Good evening, you're tuned in to Markets Desk.
The tech sector is facing a reckoning on multiple fronts. AI infrastructure anxiety is colliding with social media liability as Meta reaches a landmark settlement in a social media harm case, and data center concerns are now shaping political conversations heading into the election cycle. The backlash against big tech is no longer a fringe sentiment — it is moving markets and policy.
Shifting to Cupertino, Tim Cook's legacy is getting a thorough reassessment as he prepares to step away from Apple. Critics once dismissed him as not a product guy, but Cook engineered something arguably more durable — a supply chain and services machine that took Apple's valuation to heights Steve Jobs never saw. That is a consequential reframe for how Wall Street values operational leadership.
Meanwhile, Iran's economic isolation is deepening. The country's president has acknowledged that sanctions are squeezing both imports and exports, while Supreme Leader Khamenei is pushing for reduced reliance on the US dollar in trade settlements. That signals further de-dollarization efforts among sanctioned states, a slow-moving but structurally significant pressure on dollar dominance in global trade corridors.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
