Welcome to Markets Desk, your midday read on what's moving markets and why.
The global reserve hierarchy has quietly shifted. Gold has now overtaken U.S. Treasury debt as the primary reserve asset held by central banks worldwide. That's a structural statement about confidence in dollar-denominated paper, and it won't go unnoticed by bond markets or policymakers in Washington.
Turning to semiconductors, Marvell Technology surged sharply after Nvidia's Jensen Huang publicly called the company, quote, "so essential" to artificial intelligence infrastructure, and suggested it could join the trillion-dollar valuation club. When the most important voice in AI endorses a chipmaker by name, the market listens immediately and moves accordingly.
And on the macro front, Moody's Analytics now estimates the war in Iran has cost American households one hundred billion dollars in just its first three months. Chief economist Mark Zandi says those costs have more than erased the consumer benefit from Trump's recent tax cuts, and are bearing down on an economy he describes as already sagging. That's a demand shock with a price tag, and it complicates the Federal Reserve's calculus considerably.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
