Huang Joins Summit | Copper Hits Record | Oil Deadline Near

Futures pushed higher as traders rotated back into semis after Tuesday’s inflation-driven selloff. 

Nvidia, Micron, and AMD led premarket gains while oil hovered around yesterday’s close, helping calm some of the pressure that rattled markets after the hot CPI report. 

Investors also looked ahead to fresh PPI data for clues on whether inflation is broadening beyond energy. Despite rising yields and ongoing Iran tensions, the AI trade continues overpowering most macro concerns, with chip momentum quickly returning after only a brief pause.

Inflation worries haven’t broken tech momentum yet. Traders keep buying semis, betting AI demand stays strong enough to outweigh rising yields and geopolitical noise.

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Yesterday's newsletter flagged that Jensen Huang was missing from Trump's China delegation. The reasoning was deliberate. The administration was keeping chip export policy off the summit table as a separate negotiating card.

That changed within hours. Trump read the coverage, called Huang personally, and invited him. Huang flew to Alaska and boarded Air Force One. Nvidia (NVDA) confirmed his attendance.

The reversal is the real story. The administration changed a deliberate strategic decision under public pressure in the same news cycle. Huang's public comment that he would join if invited created enough pressure to flip the decision.

What This Means

Being in the room does not guarantee results. But it does force the chip access question into the conversation in a way his absence carefully avoided.

The Signal

Nvidia's post-summit statement either mentions chip export progress or it does not. That one detail answers whether Huang's last-minute seat produced anything for the $50 billion question.

After weeks of extraordinary gains, the semiconductor sector had its worst session since the AI rally began. Intel (INTC) fell 6.8 percent. Qualcomm (QCOM) fell 11.5 percent. The semiconductor index fell 3 percent.

Two things caused it. First, the moves had simply run too far. Intel gained 85 percent in a single month. Qualcomm was up 41 percent in five sessions. Second, Tuesday's CPI print reminded investors that inflation is not fading, which raises real questions about how long AI infrastructure spending can stay this aggressive.

The 10-year yield closed at 4.46 percent. Odds of a rate hike by year-end rose to 30 percent. Intel is still up 220 percent year to date despite the drop.

The Limit

One inflation print cracked the chip rally for a full session. That fragility does not go away just because the underlying AI demand story remains intact.

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Oil gets the attention when discussing the war's economic damage. But the Hormuz closure just hit a commodity that touches almost everything else. Copper hit a record $6.53 per pound, up 7.8 percent since the war began.

The reason starts with sulfur. Gulf states produce about a quarter of the world's sulfur as a byproduct of oil refining. When Hormuz closed, refining slowed and sulfur output fell with it. Sulfur is used to make sulfuric acid, which is essential for extracting copper from ore. Less sulfuric acid means more expensive copper. China separately restricted its own sulfuric acid exports at the same time, hitting supply from both directions.

What Copper Touches

Copper's record is not oil inflation. It is industrial supply chain inflation. It reaches EV makers, data center builders, and grid operators simultaneously.

The Reach

Oil normalizing does not fix sulfuric acid supply quickly. Copper's record price stays embedded in costs long after the strait reopens.

The market's working assumption that the strait stays closed now has a physical deadline. JPMorgan said developed countries' commercial oil stocks could reach stress levels by early June. That is roughly three weeks away.

Demand destruction has been accelerating monthly. Asia-Pacific crude stocks are already at ten-year lows. Operational stress does not mean oil runs out. It means inventories fall low enough that any regional disruption can no longer be absorbed by moving stock around.

The Beijing summit is the only near-term event that could extend the buffer. A joint statement supporting a strait reopening framework would buy more time before stockpiles hit critical levels.

The Deadline

NACHO was a philosophical market position about the strait staying closed. JPMorgan just attached a calendar date to what happens if it does. Three weeks is not a long runway.

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Sam Altman testified that he owns roughly one-third of Helion, a nuclear energy startup, worth approximately $1.6 billion. He also confirmed he was personally in the room when OpenAI signed a contract to buy electricity from Helion to power its own data centers.

That is the core conflict. Altman used OpenAI's purchasing power to benefit a company where he holds a billion-dollar personal stake. He said he recused himself from the board vote. A recusal from the vote does not recuse a CEO from having shaped the negotiation that led to the vote.

He also corrected his 2023 Senate testimony. He had said he held "no equity" in OpenAI. On the stand, he acknowledged a passive stake through Y Combinator.

What Was Disclosed

Six state attorneys general have already asked the SEC to scrutinize these exact disclosures before OpenAI's IPO filing lands.

The S-1 Problem

Every disclosure from the stand now appears in the IPO prospectus. The Senate testimony correction is the most damaging because it confirms he was not fully transparent before Congress. That fact travels with every future filing.

Huang reversed course and boarded Air Force One. Altman disclosed a billion-dollar conflict from the witness stand. The Beijing summit opens with more unresolved issues than any prior meeting between these two leaders.

Every answer this week immediately becomes the next question.