U.S. stocks reversed course to trade higher during Monday's early session, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbing 160 points. Market participants are closely monitoring the latest movements in precious metals and Bitcoin. More than 100 companies within the S&P 500 index are scheduled to report their earnings this week.
The Dow Jones rose by 164.96 points, or 0.34%, to 49,057.43; the Nasdaq Composite increased by 68.81 points, or 0.29%, to 23,530.62; and the S&P 500 gained 17.25 points, or 0.25%, to reach 6,956.28. Bitcoin fell below the $80,000 mark for the first time since April 2025, signaling that investors are further de-risking following a sharp sell-off in gold and silver on Friday. Silver prices, which had more than doubled over the past 12 months, plummeted by approximately 30% last Friday. This marks the metal's worst single-day performance since 1980. Gold also experienced a significant decline, dropping about 9%. Currently, both Bitcoin and precious metals prices have recovered somewhat from their respective lows, which has helped to alleviate some risk-off sentiment. Bitcoin was last trading above $77,000, while spot gold and spot silver were both down more than 1%. As questions related to artificial intelligence (AI) emerge, Wall Street is also turning its attention to Nvidia. According to media reports citing informed sources, Nvidia's plan to invest $100 billion in OpenAI has stalled. As Nvidia's management expressed skepticism about the deal, negotiations originally slated to conclude "within weeks" have seen no substantial progress, effectively putting the collaboration on hold. The reports indicated 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. Analysts point out that as tech 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 risk of over-relying on a single client, especially one like OpenAI that may potentially build its own chips in the future. Furthermore, as OpenAI seeks a new round of financing with a valuation reaching hundreds of billions of dollars, Nvidia also has reservations about the reasonableness of this valuation. Reports suggest that the two parties are renegotiating the form of their collaboration, potentially downgrading it to a smaller-scale equity investment (for example, participating in OpenAI's new multi-billion dollar financing round) rather than the originally planned $100 billion infrastructure partnership. Nvidia officials have repeatedly emphasized that the "initial agreement was not legally binding" and that they "still look 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. This week, more than 100 S&P 500 constituent companies are set to release their earnings reports, including Amazon and Alphabet. So far, the overall earnings season has been strong, but there have been some high-profile post-earnings sell-offs, such as with Microsoft. Despite this, Deutsche Bank strategists noted over the weekend that profit growth is on track to reach its strongest level in four years. On Monday, Disney reported earnings that exceeded analyst expectations. Wall Street is also awaiting the U.S. January jobs report, due Friday morning. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expect the economy to have added 55,000 jobs last month. The market is also digesting news that U.S. President Trump has nominated Kevin Warsh as his choice for Federal Reserve Chair. If confirmed, Warsh would succeed Jerome Powell later this year as the new Fed Chairman.
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