"Nothing stops this train," a menacing line uttered by the drug dealing Walter White in TV show Breaking Bad, feels appropriate to the unrelenting surge in tech stocks that has powered U.S. markets to a series of record highs.

Neither faster inflation and rising bond yields nor a surprise elevation of Taiwan's independence into talks between President Donald Trump and China's leader Xi Jinping earlier today in Beijing, appear powerful enough to keep the tech train from driving stocks ever higher into next week's first-quarter earnings from Nvidia.

AI chip maker Cerebras set an IPO price Wednesday evening that puts the listing proceeds at up to $6.4 billion and gives it a market value of about $55 billion. Its trading debut is Thursday.

Cisco Systems, the old tech stalwart now diving headfirst into the global AI pool, blasted Wall Street's earnings forecasts last night, taking its 2026 stock gain to around 55%.

The moves cement the case for tech's market-leading momentum, which has powered the Nasdaq more than 27% higher since late March and put the S&P 500 on pace for an annual gain of 10% over the coming days.

That could be why Xi has opted to inject Taiwan's independent status into his two-day meeting with Trump, given the region's importance to the chip sector and the broader AI trade that has powered markets higher since the ChatGPT-sparked rally, which began in 2022.

"Handled well, relations between the two countries can maintain overall stability," Xi said. "Handled poorly, the two countries will collide or even clash."

How that sours talks on topics such as Iran, Ukraine, and broader trade relations remains to be seen. What it clearly indicates, however, is how far -- and how deeply -- tech has embedded itself into the world's two biggest economies.

-- Martin Baccardax

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Cisco Beats Expectations on AI Demand. Job Cuts Are Coming.

Cisco beat expectations, fueled by hyperscaler artificial intelligence spending, though like other companies it is going to be cutting jobs to make room for its own investments. CEO Chuck Robbins told analysts Cisco's technology is "more relevant than ever," and a trimmer workforce frees resources for optics, silicon, and AI.

   -- Cisco reported adjusted earnings of $1.06 a share on revenue of $15.8 
      billion. It makes most of its revenue from its networking segment, which 
      has surged because of strong demand for the hardware needed to help power 
      AI. Networking revenue for the quarter of $8.82 billion beat 
      expectations. 
 
   -- It's also cutting 4,000 jobs, less than 5% of its workforce, in a 
      restructuring. Robbins said in a blog post that winners in the AI era 
      will be those with focus, urgency, and the discipline to continuously 
      shift investment as demand changes. "This means making hard decisions," 
      Robbins said. 
 
   -- Cisco's layoff announcement adds to a rising number of job cuts in the 
      tech sector this year. According to Layoffs.fyi, a website that tracks 
      tech layoffs, 103,571 tech employees have been laid off in 2026. That's 
      getting close to the 124,201 total the website reported for all of 2025. 
 
   -- It isn't just demand for Cisco's equipment that's hot. Memory costs have 
      been surging as demand outpaces supply, and that's hurt tech hardware 
      companies' margins. Cisco is working to mitigate some of these cost 
      headwinds by raising prices. Third quarter gross margins were 66%. 

What's Next: Cisco also said it expects fiscal fourth-quarter earnings to be between $1.16 a share to $1.18 a share on revenue between $16.7 billion and $16.9 billion. That's higher than analyst estimates.

-- Angela Palumbo

Micron Tops $900 Billion Valuation for the First Time

Micron Technology just joined the $900 billion club. Shares in the memory-chip maker racked up further gains on Wednesday as investors bet that labor unrest at rival Samsung Electronics would intensify a broader supply crunch.

   -- Shares closed up 4.8% to $803.63, bringing Micron's market capitalization 
      to $906.28 billion. It is the 12th most valuable U.S. company after 
      Nvidia, Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Broadcom, Tesla, Meta, 
      Berkshire Hathaway, Walmart, and Eli Lilly. 
 
   -- Memory chips are in high demand, making them a bottleneck in the booming 
      market for artificial-intelligence data centers. Micron is the third 
      largest producer of memory chips by market share, behind South Korean 
      companies Samsung and SK Hynix. 
 
