New York, Jan 9, 2026, 13:35 (EST) — Regular session
- Dow up about 0.5% in midday trading; S&P 500 hits an intraday record
- December payrolls miss forecasts; unemployment rate slips to 4.4%
- Supreme Court tariff case remains a swing factor for rates and risk appetite
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose on Friday as a softer U.S. jobs report kept markets leaning toward rate cuts later in the year. At 12:17 p.m. ET, the Dow was up 267.68 points, or 0.54%, at 49,533.79, while the S&P 500 hit an intraday record and the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.73%. 1
Why it matters now: the labor market print is the cleanest signal investors have had in weeks on where growth is headed after last year’s long government shutdown delayed key data. Nonfarm payrolls rose 50,000 in December, below economists’ 60,000 forecast, while the unemployment rate dipped to 4.4% and annual wage growth picked up to 3.8%. 2
Rate pricing shifted but did not break. Fed funds futures — contracts tied to where traders see the policy rate going — implied only a 4.8% chance of a cut at the Federal Reserve’s Jan. 27-28 meeting, down from 11.6% before the report, according to LSEG data. “Payrolls were a little bit light relative to consensus, but still fairly strong numbers,” said Tim Ghriskey, a senior portfolio strategist at Ingalls & Snyder. 3
Some of the action also rode the power-and-AI trade. Meta Platforms signed 20-year agreements to buy nuclear power from three Vistra plants and said it would work with Oklo and TerraPower on small modular reactors, a push to lock in long-term electricity for data centers. 4
Housing-linked names jumped again after President Donald Trump ordered $200 billion of mortgage bond purchases aimed at bringing down housing costs, a move some analysts said could narrow mortgage spreads. “Every little bit will help push mortgage yields lower,” Brian Jacobsen, chief economic strategist at Annex Wealth Management, told Reuters. 5
Thursday’s close set the tone going into the payrolls test. The Dow ended up 0.55% at 49,266.11 as defense stocks rallied after Trump floated a bigger military budget, while big tech sagged and investors picked at AI valuations. “While AI is still hot, there are going to be winners and losers,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth. 6
But the big tail risk sitting over screens is legal and political, not just economic. A Supreme Court decision on Trump’s use of emergency tariff powers could jolt markets, Reuters reported, especially if the justices strike down the duties imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — a 1977 law designed for national emergencies. “We’ve never seen a ruling that has such an economic impact,” said Eddie Ghabour, CEO of Key Advisors Wealth Management. 7
Next up, investors get U.S. consumer price index data for December on Tuesday, Jan. 13, then the Supreme Court returns to the bench on Wednesday, Jan. 14, when it is expected to issue its next set of rulings — without saying in advance which cases make the cut. 8
