US stocks perked up on Tuesday, eyeing fresh record highs as investors fielded the latest rush of earnings and looked to the Federal Reserve meeting to confirm interest-rate cuts are on the way.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) moved up 0.6%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) added 0.6%. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) gained 0.3% after the benchmark ended above 6,800 for the first time. Stocks closed at all-time peaks on Monday amid rising hopes for a US-China trade deal.
Markets are bracing for the Fed’s two-day policy meeting, which kicks off on Tuesday, as traders price in a second consecutive interest-rate cut in its decision on Wednesday. The watch is on for clues from Chair Jerome Powell as to the odds of another rate cut in December, as Wall Street grapples with a data blackout caused by the US government shutdown.
Earnings season roars on, with reports from Visa (V), UnitedHealth (UNH), UPS (UPS) and PayPal (PYPL) among the highlights on Tuesday. The following days bring results from “Magnificent Seven” megacap tech companies including Alphabet (GOOG), Apple (AAPL), Meta (META), and Microsoft (MSFT).
Particular focus is on Amazon (AMZN) earnings after the company said it plans to cut about 14,000 jobs, as the online retailer and cloud services provider looks to pare expenses.
Later in the day, investors will listen to CEO Jensen Huang’s speech at a Nvidia (NVDA) event for insight into which chips the AI leader will be able to sell in China. The flow of its tech to that huge market has become a key battleground in the US-China trade stand-off.
Elsewhere on the trade front, Trump lavished praise on Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi as the US signed deals on rare earths and trade with Japan on Tuesday. He welcomed the new leader’s pledge to ramp up military spending, as the allies listed the Japanese companies looking to participate in $550 billion investment in the US.
On his first day in Asia, Trump also announced a flurry of trade deal developments with the likes of Malaysia, to bolster US access to critical minerals and secure markets for US goods ahead of the key meeting between Trump and China’s President Xi on Thursday.
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