Monday was soft but not bad. Oil spiked then eased. Chips found buyers after last week’s beatdown. Tuesday morning futures are pointing higher and the week’s real action has not even started yet.
Stock Market Today: Dow Jones and S&P 500 Close Lower Monday
Dow lost 307 points Monday. S&P 500 slipped 0.2%. Nasdaq edged 0.1% lower. Losses that look worse in headline form than they actually felt in markets.
Oil briefly crossed $90 a barrel on renewed US-Iran tensions before pulling back during the session. That pattern has become familiar. Oil spikes on geopolitical news. Markets react with modest selling. Oil eases back. Selling stops. Same cycle running through the same week.
Underneath the surface something more interesting was happening. Last week’s biggest losers were finding buyers. Chip stocks specifically. Investors who sold aggressively last week were looking at Monday’s lower prices and deciding the selling had gone far enough.
Chip Stocks Rebound After Last Week’s Selloff
Micron bounced Monday. Sandisk recovered. Seagate was among the top performers in the S&P 500. All three had been hit hard in the prior week’s semiconductor selloff.
The recovery suggests Monday was more about bargain hunting than any change in the underlying AI narrative. Stocks that fell 10% to 13% in a week without any company specific bad news tend to attract buyers eventually. Last week’s panic became this week’s discount.
Asia confirmed that reading Tuesday morning. South Korea Kospi jumped 4%. Samsung Electronics up 7%. SK Hynix climbed 5.5%. Korean chip stocks had been the most aggressive sellers during the recent rout. Tuesday they were the most aggressive buyers. Volatility in both directions is the defining feature of this market right now.
Old definitions of corrections and bear markets are being tested. 10% down in a week. 4% up the next day. These are not normal ranges for major index moves. Reflects genuine uncertainty about direction rather than any clear trend.
Nasdaq Futures Point Higher Tuesday Morning
Dow futures up 0.4%. S&P 500 futures gained 0.5%. Nasdaq futures outperformed with 1.2% advance. Optimism around a potential ceasefire helping risk appetite alongside the chip rebound momentum.
Fed is in pre-meeting blackout period. Rate decision comes next Wednesday. No Fed speakers to move markets this week. Economic calendar is quiet. That leaves earnings as essentially the only game in town for the next few days.
Quiet macro backdrop combined with major earnings on the calendar means individual company results will have outsized influence on where markets go. One strong report from Alphabet or Tesla Wednesday could carry indexes higher. Disappointments from either would likely reverse Tuesday’s positive futures move by Thursday morning.
Alphabet, Tesla, and IBM Earnings Are This Week’s Biggest Events
Alphabet, Tesla, and IBM all report after Wednesday’s close.
Search advertising growth. As Alphabet is the cleanest AI revenue test of the week. Whether AI features are driving incremental business or just creating costs. Capex guidance expected around $200 billion for the year will be closely watched. Investors want to see spending discipline alongside growth.
Tesla comes in with record deliveries of 480,126 vehicles but questions about whether those deliveries were profitable at good margins. Robotaxi progress is what justifies the 349 times earnings valuation. Concrete updates matter more than general optimism.
IBM is a different kind of story. Already reported a preliminary miss that crashed the stock 25%. Full results Wednesday will add detail to what CEO Arvind Krishna previewed. Mainframe business losing deals to AI infrastructure spending. Company needs to show a credible path through the transition.
Intel follows Thursday alongside American Airlines. Intel down 13% last week during the chip selloff. Results and guidance could either stabilize the semiconductor sector or add another leg to the decline.
Four major earnings reports in two days. After two weeks of negative surprises from IBM and Netflix the market desperately needs something to go right. Alphabet has the highest stakes given its central role in the AI revenue story and its position as one of the market’s largest companies.