Good afternoon and welcome to Markets Desk.
Tesla's Cybercab rollout in Austin is generating headlines for all the wrong reasons. Shares fell after Wall Street called the update underwhelming, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened a probe into Tesla's self-certification of the steering-wheel-less vehicle. The investigation doesn't ground the fleet, but it adds regulatory overhang to an already skeptical market reaction.
Staying with leadership transitions, Apple has named John Ternus as its incoming chief executive, succeeding Tim Cook. Ternus is a product engineer with twenty-five years at the company, shaped by the Steve Jobs era. Markets will be watching closely whether his engineering-first instincts translate into the kind of strategic vision investors expect from Cupertino's top seat.
And on the dividend front, S&P Global has now raised its dividend for fifty-four consecutive years, placing it among fewer than thirty companies in the S&P five hundred with a half-century streak intact. In an environment where rate uncertainty keeps income investors cautious, that kind of compounding commitment to shareholders stands out as a genuine differentiator.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
