US stocks closed higher on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average gaining over 500 points. Investors temporarily looked past the recent declines in silver and Bitcoin, shifting their focus instead to earnings from tech giants and the January non-farm payrolls report. More than 100 S&P 500 index constituent companies are scheduled to report their earnings this week.
The Dow Jones rose by 515.19 points, or 1.05%, to close at 49,407.66; the Nasdaq Composite gained 130.29 points, or 0.56%, finishing at 23,592.11; and the S&P 500 index advanced by 37.46 points, or 0.54%, settling at 6,976.49. Investors are paying close attention to the earnings reports from Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Qualcomm (QCOM), Palantir (PLTR), and Disney (DIS), as well as Friday's US non-farm payrolls data, seeking clues on profit margins, AI expenditure, and labor market trends. Shares of data center company Oracle initially surged more than 3% after it announced plans to raise up to $50 billion to expand capacity for its cloud customers, but the stock reversed course late in the session, ultimately closing down 2.7%. The market temporarily overlooked the weekend's declines in Bitcoin and precious metals. Bitcoin fell below $80,000 for the first time since April 2025, signaling that investors were further de-risking following sharp drops in gold and silver on Friday. As questions surrounding artificial intelligence emerge, Wall Street has also turned its attention to Nvidia. According to media reports citing informed sources, Nvidia's plan to invest $100 billion in OpenAI has stalled. With Nvidia's management expressing skepticism about the deal, negotiations initially slated for completion "within weeks" have seen no substantive progress, effectively putting the collaboration on hold. Reports indicate that serious doubts have emerged within Nvidia regarding OpenAI's business model and long-term competitive landscape. The company's CEO, Jensen Huang, has privately voiced concerns about OpenAI's operational transparency and strategic direction. Analysis suggests that as giants like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon accelerate the development of their own AI chips (such as Microsoft's "Athena" and Google's TPU), Nvidia has recognized the significant risks of over-relying on a single client, especially one like OpenAI that may develop its own chips in the future. Furthermore, OpenAI is seeking a new round of financing with a valuation reaching hundreds of billions of dollars, and Nvidia also has reservations about the reasonableness of this valuation. Reports state that the two parties are renegotiating the form of collaboration, which may be downgraded to a smaller-scale equity investment (such as participation in OpenAI's new round of financing worth tens of billions of dollars) rather than the originally planned $100 billion infrastructure tie-up. Nvidia has repeatedly emphasized that the "initial agreement was not legally binding" and that it "still looks forward to continuing cooperation with OpenAI." During a visit to Taiwan in late January 2026, Jensen Huang responded by saying, "When OpenAI is ready, Nvidia would be very happy to participate in its financing," but did not confirm the $100 billion plan. Tim Holland, Chief Investment Officer at Orion, stated, "In our view, the bigger trends—most of which are positive—remain in place. What remains important are corporate earnings, the fiscal policy backdrop—which remains constructive even with the prospect of a temporary government shutdown—and seasonality." Heavyweight Earnings Season Arrives This week, more than 100 S&P 500 constituent companies will report earnings, including Amazon and Alphabet—both of whose shares rose on Monday. So far, this earnings season has been generally strong, but there have also been some high-profile sell-offs following reports, such as with Microsoft. Disney kicked off the week with earnings that beat analyst expectations. However, its stock fell 7% as the company warned of headwinds from a decline in international visitors to its domestic theme parks. Despite this, Deutsche Bank strategists noted over the weekend that profit growth is on track to reach its strongest level in four years. According to FactSet, approximately one-third of S&P 500 companies have reported earnings so far, with about 78% of them surpassing expectations. "If you think about what has made domestic investors worried about stock prices, it's valuation, particularly in the large-cap space," said Holland of Orion. "A fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit earnings growth... would go a long way toward alleviating these valuation concerns we've had for the past few years."
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