U.S. President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping shake hands before their bilateral meeting during the G-20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan on June 29, 2019.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
The mere prospect of a U.S.-China trade deal is enough to send markets higher.
And that’s before an agreement has been signed officially.
“A lot of the forecasts for technology have been without the benefit of China, so once you can add China back into the equation, that would probably be fairly optimistic for the markets,” Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research, told CNBC.
Nvidia, for instance, gave an estimate for the current quarter that excludes H20 shipments to China— a reminder of how trade restrictions have complicated the outlook for U.S. tech giants.
A formal U.S.-China deal that clarifies — and perhaps loosens — trade parameters could prompt Big Tech companies to raise their guidance, potentially igniting another wave of buying in a market already dominated by tech heavyweights.
Beyond silicon and software, soybeans are back in play. Reports suggest China may ease its unofficial boycott of U.S. soybeans as part of the agreement. That would go some way toward assuaging Scott Bessent’s pain because he’s not just the U.S. Treasury Secretary, but also a soybean farmer, as he put it in a televised interview.
While Bessent meant that literally — he owns soybean farmland — in the broad trade war between China and the U.S., trade tensions have made daily life more difficult for most of us, turning us all into reluctant farmers of one kind or another. A truce, if it comes, might let everyone harvest some peace.
What you need to know today
Trump suggests an agreement with China is imminent. Speaking aboard Air Force One on Monday, Trump said he and Chinese President Xi Jinping are going to “come away with” a trade deal. The U.S. president also signaled a TikTok deal could come on Thursday.
Amazon is preparing to announce largest layoffs in its history. The cuts, which will impact almost every division, will begin Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the matter. Up to 30,000 employees will be affected, Reuters reported.
HSBC beats earnings expectations. Third-quarter profit before tax came in at $7.3 billion, higher than the $5.98 billion estimate compiled by the bank. However, that figure was 14% lower from a year earlier because of higher operating expenses.
[PRO] Time to put cash elsewhere when Fed cuts rate. The returns of money market funds depend on prevailing interest rates. When the Fed all but certainly cuts rates, investors should start moving their funds out of cash instruments, analysts say.
And finally…
President and CEO of Saudi’s Aramco, Amin H. Nasser, speaks during the Future Investment Initiative (FII) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia October 29, 2024.
According to Saudi Arabia’s Minister for Investment Khalid Al Falih, 50.6% of the Saudi economy is now “completely decoupled” from oil.
The country is doubling down on fast-growing sectors such as artificial intelligence for growth. Al Falih said the kingdom will be a “key investor” in developing AI applications and large-language models, adding that Saudi Arabia would also build data centers “at a scale and at a competitive cost not achieved anywhere else.”
The new agents, known as Cortex AgentiX, can handle threat intelligence investigations, respond to email breaches and can be deployed across various security vendor platforms. The tools will be available starting Tuesday through several of Palo Alto’s current cloud services, and will launch as a separate platform next year.
The new AI agents are meant to meet growing demand from customers for more automated capabilities, CEO Nikesh Arora told reporters and analysts last week. Most agents, he added, will have a human middleman to review.
In the age of AI, companies are racing to find new methods to fight increasingly sophisticated and complex cyberattacks. Earlier this month, cybersecurity firm F5‘s stock dropped 10% after it said it suffered a nation-state hack.
Arora said he’s concerned that some enterprises are still “under the illusion that they are extremely secure.”
Palo Alto Networks is in the midst of a watershed shake-up as it integrates its $25 billion acquisition of Israeli identity security vendor CyberArk.
Shortly after the news broke, Arora told CNBC that the deal integrates CyberArk with Palo Alto’s AI and security aspirations.
“We look for great products, a team that can execute in the product, and we let them run it,” he said.
Apple CEO Tim Cook greets customer at the Fifth Avenue Apple Store on new product launch day on September 19, 2025 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
Apple and Microsoft shares rose on Tuesday, pushing the companies over a market cap of $4 trillion.
Both companies are still behind Nvidia, which is the world’s most valuable company with a market cap of over $4.6 trillion. Microsoft previously hit the $4 trillion benchmark in July.
