U.S. Stock Futures Mixed Pre-Market Tuesday, Storage Plays and Nvidia Partners Rally

U.S. stock index futures were mixed pre-market Tuesday.  

 

As of press time, Dow Jones futures fell 0.13%, S&P 500 futures down 0.02%, and Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.12%.  

 

Storage stocks gained broadly pre-market: Micron +nearly 1.3%, SanDisk +over 3.2%. Chip stocks rose, with TSMC +2.4%. Nvidia partners surged: Aeva Technologies +24%, Arbe Robotics +11%.  

 

Bank of America’s report forecasts the global semiconductor market topping $1 trillion, with 2026 sales up ~30% YoY. It highlighted seven promising AI chip companies, naming Nvidia, Broadcom, and AMD as “top picks.”  

 

Investors are closely watching CES 2026 in Las Vegas. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said intraday that most cars worldwide will be autonomous or highly automated in the next decade.  

 

Energy sector strengthened pre-market: Valero Energy and Chevron both +over 1%. Famed short-seller Michael Burry said Valero’s appeal is rising as the U.S. deepens its role in Venezuela’s oil industry.  

 

Overnight, Valero rose 9.23% to near all-time highs, outperforming peers. Burry noted Valero’s heavy crude processing capability, with many Gulf Coast refineries originally built for Venezuelan heavy oil.  

 

European markets mixed: Germany’s DAX +0.44%, UK’s FTSE 100 +1.04%, France’s CAC 40 −0.13%.

Company News  

WSJ: Trump hinted to oil execs a month before Venezuela action  

 

The Wall Street Journal reported January 5 that a month before the U.S. military operation in Venezuela, President Trump hinted to several oil executives that “big changes” were coming. Insiders said Trump gave a “vague but enticing” message: “Get ready.” He suggested major political shifts in Venezuela but shared no further details or sought investment advice. The report says this shows oil was “central” to U.S. decision-making on Venezuela.

 

AMD launches next-gen products, AI chip performance could rise 1,000x in 4 years  

 

AMD CEO Lisa Su said in her CES keynote that the next-gen MI455 GPU uses 2nm and 3nm processes with advanced packaging and HBM4. The MI455 will integrate with EPYC CPUs, and the next-gen Helios rack will include 72 GPUs—thousands can connect for large AI clusters. The MI500 series is also in development on 2nm. With MI500 launching in 2027, AMD could boost AI chip performance 1,000x in four years.

 

Lisa Su: AI industry could reach over 5 billion daily users in five years  

 

At CES 2026, AMD CEO Lisa Su unveiled new chips and the next-gen Helios platform. Su predicted the AI industry will grow to over 5 billion daily users in five years, with computing power reaching 10 YottaFLOPS or more.

 

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang: Most cars worldwide will be autonomous or highly automated in next decade  

 

At CES 2026 on January 6, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said most cars worldwide will be autonomous or highly automated in the next decade. Nvidia released the open-source Alpamayo series VLA AI models and tools for autonomous vehicle development.

 

Morgan Stanley applies for Bitcoin and Solana ETFs  

 

Morgan Stanley filings with the SEC Tuesday show the bank seeking approval for ETFs tracking Bitcoin and Solana token prices. This deepens its crypto influence, two years after the SEC approved the first U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF.