Pre-Bell｜Stock Futures Gain; Merus Soars 38%; Tilray Rallies 20%; USA Rare Earth Rockets 7%; Electronic Arts Rises 5%; Alibaba Jumps 3%

U.S. stock index futures rose on Monday, in a firm start to a potentially eventful week, as investors await remarks from a slate of Federal Reserve policymakers and weigh the threat of a government shutdown.

Market Snapshot

At 7:50 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 145 points, or 0.31%; S&P 500 E-minis were up 27.25 points, or 0.41%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 131.75 points, or 0.53%.

Pre-Market Movers

Chinese ADRs and ETFs jumped in premarket trading. CWEB, Direxion Daily CSI 300 China A Share Bull 2X Shares up over 4%; Alibaba, Bilibili up over 3%; Baidu, NIO, PDD up about 2%. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said global hedge funds were last month the most active in onshore equities in recent years — a stark contrast to 2021, when some clients had deemed the market “uninvestable.”

Occidental Petroleum rose 1.1% after a report said the oil company was in talks to sell its OxyChem division for $10 billion to an unknown buyer, creating one of the world's largest stand-alone petrochemicals companies. Occidental's's divestment could be announced in the coming two weeks, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Nvidia rose 0.7% in premarket trading after the chip maker ended Friday's session with a gain of 0.3%. Nvidia recently signed deals with OpenAI, Alibaba and Microsoft. Coming into Monday, shares have closed down 3% over the past five days, but remain up 33% this year amid ever-increasing demand for its artificial-intelligence semiconductors.

Cannabis stocks and ETFs surged in premarket trading. AdvisorShares Pure US Cannabis ETF up 21%; Tilray up 20%; Canopy Growth up nearly 13%. The catalyst for this sector-wide movement appears to be a video posted by Trump discussing the potential health benefits of cannabidiol (CBD).

Merus soared 38% to $94.90 after larger biotech peer Genmab said it planned to buy the Dutch drugmaker for $8 billion, or $97 a share, in cash. Merus' pipeline includes a promising head and neck cancer drug and is "a compelling strategic fit" to Genmab's antibody therapies and oncology portfolio, Genmab said in a statement. The deal is expected to close by the first quarter of 2026. Genmab's American depositary receipts fell 3.5%.

USA Rare Earth stock rose more than 7% as it entered into a definitive agreement to acquire UK-based Less Common Metals (LCM) for $100 million in cash and 6.74 million shares of its stock.

Electronic Arts was falling 0.5% after jumping nearly 15% on Friday to $193.35, a record high, following a report from The Wall Street Journal that said the videogame maker was close to a deal that would take it private. The deal for EA -- the maker of Madden NFL and the Sims series -- would be valued at roughly $50 billion and likely would be the largest leveraged buyout of all time, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Intel fell 1.3% in the premarket session after closing up 4.4% on Friday and 20% the past week, making it the best weekly performer in the S&P 500. Lifting shares of the chip maker was a report from Bloomberg that Intel had approached Apple asking for an investment, and a report from The Wall Street Journal that said Intel had approached Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing as well.

Lam Research gained 2.8% to $131.87 after Deutsche Bank upgraded the stock to Buy from Hold and raised the firms's price target on the chip-equipment maker to $150 from $100.

Shares of electric-vehicle maker Tesla were up 0.7% ahead of the opening bell. Tesla rose 4% on Friday. The company is expected to issue third-quarter deliveries this week, with Wall Street projecting about 447,000, down about 3% from a year earlier.

Market News

Trump to Meet Democrats With Both Sides Dug In on Shutdown

The top four congressional leaders will meet with President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday, a day before federal funding would expire if the two parties can’t agree on a short-term spending bill.

The discussions will be the first between Trump and congressional leaders ahead of the deadline to avoid a shutdown. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and his House counterpart, Hakeem Jeffries, were expected to meet with the president last week but it was canceled by the White House at the last minute.

US Gold Reserves Hit $1 Trillion in Value After Record Rally

The US Treasury’s gold reserves have surpassed $1 trillion in value — more than 90 times what’s stated on the government’s balance sheet — as the precious metal breaks new all-time highs.

The world’s biggest gold stash passed the milestone after prices rose above $3,824.50 an ounce on Monday, in a 45% rally this year. Its official value, however, based on the $42.22-an-ounce price set by Congress in 1973, is fixed at just over $11 billion.