US stocks climbed on Monday as gold rallied to lead in a big week filled with a Federal Reserve rate decision and earnings reports from Big Tech's heaviest hitters.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) added 0.6%, and the S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose 0.5%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) gained 0.4%, following back-to-back weekly losses for the three indexes.

Signs of cautious optimism gripped Wall Street after President Trump said he would send "border czar" Tom Homan to Minnesota to manage ICE operations after the fatal shooting of a protester. Investors have weighed concerns that the political fallout from the death of Alex Pretti could derail efforts to avert a federal shutdown, a prospect that helped stoke appetite for haven assets.

A weak dollar could also spur the already relentless rally in gold (GC=F), which topped $5,000 an ounce for the first time on Sunday and continued to rise on Monday. Silver (SI=F) also soared, continuing what one analyst called a "breathtaking" rally for precious metals.

Focus now turns to a week with a flood of key earnings, including the potentially pivotal quarterly reports from four of the "Magnificent Seven" tech megacaps. Microsoft (MSFT), Meta (META), and Tesla (TSLA) are slated to post results on Wednesday, and Apple's (AAPL) update is set to follow a day later. Eyes will be on AI spending plans, after Intel's (INTC) downbeat outlook last week highlighted challenges to the AI buildout.

At the same time, the Fed's policy decision looms at the end of its two-day meeting on Wednesday, where the central bank is widely expected to hold interest rates steady. Wall Street is wondering how long the Fed will wait to make its next rate cut amid division among policymakers and building tensions with the White House.

Trump has hinted he could name his choice of replacement for Powell as soon as this week, with BlackRock's (BLK) Rick Rieder tapped as the favorite.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) gained 0.6%, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose 0.5%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) also increased 0.4%.

Precious metals rallied as gold stayed above $5,000 per ounce while silver also rose to new records, at one point topping $115 per troy ounce before paring gains. Precious metals hovered at all-time highs as the US dollar slid.

Yahoo Finance's Francisco Velasquez reports;

The semiconductor sector is bracing for a game of musical chairs, and the best seat might be the most obvious, says Bank of America's Vivek Arya.

\\"Our preferred compute names NVDA, AVGO, AMD and CRDO are projected to grow sales on average at a 42%,\\" Arya wrote in a recent note to clients.

Despite their massive reach, Arya argues that these cloud chip giants are trading at a \\"notably compelling valuation backdrop\\" of just 0.5x their price-to-earnings growth (PEG) ratio. For an industry often accused of being in a valuation bubble, the math suggests that the biggest names in the AI revolution are actually trading at a steep discount relative to their growth.

Read more here.

Yahoo Finance's Pras Subramanian reports:

General Motors (GM) investors are looking for the Big Three automaker to continue its strong run of quarterly performance, with fourth-quarter results on deck for Tuesday morning. But challenges remain for the automaker in 2026 as tariffs and its EV business could be a drag on performance.

For the quarter, analysts expect GM to post Q4 revenue of $45.37 billion, down 5% compared to the $47.70 billion reported last year. GM is expected to report Q4 adjusted EPS of $2.28, on adjusted EBIT of $2.77 billion.

Read more here.

GameStop (GME) stock surged 6% on Monday after short seller Michael Burry wrote in his Substack that he owns shares of the video game retailer and has been \\"buying recently.\\"

Burry, who rose to fame by betting against the US housing market ahead of the financial crisis, said he wasn't betting on a short squeeze reminiscent of 2021's meme stock frenzy to get value from the stock. Instead, he said he sees long-term value in the company and its CEO, Ryan Cohen.

\\"I believe in Ryan, I like the setup, the governance, the strategy as I see it,\\" Burry wrote. \\"I am willing to hold long-term, and I am excited to see where this goes.\\"

Year-to-date, GameStop stock is up 22

Yahoo Finance's Francisco Velasquez writes:

The US economy is currently buried under several inches of record-breaking snow, and Bank of America warns the thaw for investors might not arrive until the second quarter.

\\"We project that Winter Storm Fern will lower 1Q 2026 GDP by 0.5-1.5pp on a q/q saar basis,\\" BofA economist Aditya Bhave wrote in a Monday note to clients.

Bhave noted these estimates are based in part on the impact Winter Storm Viola had in 2021. He suggests that while the \\"precedent\\" for a growth freeze is clear, much of the economic activity is likely delayed rather than destroyed.

\\"Some output will be permanently lost due to winter storm Fern,\\" Bhave said. \\"However, we wouldn't expect any lasting impact on the trajectory of the economy.\\"

Read more at the link.

The silver (SI=F) rally was on fire on Monday as prices rose 15% to hover above $116 per troy ounce.

The metal has been one of the standout performers in this year’s precious metals rally, gaining 50% since the start of the year and extending its 150% advance from 2025.

Gold (GC=F) also topped a record $5,000 on Sunday as 'the debasement' trade gained steam. A weaker US dollar (DX-Y.NYB) is expected to accelerate the trade as investors flee from fiat currencies in the face of mounting government debt worldwide.

Microsoft (MSFT) shares inched up 1.5% in midday trading Monday ahead of the tech giant's earnings report later this week as it unveiled a custom AI processor.

Yahoo Finance's Dan Howley reports:

Microsoft (MSFT) is taking aim at cloud rivals Amazon (AMZN) and Google (GOOG, GOOGL) with the debut of its next-generation custom AI chip.

Called Maia 200, the chip will run in Microsoft’s own data centers before the company eventually makes it available to its wider customer base.

Like Google’s TPUs and Amazon’s Trainium processors, Microsoft’s second AI chip is meant to give the Windows maker more flexibility when it comes to how it powers its AI services. By using its own internally developed chips, the company ensures it doesn’t have to rely solely on processors developed by Nvidia (NVDA) or AMD (AMD).

Read the full story here.

Yahoo Finance's Ben Werschkul reports:

Legislation to fund much of the US government appears in peril this week, with odds spiking that another partial government shutdown will strike Friday at midnight.

But the effects of the possible stoppage could be felt differently in the economic arena this time around. Funding for areas like the Department of Commerce (which releases some economic data) and the Department of Agriculture (which administers food benefits) are not set to be impacted, no matter how the week ahead plays out.

The budgets for other key departments — from the Department of Labor (which releases the most closely watched economic data) to government agencies involved in keeping America's airport operations flowing — sit in the middle of what could be a heated week on Capitol Hill.

Read the full story here.

Goldman Sachs (GS) shares rose slightly on Monday as the bank said it is elevating seven partners from its asset and wealth division to its management committee, bringing the total count of Goldman partners on the crucial decision-making board to 46 members.

The move is the latest aimed at bolstering the prominence of the Wall Street bank’s asset manager arm. Known for its enormous dealmaking and trading operations, the major Wall Street bank is seeking to bolster its prominence as an asset and wealth manager.

Earlier this month, Goldman Sachs set new targets for its asset and wealth management division, including raising its returns forecast from the mid-teens to the high teens. The bank also boosted its quarterly dividend by $0.50 to $4.50.

“The opportunity to continue to grow our franchise across [asset and wealth management] is a core strategic objective for the firm,\\" Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said in a statement.

“This group of leaders will help us advance our goals as we continue to build a global, scaled AWM platform.\\"

The new members include four from Goldman’s asset management division: two co-heads of private credit, James Reynolds and Vivek Bantwal; Michael Brandmeyer, chief investment officer for the asset management division’s external investing group; and Gregory Calnon, global co-head of Public Investing. The committee’s three other new members come from Goldman’s wealth management division.

Goldman is also promoting former head of private wealth management, John Mallory, and Nishi Somaiya, former head of private banking, to be global co-heads of wealth management. Mallory and Somaiya will become management committee members, along with Kristin Olson, global head of alternatives within wealth management.

