Wall Street is having one of those Mondays where almost everything is working. Around midday in Chicago, the Nasdaq composite was up 1.8 percent, the S&P 500 had climbed 1.2 percent, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was higher by more than 200 points, or about 0.5 percent, according to Investor’s Business Daily’s live market coverage.
The fuel for the rally arrived over the weekend. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he had a productive session on artificial intelligence with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York on Sunday, per Investor’s Business Daily. With President Trump set to host Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington on Wednesday, any sign of cooperation on AI and trade is exactly what a nervous market wanted to hear.
Chips are the story of the day
Semiconductor stocks were the clear leaders. Arm Holdings jumped more than 15 percent, Intel surged more than 14 percent, and Advanced Micro Devices climbed nearly 9 percent, briefly pushing its market value above $1 trillion during the session, MarketWatch reported. Alphabet, Nvidia, Amgen, and Boeing were also among the day’s winners, while Chevron paced the downside with a 2 percent decline, according to Investor’s Business Daily.
Traders pointed to a cluster of catalysts: booming demand for the central processing units that power AI servers, buzz around the spread of AI agents, and a Jefferies note flagging Friday’s announcement that Anthropic will partner with Accenture on a five-year, $1 billion-plus effort to independently evaluate frontier AI models, MarketWatch reported.
Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery both jumped after Bloomberg reported that Paramount had settled with California and 11 other states seeking to block its $110 billion merger, per Investor’s Business Daily. We have added a full update to our earlier story on the merger fight.
Oil and yields cooperated
The rally got help from outside the stock market too. West Texas Intermediate crude fell roughly 3 to 4 percent to around $96 a barrel, according to Investor’s Business Daily and Stocktwits, a welcome pullback for anyone worried about energy prices feeding inflation. The 10-year Treasury yield slipped a few basis points to hover just below 5 percent, per Investor’s Business Daily, while the 30-year yield eased to about 5.30 percent, according to Stocktwits. Bitcoin pushed to about $85,800, up nearly 6 percent on the day, its highest level since January.
What to watch next
The afternoon is not the end of it. Nine Fed officials are scheduled to speak this week, including New York Fed President John Williams and Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson at Tuesday’s Treasury Market Conference, according to ZeroHedge’s weekly calendar. S&P Global’s flash purchasing managers’ indexes arrive Wednesday, followed by weekly jobless claims on Thursday and the durable goods report on Friday, per Yardeni QuickTakes. And of course, the Trump-Xi summit begins Wednesday, with AI reportedly on the agenda.
For now, though, the mood at midday is unmistakable: relief. After three straight losing weeks for the Dow, investors came into Monday hungry for good news, and the tape is finally feeding them.
