Stocks looked set to open in the green on Tuesday as the tariff relief rally kept rolling on, and investors braced for a Federal Reserve monetary policy meeting and a slew of Big Tech earnings.
Futures tracking the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 45 points, or 0.1%. S&P 500 futures climbed 0.2% and contracts tied to the Nasdaq 100 added 0.3% after both gauges again notched closing highs in the previous session.
Investors are in a cheery mood because of President Donald Trump’s trade pacts with Japan and the European Union, which have allayed fears about the Aug. 1 deadline for deals to be done before U.S. tariffs on imported goods snap higher. The focus will now shift to a fresh round of talks between the U.S. and China, which kicked off in Stockholm on Monday.
Two other factors that could move the market are interest rates and second-quarter earnings. The Fed’s July meeting kicks off today–and while investors overwhelmingly expect the central bank to hold interest rates at their current level, Chair Jerome Powell’s press conference could give a better sense of where borrowing costs are headed.
The likes of Boeing, PayPal, and Spotify are all set to report earnings Tuesday, and “Magnificent Seven” Big Tech behemoths Amazon.com, Apple, Microsoft, and Meta Platforms are all due to post their results later this week.
“Any tariff war risk built into stock valuations has all but disappeared,” Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Matt Britzman said. “Focus now shifts to China trade talks and a jam-packed week ahead, with a quarter of the S&P 500 index reporting earnings, a critical Fed decision, and no shortage of data poised to test the market’s nerve.”
The yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note was flat at 4.42% on Tuesday. The dollar rose 0.4% against a weighted basket of its peers, and gold climbed 0.1% to $3,313 an ounce.