Caterpillar and Palantir Fuel US Stock Market Rally

The US stock market saw significant gains on Tuesday, led by the Nasdaq Composite's 1.9% increase to around 11 a.m. ET, while the Dow rose 1.5% or roughly 800 points.

However, the key driver of today's rally was not falling oil prices like Monday's, but rather companies reporting excellent earnings results.

Caterpillar led the charge with its massive demand for power and energy solutions driving a 6% jump in shares. This, combined with the company's 29% year-over-year increase in sales for this division, generated about 296 Dow points on its own.

Palantir Technologies also posted an impressive gain of 27.1%, as U.S. commercial customers adopted its AI platform at a faster-than-expected rate. The stock usually barely registers in the cap-weighted market indexes, but this significant jump set the tone for today's risk-on market mood.