Traders on the floor of the NYSE, July 6, 2023.
- Stocks have given back some of their impressive first-half gains in recent days.
- The Labor Department's June readout of nonfarm payrolls showed a job market that's beginning to ease.
- Twitter accused Meta of stealing trade secrets in the development of its new Threads app.
Here are the most important news items that investors need to start their trading day:
1. Giving back
Stocks have given back some of their impressive first-half gains in recent days, as each of the major averages heads for a losing week. Through Thursday, the S&P 500 is down about 0.9%, the Nasdaq Composite is on pace for a 0.8% decline, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is off about 1.4%. Investors are sensitive to any clues that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates even further. On Thursday, stocks slipped after a strong private-sector jobs report from ADP. Follow live market updates.
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2. Big jobs
It's the first Friday of a new month, and that means big jobs data from the Labor Department. The June readout of nonfarm payrolls showed a job market that's beginning to ease, adding a less-than-expected 209,000 jobs and notching an unemployment rate of 3.6%. The U.S. jobs market "keeps ticking in a way that we didn't think is possible," Thomas Simons, an economist at Jefferies, said prior to the report. "My longer-term stance is that this is basically the last gasp of strength."
3. Matters of national security
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang in Beijing on Friday, defending American actions to protect its national security as the countries ratchet up trade controls on each other. "The United States will, in certain circumstances, need to pursue targeted actions to protect its national security," Yellen said Friday, according to prepared remarks. "We should not allow any disagreement to lead to misunderstandings that unnecessarily worsen our bilateral economic and financial relationship." Yellen added there are "important global challenges" where the U.S. and China need to "cooperate and show leadership." Just this week, China imposed new restrictions on businesses wanting to export two metals used in the manufacturing of chips. And, the Wall Street Journal reported the U.S. was looking to curb Chinese access to cloud computing services.
4. Pulling threads
Twitter accused Meta of stealing trade secrets in the development of its new Threads app, which has seen impressive early uptake since its Wednesday night launch. The app passed 30 million users in its first 16 hours after launch and is essentially a Twitter copycat. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg even poked fun at the situation, tweeting a Spider-Man meme that's commonly used to signify similarities. Still, a Meta spokesperson said, "No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee ... That's just not a thing." Twitter's lawyer, in a letter to Meta dated the same day as the Threads launch, didn't outline specific instances or examples of what the company called "systematic" and "unlawful misappropriation" of trade secrets. (Don't forget, too, Twitter owner Elon Musk has proposed a cage match against Zuckerberg.)
5. Tip relief
American tipping culture has gotten a bit out of hand, with options to tip on top of a transaction spreading to new, and curious, types of businesses and spurring questions about ethics and etiquette. Point-of-sale systems from Toast and Square have made it easier for takeout spots or small shops to prompt customers for an optional tip. But restaurateur Danny Meyer, who founded Shake Shack and Union Square Hospitality Group, is here to offer one form of relief: You can stop tipping at the coffee counter. "If you're just taking out food, and it was just a transaction — I give you money, you give me a cup of coffee — I don't think there's any obligation to tip whatsoever," Meyer told CNBC Thursday.
Money Report
– CNBC's Brian Evans, Jeff Cox, Evelyn Cheng, Rohan Goswami and Amelia Lucas contributed to this report.
— Follow broader market action like a pro on CNBC Pro.
Correction: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Jefferies economist Thomas Simons' name.
