US stocks fell on Tuesday as a milder inflation reading supported bets on medium-term Fed easing, while JPMorgan (JPM) results kicked off the fourth quarter earnings season with underwhelming results.

The blue chip-heavy Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) fell 0.8%, while the S&P 500 lost about 0.2%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) also dropped roughly 0.1%.

JPMorgan Chase led out this week's rush of big bank results, posting a quarterly earnings miss amid a $2.2 billion hit to net income from a Apple Card deal. Shares in America's biggest bank were down roughly 3.5%. With earnings season now unofficially underway, Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), and Morgan Stanley (MS) will follow with their own results in coming days.

Meanwhile, Tuesday morning's CPI report, a key factor in the Fed’s rate-setting decisions, showed that inflation remained steady last month. The annual headline rate came in at 2.7%, with a monthly increase of 0.3%, both in line with forecasts. "Core" consumer prices came in below forecasts at 0.2% over last month and 2.6% over last year, marking the lowest annual rise since early 2021.

The data takes on added importance after the December jobs report pointed to a cooling labor market. Traders have firmed up bets on the Fed holding steady this month, but odds have slightly shifted for a cut in the months after, per the CME FedWatch Tool. Traders still expect the first of two quarter-point cuts in June.

Meanwhile, global central bankers have joined the likes of Janet Yellen and Alan Greenspan in rushing to condemn the Justice Department's investigation of Chair Jerome Powell, seen as a threat to the Fed's autonomy. Powell, whose term as Fed chair expires in May, characterized the probe as political pressure from President Trump, who has repeatedly called for aggressive interest-rate cuts.

President Trump visited a Ford (F) plant in Detroit, Michigan on Tuesday to promote US manufacturing and his economic policies. Michigan is seen as a key battleground state, and an important gauge of voter sentiment

On the geopolitical front, Trump said late Monday that countries that continue to do business with Iran will face a 25% US tariff. The vow adds another layer of geopolitical uncertainty to a market already grappling with moves on Venezuela and Greenland, and could threaten the US trade truce with China.

Gasoline prices have fallen for a seventh consecutive week, and the latest Consumer Price Index shows they remain well below last year’s levels.

On Tuesday, the national average at the pump hovered around $2.82 per gallon, roughly $0.24 lower than the same time last year. The December CPI also showed gasoline prices down 3.4% year-over-year.

However, the downward trend may be short-lived if oil prices continue to rise.

Brent (BZ=F) crude futures, the international pricing benchmark, jumped nearly 2% to cross $65 and trade just above that level, while futures on the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (CL=F) rose above $60.50.

\\"For now, gas prices remain seasonally lower, but with oil prices inching higher, the national average could soon see some limited upward movement,\\" said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy on Monday.

Yahoo Finance's Francisco Velasquez reports:

The hottest AI trade on Wall Street has officially become \\"boring.\\"

\\"Nvidia would be a very boring idea ... because we all know the story,\\" serial entrepreneur Tom Sosnoff told Yahoo Finance's Opening Bid.

The former founder of Thinkorswim and Tastytrade argued that despite Nvidia's technological dominance, the stock's story is too well-known and it may be priced for perfection.

Sosnoff isn't a tech skeptic. In fact, he's a fan of the product. He likened Nvidia's (NVDA) AI platforms to having a \\"genius best friend\\" with a 165 IQ available at all times.

Read more here.

President Trump toured a Ford (F) plant in Michigan on Tuesday, taking selfies with workers.

The visit to Detroit highlighted his push to bring manufacturing back to the US and promote economic policies aimed at increasing affordability for Americans.

The Ford factory manufactures the F-150 pickups, one of the country’s best-selling vehicles.

The president is scheduled to speak at the Detroit Economic Club at the MotorCity Casino Hotel around 2:00 p.m.

Trump’s trip to Detroit is significant because Michigan is considered a key battleground state for the midterm elections and a bellwether for voter sentiment and broader national trends.

President Trump takes selfies with Ford plant workers! ???????? pic.twitter.com/aMIcypAEwU

— Margo Martin (@MargoMartin47) January 13, 2026

Heavy machinery manufacturing giant Caterpillar (CAT) crossed $300 billion in market capitalization on Tuesday as the company's business has strengthened due to demand for AI infrastructure.

Shares picked up 1.7% through morning trading to push Caterpillar over the line.

The industrials sector (XLI) has outperformed the S&P 500 (^GSPC) over the past year, returning 23% against the S&P 500's 19.5% gain.

As demand for data centers and power equipment has ballooned, industrials sector companies such as Caterpillar and GE Vernova (GEV) have seen their order books explode.

Power generation machinery drove the biggest sales jump in Caterpillar's book for the third quarter, according to the company's earnings report, as that infrastructure has become essential to the AI buildout. Shares jumped 11% after the release.

