There are moments when the global economy seems to exhale, as if a long, collective anxiety has briefly lifted. Monday's record-setting Wall Street futures offered such a moment. Stocks soared on whispers of a "framework" between Washington and Beijing—an echo of the fragile truces that have punctuated two decades of managed competition. It was not peace, but it was enough. The prospect of even a start of a trade agreement was sufficient to reignite the machinery of speculation. The Dow futures ticked higher, the Nasdaq bounded upward, and, in the soft light of early trading, optimism once again became an asset class.
