Election-Day Caution Meets a Tentative Semiconductor Rebound
U.S. equity futures are mixed Tuesday as investors balance another disappointing megacap earnings reaction against an attempted rebound in semiconductors and today’s U.S. midterm elections. At roughly 5:05 a.m. ET, Dow futures were -0.42%, S&P 500 futures essentially flat and Nasdaq-100 futures +0.46%. Monday’s S&P 500 fell 0.51% and Nasdaq Composite 1.07%, while the Dow gained 0.41% and Russell 2000 slipped 0.21%. More importantly, the Nasdaq-100 has now fallen more than 10% from its closing high, formally entering correction territory as investors continue to reassess AI valuations, capital intensity and debt-funded infrastructure spending.
The cross-asset backdrop remains relatively supportive outside energy. DXY fell 0.14 to 101.74, while EUR/USD rose 0.28% to 1.1190 and GBP/USD gained 0.15% to 1.3409. The 2-year Treasury yield rose 2 bp to 4.59%, the 10-year was unchanged at 4.91% and the 30-year slipped 1 bp to 5.28%, leaving long-term yields comfortably below last week’s 5%+ levels. WTI provided Monday’s largest macro impulse, falling 7.88% to $95.92 as hopes for U.S.-Iran diplomacy stripped out a sizable portion of the geopolitical risk premium. That relief is partially reversing this morning: WTI is back near $98, up roughly 1.7%, after U.S. strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island and Iranian comments reduced expectations for an imminent settlement. Gold gained 1.45% to $3,955.50 Monday.
Politics is the largest event risk today, with voters deciding control of Congress in the November 3 midterm elections. Current polling and nonpartisan forecasts favor Democrats taking the House, while Senate control remains less certain. For markets, the relevant transmission channels are fiscal policy, AI and technology oversight, energy policy and the potential for legislative gridlock rather than the election result itself. A divided government could restrain incremental fiscal expansion, while a one-party sweep would create greater potential for policy changes affecting deficits, regulation and AI investment.
The economic calendar is lighter but still relevant ahead of Friday’s employment report. September JOLTS job openings are due at 10:00 a.m. ET, with consensus near 7.1–7.13 million versus 7.079 million previously. September factory orders are released simultaneously, with consensus around +1.2% m/m versus +0.1% in August. The BLS confirms today’s 10:00 a.m. JOLTS release, while Census has scheduled the full September manufacturing-orders report for the same time. October vehicle sales are due later in the day.
Sector Highlights
Monday’s tape continued to show substantially better conditions beneath the capitalization-weighted indexes than the S&P 500 or Nasdaq suggested. Consumer Discretionary +2.25%, Materials +1.83%, Financials +1.76%, Consumer Staples +1.75%, Industrials +1.37%, Real Estate +1.01% and Utilities +0.53% all advanced. Health Care slipped 0.17% and Communication Services 0.21%, while Technology -2.66% and Energy -3.97% were the clear laggards.
Breadth reinforced the rotation: NYSE advancers led decliners 1.76:1, while Nasdaq breadth was modestly negative at 1.12:1. Seven of eleven S&P sectors advanced despite the index falling, while the Dow gained and Technology continued to unwind. The divergence suggests investors are still reallocating within equities rather than abandoning risk outright. Lower oil helped consumer and rate-sensitive exposures, while Technology remains caught between improving valuations and unresolved concerns over AI capital requirements. The key near-term test is whether semiconductor leadership can stabilize after several consecutive sessions of selling without reversing the broadening toward cyclicals, defensives and equal-weight exposures.
Company-Specific News by GICS Sector
Information Technology
- AAPL (-1.83%) — Apple is down roughly 4%–4.5% premarket despite fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of $114.48 billion and EPS of $2.10, both above expectations. Investors instead focused on management’s forecast for December-quarter gross margin of 45%–46%, down from 47.9%, as rising memory costs offset strong iPhone 18 Pro demand. Services growth guidance of 8%–9% also fell short of expectations, making Apple another example of a company beating current-quarter estimates while failing to clear the forward-looking earnings bar.
- PLTR (-3.13%) — Palantir is down roughly 6% premarket despite reporting extraordinary headline growth. Third-quarter revenue increased 96% y/y to $2.31 billion, while U.S. commercial revenue rose 148% and exceeded U.S. government revenue for the first time. Management raised full-year guidance and forecast Q4 revenue well above consensus, but U.S. commercial total contract value growth slowed to just 11% from more than 153% in the prior quarter. At a still-elevated valuation, investors are focusing on incremental growth rather than absolute growth.
- AMD (-7.52%) — AMD is up roughly 2.8% premarket ahead of third-quarter earnings after today’s close. The shares have fallen more than 18% over the past two sessions, materially lowering expectations before the report. Data-center accelerator demand, AI GPU revenue, gross margins and management’s outlook for hyperscaler spending will be the key variables as investors look for evidence that the semiconductor beneficiaries of AI spending can continue monetizing the buildout even as customers face greater scrutiny over capital expenditures. AMD’s earnings call is scheduled for 5:00 p.m. ET.
- NVDA (-1.26%) — Nvidia is up roughly 1.6% premarket after four consecutive losing sessions. The attempted rebound is significant because the recent correction has increasingly separated semiconductor suppliers with direct AI revenue exposure from hyperscalers and infrastructure developers absorbing the capital costs. A sustainable Nvidia rebound would improve the odds that Technology’s correction remains a valuation and financing reset rather than a broader deterioration in end-market AI demand.
Industrials
- DD (+0.69%) — DuPont raised its 2026 outlook after third-quarter adjusted EPS of $2.09 exceeded the $1.87 consensus estimate. Organic sales increased 5%, supported by health-care, aerospace, industrial-water and diversified industrial demand. Management now expects adjusted EPS of $7.47–$7.52, up from $7.17–$7.32 previously, and plans another $250 million of share repurchases in the fourth quarter. The results offer a constructive read on selected industrial end markets despite weakness in portions of the broader chemical complex.
Consumer Staples
- ADM (-1.43%) — Archer-Daniels-Midland is scheduled to report before the open. The results will provide a read on agricultural processing margins, commodity demand and food inflation after Energy’s sharp Monday decline lowered near-term inflation expectations. ADM enters the report after underperforming Monday despite broader Consumer Staples strength.
Health Care
- PFE (+0.62%) — Pfizer reports third-quarter results this morning, with its corporate-performance webcast scheduled for 10:00 a.m. ET. Consensus expectations center near $16 billion of revenue and $0.73 of adjusted EPS. With the shares near recent highs, the larger issue is whether growth from oncology and newer products can continue offsetting declining COVID-related revenue and support the sector’s recent relative improvement.
Energy
- MPC (-3.22%) — Marathon Petroleum reports before the open after falling alongside Monday’s 8% collapse in WTI. Refining margins, utilization, maintenance spending and cash returns should matter more than the quarter’s headline earnings given the sharp change in the commodity backdrop. Crude’s rebound this morning provides some relief, but the stock remains highly sensitive to whether Monday’s geopolitical de-escalation represents a durable reset in energy prices.
