Stock futures rose Monday as investors looked ahead to jobs data in another shortened trading week.
Market Snapshot
At 8:16 a.m. ET, Futures tied to the S&P 500 were up about 0.7%. Nasdaq-100 futures advanced 1%. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures climbed 158 points, or 0.4%. Tesla rose 2.6%.
Pre-Market Movers
SUPER MICRO COMPUTER INC was up 5% in premarket trading after shares of the maker of artificial-intelligence servers jumped 11% on Friday, ending a losing streak of five sessions. The stock received a boost from an announcement by Microsoft that it planned to spend $80 billion in its current fiscal year ending in June to develop AI data centers.
Robotics stocks jumped in premarket trading. Nauticus Robotics, Inc. rose 45%; GUARDFORCE AI CO., LIMITED rose 40%; Richtech Robotics rose 26%, Serve Robotics Inc. rose 12%.
Cerence rose 30% in premarket trading after zooming 143.76% on Friday amid the announcement of an automotive collaboration with chipmaker Nvidia.
Microsoft gained 1.2% after rising 1.1% on Friday following a blog post from Microsoft President Brad Smith that said the company would be building out AI-enabled data centers that train models and run AI applications globally. More than half of the spending would be in the U.S.
NVIDIA, the leading maker of AI chips, rose 2.6% in premarket trading, extending Friday's gains of 4.5%. Nvidia, like other chip makers such as ASML, up 6%, Advanced Micro Devices, up 3%, and Micron Technology, up 5%, rose after Foxconn, a supplier to companies such as Nvidia and Apple, posted record revenue in the fourth quarter.
Shares of MicroStrategy rose 3.3% after the world's largest corporate holder of Bitcoin said it was targeting a capital raise of up to $2 billion from a perpetual preferred stock offering to continue to strengthen its balance sheet and acquire more of the world's largest cryptocurrency.
Plug Power closed 13% higher on Friday and was up an additional 6% in premarket trading after the Treasury Department issued new rules that would allow clean hydrogen companies to qualify for tax breaks if they capture and store carbon from the hydrogen production, or if they use clean electricity to make it. Bloom Energy, which rose 4.1% on Friday, gained 0.9% in premarket trading.
VeriSign rose 2.2% after Berkshire Hathaway bought about $4 million more stock of the internet domain-name registry company. The small recent buys of about 20,000 shares were made at an average price of nearly $205 a share, according to a regulatory filing. Berkshire Hathaway now owns 13.3 million shares of Verisign, a roughly 14% stake worth about $2.7 billion.
Boeing gained 2% as analysts at Barclays raised their recommendation on the airplane maker to Overweight from Equal Weight and boosted their price target on the stock to $210 from $190.
Market News
Trump Team Mulls Narrowing Universal Tariffs, Post Reports
Aides to President-elect Donald Trump are considering a tariff plan that would apply to all countries but be limited to specific critical imports, the Washington Post reported, citing three people familiar with the discussions who it didn’t identify.
If implemented, the plan would mark a significant narrowing of the universal tariffs of 10% to 20% that Trump had proposed during his campaign, a move economists expect to drive up consumer prices and distort patterns of global trade.
The US dollar fell against most major currencies Monday after the report, with the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index declining 1%, its biggest drop since November, while the euro rallied more than 1% against the greenback. Investors also added to bets on Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts on speculation the policy won’t fuel inflation as much as a broader program.
Nvidia Investors Look to Huang CES Speech to Spark Next Breakout
NVIDIA investors have high hopes that Monday’s speech from CEO Jensen Huang will spark a fresh breakout in the chipmaker’s shares, which have plateaued since November after roaring higher for much of 2024.
Huang is set to take the stage at the closely-watched CES trade show in Las Vegas. Nvidia has typically used the event to showcase consumer devices using its chips. However, investors will focus today on any commentary on the Blackwell chip, considered Nvidia’s next major growth driver. Despite seeing robust demand, Blackwell has faced supply constraints due in part to manufacturing challenges that have slowed its rollout.
“The expectation is that Blackwell demand remains very strong,” said Matt Cioppa, a portfolio manager at Franklin Templeton Equity Group. “That could bring the ultimate longer-term opportunity for Nvidia back into focus for the market.”
Uber Rallies After Unveiling $1.5 Billion Accelerated Share Repurchase Program
Uber rallied in early action on Tuesday after the company announced that it has entered into an accelerated share repurchase agreement to repurchase $1.5 billion of shares of common stock. The accelerated buybacks are part of its previously announced $7.0 billion share repurchase authorization.
Under the ASR agreement, Uber will pay $1.5 billion to the dealer and expects to receive an initial delivery of 18,578,727 shares of common stock, representing approximately 80% of the shares of common stock the company expects to repurchase under the ASR agreement. The total number of shares to be repurchased by Uber pursuant to the ASR agreement will be based on the volume-weighted average price of Uber common stock on specified dates during the term of the ASR agreement.
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