U.S. stock futures advanced on Tuesday, as the Dow Jones, Nasdaq 100, and S&P 500 indices rose, following Monday’s lower close.

The gains were led by a tech rally as Invesco PHLX Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ:SOXQ), an ETF directly designed to track the performance of the PHLX Semiconductor Sector Index, jumped by 4.27% in premarket trading. Its top components, Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA), Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ:MU), and Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO), were also trading higher before the opening bell on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis announced a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia on Monday, threatening to open a new front in the U.S.–Iran conflict and further endangering global trade and energy supplies beyond the Persian Gulf.

Additionally, at President Donald Trump’s direction, U.S. forces carried out a new round of strikes against Iranian military targets to degrade Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping.

The 10-year Treasury bond yielded 4.59%, and the two-year bond was at 4.20%. The CME Group’s FedWatch tool’s projections show markets pricing an 83.4% likelihood of the Federal Reserve leaving the current interest rates unchanged during July’s meeting.

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE:SPY) and Invesco QQQ Trust ETF (NASDAQ:QQQ), which track the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100, respectively, were higher in premarket on Tuesday. The SPY was up 0.56% at $746.28, while the QQQ advanced by 1.38% to $705.68.

Stocks In Focus

Cracker Barrel Old Country Store

• Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Inc. (NASDAQ:CBRL) was 2.34% higher in premarket on Tuesday after it announced the completion of a sale-leaseback deal for 26 company-owned store locations with an institutional real estate investor, netting roughly $77 million in proceeds. It said comparable store restaurant sales decreased approximately 2.5% and comparable store retail sales increased approximately 0.5% over the first 11 weeks of its fiscal fourth quarter.

• Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings indicate that CBRL maintains a strong price trend in the short, long, and medium terms, with a poor growth score.

Steel Dynamics

• Steel Dynamics Inc. (NASDAQ:STLD) was 1.90% lower after reporting mixed results for the second quarter. Its earnings of $3.69 per share, which missed the analyst consensus estimate of $3.77 per share, and sales of $6.092 billion beat the analyst consensus estimate of $5.570 billion.

• Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings indicate that STLD maintains a weak price trend in the short term but a strong trend in the long and medium terms, with a good quality score.

Nebius Group

• Nebius Group NV (NASDAQ:NBIS) jumped 7.60% as Nvidia Corp.(NASDAQ:NVDA) revealed that it beneficially owns over a 9% stake or 22.25 million Class A ordinary shares of Nebius, according to a new filing on Monday.

• Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings indicate that NBIS maintains a weak price trend in the short term, but a strong trend in the long and medium terms, with a poor value ranking.

Archer Aviation

• Archer Aviation Inc. (NYSE:ACHR) rose 2.07% as the company unveiled its autonomous aircraft with Anduril for defense use called Thunder.

• Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings indicate that ACHR maintains a weak price trend in the long, short, and medium terms.

IREN

• IREN Ltd. (NASDAQ:IREN) was up 4.60% as it signed $2.8 billion worth of cloud service contracts with multiple AI developers and also raised its year-end annualized run-rate revenue target for its AI cloud business to $4 billion, up from $3.7 billion previously.

• Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings indicate that IREN maintains a weak price trend in the short, long, and medium terms, with a poor value score.

Cues From Last Session

Health care, materials, and industrials led broad losses across the S&P 500 on Monday, while communication services and energy stocks bucked the overall trend to close higher.

Insights From Analysts

According to Bitunix analyst Dean Chen, global financial markets face heightening macroeconomic risks, ongoing supply chain stress, and persistent Federal Reserve policy uncertainty.

Chen emphasizes that escalating geopolitical conflicts in crucial shipping bottlenecks—such as the Strait of Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, and the Black Sea—are creating a dual energy and food supply shock. Rising oil prices risk stoking broader inflation, which complicates the Fed’s monetary path.

Addressing these crosscurrents, Chen notes that “the latest US inflation data has changed the short-term market narrative, but it has not fully resolved the debate over monetary policy direction.” Furthermore, he warns that the economic backdrop “increasingly resembles a ‘slowing growth but sticky inflation’ environment.”

Rather than anticipating a straightforward market trend, Chen observes institutional investors prioritizing liquidity to navigate multiple outcomes. In response to shifting rate expectations and global liquidity constraints, he highlights that capital is concentrating in fewer high-conviction growth themes rather than lifting all risk assets equally.

Consequently, Chen cautions that market direction will remain volatile, heavily tied to energy trends, Fed signals, and broader risk appetite.

Upcoming Economic Data

Here’s what investors will be keeping an eye on.

• No data is scheduled to be released on Tuesday.

Commodities, Crypto, And Global Equity Markets

Crude Oil WTI futures were trading lower in the early New York session by 0.41% to hover around $82.14 per barrel.

Gold Spot US Dollar rose 1.47% to hover around $4,066.56 per ounce. The U.S. Dollar Index spot was 0.02% lower at the 100.9290 level.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) was trading 3.29% higher at $66,124.53 per coin over the last 24 hours.

Asian markets closed mixed on Tuesday, as Hong Kong’s Hang Seng and India’s Nifty 50 indices fell. China’s CSI 300, Australia’s ASX 200, South Korea’s Kospi, and Japan’s Nikkei 225 indices rose. European markets were mostly higher in early trade.

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