Caterpillar is expected to report fourth quarter earnings on Jan. 29, while GE Vernova is expected to report a day earlier, on Jan. 28.

Microsoft, one of the leading AI \\"hyperscalers\\" in the country, said the company will work to make sure the towns and cities near its data center development sites are not adversely affected.

Our Dan Howley reports:

The proliferation of AI data centers across the country has raised concerns about increasing electricity prices, the impact on local water supplies, and whether the facilities actually benefit the communities in which they are built.

Now Microsoft (MSFT) says it’s taking steps to address those issues with what it refers to as its community-driven AI plan. President Brad Smith unveiled the effort in a speech in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, laying out how the company will work to ensure it doesn’t negatively affect towns where data centers are constructed.

Microsoft stock fell more than 1.8% in early trade.

Backlash against data centers has been growing in parts of the country over concerns about the massive amounts of electricity and water needed to power and keep the thousands of chips running inside the gargantuan buildings cool.

To tackle the problem Smith laid out five key areas he says Microsoft will work to deal with community fears: electricity, water, jobs, taxes, and skills.

Read more here.

Shares of Boeing (BA) picked up 2% on Tuesday after the aerospace company published fourth quarter deliveries data late in the morning.

Boeing, the world's largest aerospace company, delivered 117 737-series commercial aircraft; 10 767-series airplanes; six 777-series airplanes; and 27 787-series airplanes.

The numbers are largely in line with the company's third quarter deliveries, producing an aggregate total of commercial airplanes delivered at 160.

In military craft, Boeing delivered 37 units in the fourth quarter, compared to 32 in the third.

President Trump told reporters that Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell is either \\"incompetent\\" or \\"crooked\\" on Tuesday, adding more furor to the news that the Justice Department is pursuing a criminal investigation into the Fed chair over renovation cost overruns.

Bloomberg reports:

President Donald Trump criticized Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell as either “incompetent” or “crooked” after a Justice Department probe into the central bank’s headquarters renovation sparked backlash across Washington.

“He’s billions of dollars over budget, so, either he’s incompetent or he’s crooked,” Trump told reporters Tuesday as he departed the White House for an economic speech in Detroit. “I don’t know what he is, but he certainly doesn’t do a very good job.”

The probe marks a dramatic escalation of the Trump administration’s attacks on the Fed and raises new questions about the institution’s independence. Trump has repeatedly toyed with trying to fire Powell before his term as chair ends in May, and is currently weighing who to nominate as his successor.

But the move to open a criminal investigation, which was disclosed over the weekend, prompted blowback from Republican senators. That development threatens to derail the president’s eventual nominee as the next chair, and with it, his effort to exert greater control over the Fed.

Powell said on Sunday that the Justice Department had served the Fed with grand jury subpoenas, stemming from a probe into a renovation project and Powell’s testimony to Congress about it.

Read more here.

US new home sales remained largely unchanged in October, maintaining the momentum that kicked off in September.

New single-family home sales slowed by 0.1% month over month to a rate of 737,000 in October, according to data released Tuesday morning by the Census Bureau that was delayed by the government shutdown. Year over year, however, October's rate is up 18.7%

Economists had expected a rate of 715,000 for the month, according to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

While the pace of sales remains elevated after a 3.8% jump in September, the contract signings made no real impact on housing stocks month to month. New home inventory remained unchanged from the previous month at 488,000 houses in October, up 1.7% year over year.

The median single-family home price was $392,300, according to the Census Bureau.

The US stock market opened on shaky ground to kick off the trading session on Tuesday morning as a calmer-than-expected inflation reading strengthened odds that the Federal Reserve will hold rates steady.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) fell by roughly 0.2% in the largest move, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) picked up a bit less than 0.1% and the S&P 500 (^GSPC) hovered around the flat line.

The key headline for investors on Tuesday morning was the Bureau of Labor Statistics' \\"core\\" CPI reading for the month of December, which came in below forecasts with a 0.2% rise over the previous month and a 2.6% increase over the previous year, marking the lowest annual rise since early 2021. Headline consumer prices rose 0.3% over the prior month and 2.7% over the prior year, in line with economists' expectations.

Oil prices crossed $65 for the first time since November on Tuesday morning, as a hodgepodge of geopolitical tensions pushed risk premiums higher.

Futures on Brent crude (BZ=F), the international pricing benchmark, jumped nearly 2% to cross $65 and trade just above that level, while futures on the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude (CL=F) picked up to trade above $60.50.

After spending 2025 consistently falling, oil prices have opened 2026 on a rally as geopolitical shocks have put upward pressure on prices.

Prices on Brent crude have jumped by more than 7% in the past five trading sessions after the US's extradition of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and full-scale takeover of the South American country's faltering industry. Prices on WTI have picked up about 6% over the same period.

