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Premarket: futures green ahead of Thursday’s Trump–Xi summit; 10-year near a 19-year high

Markets are pricing a constructive outcome from Thursday’s Trump–Xi summit before it happens — futures are green, oil is sliding on hopes of a diplomatic Iran opening, and chipmakers are leading. For how nervous the market really is underneath that: VIX 14.84 at Friday’s close (Sigmanomics, citing CBOE), 10-year at ~4.96–4.97% premarket Monday (WSJ/Tradeweb, CNBC), after touching 5.041% last week — a 19-year high (WSJ).

Futures are green: Dow +0.5–0.65%, S&P 500 +0.5–0.55%, Nasdaq +0.8–0.92%. Friday’s close: S&P 7,637.76, Dow 51,778, Nasdaq 26,418 (Lance Roberts, Bull Bear Report).

Measure	Level
10-year Treasury	~4.96–4.97% premarket Monday (WSJ/Tradeweb; CNBC). Official Treasury par yield Friday: 5.01% (vs 4.94% Sep 17).
2-year Treasury	4.729% premarket Monday (CNBC). Official Treasury par yield Friday: 4.76% (vs 4.67% Sep 17), highest since July 2024 (WSJ).
DXY (dollar index)	~100.33–100.37, +0.1–0.15% premarket Monday (WSJ, Barron’s). Hit a seven-week high of 100.564 on Friday. USD/JPY 157.21 (+0.2%) (WSJ).

Worth watching today given Goolsbee speaks at 6:30 AM (confirmed via FXEmpire schedule) and the Chicago Fed Activity Index lands at 8:30 AM — either could move the front end. The driver on the dollar: a hawkish Fed after last week’s 25 bp hike — the first in three years — with Chair Warsh signaling more tightening; CME FedWatch shows ~53–58% odds of another hike in October (Reuters/MoneyMaker FX EA).

All eyes on the Trump–Xi summit Thursday in Washington — trade, tariffs, critical minerals, and AI are expected to dominate. Treasury Secretary Bessent called weekend talks with China’s He Lifeng “very successful” and proposed a formal US–China AI dialogue. Nvidia’s Huang, Apple’s Cook, Microsoft’s Nadella, OpenAI’s Altman, and Qualcomm’s Amon are reportedly all attending a White House state dinner for Xi. Falling oil is helping too, plus a chipmaker rally in premarket.

Weekly internals were poor: only 23.6% of NYSE stocks advanced last week, with 103 new 52-week highs vs 169 new lows (Sharemaestro). Thursday was the bright spot — 63% of stocks advanced (TheStreet Pro’s Rev Shark, via Miramar News Sep 18 live blog). Context for the week: “the advance carried by a handful of megacaps, while the average stock, and especially anything that borrows, lagged badly” (Lance Roberts, Bull Bear Report). Financials led losses — Goldman Sachs and Bank of America each shed ~8% on the week, their largest weekly loss since March (Roberts).

Sector leaders/laggards premarket: tech/chips leading — Intel +5.4%, Marvell +2.6%, Meta +2.4%, Dell +2.7%, Accenture +6% (on a reported $2B AI-evaluation partnership with Anthropic); airlines (Delta, American) +1% each on lower oil (Reuters, 05:09 AM ET). Energy is the laggard with crude down ~2%. Russell 2000: futures +0.5% premarket (TradingView, 4:00 AM ET) — useful today as a check on whether the rally is broad or narrowly tech-led.

Tokyo was closed for Respect for the Aged Day; Shanghai rose 0.97%. Europe is higher — Stoxx 600 +0.56% at 638.98, DAX +0.76%, led by tech names like Soitec and Aixtron (Reuters).

Brent around $101–102, down a fourth straight session, WTI below $100. Saudi Arabia is reportedly telling European refiners to expect no crude next month, but hopes for resumed US–Iran diplomacy are capping prices. Trump said he’s open to meeting Iran’s Pezeshkian at the UN General Assembly.

Nvidia’s Huang is defending continued US AI investment as Michael Burry renews warnings about hyperscaler capex. This is a genuinely new Burry post this week, not a recirculation: Burry argues Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Oracle have amassed $3+ trillion in largely off-balance-sheet AI commitments (~$1.2T in uncommenced leases, ~$1.5T+ in purchase commitments, plus SPVs/guarantees), with 13–20-year data-center leases mismatched against 12–18-month AI hardware cycles (TradingView/Stocktwits). Separately, on ~Sep 14 Burry posted on X calling OpenAI/Anthropic leaders’ “slow down AI” calls “self-serving” pre-IPO hype (NY Post, Sep 14).

Anthropic is reportedly weighing a new flagship model launch to counter OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra ahead of an expected November IPO. Corroborated with anonymous-source caveats: Reuters reported Sep 18 (three anonymous sources) that Anthropic is weighing an early new-model release to counter GPT-6 Astra’s enterprise momentum; Anthropic declined to comment. GPT-6 Astra is real — launched Sep 3, 2026. WSJ reports Anthropic shifted its IPO to November (from October), possibly after the November midterms to show Q3 financials, potentially raising up to $100B at ~$2T valuation; the prospectus is not yet public. Note the irony: Amodei’s “slow the pace of frontier AI” essay was Sep 12 (Reuters), seven days before the faster-release report.

Notable Form 4 buys/sells this week (from published roundups, Sep 14–20):

• Redwood Trust (RWT) — genuine buying cluster: CEO Christopher Abate bought 100,000 shares; President Dashiell Robinson 63,211; CFO Brooke Carillo 26,065; Director Greg Kubicek 50,000 — open-market purchases near $3.84–$3.98/share, increasing holdings 17–65% (InsiderTrades.com, Sep 17).
• Similarweb (SMWB) — CEO selling streak: CEO Or Offer sold ~$638K, extending sales on Sep 8–15 totaling well over $2.3M — all under a Rule 10b5-1 plan adopted June 1 (Directors-Dealings.news; American Market News, Sep 21).
• IBEX — multi-insider selling: CEO Robert Dechant, COO David Afdahl, directors Mingzhe Zhuang and Daniella Ballou-Aares et al. sold 56,000+ shares around $39.34–$40.41, substantially reducing several holdings; some under 10b5-1 plans (MarketBeat, Sep 16).
• Pharvaris (PHVS) — director sale: Director Anne Lesage sold 30,000 shares; CEO Berndt Modig sold about $90K; President Peng Lu sold 15,000 (about $602K, tax-withholding) (MarketBeat, Sep 15).

(New standing section — free, sourced directly from filings, and most premarket newsletters skip it.)

Pricing this week (Webull IPO calendar) — all small caps, no large IPOs:

• Bamboo Insurance Services (BMB, $18–$20) prices 9/22–23.
• BW Industrial Holdings (BWGC, $6–$7) prices 9/23–24.
• Web3Labs Global (MDAT, $4–$5) prices 9/23–24.
• Chilwa Minerals (CHWM, $4–$5) prices 9/24–25.
• Amaero (AMRO) priced 9/20–21.

Lockups expiring Wednesday Sep 23: Inflection Point Acquisition Corp VI (IPFX — 22M shares, $220M IPO Mar 27) and Future Money Acquisition (FMAC — 10M shares, $100M IPO Mar 27) (The Lincolnian Online; American Market News, Sep 16–20). Also of note: Cerebras (CBRS) lockup dissolving in scheduled waves — the date that matters most per Motley Fool (Sep 21) is November 9; HMH Holding (HMH) lockup expires next Monday, Sep 28. Relevant given the OpenAI IPO chatter above.

Thin. Earnings: small caps only — Abivax and Rezolute after the close; Franklin Wireless, Incannex, and US Gold in the morning. No major US economic releases. Fed’s Goolsbee speaks at 6:30 AM (confirmed via FXEmpire schedule); Chicago Fed Activity Index at 8:30 AM.

Thursday: Trump–Xi summit in Washington (~8 PM ET per econ calendars).

• Fed speakers (FXEmpire schedule; Fed Board calendar confirms Jefferson and Barr) — Tue: Williams 10:05 AM, Jefferson 10:20 AM, Barkin 1:00 PM. Wed: Barr 10:05 AM. Thu: Williams 4:10 AM, Hammack 8:50 AM, Paulson 10:10 AM. Fri: Williams 5:15 AM, Hammack 2:00 PM. (The two very-early Williams hits are likely overseas engagements.)
• Treasury auctions (Cannon Trading) — Mon: 3- and 6-month bills. Tue: 6-week bill 11:30 AM; 2-year note 1:00 PM ($69B). Wed: 17-week bill; 5-year note 1:00 PM ($70B). Thu: 4- and 8-week bills. (Friday Sep 18 already saw a 10-year note auction.)
• Data: S&P Global flash PMIs Wednesday 9:45 AM.

BTC closed Saturday (Sep 20) at $81,159.64 and is trading around $81.4–81.8K as of this morning, up roughly 1% — holding above $81K with next resistance near $82–83K (Alpha Vantage). Spot BTC ETFs took in $433M on Friday. ETH closed Saturday at $2,644.31 and is trading around $2,650–2,684, up about 3% (Alpha Vantage).

Whether Brent breaks below $100, and whether Goolsbee’s 6:30 AM remarks hint at October Fed thinking.

WSJ/Tradeweb (10Y premarket), CNBC (2Y premarket), U.S. Treasury (official par yields), CBOE via Sigmanomics (VIX), Barron’s (DXY), Reuters — Sudeshna Ghoshal, Sep 21 (Europe), TradingView/Stocktwits (Burry post, RUT futures), Reuters Sep 18 (Anthropic model deliberation, Amodei essay), WSJ via TradingKey/getaibook (Anthropic November IPO), NY Post Sep 14 (Burry X post, IPO paperwork), Lance Roberts/Bull Bear Report (week-in-review, Friday closes), Sharemaestro (weekly internals), TheStreet Pro’s Rev Shark via Miramar News (Thursday breadth), InsiderTrades.com / MarketBeat / Directors-Dealings.news / American Market News (Form 4 roundups), Webull (IPO calendar), The Lincolnian Online (lockups), Motley Fool (Cerebras), FXEmpire + Fed Board calendar (speakers), Cannon Trading (auctions), FRED T10Y2Y (2s10s spread), CME FedWatch via Reuters (October hike odds), Alpha Vantage (BTC/ETH daily prices, SPY/DIA/QQQ cross-check quotes), Zacks Data (SPY metrics cross-check). Finnhub stays internal-only per standing policy and is not a source here.

— The Dull Investor

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This newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. The Dull Investor is not a financial professional providing personalized recommendations. Always conduct your own due diligence.