Why Stocks Are Opening Mixed: AI Optimism Counters Fresh Tariff Uncertainty

U.S. stocks were little changed shortly after Tuesday’s opening bell as investors weighed a major AI infrastructure agreement against fresh tariff uncertainty ahead of President Trump’s State of the Union address.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 4.32 points, or 0.01%, to 48,799.7. The S&P 500 fell 5.41 points, or 0.08%, to 6,833.24, while the Nasdaq Composite edged up 1.66 points, or 0.01%, to 22,628.9.

Markets opened as the administration’s newly announced 10% global tariff levy took effect Tuesday morning, with President Trump threatening to raise it to 15%. The White House is also preparing additional national security investigations under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 targeting imports including batteries, electrical grid equipment and industrial chemicals.

Those measures are expected to feature prominently in Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, which comes at a politically charged moment. Trump's speech arrives amid economic tension, elevated voter dissatisfaction over inflation and housing costs, and the recent Supreme Court ruling that curtailed the president’s use of emergency tariff powers. For investors, the address could offer clues about the administration’s next moves on trade, manufacturing and energy policy.

Against that backdrop, semiconductor shares drew attention after Advanced Micro Devices and Meta Platforms announced a multi-year agreement to deploy up to 6 gigawatts of AMD Instinct GPUs to power Meta’s next-generation AI infrastructure . Shipments supporting the first gigawatt deployment are expected to begin in the second half of 2026, built on AMD’s Helios rack-scale architecture.

“We are proud to expand our strategic partnership with Meta as they push the boundaries of AI at unprecedented scale,” said Dr. Lisa Su, chair and CEO, AMD. “This multi-year, multi-generation collaboration across Instinct GPUs, EPYC CPUs and rack-scale AI systems aligns our roadmaps to deliver high-performance, energy-efficient infrastructure optimized for Meta’s workloads, accelerating one of the industry’s largest AI deployments and placing AMD at the center of the global AI buildout.”

Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, “We’re excited to form a long-term partnership with AMD to deploy efficient inference compute and deliver personal superintelligence… I expect AMD to be an important partner for many years to come.”

Meanwhile, Torsten Sløk, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, warned that “the tail risks have increased from 10% to 30%,” citing geopolitical tensions, debt levels and uncertainty surrounding AI’s economic impact.

He noted that AI’s contribution to GDP growth continues to rise, meaning a shortfall in expectations could increase recession probabilities .

For now, equities appear caught between structural optimism around artificial intelligence investment and renewed policy risk tied to trade and tariffs.