Following the emotional rollercoaster of this weekend geopolitical "straight to DVD" soap opera, in which Iran pretended to retaliate to Israel's embassy bombing with an attack that was meant to be a dud (and succeeded), which in turn was followed by an even more dramatic de-escalation by Israel in which after much saber rattling Netanyahu did...nothing, futures and yield are predictably higher, while oil is lower. That's right: after digesting the weekend's news and realizing that what just happened was one giant farce, global markets are broadly higher (except for Asia which is always a few steps behind), with European stocks ticking higher and US rebounding from Friday's 1.5% selloff in the S&P 500. As of 7:30am, S&P futures were 0.5% higher with Nasdaq futs rising 0.6%; Treasuries slipped along with the dollar. West Texas Intermediate crude dropped below $85 a barrel, while base metals rallied with Aluminum at one point surging more than 9% after Russian supply was hit by US and UK sanctions. Gold reversed Friday's losses to rise above $2,350 an ounce and bitcoin - which was the weekend's only operating market and saw the initial risk-off reaction - reversed all losses and is back to unchanged. Today, the macro focus will be Retail Sales release. Feroli expects headline Retail Sales to print +0.3% vs. +0.4% survey vs. +0.6% prior. China will release key macro data at 10pm ET tonight.

In premarket trading, most of megacap tech stocks were higher: META +1.2%, NVDA +1.12%, MU +96bp, MSFT +62bp; however Apple slipped after iPhone shipments slid a worse-than-projected 10% in the first quarter, as sales flagged in China. The company shipped 50.1 million handsets, IDC said, its worst year-on-year drop since Covid lockdowns in 2022.  Banks are also mostly higher, rebounding from Friday's JPMorgan-driven selloff, with Goldman rising after reporting solid results. Here are some other notable premarket movers:

Astera Labs shares advance 1.7% after a majority of brokers initiated coverage on the chipmaker with buy-equivalent recommendations.

Coupang shares rose 1.6%, extending Friday's gains. Citi upgrades its rating to buy from neutral, saying a recent increase in membership fee by the South Korean e-commerce firm indicates management's will to manage profit margins.

Reddit shares gain 1.3% as the social-media company is initiated with neutral-equivalent ratings at JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Analysts said the stock is fairly valued.

Salesforce fell 2.5% after Bloomberg reported that the Marc Benioff-led company is targeting Informatica to boost data capability, according to people familiar with the matter. Some analysts note that such a deal may draw regulatory scrutiny.