Rally virtually evaporated yesterday
The good news yesterday was that the S&P 500 finished higher.
The bad news is that it only finished 8.69 points higher after being up 49 points at the highs. Most of the gain evaporated in the final hour of trading and the index closed fractionally above the intraday lows.
Some of the selling might have been prompted by a late-breaking report about a raid on Michael Cohen's office but it was mostly on trepidation about Xi's speech at Boao.
However he avoided any inflammatory rhetoric and instead pitched globalization. The market wants to see tensions defused and, evidently, so does China. The US has an opportunity to exercise some quiet diplomacy now and if they take the opportunity, markets could extend the rally.
At the moment, S&P 500 futures are up 30 points, which would take the market within striking distance of yesterday's intraday high but the market needs to climb (and close) about 65 points higher to create any technical momentum.