Investopedia Markets News (all except PF)

• Walmart's valuation reached $1 trillion today, adding the company to an exclusive club.
• The move comes as the shares have posted double-digit gains in 2026.

The trillion-dollar club has a new member.

Retail giant Walmart (WMT), which this week welcomed a new CEO, surpassed $1 trillion in market capitalization Tuesday as its shares surged. The stock finished nearly 3% higher as broader markets slipped. (Read Investopedia's full coverage of today's markets here.)

Walmart's move into the ranks of trillion-dollar U.S. public businesses puts it in rarified company. Only 11 companies are larger, according to calculations by CompaniesMarketCap, with Nvidia (NVDA) and Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) the two biggest, above $4 trillion.

Shares of Walmart have risen nearly 15% in 2026. They have added more than a quarter of their value over the past 12 months as the company has made inroads with higher earners, lifting its retail market share.

Its perception with investors has also been aided by its addition to the Nasdaq 100 index, which is seen as a measure of the tech trade. Walmart has sought to be perceived as a tech firm as well as a retailer.

Walmart closed Tuesday's session with a market cap of about $1.018 trillion.

Eli Lilly (LLY), which ranks just below Walmart in market capitalization, reports quarterly results Wednesday.

UPDATE—This article has been updated to reflect Walmart's closing market cap and share percentage.

• Advanced Micro Devices is scheduled to report its quarterly results after the closing bell Tuesday, with analysts expecting record revenues from the chipmaker.
• Options pricing suggests traders expect AMD's stock could move about 8% in either direction in the days after its results.

Advanced Micro Devices is scheduled to report earnings after the closing bell Tuesday. Traders are anticipating a big move in the chipmaker's stock.

Options pricing suggests traders expect AMD (AMD) stock could move nearly 8% in either direction by the end of this week. A shift of that size from Monday's closing price of around $246 could push the shares back to October's record highs near $265—or drag them back down to about $228.

Tuesday's results could help inject some fresh enthusiasm back into shares of AMD, which took a hit in the last few months of 2025 amid worries about an AI bubble. They've rebounded to start the new year after a string of strong signals for AI hardware makers.

Analysts at Bank of America said last month that they expect AMD's results to top Street estimates on strength from its data center segment, its largest source of revenue, as Big Tech giants continue to spend heavily on AI infrastructure.

AMD is seen reporting adjusted earnings per share of $1.34 on a nearly 27% year-over-year jump in revenue to a record $9.69 billion in the fourth quarter, driven by growth in data center sales, according to estimates collected by Visible Alpha.

Wall Street analysts lean more bullish than bearish on AMD's stock. Of the 10 analysts with current ratings compiled by Visible Alpha, seven have issued "buy" recommendations for the stock, compared to three neutral ratings. Their mean price target around $276 would suggest roughly 12% upside from Monday's close.

AMD shares, which have more than doubled over the past 12 months, were down 2% in early-afternoon trading Tuesday.

• PayPal shares sank sharply Tuesday morning after the company missed fourth-quarter estimates and gave a weaker-than-expected outlook. The company also announced a new CEO.
• PayPal pointed to weakness in its branded checkout operations, and said it expects profits to decline in the first quarter and full year.

PayPal shares tumbled Tuesday after the payments provider's fourth-quarter results and outlook came in short of Wall Street analysts' estimates. The company also named a new CEO.

PayPal (PYPL) shares were down over 18% recently, among the worst-performing stocks in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq as they sank to their lowest point since early 2017.

PayPal said Tuesday that it generated $8.68 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter, along with adjusted earnings per share of $1.23. Both figures missed analysts' projections compiled by Visible Alpha.

Interim CEO Jamie Miller said the company's "execution has not been where it needs to be," especially in its branded checkout operations, where PayPal is provided as an option for checking out on a retailer's website. PayPal said its underperformance in branded checkout was "driven by weakness in US retail, international headwinds and tough compares in high-growth verticals."

The tumble in PayPal's stock Tuesday underscores a big blow to investor confidence after the company posted its latest results.

PayPal said adjusted profits could fall by mid-single digits in the first quarter of 2026, and register between a low-single digit decline to a slight rise for the full year. Analysts had been expecting solid gains in all of those metrics.

