Stock Market Today, Jan. 29: Nasdaq plummets 2% after disappointing Microsoft earnings weigh on index

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Happy Thursday. This is TheStreet’s Stock Market Today for Jan. 29, 2026. You can follow the latest updates on the market here in our daily live blog.

Update: 9:46 a.m. ET

Opening Bell

The U.S. market is now opened for the day. This morning, the Nasdaq (-1.62%) is off over one and a half percentage points; the S&P 500(-0.76%) is off closer to one.

What gives? Well, it's the first trade since three Big Tech earnings reported their big earnings last night. Although all three companies met expectations, investors in particular were disappointed with Microsoft (-9.96%), which is down nearly 10%. They also shrugged off results from Tesla (-1.9%), even though the report saw an initial pop.

A common theme was AI spending; it was also a problem for Meta (+8.58%), which expects a larger sum of spending in 2026 as it continues its superintelligence efforts. The only difference is that Meta largely exceeded investor expectations.

Here's the S&P 500 this morning, which is whipsawing in either direction after yesterday's earnings:

That leaves just the Dow (-0.22%) and Russell 2000 (-0.28%) close to where they were yesterday. They are in position to recover today's trade; the majority of U.S. equities are trading up this morning, meaning it's just the weight of Big Tech that is holding down the market.

Speaking of "weight" and "holding it down", continuous futures in gold (+3.10% to $5,463.70) and silver (+3.2% to $117.465) continued to rally into the evening and early morning, only paling back in the last few minutes by a percentage point.

The 10Y Treasury is little moved; down about 0.8 bips at 4.243%.

Earnings Today: Apple, Visa, Mastercard

Continuing the 'Big Tech' earnings theme today, tech giant Apple, payment processors Visa and Mastercard, and industrial firm Caterpillar will be among today's largest earnings reports. Here are the earnings which were part of the A.M. lot:

You can see the morning earnings reactions on the far right --- some are obviously steeper than others, like SAP SE (-16%) or Lockheed Martin (+6.43%).

And after the bell, we'll have even more reports to square. Here are the earnings coming this evening:

Economic Events: Jobless Claims, Exports/Imports, Factory Orders

With the FOMC meeting in the rear view, today will see a slower day for economic data. Jobless Claims, Exports/Imports data, and Factory Orders will be the standout reports. Here are the various events that are due out today, including already-released data (updated at 10:10 a.m. ET):