A downturn in tech put US stocks on mixed footing at the opening bell on Tuesday, a sign that Wall Street is still suffering the AI jitters that have hammered markets in recent weeks.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) led the way down, losing roughly 0.5%, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) shed roughly 0.2%. Moving the other way, the blue chip-heavy Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI), which includes fewer tech names, picked up roughly 0.3%.

After a break for Presidents Day, as AI concerns continue to simmer. Investors are on the lookout for the next potential victim after fresh worries about AI's ability to upend industries hit stocks in sectors from wealth management to transportation to logistics. The Dow and S&P 500 have fallen in four of the past five weeks amid that pressure.

This week, earnings season enters its final stretch. Results from Constellation Energy (CEG) are in focus for signals on how AI's power demand is changing the energy business, with Medtronic (MDT) and Palo Alto Networks (PANW) also on Tuesday's docket. But the week's highlight is Walmart's (WMT) quarterly report on Thursday, the first since the retail giant joined the trillion-dollar market cap club.

Elsewhere in corporates, Paramount Skydance (PSKY) stock rose 5% at the bell on Tuesday following the news that Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) has given the studio one week to come back with a better offer. Warner Bros. rejected the latest bid from the Hollywood studio.

The holiday-shortened week also brings a flurry of economic readings delayed by the partial US shutdown. The December print of the Personal Consumption Expenditures index due Friday is in focus after the latest consumer inflation report came in cooler than expected.

An advance look at fourth quarter GDP, also on Friday, should provide an economic health check amid an ongoing debate about the pace of interest-rate cuts this year. Before that, minutes from the Federal Reserve's policy meeting in January will also feed into those calculations, as questions swirl around a purported "loyalty pledge" signed by Kevin Warsh, Trump's pick for the next Fed chair.

Shares in consumer food giant General Mills (GIS) fell by more than 3.3% in premarket trading after the company lowered its 2026 sales outlook. \\"Weak consumer sentiment, heightened uncertainty, and significant volatility have weighed on category growth and impacted consumer purchase patterns\\" contributed to the dour outlook, the company said.

General Mills is now projecting organic net sales of -1.5% to -2%, down from a previous range of -1% to 1%. Adjusted operating profit and adjusted diluted earnings per share are now expected at a range of -16% to -20%, down from a previously stated range of -10% to -15%.

\\"While the company is making meaningful progress in strengthening its remarkability to position the business for long-term sustainable growth, this progress has come amid a more challenging backdrop,\\" General Mills said in its statement.

While General Mills has managed to return roughly 4% since the beginning of the year, the company's shares are down more than 18% over the past year. Meanwhile, an index tracking the consumer staples sector (XLP) has returned 15% year to date and roughly 10% since the same time last year.

Paramount Skydance (PSKY) stock is moving higher after Warner Bros. (WBD) agreed to reopen acquisition discussions.

The move comes after Paramount proposed a new all-cash offer last week of $30 per share to acquire the entire company. That offer came with a $ 0.25-per-share \\"ticking fee\\" — under which Warner Bros.' shareholders would receive $0.25 per share each quarter until the transaction is not closed beyond the end of this year.

Paramount also floated an informal acquisition proposal for $31 a share, WBD said.

The new window for discussions will last seven days, ending on Feb. 23, 2026, \\"to seek clarity for Warner Bros. stockholders and provide Paramount the ability to make its best and final offer.\\"

In the release, Warner Bros. Chair Samuel A. Di Piazza said the board of directors said it still suggests the Netflix offer, worth some $82.7 billion, which does not include the entire business.

\\"The Netflix merger is in the best interests of WBD shareholders due to the tremendous value it provides\\" with a \\"clear path to achieve regulatory approval,\\" he said in the release.

Paramount's current offer of $30 per share values the whole company at $108.4 billion.

Netflix’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos testified before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee last week, negating claims that it would lead to a monopoly, or higher prices for consumers.

Yahoo Finance's Jake Conley lays out the key events ahead for investors in a holiday-shortened week.

