Markets
The Dow Rose 530 Points on Tuesday as 3M Jumped 6% and GM Fell 7%. The Nasdaq Was Flat and Oil's Eight-Day Streak Ended
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 529.85 points, or 1.02%, to 52,495.88 on October 20, the S&P 500 added 0.28% to 7,712.57 and the Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.02% to 26,424.82. Earnings did the sorting: 3M rose 5.8% and Northrop Grumman 4.6%, while General Motors lost 6.8% and GE Aerospace 3.7% after both beat. WTI crude fell 2.5% on reports of US-Iran mediation, its first loss in nine sessions, and the VIX dropped 6% to 17.31.
Tuesday belonged to the old economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 529.85 points, or 1.02%, to 52,495.88 on October 20, while the Nasdaq Composite slipped 6.07 points, or 0.02%, to 26,424.82 and the S&P 500 split the difference, up 21.84 points, or 0.28%, at 7,712.57. The Russell 2000 did better than any of them, gaining 45.12 points, or 1.65%, to 2,773.42, and the CBOE Volatility Index fell 6.1% to 17.31.
The gainers were industrial. 3M jumped 5.78% to $171.37 after reporting adjusted earnings of $2.50 a share against the $2.39 analysts expected, with organic sales up 3.3% and an operating margin of 26.2%. Northrop Grumman rose 4.57% to $534.00 and RTX 0.64% to $193.34 after RTX posted a record $340 billion backlog and raised its full-year outlook. IBM, which reports on Wednesday, added 2.3%. On the other side, General Motors fell 6.84% to $77.09 even though its adjusted $3.70 a share beat the $3.63 consensus: the midpoint of its narrowed 2026 earnings range, $13.25, came in below the $13.41 Wall Street had pencilled in. GE Aerospace lost 3.67% to $299.87 after beating and raising guidance, because free cash flow fell 14% in the quarter.
Technology sat out the rally. Meta fell 1.59% to $694.25 and Netflix 1.66% to $68.69 ahead of their reports, Lam Research dropped 3.21% to $263.45 a day before its own, and the iShares Semiconductor ETF slipped 0.4%; Micron lost 1%, AMD 0.6% and Nvidia 0.3%. Tesla, which reports after Wednesday's close, rose 1.54% to $373.71, the best of the largest technology companies. CoreWeave, which lost a quarter of its value last week on worries about the debt behind its data centres, fell 5.5% in the morning and closed up 1.7%.
The macro backdrop helped. WTI crude fell about 2.5% to just above $101 a barrel in late trading, the first decline after eight straight gains that had added more than 20%, on reports that mediators were trying to arrange talks between the United States and Iran; Brent, which had touched $111.99 earlier in the session, its highest since mid-May, settled 0.7% lower at $108.79. The 10-year Treasury yield slipped two basis points to 5.12%, the 30-year to 5.43%, and the dollar index fell 0.3% to 101.73. Gold futures lost 0.5% to about $4,140 an ounce, a third straight decline. The housing data were poor, with starts down 5.2% and pending home sales down 7.3%, and the homebuilder ETF rose 2.8% anyway because yields fell.
After the close the tone changed again. Netflix fell about 6% on a fourth-quarter revenue forecast below consensus, SpaceX rose 8% on its first quarterly profit, and Super Micro Computer jumped 16% after raising its quarterly revenue outlook by about $4 billion. Nasdaq 100 futures were up 1% by the Asian morning, and Seoul's Kospi rebounded hard enough to trigger a buy-side sidecar. Wednesday brings Meta, Tesla, Lam Research and IBM after the bell and the 20-year Treasury auction at 1 p.m. ET: the day the market finds out whether the industrial rally and the AI rebound can happen at once.