Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq tip higher after weak retail sales fuel Fed cut bets

EV sales and the lasting effects of a major fire at an aluminum plant are expected capture investor attention when automaker giant Ford reports fourth-quarter earnings after the bell on Tuesday. The stock picked up roughly 07% in Tuesday morning trading ahead of the release.

Yahoo Finance’s Pras Subramanian reports:

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Paramount Skydance (PSKY) isn’t giving up in its attempt to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), as Netflix (NFLX) is in the hot seat, undergoing an investigation by the DOJ.

On Tuesday before market open, Paramount enhanced its all-cash, $30 per share offer to acquire all of Warner Bros. with a $0.25 per share “ticking fee,” or roughly $650 million cash value, that would be payable to Warner Bros.’ shareholders every quarter the transaction is not closed beyond Dec. 31, 2026.

The move comes as its offer is set to expire on Feb. 20, after a previous extension of its $108 billion hostile takeover bid.

In a release, Paramount said this ticking fee is meant “to underscore confidence in the speed and certainty of its regulatory pathway.”

The company also said it would pay the $2.8 billion termination fee to end its deal with Netflix and “offers solutions to WBD’s debt financing costs and obligations.”

“We are making meaningful enhancements — backing this offer with billions of dollars, providing shareholders with certainty in value, a clear regulatory path, and protection against market volatility,” Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison said.

Meanwhile, Netflix executives are pushing forward. The Department of Justice is holding a hearing to investigate whether Netflix’s $83 billion deal to acquire Warner Bros. would create a monopoly.

Coca-Cola (KO) stock fell by about 2% after the company offered what CEO James Quincey called a “prudent” outlook for 2026 as the company aims to reverse pressure on international sales.

“We’ve taken what we think is a realistic, but prudent, approach relative to a number of international markets [where] we need to see improve through the course of 2026,” Quincey told Yahoo Finance.

In the fourth quarter, organic revenue grew 5% across the company’s geographies, outpacing the 4.8% growth expected by Wall Street. For 2026, the company expects organic sales to grow 4%-5%, below the 5% growth expected by analysts, according to Bloomberg data. Coca-Cola’s adjusted earnings are expected to grow in a range of 7%-8% this year after growing 9% in 2025.

Regions where the company is experiencing pressure include China, India, and Mexico, where a soft drink tax was recently implemented. Sales in its Asia Pacific region were flat in the fourth quarter.

In North America, the company said volumes grew 1% while prices were up 4% in the fourth quarter as consumers continued to turn to less-sugary options.

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Shares in S&P Global (SPGI) began to dig out of a deep post-earnings slump on Tuesday, reversing a roughly 20% loss as executives spoke with analysts and investors on the company’s fourth quarter earnings call.

The company’s shares initially plummeted on Tuesday morning after S&P Global reported 2026 profit expectations below analyst estimates, forecasting adjusted per-share profit of $19.40 to $19.65, against estimates of $19.94.

S&P Global also reported adjusted earnings per share at $4.30, missing analyst estimates of $4.34 per share. Top-line revenue for the quarter came in at $3.916 billion, above estimates of $3.91 billion.

Despite the reversal of losses on Tuesday morning, shares in S&P Global remain down by more than 20% on the year. The company has been caught in the software sector sell-off that racked the market through the first week of February.

US stocks rose at the start of trading on Tuesday, setting the Dow (^DJI) on track to build on Monday’s record close.

The blue chip-heavy Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) led gains, picking up 0.5% to put a fresh closing high within reach. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) and the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) also ticked up, gaining roughly 0.1% each.

The push into the green came as investors digested December’s slowdown in retail sales. The report is the first in this week’s flood of crucial data, highlighted by the monthly jobs report to come on Wednesday.

In the corporate world, investors received fourth-quarter earnings from Coca-Cola (KO) and CVS Health (CVS) Tuesday morning, with Ford (F) yet to come after the market close. Nvidia (NVDA) chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor’s (TSM) sales grew at their fastest rate in months in January, buoying hopes around the AI market.

Gold (GC=F) clung to $5,000 per troy ounce on Tuesday even as the broader metals complex pulled back. Meanwhile, bitcoin (BTC-USD) managed to climb back above $69,000.

Oil prices (BZ=F, CL=F) also picked up as investors digested what looked like positive moves toward diplomacy in talks between the US and Iran on Friday.

Retail spending remained virtually unchanged from the previous month in December 2025, according to data released on Tuesday, signaling a potential slowdown in consumer activity.

Adjusted advance monthly sales for retail and food services for December moved 0% from November, at $735 billion compared to November’s $735.1 billion, the Census Bureau said Tuesday morning.

The month-on-month stall comes after November, when sales grew by 0.6%. December’s number also falls below consensus expectations for month-on-month retail sales growth of 0.4%. Sales excluding motor vehicles and gasoline also remained flat, contrary to expectations of month-on-month growth of 0.4%.

The flat numbers suggest an unexpected slowdown in spending that coincides with December’s holiday season, typically a strong time of year for consumer spending. Eight out of 13 spending categories measured by the Census Bureau saw drawdowns.