Stock Market Today: Trade Talks While Warner Bros. Splits Up
All eyes will be on London this morning as U.S. trade reps meet with their counterparts from China. Stock futures are modestly higher.
Happy Monday!
Today's calendar appears to be quiet, with no economic or earnings reports of note. But don't expect it to be a quiet day.
The U.S.-China trade talks kick off in London today. That's the big news, and something we'll all be watching for. Especially because our friend Sarge, aka Stephen Guilfoyle, over on TheStreet Pro reports that China's CGAC reported a 34.5% year-over-year drop in exports to the U.S. last night.
In other business news, Warner Bros. Discovery, (WBD) , the $24 billion media and entertainment group, has said it plans to split into two publicly traded companies in 2026.
The company reports that Streaming and Studios will include Warner Bros. TV, Motion Pictures, and HBO, among others, while Global Networks will include TV and web properties like CNN, TNT Sports, and Discovery +. The shares are 7% higher in premarket trading.
Overall, stocks are set to open modestly higher while bonds are mixed. Thirty-year futures are lower, while 2- and 10-year treasuries are slightly higher. This will twist the yield curve slightly, with longer-term rates rising. Gold is lower and crude oil is higher.
Here's a chart. Premarket trading is shown to the right of the dashed vertical line. To the left is Friday's activity.
As you can see, stocks are gaining but still below Friday's highs. Bonds are above Friday's close but continuing their decline.
I hope you had a nice weekend. One thing I did was to write about my favorite book from when I was a kid. If you're interested, you can read about it at Autoblog. You see, I'd always hoped that when I grew up, the world would look at lot like Richard Scarry's :Cars and Trucks and Things That Go." 
The world is definitely not as colorful as the place Scarry envisioned, but there is still plenty of beauty and goodness to be found.
