Futures Point to Lower Open After Volatile Week; Bitcoin Slips Back Beneath $70,000

Here’s How Much Mortgage Rates Should Fall to Bring Housing Within Reach for Buyers

FROM 22 minutes ago

Some housing markets are so expensive that they would still be unaffordable even if rates plummeted. In other areas, a small decline in rates would be enough to make homeownership possible for many buyers.

A 2025 Zillow report found that mortgage rates nationwide would need to fall more than 4% to make the typical home affordable for a median-income family.

Currently, the average mortgage rate on a 30-year, fixed-interest loan is 6.11%.2The study assumed a 20% down payment and defined affordability as a monthly mortgage payment of less than 30% of the median household income.New York, Los Angeles, and Miami are examples of big cities with rising home values that wouldn’t be affordable even with a 0% mortgage rate. New York’s average home value is over $800,000, while in Los Angeles it’s just shy of $1 million.

Boston and Seattle are also pricey, and borrowing costs would have to fall to below 1% to achieve affordability. Dallas, New Orleans, and Nashville would have to see rates drop by more than two percentage points in order for housing to be affordable there. 

Read the full article here.

–Terry Lane

Monday.com Stock Tanks on Soft Guidance

FROM 1 hr 7 min ago

Monday is not looking like it’s going to be a joyous day for Monday.com (MNDY) stockholders.

Shares of Monday.com tanked 15% before the bell after the Tel Aviv-based AI work platform firm issued weaker-than-expected current-quarter and full-year guidance.

Monday.com said it expects fiscal 2026 first-quarter revenue of $338 million to $340 million and adjusted operating income of $37 million to $39 million. Analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha expect $342.6 million and $45.3 million, respectively.

For the full year, the Israeli firm sees revenue between $1.452 billion and $1.462 billion and adjusted operating income of $165 million to $175 million. Visible Alpha consensus calls for $1.47 billion and $219.0 million.

Monday.com’s fiscal 2025 fourth-quarter adjusted earnings of $1.04 per share and revenue of $333.9 million topped estimates. The company said it had record net adds of customers with more than $100,000 in ARR.

“While foreign exchange rates have created some near-term pressure on margins, the underlying fundamentals remain healthy and we continue to see momentum with larger customers,” CFO Eliran Glazer said.

The company’s shares entered Monday having lost a third of their value over the last month. They are down more than 60% over the past 12 months.

The Data Industry Has Lost 6,700 Jobs Amid AI Boom

FROM 1 hr 31 min ago

The AI investment boom has been a job creation dud, even within its own industry.

Despite massive investments in data centers and artificial intelligence software—an estimated $427 billion in 2025 alone, according to RBC—the year ended in the midst of a job creation slump.

Remarkably, there were actually fewer people working in the industry at the center of the AI boom: in December 2025, 477,700 people were employed in “Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services” according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, down 6,700 from December 2024.

Tech companies are pouring billions into the construction of new data centers and are even building nuclear power plants and gas turbines to power them. Elon Musk says he is going so far as making plans to build data centers in outer space for his xAI project. But very few people actually work in those data centers once they’re up and running.

To the extent that AI is affecting the job market, the debate has focused on whether the software is costing jobs, not creating them. Several major employers have said they are reducing headcounts as they expand the use of AI. Economists have dubbed the phenomenon a “jobless profit boom.”

–Diccon Hyatt

Stock Futures Point Lower After Volatile Week

FROM 2 hr 14 min ago

Futures contracts connected to the Dow Jones Industrial Average pointed 0.1% lower.

S&P 500 futures were down 0.3%.

Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.5%.