Separately, PayPal named Enrique Lores as the company's next CEO, effective March 1, after six years leading HP Inc. (HPQ).

With Tuesday's losses, PayPal shares have lost nearly half their value over the last 12 months.

• Palantir's stock has mostly fallen over the past three months. Things are looking more positive today.
• The AI software company late Monday reported better-than-expected quarterly results and issued a rosy outlook for revenue growth.

Palantir is bouncing.

Shares of the AI-powered software company were sharply higher early Tuesday, looking set to reverse a slide that has lasted about three months. Palantir's (PLTR) stock—recently up about 10% premarket to near $163—may today eat into year-to-date losses; the shares finished 2025 at just under $178 apiece.

Last night's release of an upbeat sales outlook and quarterly financial results—both which were better than Wall Street expected—as well as some braggadocio in a letter from CEO Alex Karp, is powering the shares higher this morning. Those numbers may also help reassure some investors that software stocks aren't necessarily all doomed to be devoured by AI. (That's not a unanimous determination, but it's undoubtedly a concern.)

A strong and positive market reaction to Palantir's latest results and outlook could encourage some investors to think twice about selling software stocks—though, given the negativity around the segment lately, that's far from certain.

"Palantir's momentum increasingly stands out in a software market where accelerating growth stories are rare," Citi analysts wrote. They have a $260 price target on the stock, suggesting nearly 80% upside from last night's close under $150.

That's also well above the Street average, currently calculated by Visible Alpha as just over $189. That price, too, suggests quite a bit of room to climb, though the stock is so far eating into that this morning.

The good news hasn't entirely dispelled the notion that the shares may be overvalued. Jefferies analysts, who have a bearish rating on the stock, maintained a $70 price target that suggests a more-than-50% fall from Monday's close. That take, the bank noted, was less about performance than price:

"We view execution as strong," the analysts wrote, but there are "more attractive stocks in our coverage."

This article has been updated since it was first published to reflect the start of trading.

News of the day for Feb. 3, 2026

Stock futures are higher this morning as investors assess earnings reports and tech shares rally; gold and silver prices are surging after falling sharply in recent days; Palantir shares are soaring after the AI software maker's results topped Wall Street estimates; two of Elon Musk's companies, SpaceX and xAI, have merged at a reported valuation of $1.25 trillion; and chip giant Advanced Micro Devices is scheduled to release quarterly results after the closing bell. Here's what you need to know today.

Stock futures are pointing to a higher open for major indexes on Tuesday as markets look to carry Monday's momentum forward. Tech shares are rising, led by big gains for Palantir after the AI software company reported strong earnings and issued a rosy outlook after the closing bell yesterday (more on that below). Futures tied to the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq were recently up 0.3% and 0.6%, respectively, while Dow Jones Industrial Average futures hovered near unchanged. The major indexes each finished higher on Monday, with the Dow gaining more than 500 points and the S&P 500 finishing just shy of a record close.

Gold futures were up more than 6% this morning, rebounding from steep declines in recent sessions (see below). Crude oil futures were up slightly after sinking Monday following comments from President Trump about negotiations with Iran. Bitcoin is trading around $78,000 after recovering slightly on Monday from a weekend sell-off that pushed the price below $75,000, its lowest level since April. The 10-year Treasury yield, which affects a range of consumer borrowing costs, was little changed at 4.28% recently.

Gold and silver prices are rallying this morning after suffering their biggest declines in decades. Gold futures were recently up 6.4% at $4,950 an ounce, after falling as low as $4,400 yesterday. The precious metal is still well below the record high of near $5,600 set last Thursday. Meanwhile, silver futures were recently up 13% at $87.75 an ounce, but far from their high point last week near $122. Gold and silver prices had rallied to start the year after each posting substantial gains in 2025, as investors flocked to the safe-haven assets amid uncertainty over the Trump administration's tariffs and its actions in Venezuela and elsewhere abroad. Several analysts stayed bullish on gold over the weekend and into Monday, saying there had not been a real shift in the fundamentals that had driven gold to record highs. Despite the recent volatility, gold prices are up more than 70% over the past 12 months, while silver has gained about 165%.