He writes:

AI turbulence was the dominant theme in markets last week, with software, real estate, financial services, and logistics stocks all facing selling pressure on worries about the scale of AI-related disruption to their businesses.

... These moves ... flattered what were sharp moves beneath the surface. Whether these disruptions continue will be the theme most closely tracked by investors in the week ahead.

Headlining the economic data calendar this week will be Friday's Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) report, offering investors a read on consumer spending in the holiday shopping-filled month of December and a look at inflation.

The data comes after last week's Consumer Price Index (CPI) numbers showed that inflation slowed more than expected in January.

... In the corporate world, attention is likely to focus on Thursday's fourth quarter release from Walmart (WMT), a strong indicator of consumer spending, with the report marking the first for new Walmart CEO John Furner.

Read more here on what to look out for.

DTE Energy (DTE) stock rose as much as 10% before paring gains. The energy company is due to release its earnings before the bell today, and the stock has risen 13% over the past year.

Norwegian Cruise Line (NCLH) stock rose 7% during premarket trading on Tuesday after activist investor Elliott built a stake in the company.

Strategy (MSTR) stock fell 3% before the bell today. The company, which is one of the largest corporate holders of bitcoin, has been struggling recently due to the sell-off with the world's largest cryptocurrency.

A growing number on Wall Street are assessing the recent AI sell-offs. And despite many fearing the bubble has burst, for stock pickers, now might be the time for them to get greedy.

Bloomberg News reports:

Yes, artificial intelligence is likely to disrupt companies and put some of them out of business. But there’s little chance, the thinking goes, that wealth managers or real estate agents or insurance brokerages or logistics firms cease to exist entirely.

And therein lies the opportunity, the traders say. When a new AI tool threatens to upset an industry, investors are simply selling the whole group. Take logistics, a segment that sank almost 7% Thursday on just such a report. All 17 companies in the Russell 3000 Trucking index declined, with more than half off at least 5%. A day later, all but four stocks were higher as the group recouped half its drop.

A similar whiplash has hit a handful of other industries in recent weeks in a market that’s increasingly primed to react to even the smallest signal of displacement risk. Money managers and analysts say the indiscriminate nature of the selling proves it’s disconnected from fundamentals, and presents a chance to buy.

Read more here.

Germany's Hapag-Lloyd (HLAG.DE, HPGLY) is buying ZIM Integrated Shipping Services in a deal worth $4.2 billion, bringing together two of the world's biggest shipping lines.

Shares of Israel-based ZIM rocketed over 35% higher in premarket trading, after the two companies confirmed the takeover on Monday.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Germany-based Hapag-Lloyd said Monday that it signed a deal to buy Zim for $35 a share in cash, a 58% premium to Zim’s closing price of $22.20 on Friday.

The total deal price of around $4.2 billion will be funded from cash reserves and external financing of up to $2.5 billion.

... The deal is expected to be completed by the end of this year, Hapag-Lloyd said. Any deal will require the consent of the state of Israel, Zim shareholders and regulators.

... The move comes after Zim appointed an independent board that has spent the last several months conducting a strategic review to assess a range of options, including a sale of the company, capital allocation options and other measures to maximize shareholder value.

Zim recently reported a sharp drop in third-quarter earnings as freight rates tumbled and container volumes slipped, with the company warning that fourth-quarter conditions had weakened.

Read more here.

Nothing like a BofA fund manager survey drop the day after a market holiday.

Lots of great nuggets in the one out this morning, but the chart below stood out to me. So many on the Street I talk with expect a very robust economy this spring, in part because of expectations for a strong tax refund season.

Goes a long way in explaining the hot small-caps trade.

Masimo (MASI) stock surged over 30% in premarket following a report that Danaher (DHR) is closing in on a deal to buy the medical technology company.

The deal moves come two years after activist investor Politan succeeded in pushing through a change in Masimo's board.

It would be the biggest acquisition by Danaher in over half a decade, the Financial Times reported. Shares of the US life sciences manufacturer fell over 5% before the bell.

The FT reports:

A deal for the California-based Masimo could be announced as early as Tuesday provided it does not hit any last-minute snags, according to people familiar with the matter.

