Good afternoon and welcome to Markets Desk, your midday read on what's moving markets right now.
SpaceX made a spectacular entrance to public markets, but the honeymoon was brief. Shares surged nineteen percent on day one, then shed as much as seven percent Thursday, falling to around one hundred seventy eight dollars. The average post-IPO buyer is now essentially flat, sitting right at the volume-weighted average price of just under one hundred eighty dollars.
Shifting to commodities, cotton futures are under pressure Thursday, down as much as eighty-five points with front months leading the decline. Crude oil is also retreating, off more than two dollars a barrel to seventy-four sixty-eight, while the dollar index is firming, adding nearly seventy cents to hold above one hundred. That combination of a stronger dollar and softer crude is weighing broadly on raw material prices.
On the policy front, the Trump administration announced a temporary expansion of the autopay interest rate discount on federal student loans. While the relief is modest, it arrives as millions of borrowers remain under pressure, and any reduction in effective interest costs carries real implications for household cash flow and consumer spending downstream.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
