Trump & Xi Meet While Oil & Bond Yields Rise
Thursday, September 24th, 2026
President Trump welcomes China’s President Xi to the White House today, where the two global leaders will convene on a number of different topics today, presumably: the ongoing tariff war between the two countries now in its 18th month, securing oil supply in the wake of the Iran war, now in its seventh month, and the prospect of AI — both its promises and its threats to the current world order.
Normally, heads of state meet only after lower-level officials hash out the details toward a formal agreement, which often takes months or even years. Today’s summit doesn’t promise much in the way of formalities; aside from the photo-op for the presidents of the top two countries in the world, the best that can be hoped for today is something like a “meeting of the minds” on these clear and present issues.
Oil prices are climbing again this morning, with WTI at $93 per barrel (/bbl) and Brent crude $105/bbl. We were last at these levels back in the early weeks of the U.S. and Israeli bomb strikes on Iran, in mid-March. Prior to that, we reached multi-year highs briefly back in mid-June of 2022, when Brent crude reached $119/bbl after severe supply shocks followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier that year.
Bond yields are off yesterday’s highest level on the 10-year, +5.12%, but still at their highest level in two decades. The extended strain on global oil supply is not being ignored by the bond market. The 2-year yield, which had been encroaching to just a 20 basis-point (bps) margin from the 10-year, pulled back a tad but hovers around +4.86%. If there is one thing the Fed will be forced to pay attention to for its October FOMC meeting, it is these yields — and the current Fed funds rate is still -86 bps below the 2-year, -110 bps from the 10-year.
Jobless Claims Remain Historically Low: +197K, +1.719M
Keeping with its most complimentary of employment-related data, Weekly Jobless Claims once again did not disappoint: +197K Initial Claims made last week remains near six-decade lows. This is down a smidge from the upwardly revised previous week, but is the second-straight sub-200K print since late July.
Continuing Claims, reported a week in arrears from initial claims, dropped to 1.719 million — notably below the upward revision to the prior week: +1.745 million. Again, these are historic lows, illustrating our current “low hire/low fire” labor market but without clarification how many Americans receive a pink slip and turn to Uber UBER driving or Airbnb ABNB home rental rather than turn to the government for a payout.
Olive Garden Parent Misses on Q1 Earnings
Ahead of today’s open, Darden Restaurants DRI reported fiscal Q1 results which came up short of expectations. Earnings of $2.05 per share only missed by a penny, while $3.2 billion in revenues was short of the Zacks consensus by a slight -0.14%. Comps were +3.1% year over year, but below estimates. Olive Garden restaurants underperformed what analysts were looking for, and shares are down -3% on the news ahead of the open. For more on DRI’s earnings, click here.
What to Expect from the Stock Market Today
After today’s market open, New Home Sales for August are scheduled to hit the tape. Analyst expect a slight bounce-back from last month’s week +607K seasonally adjusted, annualized units to +618K. This would match were we were in March on new home sales. Especially keep mindful of the different between single-family home sales — which promote economic growth in numerous areas — and multi-family, which had been in stronger demand.
After today’s close, Costco COST presents its fiscal Q4 earnings results. Both earnings and revenue growth are expected to be over +10% year over year: to $6.48 per share on the earnings side, and $94.82 billion in revenues. The discount warehouse membership company is forecast to bring in a whopping $302 billion for fiscal 2026 — nearly a third of a trillion dollars. The stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
