All that glitters is another U.S.-China détente

Hello, this is Anniek Bao writing to you from Singapore. Welcome to another edition of CNBC’s Daily Open.

Markets had a good Monday with oil sliding, yields easing and chipmakers surging.

It’s against that backdrop that things build toward Thursday with Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s arrival in Washington for his second meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump this year.

AI-linked stocks powered another rally on Wall Street, with equities climbing as oil prices and Treasury yields both slipped.

The S&P 500 climbed 1.5%, its best day since early August, while the Nasdaq Composite jumped 2.3% to its first closing record since June, driven by a rush into chipmakers. The Dow added a more modest 0.7%.

Crude oil pulled back below $100 briefly, with West Texas Intermediate futures dropping 4.5% to $95.78 a barrel and international Brent touching a session low of $98.98 before settling at $100.34, reducing an inflation worry that had pressured the market for weeks.

Treasury yields retreated from a two-decade high as traders pared bets on further Fed tightening after last month’s rate hike. Stock futures were little changed in early trading.

Trump signaled that he was open to meeting Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly this week, though Tehran hasn’t confirmed reciprocal interest. Trump has also kept sanctions and military options on the table, but the prospect of talks, plus signs that Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline disruption was less severe than feared, was enough to strip out the war premium.

Bitcoin pushed above $86,000 on Monday, briefly touching $86,349.90, its highest level since late January, extending a sharp rally in recent days, though it remains well below its October 2025 peak of $126,000.

Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan called the move the start of “crypto spring,” while BTIG flagged $90,000 as the next test if the $75,000 support level holds — a debate playing out even as the Senate has stalled the Clarity Act that would give the asset class a regulatory framework.

Xi is expected to arrive at Joint Base Andrews at 4 p.m. Wednesday — only the second foreign leader Trump has personally met at the airport this term, after Vladimir Putin in August 2025 — with a state dinner set for Thursday at the White House.

But the substance may prove narrower than the pageantry. Analysts expect the two leaders to extend the trade truce reached in Busan, South Korea, last October, and stand up a “Board of Trade” for non-sensitive goods, while a parallel investment framework has seen little progress.

Chinese AI labs have narrowed the gap with their U.S. rivals this year. That further boost Beijing’s confidence since China became the first major economy to retaliate against the Trump administration’s “Liberation Day” tariffs in April 2025, and has added a new item to Washington’s list of concerns: staying ahead of…