Tech rally, Nvidia’s China boost, bitcoin pullback: 3 Things

Let's kick things off with what you need to know before the opening bell rings by taking a look at the futures board. As you can see, a bit of a mixed picture here, Dow Jones Industrial Average Futures up just slightly, but the Nasdaq really leading today with tech leading the charge as investors patiently await that crucial reading on inflation on Tuesday morning, and bank earnings are starting to cross the wires. I also want to flip over to Europe and take a look at the London FTSE. That's above 9,000 or touched above 9,000 earlier in the session for the first time ever. But here in the US, it is all about tech. Tech is leading the action here as easing restrictions on Nvidia chip sales to China have sent shares of the AI leader up more than 5% in pre-market trading. Nvidia is set to open at a record high Tuesday morning after a blog post from CEO Jensen Wong said the company will resume sales of its H20 AI chip in China. Nvidia's reignition of H20 chip sales comes just day after Wong's meeting with President Trump. The company's the company had previously said its curbs on H20 sales would cut its revenue by $15 billion. Web Bush Securities analyst Dan Ives called the announcement this morning a quote, "watershed moment for Nvidia, the AI revolution thesis, and the overall US tech industry." The risk on sentiment in markets comes as investors continue to look through the ongoing trade war sparked by President Trump's tariffs. Overnight, Bloomberg reported the European Union has finalized a second list of countermeasures targeting US goods worth roughly $84 billion. But President Trump has stressed negotiations are ongoing ahead of a key August 1st deadline. Trump said Monday that Europe is quote "coming over. They'd like to talk." In a recent note to clients, Morgan Stanley Chief Investment Officer Mike Wilson had noted that US stocks have remained resilient in recent weeks despite the ongoing tariff back and forth, in part because key trading partners such as China haven't been targeted. And finally, we're watching cryptocurrencies again this morning with the world's largest coin Bitcoin pairing back some of its gains from yesterday after hitting a record high above $122,000 on Monday. You can see on your screen there, Bitcoin changing hands at about $117,000 per coin as crypto week in Washington continues.