2026.5.13 US Stock Brief | Inflation Burns for a Second Day, S&P and Nasdaq Hit Back-to-Back Highs

PPI picked up right where yesterday’s CPI left off, piling more heat onto the inflation picture. The 10-year Treasury yield surged to 4.50% intraday. The S&P closed at 7,444.25, up 0.58%; the Nasdaq at 26,402.34, up 1.20% — both setting fresh all-time closing highs. The Dow slipped 0.14%, left behind. VIX at 17.87 — bulls won’t even give the fear gauge a nod.

Reuters nailed the headline today: “Inflation? Stocks don’t care.”

The real driver is AI. GOOGL rose 3.94% to close at 402.62, an all-time high. NVDA gained 2.29% to 225.83, extending its win streak to six days. TSLA added 2.73% to 445.27. META climbed 2.26% to 616.63. Semis rallied roughly 2.6%. After hours, Cisco jumped 15% on guidance that FY2026 hyperscaler AI infrastructure orders will hit $9 billion, alongside a headcount reduction of under 4,000. Cut costs, blow out AI orders — Wall Street’s favorite script. That $9 billion figure, coming from the buyer side, confirms the acceleration in AI capex hasn’t peaked.

Outside tech, it’s a completely different picture. Financials (XLF) fell 1.14%, utilities dropped 1.26%, real estate lost 0.83%, and banking and regional bank ETFs declined between 1.14% and 1.60%. The 10-year yield rose 0.58 basis points to 4.4688%, hitting an intraday high of 4.5003% around 23:30 — 4.50% is the red line where Trump has repeatedly stepped in. The 2-year fell 1.23 basis points to 3.9791%, steepening the curve as the market reprices long-end inflation.

Two major events landed on the same day. BBC’s headline: “Trump’s Fed chair pick Kevin Warsh confirmed by US Senate.” Warsh takes the reins at the Fed at precisely the moment CPI and PPI are both running hot, oil is above $101, and the 10-year is touching 4.50% — the Fed’s policy room has been squeezed to its narrowest by market conditions.

Trump arrived in Beijing the same day. WSJ’s headline: “Trump Arrives in China Against Backdrop of Unresolved Iran War.” Fox Business reported Boeing’s CEO is traveling with him, pushing a large-scale commercial aircraft deal with China. Chinese ADRs front-ran aggressively: the Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index surged 3.89%, 21Vianet soared 25.3%, Kingsoft Cloud jumped 17%, Meituan rallied 12%, Alibaba gained 8.3%, Baidu rose 7.8%, and KWEB closed up 4.94%. Moves of this magnitude are already pricing in substantive outcomes.

Ford surged 13%, its best single day since 2020. MarketWatch’s take: “putting a very Tesla spin on things.” Legacy automakers are starting to borrow Tesla’s narrative playbook. The EV sector’s valuation anchor is spreading from one company to the entire industry.

An interesting divergence showed up in commodities: spot gold fell over 0.5%, New York silver futures gained 3%, and copper futures briefly broke above $6.70. Safe havens weak, industrial metals strong — pointing to economic resilience, not recession fear.

New highs on the S&P and Nasdaq, back-to-back inflation prints, and the 10-year pushing 4.50% — these three things coexisting is inherently unstable. Two exits: oil pulls back and cools inflation (but the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve restocking plan has set a price floor underneath), or Trump pulls another positive catalyst out of his pocket after yields break 4.50%. If neither happens, even AI’s momentum has a limit against the gravity of rising rates.