Caterpillar Jumps 11% and Storage Stocks Rally: US Pre-Market Brief, 4 August 2026

Sentiment: bullish S&P 500 futures: +0.35%

S&P 500 futures trade at 7,655.00, up 0.35% at 8:30am ET on 4 August 2026, a smaller gain than the 1.20% in Dow futures and the 1.14% in Nasdaq futures because Monday's big tech software winners are giving back ground. CAT.US trades 11.21% higher at $924.01 after reporting its first $20 billion revenue quarter and raising full-year guidance. June trade figures released at 8:30am ET showed the goods and services deficit narrowing to $73.3 billion from a revised $77.6 billion in May, against a $76.5 billion consensus.

What moved the futures overnight

Dow futures at 53,975.00 imply a 641 point gain, and pre-market prices across the 30 members imply 660 points, a 4 basis point difference between the two measures.

• CAT.US +11.21% to $924.01 is worth about 588 of those 660 implied points on its own, close to nine tenths of the move. Second-quarter revenue reached $20.543 billion, up 24% from a year earlier, with operating margin at 20.9% against 17.3%. Caterpillar raised 2026 sales growth guidance and cut its expected full-year tariff cost to about $2.2 billion from a $2.2 billion to $2.6 billion range, citing orders for construction equipment and backup power tied to data centre building.
• Memory and storage names account for most of the Nasdaq contract's 1.14%: MRVL.US +7.86%, GLW.US +7.32%, WDC.US +6.08%, STX.US +5.35%, SNDK.US +5.05% and MU.US +4.28%. FMS 2026, the memory and storage industry event, opens in Santa Clara today, and Marvell used it to preview AI memory and storage expansion products aimed at inference workloads.
• Chip equipment makers rose with them: LRCX.US +5.17%, AMAT.US +4.74%, KLAC.US +4.38%, ASML.US +3.05% and TSM.US +2.68%. INTC.US +4.66%, ARM.US +4.40% and AMD.US +3.99% joined, the last of these ahead of its own results after tonight's close.
• Monday's software winners reversed: MSFT.US -1.88%, AMZN.US -2.19%, CRM.US -2.08%, META.US -1.57%, ORCL.US -1.38% and GOOGL.US -1.21%. Microsoft, Amazon and Salesforce subtract 121 points from the implied Dow open between them, and their weight in the S&P 500 is why that contract lags the other two.

Caterpillar and GS.US, up $13.44 and worth 83 points, together more than cover the implied 660 point gain. Subtract the 121 points from the three software names, add 63 from SHW.US, NVDA.US and HON.US, and the other 22 members net to roughly 47 points.

Monday's close

• S&P 500: 7,600.50 (+1.48%)
• Nasdaq Composite: 25,913.90 (+2.13%)
• Dow: 53,178.41 (+1.32%)
• Russell 2000: 2,981.91 (+1.73%)

Oil fell below $80 on Monday after President Trump called off planned strikes against Iran and proposed talks, and big tech rallied with it. ORCL.US rose 9.22%, META.US 6.02%, MSFT.US 4.93% and GOOGL.US 4.88%.

Overnight Asia and Europe

• Nikkei 225: 63,957.53 (+0.32%)
• Hang Seng: 25,852.92 (-0.60%)
• KOSPI: 6,358.95 (+1.62%)
• STOXX 600: 657.22 (+0.79%)
• DAX: 26,222.87 (+0.85%)
• FTSE 100: 10,901.01 (+0.40%)

South Korea's KOSPI gained 1.62%, the strongest of the Asian markets, and Hong Kong was the only one lower.

Pre-market movers

Palantir reported after Monday's close: revenue rose 93% from a year earlier and the company lifted its 2026 US commercial revenue outlook above $3.42 billion from $3.22 billion. Cummins posted record second-quarter revenue of $9.5 billion, up 9%, and raised full-year revenue guidance to growth of 10% to 13% from 8% to 11%, but EBITDA fell to 17.5% of sales from 18.4% and $29 million of tax items cost $0.21 per share. Spotify added 7 million paying subscribers to reach 300 million and grew operating profit 61% to EUR 655 million, with gross margin at a record 33.4%.

Commodities, rates and the dollar

• WTI crude: $77.97 (-2.95%)
• Brent: $81.91 (-2.22%)
• Gold: $4,124.60/oz (+0.83%)
• US 10-year yield: 4.66% (-0.49%)
• US Dollar Index: 99.94 (+0.05%)

Crude is extending Monday's decline. OPEC and its allies approved a quota increase of about 188,000 barrels per day from September, and Trump said he expects the Strait of Hormuz to reopen. Iran has denied that direct talks are under way.

US economic calendar today (ET)

• 8:30am, released: June goods and services deficit of $73.3 billion, down $4.4 billion from a revised $77.6 billion. Exports $314.7 billion (-0.9%), imports $388.0 billion (-1.8%). Year to date the deficit is $189.3 billion or 33.8% narrower than the same period of 2025.
• 10:00am: June factory orders, consensus -0.8% after -1.3%.
• 10:00am: June JOLTS job openings.
• After the close: AMD.US second-quarter results. Consensus is revenue of $11.31 billion, up 47% from a year earlier, and EPS of $1.61 against 48 cents. Data centre revenue was $5.8 billion in the first quarter.

What to watch

• Dow futures at +1.20% and S&P 500 futures at +0.35% sit 85 basis points apart. One stock, Caterpillar, produced most of that gap.
• Russell 2000 futures +0.52% sit above the S&P contract, which places the drag in the software names.
• VIX at 15.64, down 1.39%, with the 10-year at 4.66% and the dollar index unchanged at 99.94.

Context only. Not financial advice. Track your own trades with Swingfolio.