Good afternoon and welcome to Markets Desk, your midday read on what's moving markets and the broader economy.
In the agricultural commodity space, both wheat and cotton are closing the week under pressure heading into the Memorial Day holiday weekend. Chicago soft red winter wheat settled roughly ten and a half cents lower on the week, while cotton futures dropped as much as three hundred nineteen points on the July contract alone, with the dollar index firming slightly and crude oil providing little offsetting support for the complex.
Shifting to technology, IBM is making a pointed case that quantum computing is no longer a theoretical exercise. The company says it sees no fundamental barrier to a full commercial quantum era, and analysts are beginning to price in the possibility that IBM could emerge as one of the primary infrastructure winners as the technology transitions from laboratory curiosity to enterprise reality.
And on the media landscape, CBS is navigating a significant programming shift after canceling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, one of the network's flagship late night franchises. Comics Unleashed is set to fill that slot, but CBS has signaled it is not abandoning the late night format entirely, leaving the door open for further restructuring in that competitive daypart.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
