US stocks drifted lower early on Tuesday after clinching record highs, as investors awaited a second wave of earnings from big Wall Street banks and oil prices fell amid ebbing concerns about Israeli retaliation.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures (YM=F) were little changed on the heels of closing above 43,000 for the first time. S&P 500 futures (ES=F) hovered near Monday’s new all-time high, while contracts on the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 (NQ=F) slipped 0.1%.
The rally is stocks is on pause in the countdown to quarterly results from Goldman Sachs (GS), Citi (C), and Bank of America (BAC) before the bell on Tuesday. Investors are watching for the same signs of resilience seen in Friday’s big bank reports, which lifted optimism about the economy and helped boost the Dow and S&P 500 to new highs.
As the rush of earnings starts to broaden out, market hopes are for further positive surprises in what some on Wall Street suspect could be a tricky season. Tuesday’s docket brings reports from Charles Schwab (SCHW), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), and UnitedHealth Group (UNH), Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA), among others.
Meanwhile, oil prices tumbled over 5% after a report that Israel is prepared to refrain from bombarding Iran’s crude and nuclear facilities in its response to an attack two weeks ago. West Texas Intermediate crude futures (CL=F) sank to just below $70 a barrel, while Brent crude futures (BZ=F) fell below $74 following The Washington Post report.
In chipmaker stocks, Nvidia shares fell 1.4% in premarket, slipping back from their freshly minted high. The US is looking at restricting sales of AI chips to specific countries by the likes of Nvidia and AMD (AMD), Bloomberg reported. On the up, EV chipmaker Wolfspeed’s (WOLF) stock surged over 20% on news it will get $750 million in government grants to build a new facility.
