ORLANDO, Florida, May 21 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks ended a

choppy session on Thursday in the green, lifted by optimism that

a U.S.-Iran peace deal is close at hand, while investors also

pored over Nvidia's earnings report and awaited potential bumper

IPOs from SpaceX and OpenAI.

In my column today, I look at the overlaps between extreme

concentration in U.S. stock ownership, Wall Street's AI boom,

wealth effects, and workers' record low share of national

output. Can stock market gains soothe workers' pains?

If you have more time to read, here are a few articles I

recommend to help you make sense of what happened in markets

today.

1. SpaceX IPO bets $2 trillion on Musk's ambitious

rockets-to-AI vision

2. Major takeaways from Magnificent Seven's AI-fueled

earnings

3. 'True cost of living' could be Trump's biggest

headache: Mike Dolan

4. Iran war drags European economy down, pushes prices

up

5. China oil import cut, higher U.S. exports wrongfoot

market bulls

Today's Key Market Moves

* STOCKS: South Korea +9%, Japan's Nikkei +3%, China

-2%. Europe and UK flat. Wall Street up, Dow +0.6%, S&P 500

+0.2%.

* SECTORS/SHARES: Japan's SoftBank +20%, Samsung +9%.

Ralph Lauren +14%, IBM +12%; Intuit -20%, Walmart -7%.

* FX: Dollar, G10 FX mostly flat. In EM, India's rupee

+0.5%, Korea's won -0.5%.

* BONDS: Long-dated U.S. yields dip, short-end yields

blip. Curve flattens. 10-year TIPS auction mixed - okay

bid/cover, but tail of nearly 2 bps.

* COMMODITIES/METALS: Oil -2%, gold flat. NYMEX gasoline

futures -8% this week, eyeing biggest fall since September. U.S.

wheat futures -2%, easing from Tuesday's 2-year high.

Today's Talking Points

* ChatIPO

SpaceX and OpenAI are preparing to go public, the latest

chapter in the stunning trillion-dollar tech/AI story that has

driven Wall Street and global stocks to new highs this year. At

projected IPO prices, they may soon be valued at just under $2

trillion and $1 trillion, respectively.

They're striking while the AI iron is hot. But will

investors end up getting burned? It's a lot of equity supply to

hit the market and OpenAI - or "ChatIPO", as Deutsche dubbed the

creator of ChatGPT - is not expected to make a profit for years.

How this plays out could set the market tone for the rest of the

year.

* Keepin' it real #1

Real yields on Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities are

high for a reason, but are they high enough to be a "buy"? The

30-year TIPS yield nudged 2.90% this week, the highest since

2008, the 5-year yield 1.70% and the 10-year yield 2.20%, both

the highest in a year.

These may look like decent real returns worth locking in for

investors seeking inflation protection for the bond side of

their portfolio. On the other hand, is there room for them to

rise even higher in the coming weeks and months?

* Keepin' it real #2

Are bond yields now high enough to become a problem for

equities? Nominal and inflation-adjusted measures of the "equity

risk premium" are at or close to levels not seen for two decades

or more, which suggests they might be.

JPMorgan's Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou says stocks are indeed

expensive relative to bonds from a long-term investor's

perspective, but also notes there is "some way to go" until we

are in exuberant late 1990s territory. "There is currently more

limited room before a further rise in real bond yields starts

becoming a problem for the equity market."

What could move markets tomorrow?

* Developments in the Middle East

* Japan CPI inflation (April)

* Germany GfK consumer sentiment (May)

* Germany Ifo business conditions (May)

* Euro zone finance ministers and central bankers meet in

Cyprus

* UK GfK consumer confidence (May)

* UK retail sales (April)

* Canada producer price inflation (April)

* Canada retail sales (March)

* U.S. University of Michigan inflation expectations,

consumer sentiment (May, final)

* U.S. Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller speaks

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