Fed to inject liquidity through $8.07 billion Treasury bill purchase in today’s operation

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said Wednesday that the United States recently brought back $100 million worth of gold from Venezuela, in what he described as the first shipment of precious metals between the two countries in more than 20 years.

Doug said he traveled to Venezuela earlier this month with oil and mining executives and spent 10 hours meeting with interim President Delcy Rodriguez. After that first reference, Delcy became a central figure in the talks as Washington worked with her following the collapse of Nicolás Maduro’s grip on power.

Speaking at S&P Global’s CERAWeek conference in Houston, Doug told energy executives that the gold was brought back physically, not just on paper. He said U.S. refiners are expected to use the metal for both commercial and consumer purposes.

The move comes after a dramatic shift in Venezuela policy. The U.S. captured former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a military raid in January, but much of the wider regime structure remained in place. Since then, the Trump administration has been working closely with Delcy, who had served as vice president under Maduro.

That makes this gold transfer more than a commodity story. It also signals that Washington is trying to turn its new relationship with Venezuela’s remaining power structure into something practical and immediate.

There was also another major geopolitical update out of Washington on Wednesday.

The White House said a long-awaited meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will take place in Beijing on May 14 and 15. After that first mention, Trump is also set to host Xi later this year in Washington, D.C., for what the White House called a reciprocal visit.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the date for that Washington meeting has not yet been announced.

Arm Holdings surged 20% on Wednesday after the company said its newly launched internal chip could bring in $15 billion in revenue by 2031 on its own.

The British chip design and software company unveiled the new processor, called the AGI CPU, at an event in San Francisco on Tuesday. It is built for AI inference in data centers, a part of the market that is getting more attention as companies race to support the rise of agentic AI.

At the event, Arm CEO Rene Haas said the new chip is expected to help drive total annual revenue to $25 billion by 2031, with earnings per share of $9. After that first mention, Rene framed the forecast as a huge jump from the company’s $4 billion in annual revenue in 2025. That means the revenue target tied to the chip business is about six times what Arm made in total last year.

The stock reaction was sharp because the market had not priced in a move like this just one day earlier. Arm shares had closed down 1.5% on Tuesday, before turning sharply higher after the event and the updated outlook.

The rally spread across the rest of the chip space too. Shares of Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, and Intel all moved higher on Wednesday as investors bet that another big AI infrastructure push could lift demand across the sector.

Arm CFO Jason Child said the new chip is being sold at roughly 50% gross profit. After that first mention, Jason said the product would still be priced to stay competitive. The company also said the goal is to give customers another option, especially businesses that do not have the money or scale to design their own chips in-house.

Iran has rejected a U.S. ceasefire proposal and instead put forward its own conditions for ending the war, according to Iranian state media reports published Wednesday.

Press TV, Iran’s state broadcaster, said Tehran delivered a five-point counteroffer. The outlet, citing a senior political-security official it said knew the details, reported that Iran wants control over the Strait of Hormuz as part of any deal.

That looks like a hard sell for Washington. President Donald Trump had said on Monday that the key oil route could potentially be controlled jointly by “me and the ayatollah.” After that first reference, Trump’s idea now appears to run directly into Iran’s demand for sole sovereignty over the waterway.

Press TV also reported that Iran is seeking war-related reparations.

The outlet said Tehran’s conditions are these:

A full stop to what it called enemy aggression and assassinations; clear mechanisms to make sure war is not imposed on the Islamic Republic again; guaranteed and clearly defined payment for war damages and reparations; an end to the war across all fronts and for all resistance groups involved around the region; and recognition that Iran’s sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz is a natural and legal right that must remain in place as a guarantee that the other side honors its commitments.

Another Iranian state outlet, Fars News Agency, also reported Wednesday that U.S. efforts to secure a ceasefire and begin indirect talks with Iran had increased.

Fars, citing what it described as an informed source, said Tehran is not willing to accept a ceasefire. The source said, “Iran does not accept a ceasefire,” and added that it made no sense to enter that process with parties that had already violated an agreement.

That leaves markets watching the same issue from two sides at once.

The Federal Reserve is injecting $8.071 billion into the financial system through today’s open market operations, and it is landing right as investors pile into a broad relief rally.

U.S. stock futures pushed higher on Wednesday after a report said Washington had handed Iran a plan that could help end the conflict.

Data from TradingView shows the S&P 500 rising by 0.8%, the Nasdaq 100 futures gaining 1%, and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures climbing 398 points, or 0.9%.

At the same time, Donald Trump was saying yet again from the Oval that he and Tehran are “in negotiations right now” and suggested Iran wants a peace deal. Trump promised that he had stepped back from his earlier threat to strike Iranian energy infrastructure “based on the fact we’re negotiating.”

Iran, however, continues to deny any direct talks with the U.S.

Reuters says the U.S. has even drafted a 15-point plan aimed at ending the war with Iran, while China has urged Tehran to enter talks. Iran has not commented on that proposal so far.

Meanwhile, oil’s Brent fell 5% to $99.30 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate dropped 5.1% to $87.63.

Bond yields also crashed a bit as traders rotated into Treasuries. The 10-year Treasury yield was down more than 5 basis points to 4.3361% by press time. The 2-year yield fell about 6 basis points to 3.8730%, while the 30-year yield slipped 4 basis points to 4.8999%. One basis point equals 0.01%, and yields move in the opposite direction to prices.

Gold jumped as much as 2.8%, adding to a 1.6% rise in the previous session.
In crypto, Bitcoin held above $70,000 for a second straight day after first sliding $3,000 when markets reacted to Trump’s deadline.