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Stock Market Today: Stock rally stalls amid Trump's China moves

Check back for updates throughout the trading day

U.S. stocks were little changed in early Tuesday trading, while Treasury yields and the dollar resumed their recent march north, but investors could hit pause on the post-election rally amid early concerns over the fate of U.S. policy toward China under President-elect Donald Trump.

Updated at 9:34 AM EST

Flat open

The S&P 500 was marked 1 point, or 0.02% lower in the opening minutes of trading, with the Nasdaq slipping 25 points, or 0.12%.

The Dow, boosted by Honeywell and Home Depot, was marked 90 points higher while the mid-cap Russell 2000 index  fell 14 points, or 0.37%.

Updated at 8:54 AM EST

Honey do-list?

Honeywell International ( HON ) shares surged in early Tuesday trading after activist investors at Elliott Management pushed the industrial group to separate into two separate stand-alone companies.

Elliott said it now has a $5 billion stake in the Charlotte, North Carolina-based group, its single-largest position, and wants it to spin-off its aerospace and automation division. Dan Loeb's Third Point made a similar case in to former CEO Darius Adamczyk in 2017.

Honeywell shares were marked 6.55% higher in premarket trading to indicate an opening bell price of $240.00 each.

Updated at 7:32 AM EST

Home game

Home Depot ( HD ) shares jumped in early Tuesday trading after the home-improvement retailer posted better-than-expected fiscal-third-quarter earnings and lifted its full-year profit forecast, thanks in part to a boost in spending tied to extreme weather in the Southeast.

A modest improvement in consumer spending, as well as what could be a bottoming-out of the U.S. housing market, also helped the group trim its expected same-store sales decline forecast heading into the final months of the year.

Home Depot shares, a Dow component, were marked 1.7% higher in premarket trading to indicate an opening bell price of $415.05 each.

Related: Home Depot stock leaps after Q3 earnings, 2024 forecast boost

Check back for updates throughout the trading day

Stocks finished modestly in the green on Monday, with the S&P 500 posting its 51st record closing high of the year and the Dow ending firmly north of the 44,000 point mark.

Gains were pared in the late afternoon session, however, as investors worried that the market's post-election rally, which has lifted the S&P 500 by around 5%, has stretched stock valuations beyond their fair value.

Bond markets are also back in business Tuesday following yesterday's Veterans' Day observance, and higher Treasury yields are blunting some of the market's enthusiasm for risk heading into tomorrow's October CPI inflation report.

Benchmark 10-year note yields rose 5 basis points from last week's levels and were marked at 4.349% heading into the New York trading session, with 2-year notes pegged at 4.302%.

The U.S. dollar index, meanwhile, was marked at a four-month high of 105.841 against a basket of six global currency peers.

Some of the market's caution was tied to the early composition of President Donald Trump's cabinet, which is reportedly set to include China hawks Marco Rubio of Florida as secretary of state, Mike Waltz as national security adviser and Robert Lighthizer as U.S. trade representative.

Lighthizer is "an arch hawk on trade – although it should be no surprise for the market that he has been picked," said ING's global head of markets, Chris Turner.

"We have assumed late 2025/early 2026 for the introduction and ratcheting up of tariffs, since it takes time to conduct trade investigations, (but) some reports suggest tariffs could come earlier and could piggyback off of the results of existing trade findings," he added.

Related: Analysts revisit Nvidia stock price targets with Q3 earnings in focus

Bitcoin, another asset moving directly as a result of Trump administration expectations, traded just shy of the $90,000 mark in overnight dealing, extending its post-election surge to around 30%.

On Wall Street, stock futures suggest a modest early pullback at the start of trading, with the S&P 500 called 10 points lower and the Dow looking at a 55-point decline.

The tech-focused Nasdaq, meanwhile, is called 45 points lower. Tesla ( TSLA ) was falling 4.1% in premarket trading amid concern about its ties to China. Nvidia ( NVDA ) extended yesterday's decline into a second session following a report that Taiwan Semiconductor was ordered by U.S. officials to stop high-tech shipments to China.

More Wall Street Analysts:

In overseas markets, Europe's Stoxx 600 fell 1.05% in early Frankfurt trading, weighed down by stocks tied to China risk and a muted reading of German investor sentiment for the month of November.

A reading of regional and German state inflation pressures was largely in line with analysts' forecasts.

Overnight in Asia, China stocks slumped across the board, dragging the MSCI ex-Japan benchmark 2.04% lower into the close of trading, on concern about the new Trump appointments and their impact on trade policy.

Japan's Nikkei 225, meanwhile, snapped a three-day winning streak and ended 0.4% lower in Tokyo as chips stocks fell and trade tensions weighed on export stocks.

Related: Veteran fund manager sees world of pain coming for stocks