Good morning, you're tuned in to Markets Desk, let's get you caught up on what's moving.
The Trump administration is opening the door to cheaper beef, announcing it will allow the import of three hundred thousand metric tons of ground beef tariff-free. Domestic beef prices have surged through two thousand twenty six as the national cattle herd has shrunk, and this move is a direct pressure-relief valve aimed at cooling costs for American consumers at the grocery counter.
Shifting to retail, Walmart is finally embracing contactless payments, rolling out Apple Pay and Google Pay at its checkout stations this week. The world's largest retailer had been a notable holdout on tap-to-pay technology that competitors adopted years ago. For investors, it signals Walmart closing a friction gap that may have been nudging some shoppers elsewhere.
And in robotics, the CEO of Chinese company Unitree — whose stock exploded four hundred sixty percent after its public debut — is tempering expectations. Wang Xingxing says humanoid robots are still anywhere from two to ten years away from their own ChatGPT moment. It's a rare case of a founder cooling the very enthusiasm that sent his own shares into the stratosphere.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
