Trump In China for PR Stunt; No Major Developments Expected; Stocks Reel as PPI is Highest in Three Years; Futures Tanking, Oil Rising

President Trump has arrived in Beijing Wednesday morning for his engagement with President Xi Jinping of China. The trip will be short, just two days - May 14 and 15 - with a loaded agenda. Among relevant issues the two leaders will discuss are the Iran war, the state of affairs concerning Taiwan, bi-lateral trade agreements, and a host of other tangential topics for discussion.

How anybody can take seriously a two-day "summit" stretches credulity to the breaking point. The usually-suspect American angle is to play up progress via tweets and TB coverage which will no doubt lean toward the positive. The last meeting between China and America's heads of state produced a tariff truce, which actually had Mr. Deal, President Trump, significantly backing off from a hardline stance.

One notable element is the U.S. delegation, including top executives from some of the most powerful - and mainly tech - U.S. companies.

The business delegation is supposed to include executives from Tesla (TSLA), Apple (AAPL), Boeing (BA), GE Aerospace (GE), Meta Platforms (META), BlackRock (BLK), Blackstone (BX), Micron (MU), Mastercard (MA), Qualcomm (QCOM), Visa (V), Cargill, Coherent (COHR) and Illumina (ILMN) in part or in whole. Cisco (CSCO) was invited but its CEO is not attending, along with NVIDIA (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang.

With Iran high on the Trump-Xi agenda, another conspiracy theory became conspiracy fact. Interesting article on climate change and weather modification used as an offensive weapon against Iran for years violating a long-standing climate treaty.

With Trump winging his way to talks, stock investors looked to April PPI, coming fast on the heels of Tuesday's CPI hot inflation reading of 3.8%. What they got from the BLS was an outright disaster.

The Producer Price Index for final demand increased 1.4 percent in April, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Final demand prices advanced 0.7 percent in March and 0.6 percent in February. The April increase is the largest advance since rising 1.7 percent in March 2022. On an unadjusted basis, the index for final demand rose 6.0 percent for the 12 months ended in April, the largest 12-month increase since moving up 6.4 percent in December 2022.

Nearly 60 percent of the April rise in final demand prices can be attributed to a 1.2-percent advance in the index for final demand services. Prices for final demand goods moved up 2.0 percent.

The index for final demand less foods, energy, and trade services increased 0.6 percent in April, the largest advance since rising 0.6 percent in October 2025. For the 12 months ended in April, prices for final demand less foods, energy, and trade services moved up 4.4 percent, the largest 12-month increase since jumping 4.5 percent in February 2023.

At the producer level, these price movements have been trending higher for months, though neither the Fed, the White House, or the major news media seem interested in reporting the galloping inflation facing U.S. consumers. However, Wall Street took notice, sending stock futures screaming lower on the release of the data.

With the opening bell less than an hour ahead, Dow futures were slashed 258 points, NASDAQ futures were up 63 points, but well off earlier highs, and S&P futures were beginning to tank, down a mere points, but trending lower.

Wall Street can manage to overlook or spin data in a myriad of ways, but it appears that few appreciate higher consumer prices and producer costs. While America heads for a Weimar moment, President Trump is doing nothing to alleviate the situation, preferring to put on a media show via a high-level confab with the greatest nemesis to the U.S.

Little, if anything is expected from the two-day visit as there were no advance preparations to speak of and the short time element suggests that Trump's visit - much like everything else the "peace president" cooks up - is nothing but a PR event.

Along with stock futures, bitcoin is headed lower Wednesday morning while WTI crude oil edges higher, sitting at $102/barrel. Precious metals are pretty much flat, with silver holding $86 and gold dropped below $4,680, but recovering.

Time to find solutions is running short for President Trump in hotspots like Iran and Ukraine. He continues to lose support of MAGA faithful and independents, unsurprising given his attitude and adventurous antics which have largely caused chaos around the world and rapidly-rising inflation in the United States. While Trump may continue to insist that the U.S. is the "hottest" country in the world, he would do himself a favor by not making that claim too loudly or too often because the American people have had it up to their eyeballs with a president that has broken campaign promises, enriched himself and his co-conspirators, and is making a mockery of presidential leadership.

If there's a trend developing at all, it is the American public's distaste turning to righteous anger against a president that was a lame duck the moment he won his second term of office and Wall Street is beginning to take notice.

At the Close, Tuesday, May 12, 2026:
Dow: 49,760.56, +56.09 (+0.11%)
NASDAQ: 26,088.20, -185.92 (-0.71%)
S&P 500: 7,400.96, -11.88 (-0.16%)
NYSE Composite: 23,015.35, +44.58 (+0.19%)