Records Fall, Inflation Bites, and Nobody Seems to Notice the War
Wednesday, May 13, 2026 — Wall Street shrugged off a scorching wholesale inflation print to set fresh highs, Apple cracked $300, Kevin Warsh got the keys to the Fed, and oil is back over $100 while the Iran ceasefire flat-lines. Crypto, meanwhile, took a nap.
Closing Scoreboard
The Equities Recap: Bad News? Buy It Anyway.
Today's playbook went something like this: wholesale inflation came in roughly three times hotter than economists expected, long-bond yields blew past five percent, oil is sitting above triple digits, and a shooting war in the Middle East is officially on "life support." Naturally, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both punched out fresh record closes. The S&P added 0.58% to settle at 7,444.25, while the Nasdaq tacked on 1.20% to finish at 26,402.34 — both new all-time highs, lifted by semiconductors and most of the Magnificent Seven. The Dow was the lone holdout, slipping 0.14% as Salesforce and Home Depot dragged on the index. [Yahoo Finance]
The driver of the day was the AI trade, which decided that inflation prints are a problem for someone else. The Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF (MAGS) ripped about 2% — its best day in four weeks — while Alphabet booked its 17th intraday record of the year, Nvidia notched a sixth straight session of gains with another all-time intraday high, and Apple crossed $300 a share for the first time ever. Tesla hit a four-month high, Meta posted its best day in two weeks, and Amazon ground higher. Six of the seven added roughly $516 billion in market value in a single session. The lone loser? Microsoft, down for a fourth straight day and shedding about $26 billion. The net cap gain across the Mag 7 since the March 30 lows is now $5.5 trillion — Nvidia and Alphabet alone contributed about a trillion-and-a-half each. [Yahoo Finance]
The PPI Print Nobody Wanted to See
Headline PPI jumped a seasonally adjusted 1.4% on the month (vs. 0.5% expected) and ran roughly 6% annualized — the hottest since 2022. Core PPI rose 1% versus 0.4% estimates. Energy prices were up 3.8% on the month and ~18% year-over-year. That follows yesterday's CPI print showing consumer inflation at 3.8% year-over-year — the highest since May 2023. [24/7 Wall St.]
The Bond Market Is Less Amused
While equity traders were busy bidding tech to the moon, the bond market did the math and didn't love it. The 10-year yield climbed to 4.473%, its highest level since July 2025. The 20-year and 30-year both pushed back above 5%, levels not seen since May 2025. All three have moved up between 2% and 4% over the past five trading sessions as the market repriced inflation expectations. The traditional warning line is the 4.5% 10-year and 5% 30-year — both flashing yellow. Veteran strategist Ed Yardeni told Bloomberg TV he isn't "freaked out" yet and views 4.25%–4.75% as normal, which is exactly the kind of thing you say right before you become freaked out. [Yahoo Finance]
Futures & Overnight Setup
Heading into the overnight session, futures are leaning constructive. S&P futures pointed roughly +0.20%, Nasdaq futures were up about 0.69% on continued semiconductor strength, and Russell 2000 futures held green. The Dow remains the odd man out with futures down about 0.28%, weighed by the same value-and-financial rotation that hurt it during the regular session. VIX is sitting at 17.94 — comfortable, not complacent. Gold is perking up to ~$4,706 while crude is parked just above $102. [Yahoo Finance]
| Futures Contract | Last | Change | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| S&P 500 (ES) | 7,441.25 | +14.75 | +0.20% |
| Nasdaq 100 (NQ) | 29,370.75 | +200.75 | +0.69% |
| Dow (YM) | 49,727.00 | −142.00 | −0.28% |
| Russell 2000 (RTY) | 2,856.90 | +6.50 | +0.23% |
| WTI Crude (CL) | ~$102.15 | −0.03 | −0.03% |
| Gold (GC) | $4,706.00 | +19.30 | +0.41% |
| VIX | 17.94 | −0.05 | −0.28% |
Crypto: Bitcoin Naps Below $80K
If equity bulls were partying, crypto was watching from the couch. Bitcoin dipped to around $79,529, down roughly 1.46% on the day, while Ethereum slid 1.30% to $2,256. Solana caught the worst of it, off nearly 4% to about $91. The story for crypto right now is technical: BTC is wrestling with the 200-day SMA and 200-day EMA from below, and traders are watching for a clean break above $82,000 to unlock the next leg. The broader narrative is that hot inflation prints and rising real yields are doing crypto no favors — when "risk-free" money pays 5%, the bid for digital gold gets a little thinner. [The Block] [CoinDesk]
One bright spot: long-term "conviction" holders — wallets that have held BTC for extended stretches — surged about 300% since late 2025, now sitting at nearly 4 million BTC. The diamond-handed crowd is apparently unfazed by Middle East drama and inflation, which is either bullish discipline or selective deafness, depending on your priors. Charles Schwab also began rolling out spot crypto trading to retail customers today, which is the kind of slow-motion institutional adoption story that doesn't move the tape but matters in six months. [CoinDesk]
The War: "Life Support" Is Doing a Lot of Work Here
