Good morning and welcome to Markets Desk.
Nvidia crossed a threshold no company has ever reached, hitting a market valuation of five point five trillion dollars — a figure that would have seemed fictional just two years ago. Shares have surged nearly twenty percent over the past four weeks, and today that momentum is lifting the broader tape, with the Nasdaq one hundred up six tenths of a percent even as the Dow slips slightly into the red.
That chip-driven strength is unfolding against a complicated geopolitical backdrop. President Trump is in China this week, accompanied by at least seventeen executives from companies including Tesla and Nvidia. The trip carries significant weight beyond trade optics — there are growing concerns that if China fails to intervene diplomatically in the Iran conflict, the United States could move toward renewed military action as early as next week, a scenario that would send shockwaves through risk assets globally.
Meanwhile the diplomatic stakes are sharpening what's already a tense moment for CEOs making the trip. For those executives, the calculus is straightforward — access, supply chain assurances, and market positioning in a relationship that remains the defining economic fault line of this era. How Beijing responds in the coming days could set the tone for markets well beyond this week.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
