CNBC Daily Open: If U.S.-China talks go well, analysts think the S&P 500 could hit new high

Trade negotiators from the U.S. and China have met in London, and talks are expected to continue Tuesday, a source familiar with the situation told CNBC’s Megan Casella.

At the top of the agenda for America appears to be a relaxation of China’s rare earths export curbs, according to a CNBC interview with U.S. National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett. If China’s actions late last week — when it seemingly gave Western automakers concessions regarding those minerals — are any indication, Beijing could be willing to accede to the U.S. request.

But the world’s second-biggest economy would demand reciprocity. On June 2, Beijing bristled at Washington’s tighter grip on exports of chip design software to China. But it appears that Washington is also in a conciliatory mood. “Our expectation is that … immediately after the handshake, any export controls from the U.S. will be eased,” Hassett said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

If the U.S.-China talks go well, there’s a chance the S&P 500, only around 2% off its February high as of Tuesday morning Singapore time, could reach a new peak, noted the JPMorgan trading desk.

That’d be something to cheer, of course. But it’s slightly upsetting to realize that the S&P could have continued scaling heights from February, or at least broken its closing high much earlier in the year, if not for truculent trade policy from the White House — which, as is evident from the meeting between U.S. and China, governments now are still trying to undo.

U.S.-China talks set to go into Day 2
U.S. President Donald Trump’s top trade officials met Chinese counterparts in London on Monday for talks aimed at resolving their trade dispute — particularly with regard to mineral exports. Discussions are set to continue Tuesday. Late last week, in an apparent olive branch, China seemed to offer U.S. and European auto giants something of a reprieve regarding its exports of rare earth elements.

Stocks in the U.S. rose marginally
U.S. stocks edged up Monday. The S&P 500 added 0.09%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was mostly flat, and the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.31%. Europe’s Stoxx 600 index dipped 0.07%.  Shares of chip designer Alphawave jumped 20% on a takeover by U.S. semiconductor giant Qualcomm, while Spectris soared 60% after confirming it is in talks over a takeover deal with private equity group Advent International.

A new ‘Liquid Glass’ look for Apple’s iOS
Apple held its annual Worldwide Developers Conference keynote on Monday. At the event, the company announced a redesign to its iOS system called “Liquid Glass,” a virtual glass look that was inspired by the Vision Pro; real-time translation to calls, texts and FaceTime; new gaming, video and enterprise features for its augmented reality device Vision Pro; a new version of its Mac operating system, named Tahoe.

UK in a ‘Goldilocks’ moment: Nvidia CEO
“The U.K. is in a Goldilocks circumstance,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Monday on a panel with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Investment Minister Poppy Gustafsson. “You can’t do machine learning without a machine — and so the ability to build these AI supercomputers here in the U.K. will naturally attract more startups,” Huang said, though he added that the country lacks homegrown AI infrastructure.

[PRO] New record for S&P soon?
The S&P 500 ticked higher on Monday and continues to chip away at the gap to a new record high. The broad-based index is just 2% below its record close set in February. Several events in the days ahead could prove to be the catalyst that vaults it over the top, according to the JPMorgan trading desk.

‘Bitcoin Family’ hides crypto codes etched onto metal cards on four continents after recent kidnappings

Didi Taihuttu, patriarch of the so-called Bitcoin Family, said he overhauled the family’s entire security setup after a wave of high-profile kidnappings targeting cryptocurrency executives.

The Taihuttus — who sold everything they owned in 2017, from their house to their shoes, to go all in on bitcoin when it was trading around $900 — have long lived on the outer edge of crypto ideology. They travel full-time with their three daughters and remain entirely unbanked.

Over the past eight months, he said, the family ditched hardware wallets in favor of a hybrid system: Part analog, part digital, with seed phrases encrypted, split and stored either through blockchain-based encryption services or hidden across four continents.