Welcome to Markets Desk, here's what's moving the tape this hour.
BlackRock's Larry Fink is sounding the alarm on AI infrastructure, warning that any legislative ban on data center construction would tip the United States into recession. It's a striking intervention from the world's largest asset manager, and it signals just how central the build-out has become to the broader growth story heading into two thousand twenty six.
Shifting to commodities, corn futures are under pressure at midday, down two to four cents despite a fresh private export sale of one hundred twenty seven thousand metric tons to Japan. Bulls can't find traction even with that export headline in hand, and the national cash price sitting at four dollars and thirty-six cents suggests the market simply isn't convinced the demand picture is turning yet.
And in equity markets, CoreWeave, Broadcom, and Verizon are among nine companies formally objecting to a plan by OKXICE to offer tokenized trading of their shares. The pushback is pointed — Applied Optoelectronics specifically flagged uncertainty around how tokenization could affect liquidity and volatility, and that concern likely echoes across the other names on that list.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
