Wall Street pointed higher before the opening bell Tuesday with chip and memory companies leading the way, while oil prices rose again as the U.S. and Iran exchanged more attacks.
Futures for the S&P 500 rose 0.4%, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked up 0.3%. Futures for the tech-focused Nasdaq climbed 1.3%.
Data storage companies SanDisk and Western Digital continued their mostly upward swings, each jumping more than 7% in early
trading. Chipmakers Marvell Technology and Intel, which have also been riding the artificial intelligence roller coaster, rose 6.2% and 5.7% respectively.
AI bellwether Nvidia rose 1.3% after it disclosed that it had taken a 9% stake in Dutch cloud computing company Nebius.
Outside of tech, GM rose 1.7% after the automaker beat Wall Street's second-quarter sales and profit targets and raised its guidance.
Oil prices rose to their highest level in a month as the situation remained volatile in the escalated conflict between the U.S. and Iran.
Brent crude, the international standard, was $1.21 higher at $90.43, well above the roughly $72 per barrel level it was at before the war started in late February.
Benchmark U.S. crude was up $1.13 at $83.61 a barrel.
Early Tuesday, Iran attacked another tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for global oil and gas transport. The U.S. announced another round of strikes targeting Iran for a 10th straight night. Iran has been retaliating against the U.S. strikes by targeting U.S. allies across the Middle East.
As the U.S. and Iran traded fire, Iran’s interior minister traveled to Pakistan, a main mediator, for talks, but it’s still unclear if a new deal may be reached.
“There’s some hope of de-escalation between the U.S. and Iran,” ING commodities strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote in a commentary Tuesday. “This won’t be an easy task. Large divisions remain between the U.S. and Iran.”
A naval blockade by Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthis against Saudi Arabia has increased risks to oil supplies, they said.
Markets appeared to shrug off President Donald Trump 's announcement Monday that he was imposing 50% tariffs on most Canadian goods, declaring that the U.S. northern neighbor has unfairly discriminated against American autos, alcohol and dairy products.
The White House said in a fact sheet that the tariffs would go into effect in 30 days, meaning there is time for negotiations as Trump has not always followed through on his announced tax hikes on imports.
At midday in Europe, Britain's FTSE 100 edged 0.2% higher as new Prime Minister Andy Burnham was hosting his first Cabinet meeting. France's CAC 40 was up 0.1% and Germany's DAX rose 0.2%.
In Asia, South Korea’s Kospi, which is heavily reliant on AI and chipmaking-related shares, jumped 3.6% to 6,747.95. It fell 4.5% a day earlier. Samsung Electronics rose 6.2%, while memory chipmaker SK Hynix gained 4.1%.
The Kospi has gained more than 50% so far this year, but fell more than 20% over the past month as investors sold to lock in profits, wary of worries about a potential bubble in AI investments.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 added 3.3% to 66,232.19 after a holiday on Monday, recovering from some of its losses from last week.
Computer memory maker Kioxia Holdings surged 17.2%, while chip testing equipment maker Advantest jumped 7.7%. OpenAI investor SoftBank Group climbed 6%, while chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron added 2.3%.
Taiwan’s Taiex, which also has benefited from the AI boom, was up 4.2%. Its advanced AI chipmaker TSMC, or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., advanced 3.9%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng edged less than 0.1% lower to 25,132.29. Chinese AI startup Zhipu, or Z.ai, surged 36.9% following reports about its new data center that is powered only by domestic chips, while another Chinese AI startup MiniMax jumped 15.2%. The Shanghai Composite index added 1.8% to 3,864.37.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 climbed less than 0.1% to 8,793.30.
India’s Sensex gave up 0.3%.
