Updated 1 min read
US stock futures were little changed on Tuesday after President Trump signed off on allowing Nvidia (NVDA) to resume shipments of flagship AI chips to China, with the start of a highly anticipated Federal Reserve meeting ahead.
Contracts on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM=F), the S&P 500 (ES=F), and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 (NQ=F) all traded flat, coming off modest losses on Monday for Wall Street stocks.
Nvidia (NVDA) shares rose roughly 2% in premarket trading after Trump said on Truth Social that the company can sell H200 AI chips to “approved customers” in China and other regions, provided that 25% of the sales value is paid to the US government.
Trump added that Chinese President Xi Jinping “responded positively” to the arrangement in a move that adds some security to Nvidia’s China business after months of trade-policy uncertainty.
Meanwhile, the spotlight turns to the Fed’s final policy decision of the year, set for Wednesday. Traders overwhelmingly expect a quarter-point interest-rate cut, matching moves in September and October. Markets are pricing in an 89% chance of that December easing, per the CME FedWatch tool. But prospects for further lowering of borrowing costs in 2026 are less certain.
On deck are corporate earnings from Oracle (ORCL), Broadcom (AVGO), Costco (COST), and Lululemon (LULU), with megacap AI and retail trends in focus.
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Trump moves to address Americans’ affordability concerns even as he calls those worries a ‘con job’
Yahoo Finance’s Ben Werschkul reports:
President Trump is hitting the road this week to address Americans’ affordability concerns head-on. But it’s a trip that comes as his rhetoric and actions often appear at odds with each other.
On one front, Trump and his team continue to dismiss the sense prevalent among many Americans that everyday costs are becoming harder to manage.
… On the other hand, Trump and his team have taken a series of actions in an apparent acknowledgement that affordability is more than a media creation.
Recent weeks have seen the president reverse some of his tariffs on grocery store items. He has also floated ideas like $2,000 tariff rebate checks and even 50-year mortgages to lower month-to-month costs.
… Trump’s approach clearly hasn’t helped his poll numbers, which offer a near-daily reminder that Americans have a sour opinion of his handling of the economy. The RealClearPolitics poll average of Trump’s approval rating on the economy stood at just 39.8% approval on Monday, compared to 57.6% who said they are unhappy with the direction of things.
The issue could be the president’s most glaring political vulnerability and a central threat to the GOP’s midterm election chances.
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Paramount rises price in hostile takeover bid for Netflix, backed by Trump’s son-in-law
Bloomberg reports:
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Natural gas loses more than 7% to fall back below $5, oil sheds 2%
Natural gas (NG=F) prices spent Monday in free fall, tumbling by more than 7.9% to drop back below the $5 mark.
After a cold shock last week that saw prices jump above $5, a mark not seen since December 2022, new predictions from meteorologists for a warmer-than-expected winter have pushed natural gas in the other direction in the steepest fall for the energy product since the end of June.
At the same time, monthly production in the US’ lower 48 states is at a record of 109.7 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d) in December, according to data from LSEG, up the previous high of 109.6 bcf/d set in November, adding to natural gas supply and depressing prices.
Moderating the price fall, average flows of gas to liquified natural gas (LNG) plants in the US also hit a new monthly high in December at 18.9 bcf/d, up from a previous high of 18.2 bcf/d set in November. When gas is sent to LNG plants, it decreases the amounts available for storage and winter heating demand use, tightening the market.
Elsewhere in the energy market, futures on crude oil also spent Monday in a downturn, as prices on Brent crude, the international benchmark, and US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude both fell around 2% on Monday.
Predictions of a coming global oil supply glut have in recent months moved from estimate to reality, and oil markets have begun to price in the abundance. And in a meeting with Indian Prime Minster Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow is planning to continue sending “uninterrupted fuel supplies” to India even as the US has ratcheted up pressure on Indian refiners to curb their purchases of Russian barrels.