Palantir (PLTR) shares are soaring in premarket trading after the software maker's earnings report topped Wall Street estimates. Shares were up 11% recently as investors digested quarterly results that topped analysts expectations on the top and bottom lines, as well as a strong outlook for revenue growth this year. CEO Alex Karp, in a letter to shareholders released after yesterday's closing bell, called the "massive acceleration in growth" a "remarkable achievement." Ahead of the report, analysts had said the AI darling's stock had pulled back—it was down some 30% from the record highs it reached ahead of its previous report in November—because of concerns that its run in 2025, when shares more than doubled in value, left the company overvalued. Overvaluation has become a common concern of many analysts and investors evaluating the AI trade in recent months, along with questions over the spending of tech companies on the technology and whether they will ever see a return on their investment.

Two of Elon Musk's companies became one on Monday afternoon, as SpaceX acquired xAI. Together, the space flight and satellite internet company plus the social media company will be worth $1.25 billion, with a $1 trillion valuation assigned to SpaceX and $250 billion to xAI, according to Bloomberg. In January, xAI was reportedly raising funds at a $230 billion valuation, with SpaceX completing a share sale valuing it at $800 billion in December and still planning for an IPO later this year, Bloomberg reported. Musk, who also serves as CEO of Tesla (TSLA), said in the announcement that the combination makes sense because of his theory that putting AI data centers in space will be the most efficient way to run AI in the years to come. The idea for space-based data centers is that they would be closer to the power of the sun and able to constantly pull in power through solar panels, and would be able to cool faster in the vacuum of space. Experts have said it would take years and rocket capacity to get all the necessary hardware into space to begin with, aside from the question of whether the data center could actually function in space.

The AI trade will get another data point on Tuesday, with quarterly earnings from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) due after the market closes. Sales for the chipmaker have surged in recent years as it pushes its chips to compete with Nvidia (NVDA), sending its stock soaring. AMD is expected to report $9.69 billion in sales along with adjusted earnings per share of $1.34, according to Visible Alpha estimates. Shares pulled back in the final months of 2025 amid the concerns about overvaluation in the tech sector and what could happen if the money stops flowing. AMD shares were up more than 2% in recent premarket trading.

• CEO Alex Karp took a victory lap after the company's fourth quarter beat Wall Street estimates, showing strong revenue growth and record profits. It also guided 2026 revenue higher.
• William Blair raised its rating on the stock to "outperform" ahead of the earnings report release on Monday; Citi boosted its rating last month.

One of Wall Street's most-polarizing tech stocks is having a moment.

Shares of Palantir Technologies (PLTR) jumped Monday, rising as much as 9% in after-hours trading, after the company's fourth-quarter earnings report and revenue outlook for the coming year outstripped Wall Street estimates, showing that the company can deliver in the face of high expectations. Chief Alex Karp boasted about the AI software company's record results, calling its "massive acceleration in growth" a "remarkable achievement" in a shareholder letter—and taking a jab at skeptics.

"We still remember, and will not soon forget, enduring for years polite yet firm questions about the potential profitability and indeed more fundamentally the wisdom of our approach," he wrote in the letter.

While Palantir has been among Wall Street's more polarizing tech stocks due to its high valuations, it has been a Main Street darling. Retail investors cheered the company on after it reported another good quarter of growth.

Palantir stock's valuation had been a point of concern among Wall Street analysts after a torrid run-up since 2024 made its shares look "priced to perfection" in some eyes. However, a couple have come around, citing the company's growth trajectory—as well as the fact that the stock had fallen about 30% from all-time highs seen late last year.

The company's fourth quarter revenue of $1.41 billion exceeded Wall Street estimates of $1.34 billion, according to Visible Alpha a twelfth straight revenue "beat." Adjusted earnings per share came in at $0.25, above Street estimates for $0.23, the firm's data show.

William Blair had raised its price target on the stock to a bullish "outperform" ahead of the company's release on Monday, calling the company a "leader in the AI supply chain" and the stock's selloff from recent peaks a "buying opportunity."

The Trump administration has continued to go "all-in" on Palantir and likely helped boost its December-end quarter, according to William Blair analyst Louie DiPalma, who expects the stock to top $200 over the next 12 months, implying upside of more than 25% from recent prices.

