Both the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) and the Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQ) rallied on Monday as falling oil prices and Nvidia’s (NVDA) GTC 2026 event lifted investor sentiment.
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News That Moved the Stock Market Today
- President Trump urged several countries, including China, the United Kingdom, and France, to join the Hormuz Coalition, a group tasked with escorting tankers through the global oil chokepoint. An announcement on the member countries could be provided later this week. Crude oil futures (CL) fell 5% on the news.
- U.S. and Chinese officials met over the weekend to discuss trade, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent describing the negotiations as “very good.”
- Bessent added that the Trump-Xi summit scheduled for March 31 to April 3 could be delayed due to the U.S.-Iran war.
- Trump called on the Fed to hold a special meeting in order to cut interest rates. The central bank will announce its next rate decision on Wednesday.
- Nvidia held its highly-anticipated GTC 2026 conference. CEO Jensen Huang shared that the company expects $1 trillion in orders for Blackwell and Vera Rubin systems through 2027 amid increasing demand.
- Meta Platforms (META) signed an up to $27 billion AI infrastructure deal with Nebius (NBIS)
- Salesforce (CRM) began a $25 billion share repurchase program, its largest ever. “We are aggressively repurchasing shares because we are so confident in the future of Salesforce,” said CEO Marc Benioff.
- TD Cowen five-star analyst Krish Sankar raised his Micron (MU) price target to $500 from $450 ahead of the company’s earnings on Wednesday.
Today’s Best-Performing Sector
Information technology was the best-performing sector on Monday, driven by notable gains in memory stocks. Nvidia’s GTC conference fueled optimism for increased AI infrastructure spending and helped drive a rotation from defensive stocks into technology stocks.
Several stocks led the information technology sector’s gains, including:
Today’s Worst-Performing Sector
Meanwhile, consumer staples was the worst-performing sector. Strong gains in the tech sector encouraged investors to shift capital out of consumer staples, which usually performs well during downturns. In addition, higher oil prices tied to the Iran conflict raise inflation expectations, which can hurt consumer spending and margins for food and household goods companies.
Notable consumer staples stocks trading lower include: