US stock futures fell on Tuesday as a rally in tech names lost steam, in the wait for the latest consumer inflation reading to shed light on the Iran war’s impact on the economy.
Nasdaq 100 futures (NQ=F) led losses, down 0.7%, while those on the S&P 500 (^GSPC) shed roughly 0.4% in the wake of fresh record closing highs. Contracts on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM=F), which includes fewer tech names, were broadly flat following a winning day on Wall Street.
Markets are bracing for an important test with Tuesday’s release of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for April. The inflation data will be scrutinzed for signs of pass-through from higher energy prices from the Strait of Hormuz blockade, in food costs in particular.
A hot reading could reset expectations for Federal Reserve monetary policy, especially in light of Friday’s stronger-than-expected April jobs report. Economists expect headline CPI to have risen 3.7% in April.
Also on Tuesday, President Trump will kick off a trip to China, where he will meet with the country’s President Xi Jinping. Trade and AI are expected to top the leaders’ agenda, and Trump has invited 16 top executives, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Apple CEO Tim Cook, to join him during the visit.
In the background, escalating tensions between the US and Iran were still keeping investors on edge. Trump said the US-Iran ceasefire agreement between the two countries is on “massive life support” amid a stalemate over a potential peace plan.
Amid the impasse, oil prices continued to rally. West Texas Intermediate (CL=F) crude up 3.7% to over $101 a barrel, while Brent crude futures (BZ=F) rose 3.4% to nearly $108 a barrel.
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On Tuesday, online marketplace eBay gave a response to GameStop’s (GME) bid to acquire the company.
“The Board, with the support of its independent advisors, has thoroughly reviewed your proposal and has determined to reject it,” board chair Paul Pressler wrote in a letter.
“We have concluded that your proposal is neither credible nor attractive,” Pressler wrote. “We have taken into account such factors as 1) eBay’s standalone prospects, 2) the uncertainty regarding your financing proposal, 3) the impact of your proposal on eBay’s long-term growth and profitability, 4) the leverage, operational risks, and leadership structure of a combined entity, 5) the resulting implications of these factors on valuation, and 6) GameStop’s governance and executive incentives.”
Last week, GameStop and its CEO, Ryan Cohen, launched an ambitious bid to take over eBay, which is four times the size of the video game retailer, for $55 billion.
Cohen said the deal would be financed in half cash, half stock, but an interview with CNBC raised questions about how GameStop would fund the acquisition.
President Trump has kicked off his high-stakes visit to China to meet his counterpart Xi Jinping. With AI and chips high on the agenda, Yahoo Finance’s Jared Blikre takes a look at China’s rally in tech stocks in today’s Chart of the Day.
He writes:
Chinese tech stocks have rallied back to a key level, just as the headlines are heating up.
The Invesco China Technology ETF (CQQQ) is pressing into a long-term downward-sloping trend line that starts at its February 2021 peak and captures both the 2025 and 2026 highs.
Invesco China Technology ETF (CQQQ) at a crossroad · Yahoo Finance
The ETF is still down nearly 50% from that peak, but a break above the yellow trend line in the chart below would likely generate momentum for the bulls.
Still, another technical hurdle looms just overhead: the $60 level around the 2025 high. A rally above that zone could force bearish bets to unwind, potentially leading to a short squeeze.
Wall Street is flashing signs of a stock market melt-up, or a rapid and unexpected rise in stock prices, notes Yahoo Finance’s Ines Ferré.
That’s led some strategists to draw uncomfortable parallels to the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s. But some see a firmer basis for the enthusiasm.
Ines reports:
Semiconductor stocks have been gapping up so fast that market watchers are reaching for the playbook from the run-up year to the dot-com crash.
“Since the 3/30/26 low and in particular over the last couple of weeks, it Feels Like 1999,” Evercore ISI strategist Julian Emanuel and his team wrote in a note. “Relatives, friends, doctors, Uber drivers are all talking about AI/Tech stocks.”
But Emanuel and his team point out that enthusiasm in 2026 is built on a firmer foundation than the dot-com era.
In 1999, “dot-com darlings” traded at a median price-to-earnings multiple of around 152 times, meaning investors paid $152 for every $1 of profit. Today’s “AI Class of 2026” trades at roughly 39 times earnings.
“Valuations are high, but not Y2K extremes,” Emanuel wrote.
Oil steadied as US President Donald Trump cast doubt over the ceasefire with Iran after rejecting Tehran’s latest peace offer, prolonging the effective closure of the vital Strait of Hormuz.
Brent (BZ=F) crude traded above $104 a barrel after advancing 2.9% in the previous session, while West Texas Intermediate (CL=F) was near $98. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that the truce was on “massive life support” while deriding the Iranian response to his proposal to end the 10-week war.
A ceasefire has been in place since early April and has held even after a series of flareups in violence recently, including attacks on ships. The near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz has significantly disrupted flows of crude, natural gas and fuels to global customers, raising concerns about an inflation crisis.
GameStop Corp (GME). shares spiked and then quickly dropped in postmarket trading Monday after cryptic social media posts showed up and then disappeared from the social media account of Keith Gill, the financial influencer known as “Roaring Kitty,” who became prominent during the 2021 meme-stock craze.
GameStop’s stock jumped as much as 13% before paring those gains to trade lower after the posts — including one depicting a cat, and another with a picture of the online character Pepe the Frog wearing Roaring Kitty’s trademark red bandanna — were deleted around 5:40 p.m. in New York, less than an hour after they went up.
Shares of Chewy Inc., which was founded by GameStop’s current chief executive officer, Ryan Cohen, also rose as much as 3% before erasing the move.