Citi analyst Tyler Radke upgraded the firm's rating on the stock to a "buy" from a "neutral" stance last month, saying Palantir's revenue growth could reach 70% to 80% this year. Accelerating use cases for AI among businesses, and renewed urgency around the U.S.'s defense capabilities—both of which are "acutely aligned to PLTR’s strength," bodes well for the company, he said; Radke raised the price target on the stock to $235 from $210. The Visible Alpha consensus target is $189.

• The main structural drivers of demand for gold remain intact, according to several Wall Street analysts who stood by their bullish gold price forecasts on Monday.
• After a spectacular run-up last month, gold and silver prices were primed to fall spectacularly, which they did last Friday after President Trump nominated Kevin Warsh to lead the Federal Reserve.

Buying the dip was a profitable strategy for stock investors last year. Could it be the same for precious metals buyers this year?

Several major banks stood by their bullish price forecasts after gold and silver on Friday suffered their worst sell-offs since 1980. JPMorgan on Sunday raised its year-end gold price forecast to $6,300 a troy ounce, while Deutsche Bank reiterated its call for gold to end the year at $6,000. Spot gold was changing hands at $4,700 late Monday afternoon.

Michael Hsueh, head of metals research at Deutsche Bank, said in an appearance on CNBC Monday that last week’s rout was “purely tactical” and was not a signal of a “durable, fundamental shift” in precious metals prices.

Gold is a traditional safe haven asset, valued by investors as a hedge against inflation and market turmoil. The past year has brought plenty of turmoil, which helped to fuel a run-up in gold prices that some investors expect to continue at a more modest pace this year.

“There’s a strong speculative overlay that is distorting prices, as we’ve seen in the last couple days,” said Hsueh. “But we would certainly remain constructive on gold over a one-year timeframe, and $6,000 doesn’t seem extraordinary or unachievable this year.”

Gold and silver prices soared last year, driven by global uncertainty about U.S. policy, fear that tariffs would reignite inflation, and a weaker U.S. dollar. The price gains accelerated last month as investors chased momentum.

While some late buyers may have been burned by last week's rout, many experts say the structural forces driving gold prices remain intact. Central bank demand, which Hsueh called one of the “linchpins” of gold investor sentiment, skyrocketed in 2022 when the U.S. froze Russia’s dollar-denominated assets in response to its invasion of Ukraine. Deutsche Bank expects central banks to continue to stock up on gold to hedge against an increasingly fractured and volatile geopolitical landscape. 

Peter Berezin, chief global strategist at BCA Research, said in a note on Monday that President Trump's nomination of Kevin Warsh to lead the Federal Reserve—the event that's widely believed to have sparked Friday's sell-off—"only adds to the downward pressure on gold prices." The prospective chair has historically been more hawkish than the other candidates under consideration. Nonetheless, BCA is still bullish on gold, “but will consider taking partial profits on any strength.”

Silver, which outpaced gold in the run up to last week, is a different story. “It is hard to escape the conclusion that its meteoric rise and subsequent fall were amplified by speculative Chinese trading plus a bunch of Crypto Bros getting bored with Bitcoin,” wrote Berezin. 

Silver’s industrial applications, including in semiconductor packaging and solar panels, should support future demand. But, even before Friday's crash, analysts were predicting silver prices would crater further than they already have.

"Silver is almost guaranteed to drop ~50% from these levels," wrote former JPMorgan analyst Marko Kolanovic early last week, when spot silver prices hit nearly $115 an ounce. Silver traded at about $80 on Monday afternoon, and is still up 150% over the past 12 months.

As for gold, despite losing 16% of its value since hitting an all-time high of around $5,600 last Thursday, it remains up about 65% over the past year.

• Target and Walmart have welcomed new CEOs—Michael Fiddelke and John Furner, respectively—at the massive retail companies.
• The leaders are stepping into different situations, with Target suffering from slower sales, and Walmart enjoying new customers.

Same title. Different task.

New CEOs started at two big retailers—Target (TGT) and Walmart (WMT)—on Sunday. Their missions vary considerably. At Target, Michael Fiddelke wants to stem the flight of investors and revive sluggish sales. At Walmart, John Furner aims to continue reeling in new customers and keep investors happy.

“They’re at, really, very different junctures,” TD Cowen senior equity research analyst Oliver Chen said on CNBC.  “Target needs a reinvention; Walmart, continuation.”

Fiddelke’s tenure starts as Target seeks to shake off a tough spell. Revenue has fallen year-over-year for the past four quarters. Consumers have pulled back on discretionary purchases, and some of Target's merchandising picks fell flat. The retailer was also slower to build up the sort of delivery system that attracted shoppers to some of its competitors, Chen said. Investors took notice, with share prices falling by more than 20% over the past year.

Target and Walmart both tapped company veterans for the CEO role. Some may see this as a signal that the retailers aren't looking for a radically different perspective or game plan, though the companies and their shares have been moving in different directions lately.

Fiddelke thinks Target can rebound by better using technology, improving the shopping experience and offering better merchandise, in part, by relying on AI. “While we have real work to do, we are clear on who we are, our unique place in retail and in the hearts of our guests,” he wrote in a memo published Monday.  “We are equally clear on the opportunity in front of us.”

Analysts aren't expecting Target's stock to bounce back. Company shares—recently trading for about $110—were given an average price target of about $94 among analysts who follow the retailer and were polled by Visible Alpha. 

Furner is taking the helm as Walmart enjoys strong sales growth. The company says it has made inroads with higher earners by focusing on low-priced essentials and same-day delivery. Meanwhile, Walmart has parlayed its success with e-commerce and AI marketing into landing on the Nasdaq 100, an index seen as a bellwether of the tech sector.

The CEO had a hand in Walmart prioritizing automation and e-commerce, and believes those moves make sense, he said on a conference call in November. "We have a lot of momentum," Furner said, according to a transcript made available by AlphaSense. "That strategy is solid."

Walmart shares have gained some 26% in the past year. Shares are currently trading for about $124, about where they should be, according to analysts: The average price target, according to Visible Alpha, is roughly $125.

Episode 280 of the Investopedia Express podcast with Caleb Silver (Feb. 2, 2026)

Subscribe Now: Apple Podcasts / Spotify / PlayerFM

The shine came off of precious metals just as investors piled into the debasement trade on the heels of the Dollar’s decline, leaving a raft of questions about which assets to hold in times of uncertainty. We sift through the smelting pot.

Gargi Chaudhuri of BlackRock helps us break it down and refocuses us on the themes that will actually matter to investors this year. Plus, insiders are selling at multi-year highs, even as the stock market shows signs of a healthy rotation. What do they know that we don’t, and will the January effect be worthy of its legacy in 2026?

Link for Show Notes:

• https://www.ishares.com/us/insights/inside-the-market/2026-market-outlook-investment-directions

• Alphabet is slated to post fourth-quarter earnings Wednesday afternoon, with traders expecting the stock to potentially set new records following the report.
• Revenue is expected to hit another record high amid questions facing tech giants about AI spending and realizing a return on those investments.

Alphabet (GOOGL) is scheduled to report fourth-quarter results after the market closes on Wednesday. Traders expect a substantial move in the shares after the report, potentially to new highs.

Current options pricing suggests that traders expect the stock to rise or fall by more than 5% from Monday's close just under $345 by the end of the week. The low end of that range would be around $328, while the high end could mean a climb to around $362, extending the stock's record run.

The Google and YouTube parent's stock has already set multiple record highs this year, rallying some 25% since last quarter's report in late October, when Alphabet beat estimates and surpassed the $100 billion revenue mark for the first time.

Alphabet shares have managed to continue rallying amid questions about spending and return on investment that have dragged other big tech stocks in recent months. Results from rivals Meta Platforms (META) and Microsoft (MSFT) sent the stocks in opposite directions last week as both said they plan to continue spending on AI.

For the fourth quarter, Alphabet's revenue is projected to come in at $111.37 billion, up 15% year-over-year, while adjusted earnings per share are expected to grow more than 20% to $3.09.

HSBC analysts recently wrote that they will be looking for executive commentary on growing the capacity of Google Cloud to meet AI demand, growth numbers for overall searches and Google's AI Mode, Alphabet's 2026 capital expenditures, and updates on Apple (AAPL) using Google Gemini for its upgraded Siri and other AI features.

Analysts are largely bullish on the tech giant's stock, with 12 of the 15 analysts with current ratings tracked by Visible Alpha calling Alphabet a "buy," while three others call it a "hold."

The stock is also expected by analysts to keep setting record highs, with Visible Alpha's average price target at $350.