Welcome to Markets Desk, your midday read on what's moving money and markets.
Equities are pushing higher after this morning's payroll data came in softer than expected. Non-farm payrolls and average hourly earnings both missed consensus, pulling rate hike expectations off the table for the Fed's next meeting. The S and P five hundred is up just over one percent, with the Nasdaq leading gains near one and a third percent.
That same weak jobs print sent the dollar retreating, with the dollar index down roughly a third of a percent on the session. Gold caught a bid on the move, as it typically does when the greenback softens and rate expectations shift dovish. Traders are clearly repricing the Fed's near-term path.
On the semiconductor front, federal prosecutors have charged a California man with smuggling three hundred million dollars worth of Nvidia chips into China. Yiu Kong Lui allegedly conspired with foreign partners to circumvent export controls that prohibit advanced chip shipments without a license. The case underscores just how aggressively authorities are enforcing the semiconductor trade restrictions that sit at the center of the US-China technology rivalry.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
