Dow Jones Today: Stock Futures Fall to Begin Month as AI Spending Concerns Resurface; Oil Sinks as Trump Says Iran Negotiating 'Seriously'
Stock futures pointed lower Monday to begin a new month of trading, as concerns about artificial intelligence resurfaced. Meanwhile, oil futures sold off as President Donald Trump said he believed Iran was negotiating “seriously” with the U.S.
Nasdaq 100, S&P 500, and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were down 0.6%, 0.3%, and less than 0.1%, respectively.
Last Friday, the tech-heavy Nasdaq, benchmark S&P 500, and blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down a respective 0.9%, 0.4%, and 0.4% as traders digested the news that Trump had nominated Kevin Warsh to succeed Jerome Powell as Federal Reserve Chair. The Dow and S&P 500 finished higher and the Nasdaq slightly lower for January.
Shares of Nvidia (NVDA) were down 1% before the bell after The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that the world’s most valuable company’s plan to invest up to $100 billion in ChatGPT maker OpenAI had stalled.
Oracle (ORCL) stock rebounded sharply before the bell after it announced plans to raise $45 billion to $50 billion during calendar 2026 “in order to build additional capacity to meet the contracted demand from our largest Oracle Cloud Infrastructure customers, including AMD, Meta, NVIDIA, OpenAI, TikTok, xAI and others.” Shares had dropped more than 3% but recently were up nearly 4%.
Shares of all of the so-called Magnificent Seven tech companies were modestly lower before the bell, with Tesla (TSLA) down by the greatest percentage at about 1.5%.
The Walt Disney Co. (DIS) stock advanced 1% after it reported better-than-expected quarterly profit and revenue. Tyson Foods (TSN) shares were slightly lower after it also posted stronger-than-expected results. Palantir (PLTR), which is slated to report earnings after the close Monday, was up nearly 2%.
Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate crude futures, the U.S. benchmark, sank 4.5% to $62.20 a barrel after Trump said over the weekend that he believed the Middle Eastern nation was negotiating “seriously” with the U.S. Trump has been mulling a military strike on Iran since the country’s leadership has cracked down on people protesting the regime, killing and arresting thousands.
Gold futures, which sank 9% Friday as traders locked in profits, rose more than 1% to $4,800 an ounce after sinking below $4,425 earlier Monday. The precious metal had soared above $5,625 Thursday.
Silver futures rebounded 6.5% to $83.60 an ounce after falling as low as $71.20 Monday. Silver had plummeted roughly 30% Friday after reaching above $121.75 Thursday.
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the value of the greenback against a basket of global currencies, was up 0.2% at 97.15 but remains near more than four-year lows.
Bitcoin was trading at around $77,900, up from overnight lows of around $74,500—its lowest level since last April after Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury—which impacts interest rates on a variety of consumer loans including mortgages—was little changed from Friday’s close of 4.24%.