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Luke Kawa

US stocks rise as soft job growth fortifies bets on a Federal Reserve rate cut this month

ETFs that track major US stock indexes are higher and short-term yields are falling after the August jobs report continued to confirm the trend of labor market cooling, calcifying bets on a Federal Reserve rate cut this month.

Nonfarm payrolls rose by just 22,000 in August, while economists had expected an addition of 75,000. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3%, in line with estimates. Revisions to the past two months were also negative, but not as severe as in the July report.

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF was up 0.3% to session highs in the minutes following the release, while two-year US Treasury yields fell below 3.5%.

A report and market reaction like this suggests traders are embracing the idea that the softening in the US labor market is primarily driven by supply-side factors in light of major changes to net immigration, as recently argued by economists at the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, and isn’t a worrying sign that the US economy is on the verge of a recession.

With revisions, June’s nonfarm payroll growth is now -13,000. That’s the first month of net job losses since December 2020. And the underemployment rate — or U6, which includes the unemployed, those employed part time who want a full-time job, and those who want a job but aren’t looking for one currently — rose to 8.1%, its highest level since October 2021.

Some see this data as much more concerning than the market reaction implies.

“Since a month or two ago, policy hawks, growth bulls (I call them wrong), have been arguing two things. First, sequential growth should perk up because the weakness in the summer was all a function of uncertainty around Liberation Day. Second, focus on the ratios because the unemployment rate is still low,” Neil Dutta, head of US economics at Renaissance Macro Research, wrote. “Both of these views were wrong as we now know. Employment growth is still cooling (there is no uptick in hours either) and the unemployment rate is rising. Bye Felicia!”

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Max Knoblauch

Gaming stocks plunge following release of Google’s AI tool that can create playable, copyrighted worlds

Shares of major gaming companies are plunging on Friday as investors get a deeper look at the capabilities of Google’s new generative-AI prototype, Project Genie.

The tool allows users to “create and explore infinitely diverse worlds” with a text or image prompt. Users have already exposed its ability to realistically recreate knockoffs of copyrighted games from Nintendo and other gaming companies.

As users experiment with recreations of game worlds like Take-Two’s “Grand Theft Auto 6,” shares of major gaming companies are sinking. Unity Software, the maker of the popular Unity game engine, is down over 25%, while gaming platform Roblox is down about 9%.

Collision 2019 - Day One

D-Wave Quantum CEO on what’s next after the most eventful month in the company’s history

“If 2025 was the international year of quantum, 2026 is the international year of D-Wave Quantum,” said CEO Dr. Alan Baratz.

Luke Kawa4h
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Matt Phillips

SoFi bests Wall Street’s Q4 expectations, shares rise

SoFi Technologies reported better-than-expected Q4 sales and earnings-per-share numbers Friday before market open, sending the shares higher in the premarket. 

The online lender reported: 

  • Adjusted Q4 earnings per share of $0.13 vs. the $0.12 consensus estimate collected by FactSet.

  • Adjusted revenue of $1.01 billion in Q4 vs. the Wall Street forecast for $977.4 million.

  • Q1 2026 adjusted net revenue guidance of approximately $1.04 billion vs. the $1.04 billion consensus expectation, according to FactSet.

SoFi shares rallied roughly 70% last year, as the company’s growing menu of financial products — including trading, wealth management, mortgages, credit cards, and cryptocurrency trading — showed signs of gaining traction beyond its traditional base of student borrowers. But the stock has stumbled in early 2026, falling nearly 7% in January through Thursday’s close, though most of that slump seems to have been reversed this morning.

markets
Matt Phillips

Exxon Mobil beats Q4 earnings bogeys, despite softer chemical results

Exxon slid in early trading Friday despite reporting better-than-expected Q4 numbers. 

The largest US energy company by revenue reported:

  • Q4 revenue of $82.31 billion vs. analysts’ $80.63 billion consensus expectation, per FactSet.

  • Adjusted earnings per share of $1.71 vs. the $1.70 analysts predicted, according to FactSet.

  • Global production of 4.99 million oil-equivalent barrels per day vs. a 4.84 million expectation on Wall Street.

Analysts at RBC Capital spotlighted weaker margins in its chemical division, which is one factor that could be weighing on sentiment. Writing about the division’s earnings, they noted:

“Chemicals products results were particularly weak (-$11m vs consensus +$271m). Notably, this is the first negative result for XOM’s chemicals product division since 4Q19, and highlights the severity of the chemicals downturn the industry is facing.”

Low oil prices have dogged sales and profits at oil giants like Exxon over the last year.

But the recent surge in tensions between the US and oil-rich nations like Venezuela and Iran have contributed to rising oil prices in early 2026, with benchmark US crude oil up roughly 12% since the start of the year.

This morning’s immediate reaction might just be traders taking some of the air out of the stock — Exxon was up 17% for the year through Thursday’s close, compared to a 1.8% gain for the S&P 500.

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Claire Yubin Oh

Deckers soars on record revenue thanks to Hoka and Ugg demand

Deckers had a lot to celebrate over the holiday period, with the footwear company’s shares up more than 14% as of 6:45 a.m. ET on Friday, after the Hoka and Ugg maker posted record revenue for the quarter ended December 31, 2025. The company notched:

  • Record revenue of $1.96 billion, ahead of the $1.87 billion forecast by analysts (Bloomberg consensus).

  • Adjusted earnings per share of $3.33, a whopping 21% higher than the $2.76 predicted by analysts.

Looking ahead, the company also hiked its guidance for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2026, to $5.4 billion to $5.425 billion, up from the $5.35 billion expected in the quarter before.

Deckers’ record revenue and EPS figures were “driven by the significant global demand for UGG and HOKA,” CEO Stefano Caroti said in a press release. Both brands saw “high levels of full-price selling” that resulted in a strong gross margin of 59.8%. Between the two brands, winter favorite Ugg maintained the upper hand with $1.3 billion in revenue, but Hoka saw a whopping 18.5% sales uptick (versus Ugg’s 5%) to $629 million last quarter.

Deckers also shared that the company has now repurchased stock worth $813.5 million in the last nine months, and that it expects its share repurchases to exceed $1 billion for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2026.

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