Welcome to Markets Desk, your end-of-week wrap on the stories moving money.
Equities closed out Friday on a mixed but broadly constructive note. The S&P five hundred edged up seventeen hundredths of a percent, the Nasdaq one hundred gained two thirds of a percent, while the Dow slipped slightly into the red. Falling crude oil prices eased cost pressures and gave tech room to breathe into the close.
Pulling crude lower was part of a broader commodity softness, and cotton felt that pressure hard. Front-month cotton futures dropped one hundred fifteen to one hundred twenty points on the session, dragged by a weaker dollar and despite a fairly constructive export sales report showing four and a half million running bales in commitments, running thirteen percent ahead of pace. The market simply couldn't hold the gains.
Away from the pits, the headline that will follow markets into next week is OpenAI's projection that it expects to burn through two hundred eighty billion dollars by twenty thirty. Deeply negative cash flows driven by infrastructure buildout and intensifying price competition in AI services raise real questions about the sustainability of current valuations across the entire artificial intelligence sector.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
