Here are the most important news items that investors need to start their trading day:
1. 38,000
The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit 38,000 for the first time ever Monday, climbing more than 100 points to close the day at 38,001.81. It's yet another sign that markets are booming. The S&P 500 also hit another record high for the day, building on its official bull market run. The Nasdaq Composite, meanwhile, rose 0.32%. "It's almost like a fear of missing out," Brian Price, head of investment management at Commonwealth Financial, said about the new records. "We had a little bit of volatility to start the year as investors maybe rebalance portfolios and look to realize some gains. But now, it just seems like we're resuming the trend that was clearly in place" in the fourth quarter. Follow live market updates.
2. Grounding expectations
United Airlines expects to see a financial impact from the FAA's grounding of Boeing 737 Max 9 planes. The company said in a filing Monday that it foresees an adjusted loss between 35 cents and 85 cents a share for its first quarter. United has more of the grounded aircraft in its fleet than any other carrier. The planes are undergoing an investigation after a part blew out on a 737 Max 9 during an Alaska Airlines flight, causing a gaping hole in the plane. The warning came as United reported its fourth-quarter earnings Monday, which showed a relatively strong holiday period for the airline. United's stock was up more than 6% in premarket trading.
3. Meta's news retreat
Facebook's parent company Meta has made an effort to get out of the news business. The decision to de-emphasize news on the platform came after a series of public relations disasters, among other things — and news organizations are feeling it. Taking a look at 1,930 news and media websites from more than 370 companies, Facebook accounted for 33% of overall social referrals by page views as of December, down from 50% a year earlier, according to a review analytics firm Chartbeat conducted for CNBC. Many organizations came to depend on Facebook for referral traffic. As a result, publications have made an effort to diversify their efforts and rely more on their own platforms, which are more predictable. "The firehose of Facebook traffic was never going to pay for our journalism, for the majority of our journalism," Mother Jones CEO Monika Bauerlein said.
4. J&J
Johnson & Johnson, which is considered a bellwether for the health sector, reported fourth-quarter earnings that narrowly topped Wall Street's expectations. The company saw sales in its pharmaceutical and medtech businesses jump. Its total sales for the final three months were up 7.3% from the same period in 2022. The results come as J&J is doubling down on its pharmaceutical and medical devices divisions after spinning off consumer health unit Kenvue, the biggest shakeup in company history. CFO Joseph Wolk told CNBC's "Squawk Box" Tuesday that J&J is benefitting from a rebound in older adults scheduling non-urgent surgeries, which took a nosedive during the pandemic.
5. 'Heck if we know'
Stocks related to artificial intelligence have been red hot lately. AMD, for example, rose nearly 130% in 2023, led by strong demand for its graphics processing units, or the AI chips that power programs such as ChatGPT. But how long will that streak continue? One analyst's response was "heck if we know." Northland Capital Markets analyst Gus Richard said it's hard to gauge the market and that overall demand signals have been distorted. "We downgrade on valuation to 'a heck if we know' rating," he wrote in a recent note. He then clarified that he has an actual rating of "market perform" for AMD, which is equivalent to a hold, and said AI is big, "just not as big as investors are thinking."
— CNBC's Alex Harring, Leslie Josephs, Jonathan Vanian, Annika Kim Constantino and Kif Leswing contributed to this report.
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