Rare earth stocks continued to soar late Monday morning, extending to premarket gains.

Yahoo Finance's Ines Ferré writes:

USA Rare Earth (USAR) stock jumped as much as 12% on Monday after the miner announced it would receive $1.6 billion from the Department of Commerce in exchange for an equity stake in the company.

Industry peers MP Materials (MP), Energy Fuels (UUUU), and Trilogy Metals (TMQ) all jumped in early trading.

USA Rare Earth said it entered a letter of intent with the Department of Commerce, which also includes a collaboration with the Department of Energy for a $1.3 billion loan and $277 million in federal funding.

Read more here.

Apple (AAPL) stock climbed 2.6% Monday morning, while Meta (META) added 1.6% and Microsoft (MSFT) rose nearly 1%.

The three tech giants and Tesla (TSLA) are set to kick off Big Tech earnings this week, with reports from Meta and Microsoft on Wednesday after the bell as investors eye AI cloud spending.

Then, results from Apple on Thursday afternoon could reveal further details about the iPhone maker's long-awaited AI strategy since it inked a partnership with Google (GOOG) to use Gemini to power its AI apps and next-generation voice assistant Siri.

For its part, Tesla fell 2.5%. The EV maker is set to release its quarterly results on Wednesday as well.

US stocks rose at the market open to reverse mild premarket losses.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) added 0.3%, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) both ticked up 0.2%.

The gains come after back-to-back weekly losses for Wall Street's major indexes as geopolitical tensions stoked by President Trump rattled markets.

Natural gas futures (NG=F) reset over the weekend, gapping down by more than 25% as traders took profit.

Futures on gas had spiked significantly in the lead-up to the arrival of Winter Storm Fern, climbing by 75% in the trading sessions preceding Thursday to mark the biggest five-day gain since 1990.

Gas is the dominant source of heating fuel throughout the US, and the energy product often sees strong price action during the winter as customers throughout the country turn on their heaters and backup generators. Pipelines tend to run at or near their full levels through the winter, with much of their capacity taken up by long-term contracts signed earlier in the year — leaving little room to absorb a winter storm's heightened demand.

During major winter weather events, such as Winter Storm Fern or 2021's Winter Storm Uri that knocked out power throughout Texas's ERCOT region, natural gas can experience significant volatility.

Even though this storm's effects have been severe — as of Monday morning, more than 800,000 people throughout the US remained without power — there has been little new information to trigger another major surge upward in pricing.

As of Monday morning, natural gas futures were hovering around end-of-December prices.

Airline stocks fell ahead of the opening bell on Monday after heavy snowfall and ice from Winter Storm Fern led to thousands of flight cancellations and delays over the weekend and into Monday.

American Airlines (AAL) fell 1.7% after the airline canceled over 1,800 flights on Sunday, the most of any airline, according to FlightAware. Delta (DAL), United (UAL), and Southwest (LUV) also sank more than 1%.

The hardest-hit airports included Boston's Logan International Airport, Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, and New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.

On Monday morning, there were more than 10,000 delays and more than 4,000 cancellations as the severe weather continued to impede travel.

Shares of CoreWeave (CRWV) jumped as much as 10% in premarket Monday as AI titan Nvidia (NVDA) said it is investing another $2 billion in the company.

From Reuters:

CoreWeave is targeting to build more than 5 gigawatts ⁠in AI data ‌center capacity by 2030. The fresh investment from Nvidia will help ‍the AI infrastructure provider speed up procurement of the land and power required to build the facilities.

So-called \\"neoclouds\\" ​like CoreWeave, which provide tech companies ‌with the infrastructure needed to build, run and deploy AI technologies, have seen a surge in demand in recent years as enterprise adoption of AI picks up.

Nvidia was CoreWeave's ⁠third largest shareholder with ​a 6.3% stake, or 24.3 ​million shares, in the company.

