U.S. stock index futures pointed to a modestly higher open on Tuesday, suggesting equities could recover some of the losses recorded in the previous session’s sharp sell-off.
Investors may be drawn back into the market by lower valuations following Monday’s decline, which pushed the Dow to its weakest closing level in a month.
Still, any recovery could remain limited as ongoing uncertainty surrounding tariffs continues to cloud investor sentiment.
Market participants may also avoid making major positioning changes ahead of quarterly earnings from AI chip leader Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), which are scheduled for release after Wednesday’s market close.
“Investors have plenty to worry about, and Nvidia’s results on Wednesday have the potential to make or break the market depending on what it says about AI,” said Dan Coatsworth, head of markets at AJ Bell.
He added, “The market has this year shown widespread concerns about all things linked to AI, from excessive spending to business models being disrupted, so Nvidia needs to retain its uber-bullish stance if it wants to avoid stirring the pot of worry for investors.”
After posting strong gains last week, equities fell sharply during Monday’s trading session, with all three major U.S. benchmarks closing notably lower and the Dow marking its lowest finish in a month.
Although the indexes recovered slightly from intraday lows, they still ended firmly in negative territory. The Dow dropped 821.91 points, or 1.7%, to 48,804.06, the Nasdaq declined 258.80 points, or 1.1%, to 22,627.27, and the S&P 500 fell 71.76 points, or 1.0%, to 6,837.75.
The sell-off was largely driven by renewed trade uncertainty after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down most of President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs last Friday.
In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump said he would raise global tariffs to the “fully allowed” and “legally tested” 15 percent level, up from the 10 percent rate he introduced shortly after the ruling.
“During the next short number of months, the Trump Administration will determine and issue the new and legally permissible Tariffs, which will continue our extraordinarily successful process of Making America Great Again – GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE!!!” Trump said.
While a White House fact sheet acknowledged that such tariffs can only remain in place for 150 days without congressional approval, Trump later claimed in another post that congressional authorization would not be necessary.
Trump also warned that any country seeking to “play games” would face a “much higher Tariff, and worse, than that which they just recently agreed to.”
Meanwhile, the European Commission called for “full clarity” regarding Washington’s next steps following the Supreme Court ruling.
In a statement, the Commission said the current environment is “not conducive” to achieving “fair, balanced, and mutually beneficial” transatlantic trade and investment relations, as outlined in the EU-U.S. Joint Statement of August 2025.
“A deal is a deal,” the European Commission said. “As the United States’ largest trading partner, the EU expects the U.S. to honour its commitments set out in the Joint Statement – just as the EU stands by its commitments.”
Negative sentiment was further amplified by a steep decline in IBM Corp. (NYSE:IBM) shares, which plunged 13.2%.
IBM faced pressure after Anthropic’s Claude introduced COBOL capabilities — a programming language widely used in enterprise data processing and a core area of IBM’s business.
Financial stocks were among the worst performers of the session, with the KBW Bank Index falling 4.4% and the NYSE Arca Securities Broker/Dealer Index dropping 3.4%.
Software shares also saw significant weakness, highlighted by a 3.9% slide in the Dow Jones U.S. Software Index.
Airline, computer hardware and networking stocks posted notable losses as well, while gold mining shares moved higher, supported by a sharp rise in gold prices.