Trump-Xi Day 1: Hormuz Stays Open, WTI Eases $100

Where Prices Sit At The Open

Thursday May 14 opens with the Trump-Xi Beijing summit Day 1 already on the tape and the post-PPI rate strip still digesting Wednesday's wholesale inflation shock. Per CNBC's live oil desk, the White House confirmed that Trump and Xi agreed in the morning bilateral that the Strait of Hormuz must remain open to the free flow of energy, with Xi making clear China's opposition to the militarization of the strait and to any effort to charge a toll for its use. WTI front-month eased from a $101.54 overnight high to $100.56 a barrel, Brent slipped to $105.05, and the broader risk tape took the Hormuz pledge as a partial de-escalation of the spring's energy premium.

Bitcoin trades $79,640 on the live TradingView tape, the first sustained print below the $80,000 round number since the post-NFP rally cleared the level, with the 24-hour range running $78,720 to $80,936 and bears now controlling the structure. Ethereum holds $2,267, off 0.9% on the 24-hour. Gold prints $4,692, consolidating in a tight $4,668 to $4,717 band after Wednesday's PPI-driven dollar firming. S&P 500 ES June futures bid 7,431.75 (+0.07%) into the cash open, holding the structural 7,400 shelf despite the hot PPI shock that essentially closed the 2026 rate cut window.

Trump-Xi Day 1: Beijing Pledges Hormuz Stays Open

The two-day Trump-Xi summit opened in Beijing Thursday with the Hormuz framework as the lead deliverable. Per CNBC's running takeaways, Trump and Xi agreed in the morning bilateral that the Strait of Hormuz must remain open to the free flow of energy, with Xi explicitly opposing both militarization of the strait and any toll-based shipping regime. The pact is the cleanest piece of de-escalation language to come out of either capital since the February US-Israel airstrikes that opened the conflict, and the WTI tape priced it accordingly: front-month eased from $101.54 to $100.56 a barrel by the 09:36 ET print, with Brent shedding 58 cents to $105.05.

The other strands on the Day 1 agenda are running underneath the headline. Xi warned Trump that mishandling Taiwan would put the bilateral relationship in "great jeopardy", the same framing Beijing used through the spring tariff negotiations. On trade, Xi expressed interest in buying more US oil to reduce China's structural dependence on the Hormuz route, and both sides discussed increasing Chinese purchases of US agricultural products. The AI export-control framework, rare-earth supply commitments and Boeing order placement all carry over into Friday's Day 2, with the Powell-to-Warsh Fed chair handover landing the same day. For the full pre-summit framing of the deliverables on each side, see Tuesday's CPI-day morning analysis.

Hot April PPI Decoded: 6% YoY Kills The Cut Path

Wednesday's April Producer Price Index print was the macro shock of the week. Per CNBC's release breakdown, headline PPI accelerated to 6.0% on an annual basis from 4.0% in March, far above the consensus call near 4.3%. The monthly index rose 1.4%. Core PPI, which strips out food and energy, climbed 1.0% on the month, lifting the annual rate to 5.2%. The print is the cleanest evidence yet that the Iran-Hormuz energy pulse has bled into producer margins and is feeding through goods and services rather than being absorbed.

The market reaction was immediate. The December Fed rate strip rebuilt hike odds to roughly 39% and effectively zeroed cut probabilities through the rest of the year. Per CNN Business, BofA Global Research formally pulled its 2026 cut call after the print and now expects the Fed to hold the funds rate at the current 3.5% to 3.75% range through year-end, with two quarter-point cuts pushed out to July and September 2027. The structural read is that the pass-through from $100 WTI is no longer hypothetical: April CPI ran 3.8% headline on Tuesday and PPI Wednesday confirmed the producer-side echo on a one to two month lag.

Bitcoin Breaks Below $80K As Bears Take Control

Bitcoin closed Wednesday below the structural $80,000 shelf for the first time since the post-NFP rally cleared the level. Per the live TradingView tape, BTC trades $79,640 Thursday morning, with the prior 24-hour band running $78,720 to $80,936 and the post-PPI flush driving the move. Multiple desk reports flag the level break as a structural shift: the $80K shelf had absorbed every shock through the late-April Iran escalation, the post-Hormuz energy pulse, the Coinbase Q1 EPS miss and the Tuesday CPI surprise, but the PPI shock plus the realignment of December Fed hike odds was the sequence that finally cracked it.

Ethereum holds $2,267 per CoinDesk and CoinMarketCap, off roughly 0.9% on the 24-hour and now 7.9% below its April 17 high of $2,460. The Fear and Greed index has rotated deeper into the Fear zone, and the spot ETF complex's diffusion print thinned through the Wednesday session as the dollar firmed. The structural reference points for traders watching the metals: $78,000 is the next visible support shelf on BTC, with $76,000 the post-NFP cycle base; a clean reclaim of $81,000 invalidates the bearish break. For ETH, $2,250 is the structural shelf and $2,200 is the post-Coinbase floor.

Equities Hold Records, Gold Consolidates Into Friday's Fed Handover

The S&P 500 ES June futures bid 7,431.75 (+0.07%) Thursday morning, holding the 7,400 structural shelf despite the PPI shock and the BTC break. The cleanest read is that the index rotation that we covered in Wednesday's morning analysis remains intact: financials, energy, healthcare and staples are catching the steeper-curve and higher-for-longer flows, while the chip-led leadership cohort absorbs the multiple compression. Per UBS's Thursday note, the desk hiked its Nvidia price target ahead of the May 20 fiscal Q1 2027 release; consensus sits at $78.8B revenue and $1.77 EPS, with Polymarket implying a 90% probability of a clean beat. Nvidia shares closed Wednesday at $225.83, sitting above every major technical benchmark. The hyperscaler four (Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft) are guiding combined 2026 capex above $700B, the structural floor under the AI-supercycle bull case.

Gold trades $4,692 Thursday morning, with the daily band running $4,668 to $4,717 and the metal printing its second straight session of consolidation below the $4,700 line. The PPI-driven dollar firming has weighed on the rate-strip channel, but the Iran-Hormuz tail-risk plus the Powell-to-Warsh Fed chair handover Friday May 15 are providing structural support. Powell's term expires Friday, Warsh is expected to clear the full Senate confirmation this week, and Powell remains on the Fed board to preserve dovish dot-plot optionality on the June FOMC. The key reference zone for XAU: $4,650 is the structural support shelf and $4,775 is the recent ceiling; a break of either edge resolves the consolidation in the direction of the breakout.

Bottom Line And The Friday Catalyst Stack

The Thursday open carries a clean Day 1 Beijing deliverable in the Hormuz pledge, a fresh BTC structural break, and the lingering weight of Wednesday's PPI shock that closed the 2026 cut window. Friday's catalyst stack is unusually dense: Trump-Xi summit Day 2 in Beijing, the Powell-to-Warsh Fed chair handover, Warsh's expected Senate confirmation vote, and the late-week positioning unwind into the Nvidia fiscal Q1 2027 print Tuesday May 20. For traders watching the macro grid, the asymmetry is whether the Beijing Hormuz pact holds into the weekend or unravels through the Day 2 trade chapter.

For positioning across the Beijing summit Day 2 and the Friday Fed handover, Bybit's TradFi platform offers tight spreads on US equity, FX and commodity exposures with defined-risk tooling. Not financial advice. Always do your own research.