Wall Street Today | US Jobs Report and Powell Testimony Take Center Stage

US job growth probably moderated last month after a blistering January pace, while the unemployment rate likely held at a 53-year low, illustrating a labor market that’s proved mostly impervious to the Federal Reserve’s massive interest-rate hikes.

The report will follow testimony by Fed Chair Jerome Powell as he delivers semi-annual monetary policy report to lawmakers. His comments may shed light on whether investors are in tune with the central bank’s view on how high it will have to raise rates to knock down inflation.

Commodity traders likely saw a record $115.6 billion in gross margin last year on market volatility driven by Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to a new report.

If confirmed by trading companies’ annual profit figures — many of which haven’t been released yet — it would be a 61% increase over the previous year, consultants Oliver Wyman said in the study.

Oil companies pulled in record profits in 2022, as oil prices skyrocketed. But that has also spurred backlash from consumer advocates and political leaders.

The industry has said the depiction of oil companies as greedy war profiteers is false. "You continue to hear this administration talk about the need for more supply, but they propose windfall profits, taxes or price gouging, or they lock up federal lands for oil and gas development,” said Frank Macchiarola, senior vice president of policy, economics, and regulatory affairs at the American Petroleum Institute. "They talk about the need for permitting reform and more infrastructure, but then they turn around and cancel pipeline projects."

As inflation cools and retailers put pressure on suppliers to stop raising prices, food companies have had to look for growth elsewhere. Nearly 60% of U.S. households own an air fryer, according to Nestle’s Adam Graves.

The next iMac will continue to come in the same 24-inch screen size as the current model, which was announced in April 2021. The versions being tested also come in the same colors as the current iMac, a palette that includes blue, silver, pink and orange.

Nearly a year later, Spotify has only approved spending of $5,000, they said, despite union members proposing projects they believed fell under the fund umbrella.

It was late 2022, and shareholders were counting on Dan Schulman to pull the stock out of a yearlong slide that’s erased $279 billion in market value. At the end of October, Chairman John Donahoe felt compelled to bat back the speculation: “The board has never discussed replacing Dan." A few months later, Schulman himself announced his plans to go.