Welcome to Markets Desk, your midday read on what's moving the needle.
Target is in full operational mode heading into back-to-school season, its biggest retail moment outside the holidays. Chief stores officer Adrienne Costanzo has been moving through sixteen states in three weeks, walking floors and managing a workforce of more than three hundred fifty thousand across two thousand locations. The execution pressure is real and visible.
Shifting to labor and technology, a YouGov survey commissioned by a sociologist researching AI found that roughly three percent of U S workers have actually experienced job displacement from tools like ChatGPT — a far cry from the sweeping displacement predictions that have dominated headlines. The data suggests disruption is real but measured, not the cliff-edge moment many forecasters called.
And in retail leadership, Macy's CEO Tony Spring sat down to share lessons from four decades on the floor. His core message is deceptively simple — listen more than you talk, invest in genuine connection with colleagues, and understand that first impressions carry weight far longer than most people expect. Spring traced one foundational lesson all the way back to a Burger King parking lot at age sixteen.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
