Good morning and welcome to Markets Desk.
Anthropic's annual revenue run rate has reportedly surged to sixty-five billion dollars, a figure that signals the AI arms race is generating real commercial firepower. That number puts serious pressure on competitors and raises the stakes for every enterprise betting on which large language model wins the enterprise contract war.
Shifting to retail, Home Depot beat Wall Street expectations on both the top and bottom lines in its second fiscal quarter, but the company is still navigating what it called frozen housing market conditions. Management reaffirmed full-year guidance, a signal of discipline, though the housing lock-in effect — where high mortgage rates keep homeowners in place and spending on repairs rather than moves — continues to define the operating backdrop.
Meanwhile at Walmart, a quieter but consequential story is unfolding on the store floor. The retailer is accelerating its AI rollout across locations, but workers say the technology is making errors that fall on them to catch and correct. That dynamic raises a real question about productivity math — if human labor is required to audit the machine, the efficiency gains may be narrower than the headlines suggest.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