It is now nearly doubling its stake in ‍Coreweave by ⁠adding roughly 23 million shares in the firm, becoming its second-largest investor now, ⁠according to Reuters calculations based on data compiled by ‌LSEG.

Read more.

From Bloomberg:

By asking New York traders to confirm the price of the Japanese yen against the dollar (JPY=X) on Friday, US authorities handed investors yet another reason to sell the greenback.

The yen jumped and the dollar (DX-Y.NYB) weakened on Monday as investors decided the so-called rate check was the biggest sign yet of official disquiet toward the sliding Japanese currency and that the next step could be an intervention to buoy it.

That the calls were made in US hours by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York also fanned speculation President Donald Trump’s administration might be willing to unite with Japan to rescue the yen for the first time since 1998, in turn reviving the hot debate about whether the US is happy to see the dollar drop.

... If the US unites with Japan “then that would amplify the yen rally — and not just for symbolic reasons,” said Gareth Berry, strategist at Macquarie Group Ltd. “Japan has lots of dollars to sell, but the NY Fed has an infinite amount. It would also be interpreted as a sign that Trump wants a weaker dollar more generally.”

Read more here.

Yahoo Finance's Ines Ferré reports:

Gold (GC=F) continued to rise on Monday after breaking above $5,000 an ounce earlier than Wall Street expected. Futures hit the major milestone on Sunday, raising questions about the stunning speed of the rally in precious metals.

Gold's surge has become a hallmark of the “debasement trade,” with investors buying assets to protect against the erosion of purchasing power amid soaring government debt worldwide.

\\"The rise in precious metals prices is breathtaking and profoundly scary,\\" Robin Brooks, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, wrote on Sunday, noting the rise in gold prices is \\"part of something much bigger.\\"

Read more here.

US gold mining companies Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) and Newmont (NEM) climbed around 4% as gold topped $5,000 an ounce for the first time. Investors piled into safe-haven assets amid heightened risk of another US government shutdown.

Sarepta Therapeutics Inc. (SRPT) stock rose 7% on Monday during premarket hours after announcing on Friday that it will present three-year, topline functional results from its Phase 3 study of a treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Intel (INTC) stock fell 1% before the bell today. Shares in the chipmaker fell 17% on Friday after the company said it expects losses to continue into the first quarter.

Yahoo Finance's Jake Conley digs into what to watch in a packed week of megacap earnings and a Fed meeting.

He reports:

When two of the market's biggest tech giants report earnings on Wednesday, investors will be watching for two things: How much are these companies planning to spend on their AI and cloud computing arms race, and how are they planning to fund it?

Meta (META) CFO Susan Li boosted spending projections from a range of $66 billion-$72 billion to between $70 billion and $72 billion on the company's third quarter call in October, while Microsoft (MSFT) CFO Amy Hood said the company would spend more in 2026 than the $88.2 billion it spent in 2025.

... To fund this investment, hyperscalers are now issuing so much debt they are changing the landscape of investment-grade credit, Apollo chief economist Torsten Sløk wrote in a note on Friday. The tech sector issued nearly $700 billion in investment-grade debt over the past quarter, closing in on the just-over $800 billion in issuance by the financial sector, which has long led the credit market. (Disclosure: Yahoo Finance is owned by Apollo Global Management.)

While the share of people citing an \\"AI bubble\\" is falling, Bank of America strategists Haim Israel and Menka Bajaj wrote in a recent client note that investors can't not consider the risks of bottomless spending and sky-high valuations.

Read more here.

Shares in Revolution Medicines (RVMD) tumbled over 20% before the bell after the Wall Street ‌Journal reported that Merck (MRK) is no longer in discussions to buy the cancer drug ​developer.

The talks cooled after the ‌two could not come to an agreement on price, the Journal said on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Merck and Revolution Medicines were looking at a deal valued at as much as $32 billion, focused on adding the experimental drug daraxonrasib to the US pharma giant's portfolio, the Financial Times reported earlier in January.