Chip stocks notched a second straight day of gains and oil prices retreated Tuesday after President Donald Trump signaled that an agreement with Iran could come within days, pushing U.S. stock futures into positive territory.
Market indexes rose as chip stocks extended a recovery from last week's selloff, while crude oil fell on Trump's Iran deal comments
Spencer Platt / Getty Images
Chip stocks notched a second straight day of gains and oil prices retreated Tuesday after President Donald Trump signaled that an agreement with Iran could come within days, pushing U.S. stock futures into positive territory.
Futures pointed to broad-based opening gains, with the Nasdaq $NDAQ 100 leading at 0.67%, the S&P 500 up 0.39%, and the Dow adding 95 points, or 0.19%. Monday's regular session closed with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite adding 0.3% and 0.86%, respectively, while the Dow bucked the trend and finished down 80.77 points, or 0.16%.
A Monday evening statement from Trump to reporters — describing the two nations as "very close to having a good strong powerful deal" that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz — drove WTI crude down roughly 2% to under $90 a barrel. Brent crude hovered just above $92 a barrel. The oil move followed a fragile pause in Middle East hostilities: Iran halted its strikes against Israel on Monday but cautioned that attacks would restart if Israeli operations in Lebanon pressed on, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu separately declared the conflict "not yet over."
Semiconductor stocks drove the early advance. Having shed roughly 20% across two prior sessions, Micron $MU extended its bounce with a nearly 4% premarket rise that built on Monday's 10% partial recovery. Qualcomm $QCOM stock climbed about 3%, continuing to claw back from an 11% Friday slide. The iShares Semiconductor ETF added 2%, following up on a 6% Monday rebound that came one session after the fund posted its steepest one-day loss in six years.
Across Asia, most major indexes finished in the green. South Korea's Kospi posted the sharpest gain of the session, jumping 8.18% to 8,096.93, while Tokyo's Nikkei 225 ended more than 2% higher at 65,416.63. The CSI 300 on the Chinese mainland added 1.87% to close at 4,801.81, Hong Kong's Hang Seng ticked up 0.15%, and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was a modest outlier, finishing down 0.24% at 8,604.2.
On the economic calendar, April wholesale inventory figures and May existing home sales numbers are due out Tuesday.
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