8 Key Items Shaping the Stock Market Monday

These are the early headlines and other items poised to influence the market at the start of Monday trading. As we share this collection of market drivers, U.S. equity futures are off their lows for the morning but still indicate a weaker market open.

And yes, today is Groundhog Day. Following the recent bout of extreme winter weather, odds are more folks than usual will be tuning in to see what Punxsutawney Phil, the “Seer of Seers,” has to say about more winter or an early spring.

1. Commodities markets slumped on Monday, led by deep losses in gold, silver, oil, and industrial metals, as the choice of Kevin Warsh as the next Fed chair unleashed selling in risk assets that sent precious metals tumbling for a second session. (Reuters)

It seems a bit too convenient to blame Warsh as the cause, however, given the potential Fed Chair’s background and history, it would also be a mistake to think that radically lower interest rates in H2 2026 are a shoo-in, especially after Friday’s hotter-than-expected December PPI. This week’s January PMI data will bring more clues on the speed of the economy, inflation, and the jobs market. As we track that data, we’ll want to keep another eye on the dollar, which has rebounded somewhat from its dramatic late January selloff.

Any guesses on what Trump’s nickname for Warsh will be if he doesn’t appease the president’s call for dramatically lower interest rates?

2. The Trump administration has told Iran through multiple channels that it's open to meeting to negotiate a deal, a senior U.S. official tells Axios.

This should help tamp down some recent geopolitical concerns, and as part of the follow-through, we’ll want to watch oil production and prices. Prices for West Texas Intermediate crude jumped to ~$65.75 per barrel, up from the recent low near $56 in early January.

3. Europe’s biggest oil companies are poised to rein in billions of dollars of shareholder payouts in the coming weeks, signalling a turn to austerity as they brace for lower oil prices and move to protect their balance sheets. Shell, BP, TotalEnergies, Eni and Equinor are expected by analysts to collectively slow their shareholder distributions by 10-25 per cent when they report full-year results this month, all through reductions in stock buybacks. (FT )

Speaking of watching the follow-through on oil prices… this should make for more interesting than usual earnings reports when Shell (SHEL) reports later this week, and BP (BP) on February 10.

4. House Speaker Mike Johnson said he is confident Congress can end the partial government shutdown “by Tuesday” despite steep opposition from Democrats and turmoil within the GOP conference. (Politico)

Expectations are that this short-lived shutdown will be a minor speed bump after Democrats struck a deal with President Trump to extend DHS funding for two weeks. However, with Democratic leadership saying it would not help Johnson secure the 70 or so Democratic votes to get the measure over the line, there could be some last-minute squabbling.

5. Oracle Corp. plans to raise $45 billion to $50 billion this year through a combination of debt and equity sales to build additional cloud infrastructure capacity, reflecting the scale of financing needed to feed AI’s growth. Oracle is raising money to build additional capacity to meet the contracted demand from the company’s largest cloud customers, including Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Meta Platforms Inc., Nvidia Corp., OpenAI, TikTok Inc., and xAI Corp… (Bloomberg)

Another sign the AI-arms race continues following last week’s reveal by Meta (META) that it would step up its capital spending this year to $115 billion-$135 billion compared to $72.2 billion in 2025. With earnings from Alphabet (GOOGL) and Amazon (AMZN) this week, we’ll get a more complete picture of AI/data center capex spending this year. We expect both to boost spending, which supports several of our holdings, but we recognize it also has the potential to renew AI bubble fears. Our northern star will remain AI adoption and usage data points, and we should get an ample number as the current earnings season continues.

6. Disney (DIS) Chief Executive Bob Iger has told associates that he plans to step down as CEO and pull back from daily management before the Dec. 31 end of his contract, according to people familiar with the matter. (WSJ)

Disney (DIS) delivered better-than-expected December-quarter earnings, but taking some of the spotlight off that were weekend reports CEO Bob Iger will step down before his contract ends late this year. Theme-park division chairman Josh D’Amaro is being touted in the press as the likely successor. D’Amaro heads the division that has delivered the bulk of Disney’s profits over the last several years, but as we’ve seen before, replacing Iger has been a challenge for the House of Mouse, Marvel, Pixar, and Lucasfilm.

7. Economic data today per TipRanks: S&P Global Manufacturing PMI (January), ISM Manufacturing Index (January), Construction Spending (December).

8. Companies reporting today per TipRanks: Tyson Foods (TSN) , Walt Disney (DIS) , NXP Semiconductor (NXPI) , Palantir Technologies (PLTR) , Simon Properties (SPG) .

More Pro Portfolio:

At the time of publication, TheStreet Pro Portfolio was long META, GOOGL, AMZN and PLTR.