Ahead of the Federal Reserve's upcoming rate decision, investors steadied themselves Tuesday after the prior session's sharp gains, with SpaceX shares extending their post-IPO surge and broader futures showing little movement.
Markets are pausing after the S&P 500's best 3-day stretch in over a year, while SpaceX's post-IPO stock surge has it overtaking Amazon by market cap
Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images
Ahead of the Federal Reserve's upcoming rate decision, investors steadied themselves Tuesday after the prior session's sharp gains, with SpaceX shares extending their post-IPO surge and broader futures showing little movement.
Monday's session saw the Dow finish up 468.77 points, or 0.92%, notching both an intraday and closing record, while the S&P 500 added more than 1% and the Nasdaq $NDAQ Composite surged 3.1%. By Tuesday morning, futures were nearly flat — Dow contracts were up 43 points, or 0.1%, S&P 500 futures edged higher, and Nasdaq 100 futures gained 0.2%.
Monday's gains came after President Donald Trump announced a deal between the U.S. and Iran. According to CNBC, a senior Trump administration official indicated the memorandum of understanding had already been executed electronically the previous Sunday, while Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif confirmed that fighting had ceased on all fronts, with an in-person signing ceremony set for Friday in Switzerland. Washington and Tehran have offered diverging public accounts of what the agreement contains, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Trump also said the Strait of Hormuz would reopen on Friday. On CNBC's "Squawk Box," Vice President JD Vance said the passage would "be opened in a toll-free way for the long term." Brent crude fell further on Tuesday, dropping about 2.7% to trade below $81 a barrel.
Premarket Tuesday, SpaceX shares were changing hands near $208 — roughly 54% above the $135 IPO price from last week — after climbing 8% to 9%. A sustained premarket gain would be enough to push SpaceX's valuation past Amazon $AMZN's. The company also announced a deal to acquire AI-coding startup Cursor for $60 billion.
Central banks dominated the global economic calendar Tuesday. Earlier in the session, the Bank of Japan brought its policy rate to its highest point since 1995, lifting it by a quarter percentage point, while Australia's central bank opted to leave borrowing costs unchanged. Rate decisions from the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, and the Swiss National Bank are all due later in the week, with none of the three expected to make changes.
Regional equity markets were mostly positive. The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo touched a record intraday peak before finishing the session up 0.13%, and Seoul's Kospi advanced 2.11%, though the Hang Seng in Hong Kong slid 1.64%. Across the Atlantic, the broad Stoxx 600 added 0.6%, with industrials and banks among the leading sectors.
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