Good morning and welcome to Markets Desk, your open-bell briefing for Thursday.
Walmart steps into the earnings spotlight before the bell today, and the street is watching closely — not just for the retailer's own numbers, but for what they signal about the broader consumer. With spending bifurcating sharply along income lines, Walmart's results serve as a real-time gauge of how lower and middle-income households are actually holding up under persistent price pressure.
Shifting to macro, Treasury Secretary Bessent's approach to yield curve management is quietly reshaping the gold trade. Strategists broadly agree that his operations are putting structural downward pressure on the dollar, and since gold moves as the dollar's mirror image, that dynamic is giving the metal fresh legs. Consensus is building that this isn't a short-term pop but a policy-driven repricing.
And on the tech earnings front, Meta's free cash flow collapsed ninety-one percent in the most recent quarter, falling to just seven hundred eighty-four million dollars as artificial intelligence spending ballooned. The core advertising business remains strong, but capital is being consumed at a rate that leaves investors with almost no cushion — raising real questions about the return timeline on Zuckerberg's AI ambitions.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
