Newly reinstated US president Donald Trump signed a slew of executive orders on his first day back in office on Monday.
His actions included invoking a national energy emergency, as well as approving the US's withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement.
Trump did not immediately impose any trade tariffs but did make clear duties were coming. He said on Monday evening, "we are thinking in terms of 25% on Mexico and Canada," and added he is likely to enact the duties on 1 February.
Meanwhile, a presidential action on inflation directed the "heads of all executive departments and agencies to deliver emergency price relief" to bring down costs.
Trump also signed an order to pause the enforcement of a ban on the TikTok social media platform in the US.
US markets were closed on Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but S&P 500 futures (ES=F) were still open for trading and rose. Shares in Trump Media were up just 1% in pre-market trading on Tuesday morning.
Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.L), said: "UK markets are feeling their way tentatively through the first day of a Trump presidency, with the FTSE 100 (^FTSE) opening flat, taking cues from across Europe.
"US markets were closed yesterday, but futures suggest investors had a positive reaction to Trump’s inauguration speech and his string of day-one executive orders."
Streaming giant Netflix is due to report its fiscal fourth quarter earnings on Tuesday after the market close, and shares were up nearly 1% in pre-market trading, as analysts expect the company to deliver strong results.
According to Bloomberg consensus estimates, analysts expect Netflix to report revenue of $10.11bn (£8.25bn), which would be slightly below the company's guidance of $10.13bn but higher than the $8.83bn it posted last year.
Wall Street is expecting earnings per share of $4.18, which would also be lower than Netflix's guidance of $4.23, but up on the $2.11 it reported in the fourth quarter of 2023. Analysts anticipate the company to report net subscriber additions of 9.18 million for the quarter, which would be lower than 13.12 million in the same period last year.
Bloomberg Intelligence senior media analyst Geetha Ranganathan told Yahoo Finance last week that the fourth quarter results "typically... tend[ing] to do really, really well, but really I think this time around sports is dominating the narrative" as the streaming platform leans more into live entertainment content.
Elon Musk, CEO of electric vehicle maker Tesla, was one of the Big Tech executives in attendance at Trump's inauguration on Monday.
Musk, one of Trump's biggest supporters, was appointed to take on the role of co-leading the extra-governmental Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Other major tech billionaires who were in attendance at the inauguration included Meta Platforms (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon (AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos.
Bremmer asserts that if this relationship were to occur in a smaller country, "we'd be asking if that's a kleptocracy." He goes on to state that the US is moving into a "G-Zero world order" – where no one power or group of powers drives the global agenda and maintains international order – a notion he's identified as a significant risk in 2025.
Mengmeng Zhang, analyst at Counterpoint, said: "This is the first time since the US ban that Huawei regained the leading position."
This latest research comes after data from market analyst firm Canalys, released last week, showed that lost its top spot as the smartphone maker with the biggest market share in mainland China. The iPhone maker fell to third place behind Vivo and Huawei, holding a 15% market share.
Shares in Apple were flat in pre-market trading on Tuesday.
Bitcoin (BTC-USD) rallied to a fresh high on Monday, topping $109,000 in the hours before Trump was sworn in as president but has since eased back and was trading at $102,789 on Tuesday morning.
Hargreaves Lansdown's Britzman said that the retreat in bitcoin following Monday's fresh high "looks like little more than profit-taking after its recent rally, with traders balancing optimism over growing institutional adoption against caution around regulatory uncertainties.
"Despite the dip, sentiment remains strong as the market eyes more favourable conditions with Trump in office," he said. "Given the launch of 'his' and 'hers' meme coins in recent days for the Trumps, the crypto bulls will be expecting more to come in 2025."
Shares in cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase, which has become a proxy stock for price movements in the digital tokens, were flat in pre-market trading on Tuesday morning.
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Other companies in the news on Tuesday 21 January:
