U.S. stock index futures struggled for direction on Tuesday ahead of the Federal Reserve's upcoming meeting that will be closely monitored for commentary from the central bank on the potential economic ramifications of ongoing tariff disputes.

The central bank's two-day rate-setting meeting starts later in the day, and is set to conclude on Wednesday. Markets anticipate it will maintain the status quo on interest rates, according to data compiled by LSEG.

Market Snapshot

At 7:50 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 106 points, or 0.25%, S&P 500 E-minis were down 18.25 points, or 0.32%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were down 92.25 points, or 0.47%.

Pre-Market Movers

Nvidia was up 0.11% in premarket trading. Shares of Nvidia, the leading making of artificial-intelligence chips, fell 1.8% on Monday, the first day of the company's GTC AI conference. The big event Tuesday is a keynote address from CEO Jensen Huang, which begins at 1 p.m. Eastern time. Huang likely will announce a wide-ranging set of partnerships and products that showcase how the company's semiconductors are enabling the latest wave of AI innovations.

Tesla stock was down 3% in premarket trading.The drop Tuesday came after RBC analyst Tom Narayan cut his Tesla stock price target to $320 from $440. He kept his buy rating. "Much of the attention around Tesla has centered on its recent delivery performance in Jan. and Feb. in Europe and China," wrote Narayan.

Grab shares jumped 4% in premarket trading. Bloomberg reported that Grab Holdings Ltd. is moving forward with its attempt to take over GoTo Group, according to people familiar with the matter, who said the Singaporean ride and delivery firm has begun due diligence on its Indonesian rival.

Chinese EV maker XPeng slid 0.65% after reporting a fourth-loss that narrowed from a year earlier as revenue rose 23%. Vehicle margins in the period jumped 10%, up 5.9 percentage points from a year earlier.

NIO’s US-listed shares surged 5.4% in premarket trading as it the Chinese EV maker has partnered with CATL to create the world's largest and most advanced battery swap network for passenger cars. CATL will help Nio develop its battery swap network, while its Choco-Swap technology standard and network will be introduced into subsequent newly developed models under Nio's new Firefly brand.

Li Auto’s US-listed shares surged 4.9% in premarket trading after the Chinese plug-in hybrid specialist released a new autonomous-driving model. The gains came after Li Auto unveiled its new vision-language-action autonomous-driving system dubbed Mind VLA, which will help facilitate advanced driver-assistance features such as identifying store signs and parking, the automaker said in a statement Tuesday.

BigBear.ai Holdings shares fell 7.7% premarket after the artificial-intelligence software provider said it would need more time to file its annual report for 2024 and would restate several years' worth of accounts.

Lucid stock jumped 3.7% in premarket trading. Morgan Stanley upgrades Lucid's stock on opportunity for change. Far from being a detriment to the company, the change afoot in the C-suite might present an opportunity, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said on Monday. Jonas raised his ratings on Lucid's stock to the equivalent of hold, from sell, based on the possibilities,

Ralph Lauren gained 3.2% to $227 after analysts at Goldman Sachs upgraded shares of the luxury apparel maker to Buy from Neutral and raised their price target to $286 from $280.

Market News

Nasdaq Plans Second U.S. Headquarters in Texas

Nasdaq, long associated with its prime Times Square location, will soon be opening its first regional headquarters in Dallas, according to people familiar with the plans. It’s the latest push by a New York institution into Texas, which is trying to unseat the Northeast as the epicenter of U.S. business.

The stock exchange operator is establishing a regional headquarters later this year in Dallas, the seat of so-called Y’all Street, serving Texas and the entire Southeast. The focus of the office won’t be solely on winning listings (often viewed as the prestige business of a stock exchange), according to people familiar with the matter. It will also house part of Nasdaq’s technology and financial crime management businesses, which help Nasdaq clients detect fraud and money laundering.

Xiaomi Raises EV Sales Target, Plans New Overseas Stores as Q4 Revenue Jumps

China's Xiaomi on Tuesday reported a near 50% jump in fourth-quarter revenue, beating analyst estimates, and raised its 2025 target for electric vehicle deliveries to 350,000.

The company reported a 48.8% rise in fourth-quarter revenue on Tuesday, which totalled 109 billion yuan ($15.09 billion), beating the 103.94 billion yuan average of 17 analyst estimates compiled by LSEG.

Adjusted net profit rose 69.4% from the same period a year earlier to 8.32 billion yuan, ahead of the 6.399 billion yuan average analyst estimate.

Alphabet to Buy Wiz for $32 Billion in Biggest Deal to Boost Cloud Security

Alphabet said on Tuesday it would buy Wiz for $32 billion in its biggest deal as the Google parent doubles down on cybersecurity to sharpen its edge in the cloud-computing race against Amazon.com and Microsoft.

The price tag is much higher than the roughly $23 billion Google had offered for Wiz last year before antitrust worries forced the startup to shelve the deal.

The buyout will bolster Google's cloud business with Wiz's AI-powered cybersecurity solutions that companies use to remove critical risks, helping it compete better in an industry benefiting from the rise of generative AI services like ChatGPT.