Good afternoon and welcome to Markets Desk, your midday read on what's moving and why.
Equity markets extended their run Tuesday, with the S&P five hundred, the Dow, and the Nasdaq one hundred all closing at fresh record highs. The catalyst was familiar — AI enthusiasm continues to lift sentiment broadly, with tech leading the charge and futures holding those gains into the overnight session.
Staying in the AI orbit, the CEO of Dycom Industries is sounding the alarm on a labor bottleneck that could slow the build-out of the infrastructure underpinning that enthusiasm. Dan Peyovich says surging demand for fiber networks and data centers is running headlong into a severe skilled-trades shortage, and his company is now actively recruiting younger workers with aggressive incentive packages, including two weeks of paid vacation from day one.
Meanwhile, Intuit is having a rough year by any measure, sitting at the bottom of the S&P five hundred's performance table. Analysts are flagging rising competitive pressure on the TurboTax franchise, with newer entrants chipping away at a business model that long looked untouchable. When the competitive moat starts looking shallow, the market tends to reprice quickly, and that's exactly what's happening here.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