President Trump publicly described the April 8 US–Iran ceasefire as being on "life support" today, while members of his administration increasingly hint that fighting could resume. The president left for a delegation trip to China — joined, somewhat surprisingly, by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and other tech leaders — saying he plans a "long talk" about Iran with Xi Jinping, though he downplayed Beijing's leverage. Meanwhile, the speaker of Iran's parliament said the country's military is ready to "teach a lesson" to any aggressor, which is the kind of rhetorical flourish that does not typically precede a rapprochement. [CBS News]
Other war-related headlines that crossed today: Kuwait accused Iran of attempting to infiltrate Bubiyan Island on May 1 with six armed IRGC members; NBC News reported the Pentagon is considering rebranding the conflict as "Sledgehammer" if the ceasefire collapses, a maneuver that would conveniently reset the 60-day War Powers clock; and Israel reportedly sent Iron Dome batteries and personnel to the UAE. The acting Pentagon comptroller told Congress yesterday that the war has now cost roughly $29 billion, up from the $25 billion figure Secretary Hegseth cited a month ago. Internal estimates reportedly put the real figure closer to $50 billion. Republican resistance in the Senate is also reportedly growing, with Senator Murkowski flipping. [Wikipedia: 2026 Iran war] [Al Jazeera]
Why the Market Doesn't Seem to Care
Oil parked above $100 should, in theory, be a problem. The reason equities are shrugging: the US is a net energy exporter benefiting from elevated prices (April crude and petroleum product exports hit a near-record 12.9 million barrels/day), and the AI capex cycle is large enough to mathematically swamp inflation drag on tech earnings. Translation: as long as Nvidia keeps guiding higher, the S&P doesn't have to care that gasoline is up 28.4% year-over-year. Until it does. [Wikipedia: 2026 Iran war fuel crisis]
The Other Big Headline: Kevin Warsh Confirmed as Fed Chair
In a 54–45 Senate vote this afternoon, Kevin Warsh was confirmed to succeed Jerome Powell as the next Federal Reserve Chair. Powell's term ends Friday. Warsh, 56, is a former Fed governor (2006–2011) and a familiar name in market circles — he's spent the past several years writing op-eds and giving speeches, often hawkish on inflation and skeptical of QE. Markets took the confirmation in stride, which is interesting given that a hawkish-leaning chair stepping in just as inflation re-accelerates is a setup with some real second-order effects. Worth watching how he frames his first public remarks. [Yahoo Finance]
Other Things Worth a Mention
Copper Hits a Record, Silver Joins, Gold Sits This One Out
Copper futures notched a fresh record close today while silver rallied alongside it. Gold, oddly, drifted lower despite being the supposed inflation hedge. The industrial-metals bid is being driven by the AI buildout (data centers love copper) and supply tightness, while gold appears to be losing some of its safe-haven shine to Bitcoin and short-duration Treasuries. [Yahoo Finance]
Tesla's China Pivot
Tesla China launched a new low-down-payment financing program — knocking the down payment on a Shanghai-made Model 3 from 79,900 yuan to 55,900 yuan — as the automaker tries to claw back share from domestic EV rivals. The company also officially ended production of the Model S and Model X this month, closing out a 14-year run as it pivots resources toward AI, robotics, and Optimus. The stock hit a four-month high. [TheStreet]
Alibaba Earnings: AI Spending Eats the Margins
Alibaba reported quarterly results with cloud revenue surging 38% annualized to $6.13 billion (roughly in line with estimates), but earnings were weighed down by aggressive spending on AI initiatives, cloud infrastructure, and the rapid-delivery business. Earlier this year the company split AI from its cloud unit and put CEO Eddie Wu in charge of a new "Alibaba Token Hub" — yes, that's a real org name. [Yahoo Finance]
Palantir's CEO Says He's on a Kremlin Hit List
Palantir CEO Alex Karp told The Times of London he is on a Kremlin hit list over the company's AI software being used by the Ukrainian military for real-time intelligence processing and targeting. The stock didn't do much on the news, which is either market efficiency or market exhaustion. [TheStreet]
What to Watch Into Tomorrow
- Bond auctions — yields are at multi-month highs and every auction is now a referendum on whether foreign demand still shows up.
- Trump–Xi readout from Beijing — especially anything on Iran, semiconductor export licenses, or rare earths.
- Nvidia earnings are approaching, with sell-side targets stretching to $320 (BofA) and revenue estimates running $70–78 billion — roughly 60% year-over-year growth. The market is priced for perfection.
- Warsh's first public comments as Chair-designate. Tone matters more than substance here.
- Strait of Hormuz traffic data — the cleanest real-time read on whether the ceasefire is actually holding.
The Bottom Line
Today was a clinic in how a market can climb a wall of worry as long as the AI capex story holds and big tech keeps minting cash. Records were set, Apple finally cracked $300, and a hot inflation print barely registered above the AM session. But beneath the surface, yields are pushing levels that historically start to bite equities, oil is stuck above $100, the Middle East ceasefire is barely breathing, and a new Fed chair is about to take the wheel into all of it. Enjoy the records — just maybe keep one eye on the 10-year.
