Good morning and welcome to Markets Desk, your end-of-week briefing on the stories moving markets and money.
Ohio is pulling the plug on a data center tax break that exploded to one point five billion dollars, eleven times its original estimate. Republican Governor Mike DeWine suspended the incentive Wednesday, a significant signal that states are beginning to reassess the fiscal cost of courting AI infrastructure, even as the competition for those facilities remains fierce.
Shifting to the ag complex, soybeans are extending Thursday's momentum into Friday's final session of May, with nearby contracts pushing toward the twelve dollar mark on gains of three to four cents. Open interest climbed over twelve thousand contracts Thursday, suggesting fresh money is entering the long side as traders watch cash prices closely heading into the weekend.
And on the softs board, cotton is giving back some of Thursday's gains, sliding nineteen to fifty-one points in early Friday trade. The move comes against a softer dollar, which is down roughly twenty cents on the index, and modest pressure in crude oil. When the dollar weakens but cotton still slips, that tells you supply-side concerns are doing real work here.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