The acquisition values Masimo at around $9.9 billion, the people said. That represents a premium to its nearly $7 billion market capitalisation at Friday’s close.

... Masimo is a leading manufacturer of pulse oximeters, which measure blood oxygen levels. The company has challenged Apple (AAPL) over breaching its patents in a long-running intellectual property dispute over the Apple Watch.

... Masimo shares are down 50 per cent over the past five years and the group has struggled since it acquired Sound United, a wearables company, for $1 billion in 2021.

Read more here (premium subscribers)

Norwegian Cruise Line (NCLH) stock rose 6% before the bell on Tuesday following a report from The Wall Street Journal that activist investor Elliott has built a 10% stake in the company and plans to push for changes.

Elliott has become one of the cruise line's top investors and is keen to fix the company's underperformance. Elliott has so far built stakes in Southwest Airlines (LUV), as well as oil refiner Phillips 66 (PSX) and Toyota Industries (TYIDY). According to The Wall Street Journal, Elliott has over $79 billion in assets under management and is concerned about Norwegian Cruise Line's financial performance.

The Wall Street Journal:

Norwegian is the fourth-largest cruise operator in the world by number of passengers, with a market value of roughly $10 billion. Its brands include the more premium Oceania Cruises and the luxury Regent Seven Seas Cruises.

Norwegian’s stock is down around 4% year to date as of Friday, after falling roughly 13% in 2025.

The Miami-based company has lagged behind competitors including Royal Caribbean and Carnival. Norwegian shares are among the worst-performing in the S&P 500 over the past five years, with the stock remaining near Covid-era levels, despite consumer demand recovering since the pandemic.

Elliott believes Norwegian could make changes to catch up to its rivals, the people familiar with the matter said.

For example, Norwegian’s peers have had success bringing in new customers to cruises through their private islands. Norwegian owns Great Stirrup Cay in the Bahamas, one of the biggest private islands in the industry, but industry-watchers say its development plans have been slow-going.

Read more here.

Nvidia (NVDA) has a very high bar to clear to appease investors when it reports earnings on February 25.

Citi this morning points to a few important things to keep in mind ahead of time:

\\"Key Investor Topics — a) Higher component costs impact to expected mid 70s percentage gross margins; b) updates on Anthropic/OpenAI investments; c) inference competition, and d) impact of the Groq licensing agreement on Nvidia's product roadmap.\\"

From Bloomberg:

The dollar (DX-Y.NYB) is edging higher for a second day, shrugging off market pricing that implies roughly three Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts this year.

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.1% even as the yen strengthened about 0.4%, with declines for other currencies in the basket keeping the gauge higher.

Options markets indicate near-term bearishness on the greenback has eased, with so-called front-end risk reversals at their least negative in almost a month.

Money markets are still pricing about 64 basis points of Fed cuts by year-end. Some strategists argue that is overdone as three cuts may be more than the data justify, leaving the market vulnerable to a dollar rebound.

“Fed funds rate-cut bets look stretched, leaving room for a near-term USD-positive repricing,” said Elias Haddad, global head of markets strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman, citing resilient growth and underlying inflation that has stalled above the Fed’s 2% target.

Read more here.

Bloomberg reports:

Gold (GC=F) was little changed in early trade, with much of Asia closed for the Lunar New Year and after a US holiday on Monday.

Bullion was near $5,000 an ounce, after falling 1% in the previous session. The metal had rallied briefly on Friday when modest US inflation data boosted the case for the Federal Reserve to trim interest rates. Lower borrowing costs are a tailwind for non-yielding precious metals.

A wave of speculative buying pushed a multiyear rally to breaking point in late January, with gold surging to a record above $5,595 an ounce. An abrupt, two-day rout at the turn of the month pulled the metal back almost to $4,400, but it has since regained roughly half of its losses.

Many banks — including BNP Paribas SA, Deutsche Bank AG and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. — have forecast that prices will resume their upward trend, driven by persisting geopolitical tensions, questions over the Fed’s independence and a wider shift away from currencies and sovereign bonds.

Read more here.