Dow Jumps 1% as Earnings and Cheaper Oil Outweigh AI Selling; Nasdaq Slips

Monday's rebound belonged to the chips. Tuesday's belonged to almost everything else.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.02 percent to close at 52,495.88 on Tuesday, October 20, 2026, the S&P 500 rose 0.28 percent to 7,712.57, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.02 percent to 26,424.82. The Russell 2000 rose 1.75 percent, the day's biggest gain among the major indexes, in a session that opened lower on renewed artificial intelligence selling and a fresh oil spike, then reversed as crude fell, health care and other defensive names took the lead, and a heavy earnings calendar mostly delivered.

Cheaper oil and a diplomacy headline turned the open around

Wall Street's main indexes opened lower on Tuesday, dragged down by renewed weakness in AI-linked stocks, with Brent crude above $111 a barrel, near a five-month high, at the open. The turn came on reports that mediators were trying to bring the U.S. and Iran to discuss an end to the Middle East conflict: U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude futures, which had risen more than 20 percent over an eight-session winning streak, declined 2.5 percent to $101.10 a barrel around 4 p.m. ET, and Brent slipped 0.2 percent to $109.30. The diplomacy report, from Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, was not verified by the Wall Street Journal, and a WSJ report on Anthropic's draft S-1 disclosed an $80.7 billion net loss for the first half of 2026, a reminder of why the AI trade kept slipping even as the broader market rose: Alphabet fell about 1.1 percent, while Microsoft and Nvidia each eased 0.3 percent.

Health care and 3M carried the Dow; GM and GE fell on their own numbers

Health care led the S&P 500's sectors, and UnitedHealth, Amazon, IBM and 3M added the most points to the price-weighted Dow. 3M rose 5 percent to lead the Dow after it lifted its 2026 adjusted EPS guidance to $9.10 to $9.15 a share and expanded a data-center deal with Amazon, and Eli Lilly rose 3.49 percent. The earnings calendar cut both ways: General Motors fell 6 percent and GE Aerospace fell 4 percent, among the biggest S&P 500 decliners, even though both topped profit forecasts — GM after narrowing its 2026 ranges, GE Aerospace despite raising its outlook again. The day's biggest single-name move came from a deal: Braze surged 51.7 percent after Salesforce agreed to buy the customer-engagement company for $47.50 a share in cash, a $5.66 billion enterprise-value deal. The Dow closed above its 50-day moving average for the first time since September 4.

Housing sank to a record low, and yields eased anyway

The day's economic data was bleak and the bond market shrugged. Pending home sales fell 7.3 percent in September, taking the contract-signing index to 66, its lowest reading on record, and Housing starts fell 5.2 percent in September to 1.221 million while building permits slipped 0.2 percent to 1.400 million. Homebuilder stocks were paradoxically among the strongest in the S&P 500, with Lennar up 3.6 percent, as investors looked past the trough. The 10-year Treasury yield declined to 5.116 percent, down about two basis points from Monday's close, and the CBOE Volatility Index fell to 17.31 from 18.42 as the week's fear premium kept draining out.

After the bell: SpaceX beat, Netflix warned, and Tesla and Meta are next

The verdicts kept coming after the 4 p.m. close, in after-hours trading. SpaceX revenue rose 161 percent to $14.58 billion in the third quarter, with a $4.4 billion net profit that beat expectations, and its shares rose about 2 percent after hours. Netflix fell nearly 7 percent in after-hours trading after it issued a weaker-than-expected forecast for fourth-quarter profit, even as third-quarter earnings of $0.87 a share beat the $0.82 forecast on revenue up 11.8 percent to $13.44 billion. United Airlines posted adjusted earnings of $2.54 a share against a $2.57 estimate and guided fourth-quarter profit well below consensus, sending its shares lower after the close. Tesla and Meta report on Wednesday, and the Federal Reserve meets October 27 and 28 with officials in their pre-meeting blackout — the next tests of whether Tuesday's broader bid can hold.