There are weeks when markets get one big event to digest. Then there are weeks like this one when they get handed two inflation shockers, a Fed leadership change, and a Beijing summit — all in five days, all pointing in roughly the same inconvenient direction.
The U.S.-Iran ceasefire was still nominally alive at Monday’s open, but traders barely needed reminding it was on life support. What they hadn’t fully priced was just how stubborn U.S. inflation had become: CPI on Tuesday, PPI on Wednesday, and by the time Kevin Warsh took the Fed chair on Friday, the market’s rate-cut dream for 2026 had been quietly buried. Meanwhile, Trump and Xi had a pleasant Beijing summit — great food, warm handshakes, zero progress on the Strait of Hormuz. The dollar loved all of it. Here’s how the markets fared.