US shares rose on Tuesday after Monday\u2019s AI-led sell-off. The Dow gained about 425 points (0.85%) to move back above 49,000, while the S&P 500 added about 0.6% and the Nasdaq rose about 0.9%.<\/p>\n
On Monday, the Dow fell 822 points amid concerns about AI disrupting software and consulting, plus tariff uncertainty. US President Trump raised global tariffs to 15% under Section 122 of the Trade Act.<\/p>\n
AMD shares jumped about 8% after a multi-year deal with Meta to deploy up to 6 gigawatts of AMD Instinct GPUs in Meta\u2019s AI data centres. Shipments of custom MI450-based GPUs are due to start in the second half of 2026.<\/p>\n
AMD issued Meta a performance-based warrant for up to 160 million AMD shares, vesting as shipment milestones are met. Nvidia was largely flat ahead of its quarterly earnings report on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Home Depot rose about 3% after fourth-quarter adjusted EPS of $2.72 versus $2.55 expected and revenue of $38.2bn versus $38.09bn forecast. Comparable sales rose 0.4% versus an expected 0.4% fall.<\/p>\n
Home Depot guided for fiscal 2026 sales growth of 2.5% to 4.5% and comparable sales from flat to up 2%, with adjusted EPS flat to up 4%. It raised its quarterly dividend to $2.33 per share.<\/p>\n
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index rose 2.2 points to 91.2 in February versus 87.0 expected. January was revised to 89.0 from 84.5, ahead of Trump\u2019s State of the Union on Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n
The sharp reversal from Monday’s sell-off signals that volatility is the main product right now. We saw the VIX, a key measure of market fear, spike to over 20 on Monday before settling back to around 18 today, well above the year’s average of 14. This environment suggests that buying options to play defined risk strategies is prudent, as both AI disruption and trade policy create potential for more large, two-way swings in the Dow and S&P 500.<\/p>\n
The AI infrastructure buildout is creating clear winners, and we should focus there. The AMD-Meta deal confirms a massive capital spending cycle, and traders can use call options or bull call spreads on AMD to ride this momentum. With Nvidia earnings tomorrow, its options are pricing in a potential move of over 10%, a common occurrence for the stock historically on earnings days, making strategies like straddles expensive but potentially profitable if a massive move occurs in either direction.<\/p>\n
Conversely, the rebound in software stocks looks fragile and could offer a good entry for bearish positions. We saw IBM have its worst day since the dot-com bust on Monday, and the 3% recovery today may not hold if Salesforce offers weak guidance tomorrow. Buying puts on a software-focused ETF or on individual names that are most at risk from AI displacement could protect against another downturn in that sector.<\/p>\n
The consumer picture is murky, which complicates trades on retail or housing. Home Depot beat estimates but confirmed a “frozen housing environment” that has persisted since 2023, with mortgage rates still stubbornly above 6%. While the dividend hike is a sign of strength, the flat guidance suggests limited upside, making it an unlikely candidate for bullish bets in the near term.<\/p>\n
Trade policy remains the biggest unknown, and we need to be hedged ahead of tonight’s State of the Union address. The threat of new global tariffs brings back memories of the sharp, unpredictable market drops we saw throughout 2025 when similar rhetoric emerged. Holding some protective puts on broad market indices like the SPY is a reasonable cost to insure portfolios against a negative policy surprise.<\/p>\n
Create your live VT Markets account<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0start trading<\/a>\u00a0now. <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" US stocks rebounded after AI sell-off; Dow regained 49,000 as AMD, Home Depot rallied; confidence rose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":16993,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-live-updates"],"acf":{"acf_article_selection_author":null},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}