Can Dow Jones Futures Extend Gains as Inflation Data and Tech Earnings Come into Focus?

Inflation and broader AI demand remain in focus for traders, with key CPI figures and CoreWeave’s forthcoming earnings awaited for fresh signals.
Sustaining the rally is Wall Street’s priority after strong, widespread gains in semiconductor stocks drove Monday’s sharp advance.
Concerns about tighter AI chip export curbs and controversy surrounding its CEO sent Nvidia shares down over 4%.

A mixed picture emerges in US equity futures during Tuesday’s European trading hours. Dow Jones futures rise 0.48% to around 52,750, while S&P 500 futures add 0.17% to around 7,590. By contrast, Nasdaq 100 futures slip 0.15% to around 27,970.

TMGM Analysis: Financial Market News, Economic Calendar & Market Insights

Investors’ wait for October’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) report left US stock futures mixed. Forecasts put the monthly increase in headline CPI at 0.3%, half September’s 0.6% rise. Core CPI, meanwhile, is projected to ease from 0.3% to 0.2%.

Standard annual headline and core inflation readings will, however, be unavailable. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will not release 12-month percentage changes for the October 2026 indexes, as the federal government shutdown prevented the collection of October 2025 data. With the inflation picture incomplete, market participants turned greater attention to the forthcoming earnings announcement from neocloud firm CoreWeave, looking for crucial indications of momentum in the artificial intelligence sector.

Markets adopted this cautious stance after a strong advance in Monday’s regular session: the Dow rose 2.15%, the S&P 500 gained 2.35%, and the Nasdaq Composite added 2.74%. Leading the recovery were semiconductor shares, which rebounded from last week’s sharp sell-off. That decline had been driven by worries about stricter AI oversight and possible delays to data centre expansion following the Democrats’ capture of Congress.

Company-specific pressures nevertheless restrained sentiment, with Nvidia particularly affected. After CEO Jensen Huang acknowledged an alleged affair with a suspected Chinese spy, the chipmaker’s shares fell over 4%. The disclosure fuelled concerns that lawmakers could seek tighter export restrictions on the company’s hardware.

Can tech and semiconductor gains sustain the US equity rebound?

The recovery in US equities is beginning to reverse losses incurred after the Midterm elections, according to Rabobank analysts. They observe that, after "collapsing 4.4% in one day last week following the US Midterm elections, the S&P 500 is starting to show signs of recovery, having moved 3% higher, back to pre-November 4 levels." Rabobank also highlights a substantial bounce in the technology-heavy Nasdaq, noting that, "despite the unfortunate headlines surrounding Jensen Huang, the Nasdaq also made a strong recovery, having moved 5% higher over the past two sessions, supported by the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which managed to work its way more than 11% higher."

AI stocks: key questions answered

What does artificial intelligence involve?

At its core, artificial intelligence is an academic field concerned with reproducing human cognitive functions, logical understanding, perception and pattern recognition in machines. Usually shortened to AI, it encompasses several sub-fields: artificial neural networks, machine learning or predictive analytics, symbolic reasoning, deep learning, natural language processing, speech recognition, image recognition and expert systems. Developing artificial general intelligence, or AGI, is the field’s ultimate objective. In practical terms, this would be a machine capable of solving arbitrary problems without having been trained to solve them.

How is AI used in practice?

Artificial intelligence has a wide range of applications, the best known being generative AI platforms trained on large language models (LLMs) to respond to text-based questions. ChatGPT and Google’s Bard platform fall into this category. For image creation, Midjourney produces original visuals from text supplied by users. Some other AI systems apply probabilistic methods to assess an entity’s characteristics or how it is perceived. Upstart’s lending platform, for example, evaluates applicants’ creditworthiness through an AI-enhanced credit rating system that searches the internet for information about their careers, wealth profiles and relationships. In pharmaceutical research, other AI tools draw on extensive databases of scientific studies to propose potential new drugs for laboratory testing. Content aggregators such as YouTube, Spotify and Facebook collect and organise information on viewing habits, using AI applications to recommend personalised content to users.

Which stocks offer exposure to the AI sector?

Among semiconductor companies, Nvidia (NVDA) produces AI-oriented computer chips as well as some of the platforms engineers rely on to develop AI applications. Because it supplies tools that enable further uses of artificial intelligence, many supporters regard Nvidia as a picks-and-shovels investment in the AI revolution. Another company in the field is Palantir Technologies (PLTR), which specialises in “big data” analytics. Under substantial contracts with the US intelligence community, its Gotham platform is used to analyse data, identify intelligence leads and support pattern recognition. Major corporations use its Foundry product to monitor employee and customer information for predictive analytics and anomaly detection. Microsoft (MSFT), meanwhile, holds a substantial stake in OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, which remains unlisted. OpenAI’s technology has been incorporated into Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

Could AI fuel a fresh stock market bubble?

AI-linked shares rallied after ChatGPT became available to the public in late 2022. Over the six months after its launch, Nvidia, for example, surged well over 200%. The gains quickly prompted Wall Street commentators to question whether another technology bubble was taking hold. Renowned investor Stanley Druckenmiller, who has held sizeable investments in both Palantir and Nvidia, argued that bubbles never endure for just six months. In his view, if enthusiasm for AI turned into a bubble, extreme valuations would persist for at least two and a half years or longer, as they did during the DotCom bubble in the late 1990s. As of mid-2023, the best assessment was that the market was not in a bubble, at least for the time being. Although Nvidia was then valued at 27 times forward sales, analysts anticipated exceptionally strong revenue growth for years ahead. For comparison, the NASDAQ 100 traded at 60 times earnings at the peak of the DotCom bubble, against 25 times earnings in mid-2023.