As tensions have somewhat stabilized in Venezuela and shipments have gotten underway — commodities trading houses Vitol and Trafigura have begun moving Venezuelan crude out of the country, and shipping US naphtha to Venezuela — attention has turned to Iran, the perennial oil focal point in the Middle East.

Mass popular protests against the theocratic Iranian regime under the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have swept across the country since the end of December, triggering a wave of disruption and violent pushback from the government.

Iran is a crucial point of leverage for global oil prices for two reasons. The country produces more than 3 million barrels per day, and is sitting on more than 200 billion barrels of proved reserves, ranking only behind Venezuela and Saudi Arabia globally.

Iran also largely controls the Strait of Hormuz, a key global chokepoint for oil flows. In 2024, an average 20 million barrels per day of oil moved through the strait, which connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. Any attempts by Iran to close the strait would put immediate and severe upward pressure on oil prices.

The parent company of U.S. Bank is set to acquire the brokerage BTIG in a bid to expand the financial services firm's purview into investments and trading.

Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp (USB) will acquire BTIG in a transaction valued at $1 billion, the company announced in a press release on Tuesday morning. Shares in U.S. Bancorp lost roughly 0.8% in premarket trading, a typical movement for the acquiring party of an M&A announcement.

U.S. Bancorp's push into investment banking and trading comes as the trading desks of the country's biggest banks outperformed expectations in the third quarter.

Revenues from equities, fixed income, currency, and commodity trading at JPMorgan Chase (JPM) in the fourth quarter of 2025 rose 15% from the previous year, surpassing analyst expectations, according to earnings released Tuesday morning.

Inflation pressures slowed in the final month of 2025 as consumer prices rose by less than economists forecast.

Yahoo Finance's Myles Udland reports:

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday morning showed headline consumer prices rose 0.3% over the prior month and 2.7% over the prior year. Economists were expecting a 0.3% monthly increase and a 2.7% rise over the prior year, according to estimates from Bloomberg.

On a \\"core\\" basis — which includes the more volatile categories of food and energy, consumer prices rose 0.2% over last month and 2.6% over last year, according to the CPI. Economists were looking for increases of 0.3% and 2.7% on a monthly and annual basis.

Inflation has remained stubbornly above the Federal Reserve's 2% target for some time. It has drifted downward over the past year, however, and has been characterized by policymakers as a less acute risk to the economy than a dramatic softening of the labor market.

Read more here.

Here's what JPMorgan (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon said about the Trump vs. Powell battle on a call I was just on:

\\"First, I just want to say that I don't agree with everything that the Fed has done. I do have enormous respect for Jay Powell, the man. Everyone we know believes in Fed independence, and so do we. And anything that chips away at that is probably not a great idea. And in my view, it will have the reverse consequences. It will raise inflation expectations and probably increase rates over time.\\"

Fed Chair Jerome Powell is done playing nice, writes Yahoo Finance's Hamza Shaban.

Hamza reports:

After months of seeking to avoid confrontation with the president, even after the White House heightened its pressure campaign to oust him and exert more influence over the central bank, Powell has finally punched back.

And it would be hard to blame him. The Justice Department has initiated a criminal probe of the Fed chair into whether he lied to Congress, throwing the weight of the federal government against a public servant that the president seeks to oust.

... For Powell, the threat of criminal charges is a \\"pretext\\" to go after the independence of the Fed. Appeasement towards Trump has failed. So what happens next? We have some questions.

Is this escalation a bigger change for Powell or Trump?

The Trump administration's approach has clearly changed.

Instead of merely criticizing Powell and wish-casting (with the power and influence of the bully pulpit) for the Fed chair to step down, prosecutors are now threatening criminal charges. But just as important is Powell's new battle posture.

... It's not just his communication style that has suddenly changed. Powell might have thought to step away from the Federal Reserve after his term as chair ends in May, even if his term as governor doesn't expire until 2028.

Read other questions and insight here, in the takeaway from today's Morning Brief.

BNY (BNY) CEO Robin Vince commented on concerns about Federal Reserve independence from the DOJ's Powell probe, speaking on a reporter call post-earnings:

“Independent central banks with the ability to independently set monetary policy in the long-term interest of the nation is a pretty well-established thing that we've seen all around the world over a very long period of time, and it's served economies and capital markets really well.

\\"So we see the bond market has been underpinned by a bunch of different things. The US bond market is really the most important market, arguably, in the world — [Treasury] Secretary Bessent said that on several occasions. If you look at the things that underpin the US bond market, that independence is one of those things.

\\"Shaking the foundation of it doesn't seem to be to us to be accomplishing the [Trump] administration's primary objective, because the administration greatly is very focused on things like affordability and being able to reduce the cost of borrowing, reducing the cost of mortgages, reducing the cost of everyday living for Americans, and being able to make sure that they're driving up wages.

