Geopolitical Tensions: Investor mood was influenced by growing worries about the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Recent changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine have increased international anxiety and prompted cautious trading practices.
As the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite recovered from losses earlier in the day, they added 0.4% and 1%, respectively, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.3% to settle lower for the fourth consecutive day. As the market recovers some of the losses from last week, when U.S. stocks suffered their worst week in two months as a significant post-election surge faded, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq have been rising for two days in a row.
Market investors were responding early in the day to news that Russian President Vladimir Putin had approved a revised nuclear policy that lowers the threshold for using nuclear weapons, as well as claims that Ukraine had fired missiles provided by the United States into Russia.
As the session went on, earnings became the main focus.
As the AI investor favorite, Nvidia, which is scheduled to release its earnings after Wednesday’s closing bell, bounced back from losses the previous session and once again overtook Apple (AAPL) as the most valuable business in the world by market capitalization, its shares surged 4.9%. All of the other mega-cap stocks saw increases, including those of Apple, Microsoft (MSFT), Tesla (TSLA), Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOGL), and Meta Platforms (META).