‘United’ Airlines?: 8 Key Items Shaping the Stock Market Tuesday

AAP Market Comments: United Air, Abbott Labs, Applied Materials, Mastercard

These are the early headlines and other items poised to influence the market at the start of trading Tuesday. As we share this collection of market drivers, U.S. equity futures point to a mixed open. We suggest readers check back on U.S. equity futures after this morning’s March PPI report is released at 8:30 AM ET (more on that in item # 3 below).

1. Negotiating teams from the U.S. and Iran could return to Islamabad this week to resume talks to end the war, sources told Reuters on Tuesday, after the collapse of weekend negotiations prompted Washington to impose a blockade on Iranian ports. While the ‌U.S. blockade drew angry rhetoric from Tehran, signs that diplomatic engagement might continue helped calm oil markets, pushing benchmark prices below $100 on Tuesday. (Reuters)

This has the market cautiously optimistic, but whether the U.S. and Iran can close their differences on the U.S.-proposed 20-year “suspension” of all nuclear activity in Iran vs. Iran’s proposed five-year suspension is TBD. What we can say is that the longer the path to a peaceful settlement and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the greater the disruption we will be hearing about in the coming weeks.

2. The U.S. economy remained resilient in the quarter, with consumers still earning and spending, and businesses still healthy. Several tailwinds are supporting this resiliency, including increased fiscal stimulus, the benefits of deregulation, AI-driven capital investment, and the Fed’s asset purchases. At the same time, there is an increasingly complex set of risks — such as geopolitical tensions and wars, energy price volatility, trade uncertainty, large global fiscal deficits and elevated asset prices. While we cannot predict how these risks and uncertainties will ultimately play out, they are significant and they reinforce why we prepare the Firm for a wide range of environments. (JPMorgan Chase)

Those words are attributed to JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon in the bank’s Q1 2026 earnings press release. While we can understand the market’s forward-looking nature focusing on potential for renewed ceasefire talks, that risk assessment, along with the reaction to earnings yesterday from Goldman Sachs (GS) and Fastenal (FAST) , and CarMax (KMX) today, keeps us on a cautious path. It’s the “other shoe” dropping, as a result of tariffs, energy, related prices and the like, and those factors not being reflected in consensus H1 2026 EPS figures for the S&P 500, that we’re concerned about.

3. The March Producer Price Index (PPI) will be out at 8:30 AM ET, and the market consensus calls for core PPI to rise 4.1% on a year-over-year basis and 0.5% on a sequential basis. Core PPI figures were already marching higher ahead of the U.S.-Iran conflict. Based on Price component figures found in ISM’s Manufacturing and Service PMI data for March, we could see a hotter print than the market expects. Let’s keep in mind two things. First, pricing actions being implemented as a result of higher energy and petrochemical prices may not be fully reflected in the March PPI data or at all. Second, the “pipeline” effect between rising producer prices and the flow through of those higher costs to consumers. That will have us paying close attention to Fed speakers today, tomorrow, and the rest of this week.

4. Amazon.com Inc. is in advanced talks to acquire satellite operator Globalstar Inc. in a deal that would boost the tech giant’s efforts to build its own satellite operation, according to people familiar with the matter. (Bloomberg)

This potential tie-up was speculated about a few weeks ago, and given comments made by Amazon (AMZN) CEO Andy Jassy in the 2026 shareholder letter about Amazon Leo, we’re not surprised it has bubbled back up. One of the hurdles we mentioned when we first heard these rumblings was Apple’s (AAPL) ownership stake of 20% in Globalstar (GSAT) , and how that would need to be sorted out. Let’s see what the details of any announced transaction are and how it could reshape capital spending expectations for Amazon.

5. United Airlines Holdings Inc. Chief Executive Officer Scott Kirby has floated a possible combination with American Airlines Group Inc., according to people familiar with the conversations, an audacious proposition that would face intense scrutiny even under the business-friendly Trump administration. Kirby has pitched the idea to senior government officials, though it’s unclear if any overtures have since been made or if an actual process is underway to explore a deal… (Bloomberg)

This would be an interesting development to watch, but the odds of it happening, well… Let’s consider that United Airlines (UAL) and American Airlines (AAL) are among the top four U.S. carriers, which combined, account for more than a third of the market. Putting them together would create one of, if not the largest, airlines on the globe. This strongly suggests that any potential merger between the two would raise multiple antitrust questions and concerns from consumer groups, not to mention competitors. Could this start a wave of consolidation among smaller players, especially those that are less financially sound but still have attractive routes? Possible.

6. ASML Holding NV will omit the one metric that has driven its share price more than any other when it reports earnings Wednesday, injecting uncertainty into a stock nearing record highs. The world’s sole supplier of cutting-edge extreme ultraviolet lithography tools said last year it would stop publishing quarterly orders — a key indicator of customer demand — leaving investors to look elsewhere for clues on the outlook for advanced semiconductor production. (Bloomberg)

We are not fans of this, even if the company is doing it for competitive reasons, as we’ve seen other companies cull back the amount of information and data they share publicly. It means we and others will need to do more legwork and dot-connecting to determine the vector and velocity of demand.

Fortunately, we already know some of ASML’s (ASML) key customers are Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM) , Samsung (SSNLF), Intel (INTC) , SK Hynix, and Micron (MU) . When ASML reports tomorrow morning, we’ll be assessing its demand-facing comments, but we’ll also look to see if, given the company’s new stance on order data, it tightens its guidance range.

7. Economic data today per TipRanks: NFIB Small Business Optimism Index (March), ADP Employment Change Report (Weekly), Producer Price Index (March).

8. Companies reporting today per TipRanks: AM – Albertsons (ACI) , BlackRock (BLK) , CarMax (KMX) , Citigroup (C) , Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) , JPMorgan Chase (JPM) , Wells Fargo (WFC) .