A Challenge to Nvidia? 8 Key Items Shaping the Stock Market Tuesday

These are the early headlines and other items poised to influence the market at the start of trading Tuesday. As we share this collection of market drivers, U.S. equity futures point to a weaker market open later this morning.

1. Tehran’s latest peace proposal to the United States involves ending hostilities on all fronts including Lebanon, the exit of U.S. forces from areas close to Iran, and reparations for destruction caused by the U.S.-Israeli war, state media reported on Tuesday. In Tehran’s first comments on ‌the proposal, Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said Tehran also sought the lifting of sanctions, the release of frozen funds and an end to the U.S. marine blockade on the country… (Reuters)

However, Iran also continues to say it will not accept any deal that completely bans it from enriching uranium, which has been a key sticking point for the U.S. and Israel. With both sides feeling as if they hold the upper hand and that time is on their side, the question being increasingly pondered is how long can tensions persist before a miscalculation by Washington or Tehran triggers renewed conflict. And a renewed conflict would likely send oil prices and related energy/petrochemical prices higher, adding to renewed inflation pressures.

2. Home Depot shares were rising slightly in premarket trading Tuesday as earnings came in ahead of expectations. The home-improvement retailer reported adjusted earnings per share of $3.43 for the first quarter, down from $3.56 for the same period a year earlier. Revenue rose 4.8% to $41.8 billion, with comparable sales up 0.6%. Analysts had expected earnings per share of $3.41, on revenue of $41.59 billion. (Barron’s)

We shared with Pro Portfolio members why we’ll be tracking comp sales from retailers like Home Depot (HD) and inside its earnings report this morning we find the following —comparable sales increased 0.6% for the quarter that ended on May 3, beating the consensus expectation for an increase of 0.5%. Comparable sales in the U.S. were up 0.4% during the quarter. Comparable customer transactions fell 1.3% year over year, while the comparable average ticket for customers was up 2.2%. Total customer transactions fell 0.9% to 391.1 million.

But this comment from CFO Richard McPhail is the one that caught our eye: “When we talk to our customers, they do tell us that they have concerns over uncertainty and housing affordability. They point out that fuel costs are rising, mortgage rates have risen again after falling throughout 2025, and layoffs are increasing… as a result, they tell us they’re continuing to hold off on larger projects.”

For the current fiscal year, Home Depot reiterated its comp sales growth guidance of 0%-2%, which is a positive given renewed inflation pressures and concerns over consumer spending but we’ll want to size that up against what we hear from Lowe’s (LOW), James Hardie (JHX), Toll Brothers (TOL) and other retailers like Target (TGT) this week.

3. Google and Blackstone are creating an AI cloud group backed with $5bn from the alternative asset manager, in a bid to expand the reach of the tech giant’s specialised chips and mount a challenge to Nvidia… Google will provide the new venture with hardware including its Tensor Processing Units, the group’s custom chip created to train and deploy AI models. (FT)

Interesting timing ahead of Nvidia’s (NVDA) quarterly earnings report out tomorrow night, and one that reinforces our view that Nvidia will need to deliver more than a modest beat-and-raise report to reinforce its industry position. The partnership between Google (GOOGL) and Blackstone (BX) is another tailwind for the Portfolio’s other chip positions, Marvell (MRVL) and Broadcom (AVGO).

4. Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang, speaking days after he joined President Donald Trump’s summit in China, said he expects Chinese authorities to eventually allow the import of artificial intelligence chips from the US. Huang has previously identified China as a $50 billion opportunity for Nvidia, though the company earlier this year maintained its projection of zero sales for AI chips in the Chinese market… In March, Huang said that Nvidia had received US clearance for shipments to “many customers” in China and was preparing to fire up H200 production accordingly. (Bloomberg)

No doubt questions about Nvidia’s H200 AI chips will be among those that Jensen is peppered with on the Wednesday’s earnings call. Others will focus on Blackwell capacity, margins for the coming quarters, the ramp of next-gen AI chip Rubin, and Jensen’s outlook for the AI industry shift from training massive models to inference.

5. Meta detailed its layoff plans for this week in a memo shared with employees on Monday, saying cuts to its workforce globally would be accompanied by ‌a fresh round of organizational changes aimed at improving the company’s AI workflows. The Facebook owner is planning to lay off 10% of its employees on Wednesday, with additional deep cuts slated to come later this year… (Reuters) Meta told employees on Monday that it was reassigning 7,000 workers to focus on new initiatives around artificial intelligence, the latest change in a company transformation spurred by the powerful technology. Employees will be moved to four new organizations focused on building new A.I. tools and apps… (NY Times)

The worker reassignment intensifies Meta (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s focus on AI as it looks to compete with the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and others. The 10% layoffs, roughly 8,000 people, reaffirm Meta’s focus on driving productivity, including the internal adoption and wider usage of AI. Janelle Gale, Meta’s head of human resources, commented the restructuring “will make us more productive and make ⁠the work more rewarding…” We’ll agree with the first part and pardon our eye rolling for the second part.

6. Standard Chartered Plc Chief Executive Officer Bill Winters delivered a blunt message on the future of the bank’s workforce, warning that a push into artificial intelligence will eliminate thousands of roles as the lender replaces “lower-value human capital” with technology. The bank on Tuesday unveiled a plan to cut more than 15% of its support staff by 2030 through building up its use of AI to streamline operations. It employed about 52,000 people in such roles at the end of last year… (Bloomberg)

“… replacing in some cases lower-value human capital” is how CEO Bill Winters described it. This is a notable shift in the conversation around AI from a tool to augment, not replace human workers. That tonal shift means watching to see if more companies adopt that perspective.

7. Economic data today per TipRanks: ADP Employment Change Report (Weekly), Housing Starts & Building Permits (April), NY Fed Services Activity Index (May), Pending Home Sales (April).

8. Companies reporting today per TipRanks: AM – Eagle Materials (EXP), Home Depot (HD). PM – Cava Group (CAVA), James Hardie (JHX), Toll Brothers (TOL).

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At the time of publication, TheStreet Pro Portfolio was long AVGO, GOOGL, META, MRVL and NVDA shares.