Retail traders remain wary. Sentiment on Stocktwits shows they remain ‘bearish’ on SPY and QQQ.

  • Nasdaq futures lead gains after strong earnings from Palantir and Snap reinforced optimism around AI spending. 
  • AMD, Lucid and SpaceX report after the bell, while JOLTS data and trade balance are the macro data points due today.
  • Traders also monitor geopolitical developments in the Middle East and AI policy talks at the White House.

U.S. stock futures were higher early Tuesday as Wall Street looks to build on Monday’s rally driven by earnings. Strong results from Palantir and Snap have set the tone, with markets bracing for crucial after-hours earnings reports from AMD, Lucid, and SpaceX’s first public earnings release ahead of its post-IPO share unlock. 

As of 4:00 a.m. ET, Nasdaq futures were up 0.7%, Russell 2000 futures gained 0.3%, while S&P 500 and Dow futures rose 0.1%. 

Despite the broad market momentum, retail traders remain wary. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment for the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), an exchange-traded fund that tracks the S&P 500 Index, and Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ), which tracks the Nasdaq-100 Index, has remained ‘bearish.’

On the geopolitical front, investors parsed conflicting headlines from Washington and Tehran: Over the weekend, President Donald Trump highlighted a pause in planned military strikes to allow for talks, while Iran clarified on Monday that its discussions were strictly via Oman to secure a temporary commercial shipping agreement through the Strait of Hormuz. Oil stocks such as BATL, TPET, XOM, CVX, EONR and USO will remain in focus today. 

Meanwhile, Meta, Anthropic, Google and OpenAI executives are set to meet White House officials on Tuesday to discuss voluntary artificial intelligence (AI) safety testing.

Trending Stocks To Watch

Palantir (PLTR): Shares soared 15% in early premarket trade after the data and AI software company beat earnings expectations and raised its outlook. CEO Alex Karp renewed his criticism of frontier AI companies, saying Palantir "does not get paid for clicks or tokens or chats." 

Snap (SNAP): Stock rose 9% in early premarket trading on strong Q2 advertising and subscription growth. CEO Evan Spiegel said there is significant room for further subscription expansion, ahead of its Specs launch event in September.

Amazon.com (AMZN): Shares fell over 1% in early premarket trade after touching a record $3 trillion market cap on AWS strength. Reports indicate that founder Jeff Bezos filed a Form 144 to sell up to 15 million shares (nearly $4 billion) under a prearranged trading plan. Cathie Wood has reportedly bought nearly $21M of Amazon shares on Monday. 

Microsoft (MSFT): Shares fell over 1% in early premarket trade after a three-session rally that added $750 billion in market value post-earnings. Fresh reports indicate that Xbox 360 games may soon come to Windows PCs.

SanDisk (SNDK) rose 3% in early premarket following news that SanDisk and SK Hynix released the first Open Compute Project technical specification for High Bandwidth Flash (HBF) standardization in AI inference systems. 

Memory chip peer Micron (MU) was also trading higher. A research report claims that Micron could replace SK Hynix as the world's second-largest DRAM supplier. 

Earnings To Watch After The Bell 

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD): Gained over 3% premarket ahead of its Q2 report, with investors watching for guidance, Helios AI roadmap updates and data center momentum. Meanwhile, Citigroup disclosed a multibillion-dollar AMD stake.

SpaceX (SPCX): Reports its first quarterly earnings as a listed company after-hours today, which comes just two days before its initial post-IPO share unlock begins. Investors will be looking for profitability at Starlink, AI-related capital spending and outlook going ahead.

Lucid Group (LCID): The EV maker also reports after the bell, with Wall Street expecting a $900 million quarterly loss. Investors will focus on liquidity, restructuring plans under new CEO Silvio Napoli, Saudi-backed expansion, and production guidance.

Spotify (SPOT): Shares were subdued ahead of its Q2 earnings release, with Morgan Stanley raising its price target to $640 on upcoming AI and subscription catalysts.

Retail Stock Watchlist 

GameStop (GME): Remains on the retail radar as bulls speculate that Monday's sharp selloff, triggered by a $1.4 billion convertible debt exchange deal, is a balance-sheet setup for a larger acquisition or corporate play.

AST SpaceMobile (ASTS): Shares hover at a three-week high ahead of Wednesday’s BlueBird satellite launch. 

SELLAS Life Sciences (SLS): Gained ground in early premarket trade. Citigroup disclosed an expanded $4.8 million stake ahead of key Phase 3 AML trial milestones.

Other tickers trending on Stocktwits at the time of writing included Xpeng Inc (XPEV), Walmart Inc (WMT), Chevron Corp (CVX), Ondas Inc (ONDS), and Redwire Corp (RDW).

Other Catalysts To Watch

On the economic front, investors will be watching for the release of the trade balance at 8:30 am ET, followed by the job openings and labor turnover survey (JOLTS) at 10:00 am ET. 

On the earnings front, Pfizer Inc. (PFE), Aurinia Pharmaceuticals Inc (AUPH), McDonald's Corp (MCD), and Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) are among those reporting before the bell today. 

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