Good evening and welcome to Markets Desk, your close on the stories moving markets and the broader economy today.
Washington and Ottawa are racing to finalize a trade framework before new tariffs take hold, with officials holding additional talks Friday. Details are still thin, but the urgency is real — any breakdown risks fresh cost pressures for manufacturers and consumers on both sides of the border, with cross-border supply chains hanging in the balance.
Shifting to equities, an Evercore ISI analyst is making a case for six AI hardware names heading into the back half of the year, with particular conviction around storage makers, networking providers, and Apple. The thesis is straightforward — infrastructure buildout isn't slowing, and the companies supplying the backbone of that expansion stand to capture meaningful revenue as demand compounds.
Meanwhile in currency markets, the dollar index is essentially flat, down just a fraction of a percent, hovering just above Thursday's three-and-a-quarter-month low. Stocks climbing today pulled some liquidity demand away from the greenback, but the dollar remains under pressure following Wednesday's Treasury announcement of expanded buybacks and increased market liquidity — a signal that has weighed on the currency since mid-week.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
