07:35 AM EDT, 10/28/2025 (MT Newswires) -- US equity futures were mostly trending higher on Tuesday as investors assess the latest agreement on trade and critical minerals between the US and Japan, and await the latest batch of corporate earnings.

The S&P 500 was slightly in the red in premarket activity, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq edged up 0.1% each. All three main indexes notched new record closing highs on Monday for a second consecutive session.

The US on Monday agreed to a framework with Japan on supporting the supply of raw and processed critical minerals and rare earths crucial to their domestic industries, according to a statement by the White House.

"We're going to do tremendous trade together, I think, more than ever before," President Donald Trump said, according to various media outlets. Trump also said he hoped the relationship between the US and Japan would be "stronger than ever before."

The deal with Japan comes after the US recently finalized separate agreements on critical minerals with Malaysia and Thailand.

The US and China are expected to "come away with" a trade deal, Trump reportedly said Monday ahead of his meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in South Korea on Thursday.

Treasury yields were down in premarket action, with the two-year rate retreating 0.5 basis points to 3.49% and the 10-year rate off 1.6 basis points to 3.98%.

The Federal Reserve's monetary policy committee is scheduled to kick off its meeting on interest rates Tuesday, with a decision due tomorrow. Markets are widely expecting the central bank to lower its benchmark lending rate by 25 basis points, according to the CME FedWatch tool.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell is unlikely to "express any latent fear" over inflation following Friday's soft consumer inflation data, ING said in a Monday report.

The US federal government shutdown entered its 28th day on Tuesday. The Senate was scheduled to reconvene Monday, though it's not slated to vote on a House-passed measure to fund the government, CBS News reported.

Tuesday's economic calendar also has the Case-Shiller Home Price Index and the Federal Housing Finance Agency House Price Index, both for August, at 9 am ET. The Conference Board's consumer confidence report for October is out at 10 am, along with the Richmond Fed manufacturing index for the same month.

UnitedHealth ( UNH ) , Novartis ( NVS ) , NextEra Energy ( NEE ) , Royal Caribbean Cruises ( RCL ) , Sherwin-Williams ( SHW ) , United Parcel Service ( UPS ) , PayPal ( PYPL ) , Carrier Global ( CARR ) and D.R. Horton ( DHI ) are some of the major companies reporting their latest financial results before the bell, among others. Visa (V), Booking Holdings ( BKNG ) , Mondelez International ( MDLZ ) and Electronic Arts ( EA ) post earnings after the markets close.

Tech giants Microsoft ( MSFT ) , Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) and Meta Platform (META) are scheduled to report their latest quarterly financial results Wednesday, followed by Apple ( AAPL ) and Amazon ( AMZN ) on Thursday.

Shares of Amazon ( AMZN ) nudged 0.6% higher pre-bell after the e-commerce giant disclosed plans to reduce its overall corporate workforce by 14,000 positions. Cadence Design Systems ( CDNS ) declined nearly 2% despite reporting better-than-expected third-quarter results and lifting its full-year outlook.

Qualcomm ( QCOM ) was down 0.4% following an 11% jump at the close of Monday, as the company unveiled two new artificial intelligence chips for data centers and announced an AI infrastructure deal involving those chips with Saudi Arabia's Humain.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil slipped 1.2% to $60.59 a barrel before the opening bell. Gold dropped 2.3% to $3,928 per troy ounce, while bitcoin decreased 0.3% to $114,556.