Nasdaq, S&P 500 Futures Point To Strong New-Year Open On Wall Street: Why TSLA, BIDU, SLV, STLA Are On Traders' Radar Today

Wall Street is hoping to break a three-year streak of opening-day losses.

• Retail sentiment improved for SPY and QQQ on Stocktwits.
• Traders are eyeing Tesla’s delivery data and a surge in silver prices.
• Baidu drew retail attention after its chip unit filed for an IPO.

U.S. stock futures were trading higher early Friday as markets reopened for the first full trading session of 2026. Wall Street is looking to break a three-year streak of opening-day losses. The S&P 500 has had a negative close on its first trading day in each of the last three years (2023-2025).

As of 2:50 a.m. ET on Friday, Nasdaq 100 futures were up 0.7%, S&P 500 futures rose 0.4%, and the Dow futures gained 0.1%, while Russell 2000 futures rose 0.4%.

On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment toward the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), an exchange-traded fund that tracks the S&P 500 Index, moved to ‘bullish’ from ‘neutral’ a day ago. And sentiment toward the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) ETF, which tracks the Nasdaq 100 Index, has remained ‘bullish’, amid low message volumes. 

Trending Stocks To Watch

Baidu (BIDU): Trending following news that its chip unit filed for an IPO, sparking a renewed interest in ‘China AI’ discount plays.

Tesla (TSLA): High search volume and social chatter ahead of its Q4 delivery report expected today. Meanwhile, reports suggest that China’s BYD has officially dethroned it as the global EV king for the full year 2025. NIO is trending high on Stocktwits as well. 

Watch out for iShares Silver Trust (SLV): Silver jumped 2.5% in early trading, building on its best annual performance since 1979.

Stellantis (STLA): The company is resurrecting a gas-powered Ram pickup truck, the TRX, with a V-8 engine, as it faces fewer federal emissions regulations, CNBC reported.

Other noteworthy tickers trending on Stocktwits at the time of writing were Intelligent Bio Solutions (INBS), BigBear.ai (BBAI), Corcept Therapeutics (CORT), and Sensei BioTherapeutics (SNSE). 

Other Catalysts To Watch

On the economic front, investors are looking ahead to the release of the Fed Balance Sheet (4:30 PM ET). Markets will be eyeing updates on ‘Quantitative Tightening’ (QT) pacing.

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