10 things you need to know before the opening bell
Here's what you need to know.
1. Top US allies are abandoning Trump and warning ISIS will benefit following the assassination of an Iranian general. A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the US president's recent threat to target "Iranian culture" sites would be a war crime.
2. Oil dips as markets await Iran response to US killing of military commander. Oil prices edged lower on Tuesday, coming off their highest levels in months as the market calmed while the world braces for Iran's response to the killing.
3. No, bitcoin is not the new gold. Bitcoin has been touted as a "safe haven" investment, like gold, in times of geopolitical uncertainty. "The evidence isn't there," says one analyst.
4. Iran's parliament voted to classify the entire US military and the Pentagon as terrorist organizations days after Soleimani's assassination. The move comes four days after the iconic Iranian general Qassem Soleimani was killed by a US air strike on Friday, near Baghdad in Iraq.
5. Photos of Iranians flooding the streets for Soleimani's funeral show how much he was revered, and hints at how hard the regime will strike back. Qassem Soleimani will buried in Kerman, Iran, after a three-day, multi-city funeral procession. The regime vows devastation for the US.
6 .Goldman Sachs renames business units ahead of quarterly results. Goldman Sachs said on Tuesday it renamed its main business units ahead of its quarterly results next week, as part of the Wall Street bank's efforts to provide greater transparency for investors into its financial performance.
7. Elon Musk did a dad-dance striptease on stage at Tesla's new Shanghai Gigafactory. The longstanding Tesla chief described footage of his questionable dance moves as "NSFW" on Twitter.
8. Stocks are mostly rising. US futures underlying the Dow and the S&P 500 flat, while the Nasdaq (+0.3%) is rising, pointing to soft gains at the open. European stocks followed with the FTSE 100 (+0.2%), the DAX (+0.9%), and the Euro Stoxx 50 up (+0.5%). Asian stocks increased with the Shanghai Composite gaining (+0.7%), and the Nikkei (+1.6%) and Hang Seng (+0.3%) also rising.
9. There's no major earnings on the calendar today.
10. On the data docket today: US trade balance and factory order data are due.