Stock Market Today: Dow Jumps 540 Points at the Open as Wall Street Shakes Off the AI Rout

The rout got its answer at the bell. Wall Street's main indexes opened higher on Monday, Reuters reported, as investors attempted to shake off last week's AI anxieties while awaiting more clarity on the controversy surrounding Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 540.52 points, or 1.05 percent, at the open to 51,826.25. The S&P 500 rose 59.90 points, or 0.81 percent, to 7,436.76, and the Nasdaq Composite rose 200.72 points, or 0.82 percent, to 24,780.15 — a broad, even open, not a one-index bounce.

The fuel was oil. Brent crude fell toward $93.50 a barrel during Monday's session, approximately 5 percent lower on the day, after losing nearly 17 percent during the previous trading week — cheaper energy is a direct cut in the week's biggest cost pressure, and market reporting credited the drop with helping Wall Street recover from the AI-led selloff. The one big name still pointing the other way was Nvidia itself: its shares fell 4.5 percent premarket after the board's investigation into whether Huang had been targeted by a foreign intelligence effort raised questions about his future at the chipmaker, even as index futures had already pointed higher before the bell — Dow E-minis up 0.73 percent, S&P 500 E-minis up 0.40 percent and Nasdaq 100 E-minis up 0.21 percent at 5:10 a.m. ET.

What the open does not settle is the week. Earnings are due Monday from investment giant KKR and Constellation Energy, the energy firm with exposure to the AI boom, and Wall Street's next major test arrives Tuesday, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes October's Consumer Price Index at 8:30 a.m. Eastern — the last full inflation read before the Federal Reserve's December meeting, covered in this cycle's trending file. An opening rally buys the market a morning; the CPI decides whether it keeps the week.