Wall Street opened mostly higher Tuesday, apparently cheering President Donald Trump’s first day back in the White House after his speeches seemed to show a softer stance on tariffs, economists, said.
Before Monday’s inauguration, people feared large, blanket tariffs across the board would be inflationary and slow the economy. Instead, “broad and immediate tariffs were not announced, rather President Trump instructed the government to study multiple avenues and options,” Morgan Stanley economists wrote in a note.
Trump suggested 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada could come by Feb. 1, but again, that gives those countries a narrow window to make some concessions or commitments to avoid them, economists said.
Likely, “public policy choices won’t start to meaningfully influence the economic outlook until later this year,” Morgan Stanley said.
Around 10:20 AM ET, the broad S&P 500 index was up 0.33% to 6,016.59, the blue-chip Dow rose 0.65% to 43,770.74 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq dipped 0.12% to 19,606.72. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield slipped to 4.576%.
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Oil prices dipped around 2% after Trump continued to push for more energy production, including more drilling.
Tech stocks jump
Some of the biggest winners on Tuesday included tech stocks.
Shares of Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon were all higher in early trading after the billionaire top executives of those companies were seated prominently at Trump’s inauguration.
Tesla’s shares were down more than 4% on Tuesday morning, but still up about 70% since Trump won the presidential race in November as the EV giant’s CEO Elon Musk remains especially close to the new administration. Reports say Musk will have an office in the West Wing of the White House.
Over the weekend, TikTok went dark briefly because of a law stating the Chinese-owned app would be banned it it wasn’t sold to a non-Chinese entity. On Monday, Trump signed an executive order that effectively halted enforcement of the law for 75 days, though it wasn’t clear that declaration would hold up legally.
Despite Trump’s executive action, Facebook’s Instagram platform reportedly is offering TikTok content creators a hefty amount of money to switch over. TikTok boasts about 170 million American users who are seen as being up for grabs if TikTok ends up permanently going dark.
Crypto disappointment?
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies fell on Monday after Trump failed to issue any crypto-related executive orders or even acknowledge the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve he had promised.
Before the inauguration, the market was rife with speculation Trump would sign an executive order that would boost the profile of cryptocurrencies.
However, by 10:31 AM ET, bitcoin had started to claw back some gains, up 1.6% to $103,669.20.
It was also partly helped earlier by Trump’s new crypto token, which soared to more than $10 billion in market value on Monday. Since then, the token’s value has fallen.
Corporate news
Earnings season got a strong start last week with most major U.S. banks reporting strong quarterely results. This morning, corporate news included:
- Brokerage giant Charles Schwab reported fourth-quarter results that topped Wall Street estimates, bolstered by the continuing integration of TD Ameritrade and client activity following the election. Shares were up more than 7.5%.
- DR Horton topped analysts’ earning estimates, saying customer incentives such as mortgage buydowns had spurred demand. Shares of the homebuilder were fractionally higher.
- 3M rose 5% after the company reported quarterly sales and earnings per share that both topped expectations.
Medora Lee is a money, markets, and personal finance reporter at USA TODAY. You can reach her at mjlee@usatoday.com and subscribe to our free Daily Money newsletter for personal finance tips and business news every Monday through Friday morning.