\\"Sort of questioning one of the tenets that underlies the bond market runs the risk of actually doing the opposite of that — and actually pushing up interest rates because the market potentially has to worry about something that, frankly, they shouldn't have to worry about.\\"

US investment bank JPMorgan (JPM) posted fourth-quarter results on Tuesday that beat revenue estimates but missed earnings expectations, as net income was hit following its deal to take over the Apple Card (AAPL) from Goldman Sachs (GS).

Yahoo Finance senior reporter David Hollerith looks at the latest earnings release from JPM.

Net income for the firm came in at $13 billion, including the $2.2 billion in credit losses it planned for as a result of the deal. Excluding these costs, JPMorgan said its net income would've tallied $14.7 billion in the quarter.

Earnings per share, excluding these costs, came in at $5.23, higher than the $4.85 that Wall Street was expecting. Including costs from its Apple Card deal, JPMorgan reported earnings per share of $4.63 in the quarter.

JPMorgan stock rose about 1% following the release.

In a statement, CEO Jamie Dimon said the US economy has been \\"resilient,\\" adding that, \\"consumers continue to spend, and businesses generally remain healthy.\\"

Dimon cautioned, however, that, \\"markets seem to underappreciate the potential hazards—including from complex geopolitical conditions, the risk of sticky inflation and elevated asset prices.\\"

Read more here.

Shares in L3Harris Technologies (LHX) surged before the bell on news the US government will invest $1 billion in its rocket motor business.

The move guarantees a steady supply of the much-needed motors used in a wide range of ​missiles such as Tomahawks and Patriot interceptors.

Reuters reports:

The deal represents the latest U.S. government investment in Corporate America, which ‌has included a 10% stake in chip maker Intel (INTC) and investments in critical mineral producers. It comes just a few days after President ‌Donald Trump blasted defense contractors for slow production of weaponry.

L3Harris said on Tuesday it will spin off its rocket motor business into a new publicly traded company backed by a $1 billion government convertible security investment. The securities will automatically convert to common equity when the company goes public later in 2026.

The investment in a defense contractor is not ⁠a total surprise after U.S. Commerce Secretary ‌Howard Lutnick last August said the Trump administration was weighing equity stakes in major defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin .

Read more here.

Delta Airlines' (DAL) stock sank as much as 5% before the bell on Tuesday despite posting upbeat Q4 results, as its forecast fell below estimates.

The airline company said growth in the premium business and lack of certain headwinds would propel its business forward in 2026.

Yahoo Finance senior reporter Pras Subramanian delves into the latest results from Delta.

For the quarter, Delta posted record adjusted revenue of $14.61 billion against estimates for $14.67 billion, per Bloomberg consensus. The results were up 1.2% compared to a year ago, which was outside of the airline’s own 2% guidance due to the impact of the government shutdown.

Delta’s adjusted earnings per share (EPS) came in at $1.55, versus the $1.53 expected. The company's earnings took a $0.25 hit from the government shutdown as well.

Looking ahead, Delta is projecting revenue in Q1 to grow by 5% to 7%, with operating margin in the 4.5% to 6% range and adjusted EPS of $0.50 to $0.90. For the year, Delta sees adjusted EPS of $6.50 to $7.50, representing a whopping 20% year-over-year jump at the midpoint, with free cash flow in the range of $3 billion to $4 billion.

Read more here.

Intel (INTC) stock rose 3% before the bell on Tuesday. KeyBanc analysts raised their rating on the chipmaker to Overweight from Sector Weight due to strong demand for their central processing units.

Revvity (RVTY) stock climbed 5% during premarket trading on Tuesday after the health company raised its full-year outlook ahead of its earnings release in February.

MP Materials (MP) stock edged higher on Tuesday by 3%. The rare earths company was awarded funding from the US government for a $900 million manufacturing facility last year, and experts believe companies like MP could get a boost from the US's latest move in Venezuela.

Investors are expecting a low-volatility earnings season, given softer option volumes over the past two weeks and balanced positioning, according to a Jan. 8 note on tactical earnings trades from the Goldman Sachs Investment Research team.

The analysts estimated the average implied earnings day stock move — how much the market expects a stock to swing following corporate results, based on options data — is 4.5% in either direction, below the long-term average.

\\"With less fear priced in, it is more difficult to see relief rallies on earnings days,\\" they wrote.

Still, the Goldman Sachs team noted that having exposure to stocks through their earnings events remains important for fundamental investors. Just two quarters ago, the actual moves on earnings days for individual stocks were at their highest level since 2009.

Where the team does expect more volatility is in utility, healthcare, materials, and industrial stocks, which \\"have been making the most unusually large moves on earnings-day in recent quarters.\\"

Get the latest here on Q4 earnings season in Yahoo Finance's live blog.