Welcome to Markets Desk, your midday briefing on the stories moving the needle.
The dollar finished Friday essentially flat after surrendering an early advance, pressured by a downward revision to the University of Michigan's May consumer sentiment index, which hit a record low. The late-session equity rally reduced safe-haven demand, keeping the greenback pinned near unchanged on the day.
Shifting to Washington, businesses seeking refunds on tariffs imposed under the Trump administration are running into bureaucratic friction before they even file. Lost passwords to the government's online portal and misclassified goods are among the obstacles. Some companies are sitting on hundreds of thousands of dollars in pending claims, and the refund window has been open for over a month.
And in the AI economy, OpenAI is posting a role on its Preparedness safety team paying up to four hundred forty-five thousand dollars annually, focused on what the company calls recursive self-improvement — essentially preparing for a scenario where AI systems begin training themselves. The hire would track progress toward automating the lab's own technical research staff, a signal of how seriously OpenAI is treating that timeline.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
