Good afternoon and welcome to Markets Desk, your midday read on what's moving and why.
The May jobs report landed like a thunderclap this morning, with the economy adding one hundred seventy two thousand positions against expectations of just eighty eight thousand. That alone would have been a headline, but the revisions made it louder — March and April were revised up by a combined ninety three thousand jobs, painting a labor market that is considerably stronger than we thought. For markets, that's a double-edged sword: good news for growth, uncomfortable news for anyone hoping the Fed moves toward cuts anytime soon.
Shifting to energy, natural gas futures dropped more than three percent on Friday as traders weighed a supply picture that simply has no urgency to it. Inventories as of late May sit nearly six percent above their five-year seasonal average, and reduced flows to export terminals mean even more gas stays onshore. With that kind of cushion, there's little fundamental support for a near-term rally.
And in the AI space, Goldman Sachs equity research chief Jim Covello is sharpening his long-running skepticism ahead of anticipated IPOs from OpenAI and Anthropic. His core argument remains unchanged: the capital being poured into artificial intelligence is enormous, and the revenue justifying it has not arrived. At some point, he warns, the math has to work.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
