1. Wall Street set for mixed open after strong late-day bounce
U.S. stock futures were pointing to a mixed open Tuesday. An incredible late-session turnaround in tech stocks Monday, led by Apple, helped the Dow Jones Industrial Average cut a nearly 1,000 point decline almost in half and nearly lifted the Nasdaq into positive territory. The S&P 500 also clawed back a large portion of Monday's steep losses by the close.
Apple, a Dow component and a major influence on the broader market, fell as much as 3.5% during Monday's session. It flipped the script as the day wore on and closed up 3%. However, Apple's 16% decline since its record close on Sept. 2 to Monday's close has been indicative of the rough month for Wall Street. With seven trading days left in September, the Nasdaq remained in a correction, down more than 10% from its Sept. 2 record high. But the Nasdaq, Dow and S&P 500 were higher in the third quarter to date.
2. Powell to promise more support in first of three hearings this week
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, in prepared testimony for Tuesday's House Financial Services Committee hearing, pledged continued support for an economy that he said has shown substantial improvement since the depths of the coronavirus pandemic lockdown but still needs more work. Powell also appears before House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis on Wednesday and the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin joins Powell at Tuesday's and Thursday's hearings, where they're expected to get an earful from lawmakers concerned about government and Fed Covid-19 programs designed to help small businesses.
3. Daily Covid-19 cases in U.S. remain high as Europe spikes
Total coronavirus deaths in the U.S. were nearing 200,000 on Tuesday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. New cases on Monday exceeded 52,000, the highest daily total since Aug. 14. As the coronavirus surge in Europe intensifies, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced Tuesday a tightening of mitigation efforts but stopped short of reimposing a full lockdown. Just weeks after urging people to start returning to their offices, Johnson is now advising them to work from home if they can.
4. Musk downplays 'Battery Day;'Â Milton gets exit package
Tesla CEO Elon Musk actually tempered expectations ahead of Tuesday's "Battery Day," tweeting that improvements unveiled at the event would not reach "serious high-volume production" until 2022. Analyst were expected Musk, often criticized for over-promising and under-delivering, to unveil plans for Tesla to produce its own battery cell. Tesla shares, up over 430% in 2020, were slipping about 4% in Tuesday's premarket.
Embattled electric truck company Nikola shares were falling another 2% in the premarket after closing 19% lower Monday after the abrupt departure of founder Trevor Milton following a highly critical short-seller report. While forfeiting as much as $166 million of equity as well as a two-year, $20 million consulting contract, Milton is still walking away with over $3.1 billion in stock. Shares of Nikola, which recently saw General Motors agree to take an 11% stake and enter into production alliance, were still up more than 167% in 2020.
5. U.S.-China tensions on evidence at U.N.Â
The annual meeting of world leaders at the United Nations begins Tuesday and features a prerecorded address from Trump. No presidents or prime ministers will be physically present at U.N. headquarters in New York this week. In a statement submitted Monday to the U.N., Chinese President Xi Jinping took a swipe at the U.S., saying "no country has the right to dominate global affairs." Xi also said, "Even less should one be allowed to do whatever it likes and be the hegemon, bully or boss of the world. Unilateralism is a dead end."
— Reuters contributed to this report. Follow all the developments on Wall Street in real-time with CNBC's live markets blog. Get the latest on the pandemic with our coronavirus blog.
