Good morning, you're tuned in to Markets Desk.
The Dow notched a fresh record Thursday even as the jobs report came in soft, and the divergence in markets tells the real story. The S&P five hundred finished flat, the Nasdaq shed more than one and a half percent as chipmakers retreated, but the Dow climbed over one percent. J.P. Morgan Asset Management is blunt about what's driving the caution heading into the rest of twenty twenty six — American workers simply are not seeing wage growth, and without that, consumer spending faces a real ceiling.
Meanwhile, the pressure on the Federal Reserve is intensifying. President Trump publicly blasted the central bank as hostile and said incoming Fed Chair Kevin Warsh has to do what he has to do on interest rates — widely read as an endorsement of cuts. Trump also confirmed he still intends to remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook from the board, a move that would further reshape the institution's composition.
And Meta took a candid turn internally. Mark Zuckerberg told employees at a company town hall that progress on AI agents has been slower than expected. He maintained the path to superintelligence remains on track, but acknowledged it will take time. His CTO separately flagged morale issues and confirmed the company is making its AI training program opt-in following a leak and significant backlash.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
