Weekend brief: Stocks end their best week since August as the 10-year hits 5.15%, with Trump and Xi meeting Thursday

U.S. stock markets are shut until futures reopen at 6 PM ET Sunday, so every market figure below is as of Friday's close. The week ended with the S&P 500 up 2.5%, its best week since early August according to CNBC, even though chip stocks sold off hard on Friday and the 10-year Treasury yield climbed to 5.15%. This morning, China said it and the United States held their first trade council meeting, five days before Presidents Trump and Xi are due to meet in Shenzhen.

Friday's close

Index levels and weekly changes are from CNBC and Yahoo Finance as detailed in our Friday close story. Yields are from the Treasury's par yield curve; yield changes are our arithmetic against the Nov. 6 curve we used in last Saturday's brief.

The number behind the number: rates rose while stocks did

A 2.5% gain in the S&P 500 sounds like a calm week. Underneath, borrowing costs repriced sharply. The 10-year yield rose 29 basis points in five sessions (5.15% against 4.86%), and the 2-year rose 37 (4.88% against 4.51%), per the Treasury's own curve. The 30-year ended at 5.47%. That is the market leaning toward a Federal Reserve rate increase at its Dec. 9 meeting, which we covered in our yield piece for owners.

The one rate that moved the other way is the one homebuyers see first. Freddie Mac's survey put the 30-year fixed mortgage at 7.11% on Thursday, down from 7.18% a week earlier, its fourth straight weekly decline, per the PMMS history file. Mortgage rates track the 10-year with a lag, and the 10-year has jumped since that survey was taken, so Thursday's reading may be the low for now. On a $400,000 loan, a rate that rises from 7.11% back to 7.25% would add roughly $38 a month by our calculation. That is an illustration, not a forecast.

China and the U.S. hold their first trade council meeting

China's Commerce Ministry said Saturday that the two sides held "candid, in-depth and constructive exchanges" on Friday at the first meeting of their trade council, covering tariffs, a reciprocal "$30 billion-for-$30 billion" tariff-cut arrangement and agricultural trade, CNBC reported. Bloomberg and Reuters carried the same meeting. The ministry did not say whether any agreement was reached.

The context is a deal that has been announced but not finished. According to CNBC, a September summit in Washington produced a proposed $60 billion package of reciprocal tariff cuts, including roughly $17 billion of U.S. farm goods China imported in 2024, and the plan has yet to be finalised. CNBC also cites a Reuters analysis of customs data showing Chinese purchases of U.S. farm goods other than soybeans are on track for a seven-year low this year, despite an agreement to buy $17 billion annually through 2028. Beijing, per the same report, calls implementing the tariff cuts a prerequisite for more purchases. The White House says Trump will meet Xi on Thursday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Shenzhen. For the lists the two sides have exchanged so far, see our report on the tariff lines; for the wider summit, including the first three-way meeting with Putin, see today's War Room brief.

The week ahead

• Sunday, 6 PM ET: equity-index and gold futures reopen. Nasdaq-100 futures settled Friday 1.6% lower, per our Nightcap, so the first print shows how the weekend's China and Nvidia headlines land.
• Tuesday, Nov. 17: October retail sales (forecast +0.2% against +0.8% in September, per our economic calendar) and Nvidia's earnings report, with LSEG analysts expecting revenue of $108.9 billion, per CNBC, as cited in our close story.
• Wednesday, Nov. 18: building permits (forecast 1.377 million, against 1.4 million before).
• Thursday, Nov. 19: weekly jobless claims (forecast 196,000, against 200,000 before) and the planned Trump-Xi meeting in Shenzhen. Freddie Mac's mortgage survey also publishes on Thursdays.
• Dec. 9: the next Fed decision. The November consumer price report lands Dec. 10, per the same calendar.

Retail sales and Nvidia on the same day make Tuesday the heaviest session of the week. We have not confirmed a full earnings list for the week from a primary source, so we leave it out.

What it means for owners

A contractor or shop owner with a floating-rate line is exposed to the 2-year move, not the stock rally: a 37 basis point rise in a week is the market pricing higher short-term rates, and each quarter point on a $400,000 balance is about $83 a month. A restaurant owner should read Tuesday's retail sales as a gauge of consumer spending before the holiday quarter, not as a Fed signal. A trucker or landscaper has one piece of relief and one risk: the Energy Information Administration's weekly survey put regular gasoline at $3.995 a gallon on Nov. 9, down from $4.153 a week earlier, but its diesel figure was still $6.127, and Brent is near $98, so Sunday night's oil open is the next test. For the Friday-to-Monday headline risk on air travel after the nationwide FAA ground stop, see our report on Transportation Secretary Duffy's funding request. Bitcoin sits near $66,700 per today's crypto report.

Sources: CNBC; U.S. Treasury; Freddie Mac; U.S. Energy Information Administration; Yahoo Finance and CNBC via the Chronicle stories linked above. This is market information, not investment advice.