   -- Talks between Samsung and its labor union to avert a walkout collapsed on 
      Wednesday. Samsung said it would continue efforts to prevent a strike. 
      Union leaders are seeking to remove legal obstacles to the walkout. 
 
   -- The walkout could hit about 3% of global memory-chip production, 
      according to Jefferies estimates. Any hit to Samsung's output would 
      increase demand for Micron's hardware, which is already surging because 
      of the wave of investment in AI infrastructure. 

What's Next: There will soon be another way for U.S. investors to play the memory-chip boom. SK Hynix said in March that it had filed an application to list American depositary receipts with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

-- Adam Clark , Kit Norton , Anita Hamilton , and George Glover

Fervo Energy Debuts in Largest Energy IPO Since 2013

Fervo Energy's initial public offering is a sign that hot rocks make hot investments. The Bill Gates-backed geothermal energy firm became the largest energy or utility IPO since 2013, according to Renaissance Capital, selling $1.9 billion of shares and kicking off trading on Wednesday with a 35% gain.

   -- The company drills deep into the Earth to harness steam for electric 
      generation. It raised more capital than the $1.3 billion initially 
      anticipated, raising its market value to around $8 billion. Fervo says it 
      can drill through rocks and use shale-industry techniques to make more 
      areas geothermal friendly. 
 
   -- Gates, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, sees geothermal as a 
      clean and reliable way to generate electricity, and has partnership with 
      tech firms like Alphabet, which thinks geothermal could help power things 
      like data centers while supporting its goals to decarbonize operations. 
 
   -- Fervo CFO David Ulrey told Barron's that they spoke to investors before 
      the IPO and found broad interest in the technology -- from traditional 
      energy investors who were looking for the future, to generalists excited 
      about artificial intelligence, hyperscalers, and power. 
 
   -- To make money and attract more customers, Fervo will have to bring down 
      the cost of its technology. It is working to lower the cost of building 
      its Utah project from $7,000 a kilowatt to $3,000, which would arguably 
      make it a better investment than gas plants. 

What's Next: The hot IPOs continue. Today, AI chip maker Cerebras is to begin trading Nasdaq under the ticker "CBRS," in a key test of sentiment for the semiconductor sector. It priced the IPO at $185 a share, above its expected range, to raise more than $5.5 billion.

-- Avi Salzman, Adam Levine, and Janet H. Cho

Could China Summit Put U.S. Agriculture Back in Play? Maybe.

President Donald Trump's entourage in China includes top tech, industrial, and finance executives, but he also brought the hopes of America's agricultural sector. For American farmers and meat producers, Trump's meeting with China's Xi Jinping could be a test of Beijing's willingness to return to the U.S. agricultural market.

   -- Agricultural trade is an area where both sides have practical reasons to 
      cooperate: China needs food security and diversified supplies. As the 
      world's biggest soybean importer it has leaned on Brazil, especially 
      during heightened trade tensions with the U.S. Meanwhile, America's 
      farmers need demand and stable income. 
 
   -- After the Trump-Xi meeting in October 2025, Treasury Secretary Scott 
      Bessent said China agreed to buy 25 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans 
      annually for the next three years, a figure China hasn't confirmed. The 
      Council on Foreign Relations said China will likely announce or reaffirm 
      soybean buying commitments. 
 
   -- A renewed Chinese commitment to buy more American soybeans could help 
      support not only U.S. farmers, but also grain traders and processors like 
      Archer Daniels Midland and Bunge plus farm equipment makers like Deere 
      that depend on healthy farm income. 
 
   -- Meat producers like Tyson Foods and Cargill are watching closely, too. 
      China is an important export market for U.S. beef and poultry, but access 
      is uncertain after export registrations for hundreds of U.S. meat plants 
      expired over the past year. The summit could address whether those 
      licenses will be renewed. 

What's Next: Trade summits often generate optimistic headlines without producing immediate purchasing commitments. Analysts at the Brookings Institution said expectations for the summit should remain low, since the relationship remains fragile. Many Chinese analysts see a shift after the midterms or after Trump leaves office.

-- Evie Liu

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