Apple’s Changing of the Guard: 8 Key Items Shaping the Stock Market Tuesday

These are the early headlines and other items poised to influence the market at the start of the trading Tuesday. As we share this collection of market drivers, U.S. equity futures point to a positive market open.

1. The United States expressed confidence that peace talks with Iran would go ahead in Pakistan and a senior Iranian official said Tehran was considering joining, but significant hurdles and uncertainty remained as the end of a ceasefire loomed. (Reuters) US President Donald Trump said his vice president, JD Vance, is ready to leave for negotiations in Islamabad, but threatened to return to conflict if Iran doesn’t make a deal… Trump said a two-week ceasefire with Iran will end on Wednesday evening Washington time and has signaled he is unlikely to extend it. (Bloomberg) Trump has warned that if Iran doesn’t make a deal, it would face strikes that knock out all of its bridges and power plants. (WSJ)

Oil prices are moving lower this morning, and that is lifting U.S. equity futures. President Trump will be giving a live interview at 8:30 AM ET on CNBC, and the president’s message, the diction used, and its timing ahead of the ceasefire expiration make it a must-watch event. However, with Trump’s negotiating team leaving today, odds are that his interview messaging will largely reiterate what’s already been said. The outcome to watch, in our view, is what happens, or doesn’t, early tomorrow, keeping in mind the time difference between Washington, D.C. and Pakistan.

2. Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook will hand the reins to hardware boss John Ternus later this year, capping a 15-year tenure that turned the company into a business worth $4 trillion that spans watches, video streaming and financial services. Ternus will become CEO on Sept. 1, when Cook will transition to executive chairman, the company said in a statement Monday. Ternus, 50, has served as head of hardware engineering since 2021 and spent 25 years focused on product development at the iPhone maker. (Bloomberg)

Chatter for this move has been in and around the market over the last several weeks, and the outcome, with Apple’s (AAPL) Tim Cook moving from CEO to Executive Board Chair matches what we suspected. Reviewing Ternus’s tenure at Apple positions him as a “hardware guy,” but we would consider him more of a “product person,” which was something Cook wasn’t. Speculation is that Ternus could be more akin to Steve Jobs than Tim Cook, and that could re-invigorate Apple’s innovation efforts vs. the financial and operations-led ones under Cook.

While Cook will remain CEO until September 1, we’ll be very interested to see the role Ternus plays in Apple’s upcoming earnings report on April 30 and the WWDC 2026 keynote on June 8. I will share that as a person deeply steeped in the Apple ecosystem from a work-life perspective, having a product person back in the top seat at Apple has me more optimistic about Apple’s new product roadmap than I’ve been in some time. That said, we’ll check our preferences at the door and see not only what Ternus delivers but how effective a communicator he is with investors and Wall Street.

3. Amazon.com Inc. is investing an additional $5 billion in Anthropic PBC and may inject $20 billion more over time, a deal that strengthens ties in an increasingly competitive artificial intelligence race… In Monday’s announcement, Amazon said it would provide Anthropic with chips — both for general computing and AI accelerators — to reach about 5 gigawatts of power. (Bloomberg)

Much of the focus will be on Amazon (AMZN) diversifying its AI strategy, a move we are seeing at many other firms as they look to let customers choose their preferred flavor of AI. As part of the announcement, Anthropic said it’s committed to spending more than $100 billion on Amazon Web Services technologies over the next 10 years, including current and future generations of Amazon’s customer AI Trainium chips. This, along with other program wins, should translate into a sizable step up in deferred revenue and backlog at Amazon Web Services. Meanwhile, the extended commitment for Amazon AI chips will add to the growing strength of the tailwind behind our shares of Marvell (MRVL) .

And while the market will likely view this through a “only one can win” lens, remember that Broadcom (AVGO) is involved in Amazon’s chip efforts, and it has an existing relationship with Anthropic.

4. Alaska Air Group suspended its financial guidance, citing uncertainty as the war in Iran spurs unpredictable changes in fuel prices. The Seattle-based airline said it expects April fuel to be around $4.75 a gallon, with an average of $4.50 during the current second quarter. That represents an additional roughly $600 million in expenses and a $3.60 headwind to earnings per share, the company said Monday. (WSJ)

Figures peg Alaska Air’s (ALK) share between 5%-6% of the U.S. market, but its pulled guidance and Q2 2026 fuel price forecast will set the table for quarterly results after today’s market close from United Airlines (UAL) . Considered one of the “Big Four” U.S. carriers, United’s market share for the domestic market is ~20%. We have to half-wonder if United CEO Scott Kirby’s recent pitch to merge with American Airlines (AAL) was an attempt to take focus off the company’s upcoming Q1 2026 results and updated guidance. More to come on this later.

5. Malaysia’s Karex Bhd, the world’s top condom producer, plans to raise prices by 20% to 30% and possibly further if supply chain disruptions drag on due to the Iran war, its chief executive said on ‌Tuesday. Karex is also seeing a surge in condom demand as rising freight costs and shipping delays have left many of its customers with lower stockpiles than usual, CEO Goh Miah Kiat told Reuters in an interview… The condom maker joins a growing list of companies, including medical glove makers, bracing for supply chain bottlenecks as the Iran war strains energy and petrochemical flows from the Middle East, disrupting procurement of raw materials… Since the conflict began in late February, Karex has seen costs increase for everything from synthetic rubber and nitrile ‌used ⁠in manufacturing condoms to packaging materials and lubricants such as aluminium foils and silicone oil, Goh said. (Reuters)

Items 4 and 5 highlight the concern about input costs we’ve been noting over the last few weeks. Coming into this week, ~90% of the S&P 500 had yet to report their Q1 2026 results and update their outlooks to include items like those mentioned by Alaska Air, Karex, and others.

We’ll be listening closely for comments on both input costs and planned price increases to gauge the net impact on margins and bottom-line prospects relative to market expectations.

6. In addition to those developments and the array of companies reporting this morning, we also have the start of SpaceX’s analyst day and Kevin Warsh, President Donald Trump’s nominee for Federal Reserve Chair, appearing before the Senate Banking Committee for a confirmation hearing that begins at 10 AM ET today. We shared our view yesterday that the combination of these three events could make or break the recent market rally. We also dished on what we’ll be watching for in each.

7. Economic data today per TipRanks: Retail Sales (March), Business Inventories (February), Pending Home Sales (March).

8. Companies reporting today per TipRanks: AM – 3M (MMM) , D.R. Horton (DHI) , Danaher (DHR) , GE Aerospace (GE) , Northrop Grumman (NOC) , Quest Diagnostics (DGX) , Tractor Supply (TSCO) , UnitedHealth (UNH) . PM – Capital One (COF) , Interactive Brokers (IBKR) , Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) , United Airlines (UAL) .