This week is basically the market doing math in the dark.

The job market looks like it hit a deep-freeze (not collapsing, just refusing to move), while Big Tech is spending like it found a bottomless corporate AmEx to keep the AI buildout humming.

Overseas, Taiwan’s export numbers are screaming “the chip and server machine is still on,” and Washington is trying to build a friend-group supply chain for critical minerals.

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The Big Picture

Trade

A Trade Truce Is Costing the U.S. Economy Its Tech Guardrails

A string of tech security actions targeting Chinese-linked telecom operations, data center equipment, routers, and electric vehicles has been quietly put on hold.

The timing is not accidental — it aligns with a diplomatic window ahead of a high-level summit in April.

For the U.S. economy, the pause creates a strange trade-off.

Diplomatic goodwill improves the trade outlook, but it also leaves fast-growing sectors like AI infrastructure and data centers exposed to foreign hardware risks at exactly the moment buildout is accelerating.

Data Centers Are the Blind Spot

U.S. data center capacity is expected to double by 2030, and the equipment going into those facilities is now at the center of the debate.

Shelving restrictions on Chinese-linked hardware keeps supply chains open, but so do the potential vulnerabilities baked into critical digital infrastructure.

The AI boom needs speed, but speed without security screening comes at a cost. That tension is not going away after any single summit.

Rare Earths Hold the Other End of the Leash

Beijing's willingness to restrict rare-earth mineral exports gives it powerful counter-leverage, and Washington knows it.

Easing tech curbs is partly a response to that pressure, creating a dynamic where both sides trade concessions without fully resolving the underlying risks.

Diplomacy keeps the gears turning, but the macro question remains: what happens when the truce ends and the vulnerabilities are already built in?

Tourism

Foreign Tourists Are Choosing Everywhere But America

Foreign travel to the United States dropped 5.4% through November 2025, even as global tourism rose nearly 7%.

Canadian visits alone fell by four million — a 22% decline that hit cities, parks, and theme parks hardest. European bookings are sliding too, down 14% over recent months.

The gap between global travel growth and U.S. decline tells a clear story. The world is traveling more, just not to America.

Tourism Dollars Leave a Big Footprint

International visitors do more than fill hotel rooms. They feed restaurant revenue, drive retail spending, and anchor local economies in cities that depend on steady tourist traffic.

When per-room revenue and occupancy rates fall domestically while rising in every other global region, the drag shows up across hospitality balance sheets fast.

National park bookings from key markets have cratered, luxury itineraries are being scrapped, and major operators are shifting marketing spend toward domestic travelers to fill the gap.

Perception Is Doing the Damage

Tighter entry screening proposals and shifting immigration enforcement have created a perception problem, even where actual border data has not changed dramatically.

Travelers have options, and when uncertainty enters the booking process, other destinations are happy to absorb the demand.

The U.S. travel economy runs on confidence and convenience. Right now, both are taking hits — and the competition is not waiting around.

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Agriculture

Rural America's Biggest Export Market Is Suddenly on the Table

The three-way trade agreement between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico turned North America into the most integrated agricultural market on the planet.

U.S. farmers, ranchers, and food processors built entire business models around duty-free access to their two largest export partners.

Corn, dairy, beef, and poultry all flow through a system designed to keep rural economies humming.

Now that the system faces a renewal deadline in July, the range of outcomes runs from a smooth extension to a full withdrawal.

For an industry that depends on predictable cross-border demand, uncertainty alone is enough to slow investment and tighten margins.

40 Groups, One Message

A coalition of roughly 40 agriculture organizations has launched a coordinated campaign to defend the agreement, emphasizing what open borders have meant for jobs and revenue across farm country.

The push includes advertising, research, and direct lobbying to keep trade architecture intact.

When that many industry voices align at once, it signals real anxiety. Agriculture does not mobilize like this over hypotheticals — it mobilizes when the economic stakes are immediate.

Renegotiation Risk Hits Different in Rural America

Breaking the deal into separate agreements or abandoning it entirely would rewire supply chains that took years to build.

Producers cannot pivot overnight when their top two buyers suddenly face new barriers.

Farm revenue is trade revenue, and the margin for disruption in rural economies is thinner than most sectors can absorb.

Metrics to Watch

• Hiring Temperature Check
  Job openings are drifting lower and hiring is crawling. That’s a bad vibe for job seekers, but for markets it can mean fewer wage flare-ups.
  
  Watch for any sign the freeze is thawing or turning into layoffs.
  
  

• Quits Rate and Worker Confidence
  People are not quitting like they used to. That is usually a sign workers feel the market is fragile.
  
  If quits stay low, hiring stays low too, because companies do a lot of hiring just to replace people who leave.
  
  

• The Delayed Payroll Drop (Wed, Feb. 11)
  This one is the main event. Markets are going to treat it like a final exam, even though it is one test on one day.
  
  A soft number keeps rate-cut chatter alive. A hotter number brings back the yields are sticky storyline.
  
