The Week by the Numbers
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The Week by the Numbers
AI is creating fortunes and destroying jobs in the same news cycle. Meanwhile, the rest of the economy keeps moving — just not always in the direction you'd expect.
Block Just Cut Nearly Half Its Workforce — and Blamed AI
Jack Dorsey announced Thursday that Block, the company behind Square and Cash App, is laying off more than 4,000 employees — reducing headcount from over 10,000 to just under 6,000. The reason, per Dorsey's letter to shareholders: "intelligence tools" have fundamentally changed what it means to run a company. He predicted most companies will reach the same conclusion within a year. Wall Street loved it. Block's stock surged roughly 25% in after-hours trading, because nothing says "bright future" like firing half your team. Affected employees will receive 20 weeks of severance plus one week per year of tenure.
Source: CNBC — Block Laying Off About 4,000 Employees
The AI Disruption Trade Has Wiped $2 Trillion Off Software Stocks
J.P. Morgan estimates that roughly $2 trillion in market capitalization has been erased from software companies since the start of 2026 as investors reprice the entire sector around AI disruption risk. Salesforce is down about 33% year-to-date. ServiceNow has shed 28%. Adobe, Palantir, and Shopify are all deep in the red. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF lost more than 10% in February alone. The thesis isn't that these companies are dying tomorrow — it's that their recurring-revenue models may not be as durable as everyone assumed. Hedge funds have shorted some $24 billion in software names this year.
Source: J.P. Morgan / Bloomberg — Software Sector Analysis
Asia-Pacific Stocks Are Having Their Best February Ever
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index gained 7.1% in February — its strongest February since the index was created in 1998. Europe's benchmark, meanwhile, is on an eight-month winning streak, the longest in nearly 13 years. The U.S.? Not so much. The Nasdaq has been under pressure all month as AI disruption fears hammered software stocks and investors rotated toward markets seen as more insulated from the fallout. It's a sharp reversal from 2025, when U.S. equities outperformed virtually everything.
Source: Bloomberg — Markets Wrap, February 27, 2026
The Date Jerome Powell Stops Being Fed Chair
Powell's term as Fed Chair expires May 15th, and President Trump has nominated Kevin Warsh — a former Fed Governor and Morgan Stanley alum — to replace him. But the confirmation process is far from smooth. Sen. Thom Tillis, a key Republican vote on the Banking Committee, has vowed to block any Fed Chair nominee until a DOJ investigation into the central bank is resolved. Markets initially treated the nomination as hawkish: Treasury yields climbed, the dollar strengthened, and gold dipped on the day of the announcement. Warsh has signaled he favors rate cuts in 2026 but wants to aggressively shrink the Fed's balance sheet — a combination traders are calling "QT-for-cuts."
Source: CNN / Invesco — Warsh Nomination Analysis
Beef Prices Are Up 15% From a Year Ago — and It's Not Slowing Down
If your grocery bill feels heavier than it should, it's not your imagination. Beef and veal prices rose 15% year-over-year in January, according to the USDA, making it the single biggest source of sticker shock at the supermarket right now. The U.S. cattle herd has been shrinking since 2019, and consumer demand hasn't budged. Coffee is the other culprit: nonalcoholic beverage prices jumped 4.5% over the same period, driven by surging global coffee bean costs. Overall food prices are up 2.9% — right in line with headline inflation — but the categories that hit hardest tend to be the ones you notice most.
Source: USDA Economic Research Service — Food Price Outlook, February 2026