to power its AI apps and next-generation voice assistant Siri.
For its part, Tesla fell 2.5%. The EV-maker is set to release its quarterly results on Wednesday as well.
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Stocks rise at the open
US stocks rose at the market open to reverse mild premarket losses.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) added 0.3%, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) both ticked up 0.2%.
The gains come after back-to-back weekly losses for Wall Street’s major indexes as geopolitical tensions stoked by President Trump rattled markets.
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Natural gas resets over weekend
Natural gas futures (NG=F) reset over the weekend, gapping down by more than 25% as traders took profit.
Futures on gas had spiked significantly in the lead-up to the arrival of Winter Storm Fern, climbing by 75% in the trading sessions preceding Thursday to mark the biggest five-day gain since 1990.
Gas is the dominant source of heating fuel throughout the US, and the energy product often sees strong price action during the winter as customers throughout the country turn on their heaters and backup generators. Pipelines tend to run at or near their full levels through the winter, which much of their capacity taken up by long-term contracts signed earlier in the year — leaving little room to absorb a winter storm’s heightened demand.
During major winter weather events, such as Winter Storm Fern or 2021’s Winter Storm Uri that knocked out power throughout Texas’s ERCOT region, natural gas can experience significant volatility.
Even though this storm’s effects have been severe — as of Monday morning, more than 800,000 people throughout the US remained without power — there has been little new information to trigger another major surge upward in pricing.
As of Monday morning, natural gas futures were hovering around end-of-December prices.
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Airline stocks sink as Winter Storm Fern creates thousands of flight delays, cancellations
Airline stocks fell ahead of the opening bell on Monday after heavy snowfall and ice from Winter Storm Fern led to thousands of flight cancellations and delays over the weekend and into Monday.
American Airlines (AAL) fell 1.7% after the airline canceled over 1,800 flights on Sunday, the most of any airline, according to FlightAware. Delta (DAL), United (UAL), and Southwest (LUV) also sank more than 1%.
The hardest-hit airports included Boston’s Logan International Airport, Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, and New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
On Monday morning, there were more than 10,000 delays and more than 4,000 cancellations as the severe weather continued to impede travel.
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CoreWeave surges with Nvidia set to invest another $2 billion
Shares of CoreWeave (CRWV) jumped as much as 10% in premarket Monday as AI titan Nvidia (NVDA) said it is investing another $2 billion in the company.
From Reuters:
Read more.
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Dollar pressure mounts as traders reopen debasement debate
From Bloomberg:
Read more here.
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Gold rises after topping $5,000 for the first time in ‘breathtaking and profoundly scary’ rally
Yahoo Finance’s Ines Ferré reports:
Read more here.
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Premarket trending tickers: Freeport-McMoRan, Newmont, Sarepta, and Intel
US gold mining companies Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) and Newmont (NEM) climbed around 4% as gold topped $5,000 an ounce for the first time. Investors piled into safe-haven assets amid heightened risk of another US government shutdown.
Sarepta Therapeutics Inc. (SRPT) stock rose 7% on Monday during premarket hours after announcing on Friday that it will present three-year, topline functional results from its Phase 3 study of a treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
Intel (INTC) stock fell 1% before the bell today. Shares in the chipmaker fell 17% on Friday after the company said it expects losses to continue into the first quarter.
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Big Tech earnings, Fed meeting feature as markets end January with busiest week of Q1: What to watch
Yahoo Finance’s Jake Conley digs into what to watch in a packed week of megacap earnings and a Fed meeting.
He reports:
When two of the market’s biggest tech giants report earnings on Wednesday, investors will be watching for two things: How much are these companies planning to spend on their AI and cloud computing arms race, and how are they planning to fund it?
Meta (META) CFO Susan Li boosted spending projections from a range of $66 billion-$72 billion to between $70 billion and $72 billion on the company’s third quarter call in October, while Microsoft (MSFT) CFO Amy Hood said the company would spend more in 2026 than the $88.2 billion it spent in 2025.
… To fund this investment, hyperscalers are now issuing so much debt they are changing the landscape of investment-grade credit, Apollo chief economist Torsten Sløk wrote in a note on Friday. The tech sector issued nearly $700 billion in investment-grade debt over the past quarter, closing in on the just-over $800 billion in issuance by the financial sector, which has long led the credit market. (Disclosure: Yahoo Finance is owned by Apollo Global Management.)
While the share of people citing an “AI bubble” is falling, Bank of America strategists Haim Israel and Menka Bajaj wrote in a recent client note that investors can’t not consider the risks of bottomless spending and sky-high valuations.
Read more here.
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Revolution Medicines stock sinks after Merck deal talks collapse
Shares in Revolution Medicines (RVMD) tumbled over 20% before the bell after the Wall Street Journal reported that Merck (MRK) is no longer in discussions to buy the cancer drug developer.
The talks cooled after the two could not come to an agreement on price, the Journal said on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Merck and Revolution Medicines were looking at a deal valued at as much as $32 billion, focused on adding the experimental drug daraxonrasib to the US pharma giant’s portfolio, the Financial Times reported earlier in January.
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US Rare Earth stock surges as US takes 10% stake in $1.6B deal
US Rare Earth (USAR) stock jumped more than 30% on Monday before the bell after the FT reported that the Trump administration was planning to inject $1.6 billion into the miner and take a 10% stake.
Elsewhere in the market, rare earths firm MP Materials (MP) rose 4% alongside Lithium Americas Corp. (LAC), which climbed 5% following the news.
Reuters reports:
Read more here.
