Good morning. The S&P 500 was up 0.6% yesterday though breadth was weak as the equal-weight dropped 0.4% and the Russell 2000 was flat. Semis and tech hardware drove the action. A hot PPI print was the primary focus of the day. Despite that, treasury yields were rather tame. The clear winner yesterday was the Islander’s Matthew Schaefer, who won the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s rookie of the year in a unanimous decision…at the age of 18.

US equity futures are trading higher and near their best levels currently. There were a lot of good vibes in the initial reports of the Trump-Xi meeting. Both agreed that the Strait of Hormuz should remain a free waterway and that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon, according to the White House readout. Trump also invited Xi to visit the White House in September. It wasn’t all smiles and backslaps though. The topic of Taiwan brought some tension into the room, and not wholly unexpected, as Xi warned the US must handle the situation with “extreme caution”.

March Retail sales were inline with estimates but slowed from last month and the control group came in a slightly higher than expected but also slowed. Weekly jobless claims came in higher than expected but remain at their low levels. Moving from the macro to the micro, Cisco is up >10% in the pre-market following earnings last night. The company is seeing strong demand for data center and network upgrades to accommodate AI traffic growth. Other tech hardware names are trading higher as well while the white-hot memory/storage names are down.

Brent crude is modestly lower. Gold is around unchanged, continuing to trade sideways, while precious metals are giving back yesterday’s gains. Ag is under some pressure while Bitcoin and Ether are flat to slightly higher. The Senate Banking Committee is set to vote today on the Clarity Act, which would send it to a full Senate vote if it passes. However policy analysts say its prospects would be weak if it makes it through on just a party-line vote.