  

• Wage Growth Pulse (also Wed, Feb. 11)
  Even if job growth is sleepy, wages can still cause drama. If wages cool, bonds usually relax and stocks breathe easier.
  
  If wages re-accelerate, expect rate-cut optimism to get punted downfield.
  
  

• Taiwan Export Momentum (Now Through Q1)
  Taiwan’s export surge is a clean read on whether AI hardware demand is still ripping.
  
  If this stays strong, the data-center supply chain keeps humming. If it fades fast, the market will start asking who is overbuilding and who is just early.

Market Movers

🚀 AI Capex: the New Moonshot, but with Invoices
The buildout is reaching historic scale, and markets are rewarding the companies that can prove the spending turns into real revenue.

The tell is not the size of the check, it’s whether margins and cash flow still look healthy while the cranes are up.

🧊 The Job Market: Frozen, Not Shattered
Low hiring with limited firing is a weird combo. It can keep the economy chugging, but it also makes consumers nervous and job switching harder.

For stocks, that usually means quality and balance sheets matter more than hype and vibes.

🏛️ Fed Leadership Drama: Careful What You Wish For
Presidents have learned the hard way that picking a Fed chair does not guarantee easy money forever.

Markets will keep reacting to any hint of pressure on independence, because that is where inflation fears and risk premiums can wake up fast.

⛏️ The Minerals Race: Supply Chains Get a New Friend List
The U.S. is trying to build a preferred club for critical minerals with allies. If that effort speeds up, it can be a tailwind for non-China supply and long-lead projects.

If it turns into tariff-heavy policy fights, expect more volatility in anything tied to industrial inputs.

Market Impacts

Equities: Stocks are trying to keep the good mood going after the Dow tagged fresh highs, but nobody’s pretending the ride will be smooth.

Tech is back in the driver’s seat after a shaky patch, yet the market still feels like it can change its mind by lunchtime.

How to play it: Stay picky. Favor businesses with real earnings power and pricing power, and be a little more cautious with the high-drama names that only work when everyone is feeling brave.

Bonds: Treasury yields are basically parked while markets wait for the big data stack to drop.

When everyone’s staring at the calendar, bonds tend to trade like they’re holding their breath.

How to play it: If you want income without mood swings, the short-to-intermediate part of the curve still does the job.

Keep some flexibility, because one hot inflation print can move yields fast.

Currencies: The dollar has been a bit softer heading into the week’s main releases, which is classic pre-data behavior.

The yen is holding onto recent gains, but the longer-term vibe still depends on Japan’s fiscal and policy headlines.

How to play it: Keep time horizons short. FX has been a headline sport lately, and the next strong U.S. number can flip the script quickly.

Commodities: Oil is drifting with a small geopolitical premium still hanging around, mostly because anything involving the Strait of Hormuz keeps traders twitchy.

Gold is staying elevated but trading cautiously as everyone waits to see what the data implies for rates.

How to play it: Treat energy like a range-bound trade until the headline risk breaks one way. Keep gold as insurance, but size it like insurance, not like a lottery ticket.

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Key Indicators to Watch

• Initial Jobless Claims (Thu, 8:30 a.m. ET) - A quick check on whether layoffs are staying calm. A quiet number supports the soft-landing crowd.
  
  A jump tends to help high-quality bonds and spook the more cyclical corners of the stock market.
  
  

• Existing Home Sales (Thu, 10:00 a.m. ET) - A reality check on housing demand under still-not-cheap borrowing costs.
  
  Stronger sales can lift housing-adjacent names and signal the consumer is hanging in. Weak sales usually push investors toward defensives.
  
  

• Fed Governor Stephen Miran speaks (Thu, 7:05 p.m. ET) - Markets will listen for any hints on the Fed’s comfort level with inflation and growth.
  
  A more hawkish tone can firm the dollar and push yields up. A gentler tone can do the opposite, especially if data is already cooling.
  
  

• Consumer Price Index, headline (Fri, 8:30 a.m. ET) - The big temperature check. In line or cooler helps risk assets breathe and keeps rate-cut hopes alive.
  
  Hotter than expected can bring back the higher-for-longer mood fast.
  
  

• Core CPI (Fri, 8:30 a.m. ET) - This is the part markets obsess over because it strips out the noisiest categories.
  
  If core stays sticky, yields can pop and stocks can get choppy. If it eases, it tends to be friendlier for both bonds and quality growth stocks.

Everything Else

• 🧊 January turned into a hiring deep-freeze, with layoff plans jumping while companies pulled back on new openings.

•  A new NY Fed read suggests near-term inflation expectations cooled, helped by a steadier jobs vibe for households.

• 🚢 Taiwan’s exports came out swinging, with AI-driven demand pushing growth to its fastest pace in years.

• 🏦 An ECB policymaker poured some cold water on the pivot crowd, saying it would take a major inflation shift to reopen the rate-cut debate.

• 🪑 U.S. job openings slid to a multi-year low, another sign the labor market is losing heat even if layoffs stay contained