Microsoft stock climbed about 3% on news that the company finalized a 27% stake in OpenAI‘s for-profit business. The company has backed the ChatGPT maker since 2019.
The $4 trillion milestone, a first for Apple, comes as its shares have been surging in recent weeks because iPhone 17 models, released in September, appear to be selling better than their predecessors.
Apple shares are up 25% over the past 3 months. It reports fiscal fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday. Microsoft, which is up 6% in the past 3 months, reports earnings on Wednesday.
“Apple shares are heading into the upcoming earnings print with a greater halo of positivity than any time in the past year,” JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee wrote in a Monday note. He has the equivalent of a buy rating on the stock and raised his price target on Monday to $290 per share.
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The company also appears to have avoided the worst-case scenarios related to Trump administration tariffs. Apple has moved much of its U.S.-bound supply chain to India and Vietnam while also maintaining a friendly relationship with the administration around U.S. manufacturing.
“Announcement of an increased pace of domestic investment in combination with a rapid shift in product manufacturing for the US market outside of China (India, Vietnam) has improved Apple’s positioning in the tariff landscape,” Chatterjee wrote.
Correction: This story has been updated to state that Microsoft hit the $4 trillion benchmark in July.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks to media following a Q&A at the OpenAI data center in Abilene, Texas, U.S., Sept. 23, 2025.
Shelby Tauber | Reuters
OpenAI on Tuesday announced it has completed its recapitalization, cementing its structure as a nonprofit with a controlling stake in its for-profit business.
The artificial intelligence startup said its nonprofit is now called the OpenAI Foundation, and it holds an equity stake worth about $130 billion in its for-profit arm. OpenAI said its for-profit arm is now a public benefit corporation called OpenAI Group PBC.
Under the new structure, the OpenAI Foundation will hold a 26% stake in the for-profit, with 47% held by current and former employees and investors.
Microsoft, which has invested over $13 billion in OpenAI and backed the company as early as 2019, said it supports OpenAI’s recapitalization and now holds an investment in the PBC that is valued at $135 billion, or roughly 27% of the company on an as-converted diluted basis.
The company said it held a 32.5% stake in the for-profit on an as-converted basis, excluding OpenAI’s recent funding rounds.
Microsoft shares are up 3% Tuesday.
“The more OpenAI succeeds as a company, the more the non-profit’s equity stake will be worth, which the non-profit will use to fund its philanthropic work,” OpenAI said in a blog post.
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OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit research lab in 2015, but has become one of the fastest-growing commercial entities on the planet in recent years. The startup is currently valued at $500 billion.
In 2024, the company announced plans to convert into a for-profit company, which would have wrested control from the nonprofit and kept it as a separate arm. But after facing pressure from civic leaders and ex-employees, OpenAI said in May that its nonprofit would retain control.
OpenAI Foundation will make an initial $25 billion commitment to work to accelerate health breakthroughs and technical solutions to AI resilience, OpenAI said Tuesday.
As part of the announcement, Microsoft said OpenAI has agreed to purchase an incremental $250 billion of Azure services, though Microsoft will no longer have a first right of refusal to be OpenAI’s compute provider.
The companies also outlined several additional changes to their partnership.
When OpenAI says it has reached Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), which is a term for an AI system that rivals or exceeds human intelligence, that claim will have to be verified by an independent expert panel, Microsoft said. The revenue share agreement between the two companies will remain until that panel verifies AGI.
Microsoft can now pursue AGI independently or in collaboration with third parties, and OpenAI can now jointly develop some products with third parties.
OpenAI remains Microsoft’s frontier model partner. Microsoft said its IP rights for both models and products are extended through 2032, and include models post-AGI. OpenAI’s consumer hardware is excluded from Microsoft’s IP rights.
“As we step into this next chapter of our partnership, both companies are better positioned than ever to continue building great products that meet real-world needs, and create new opportunity for everyone and every business,” Microsoft said in a statement.
Microsoft is slated to report fiscal first-quarter 2026 results after market close on Wednesday.