CNBC Business News Update - Market Open: Stocks Lower, Microsoft Shares Drop 10%, Jobless Claims Low Last Week 1/29/26

Episode Date: January 29, 2026

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Jessica Eddinger, the NBC, Wall Street's in the red now. The Dow is down 10 points, being led lower by shares of Microsoft, which are down 10%. The S&P 500 index down 28th, the NASDAQ, plunging 245 points a full 1%. Shares of Nvidia are down about a 10th of a percent. Investors have been combing through some of the earnings reports from the big tech names. Investors also watching the price of oil. climb. It's at its highest since last September. As President Trump said, an armada is on its way to Iran. They're also watching the U.S. government careening toward a possible shutdown this weekend. More people applied for unemployment benefits last week than expected. And the week before's numbers were revised higher. The numbers are still below. Pre-pandemic weekly averages, though. $209,000 is where we come out. Our last look gets upgraded to $210,000. Now, even though we see the revision is higher, and this is higher than expectations, it's very hard for me to get nervous about $209,000. Historically, it's still a very, very, very low level. CNBC's Rick Santelli, but Dow announced more than 4,000 job cuts today. Home Depot announced 800. Add that to Amazon this week announcing 6,000. 16,000 people would be cut. UPS cutting 30,000 people. Nike and Pinterest also announced job cuts this week.

Former Fed Governor Roger Ferguson talked about this with CNBC's Becky Quick. Do you feel like we're going to get to a point where you could have a very strong economy, but the labor market underneath it is considerably weaker? I do. I think we're on the cusp of that. I do certainly think based on what I'm saying that the number of institutions are starting to understand the use of AI. Overall, I think we're starting to see the leading edge of an AI productivity impact in the economy. Copper hit a fresh all-time high today. Copper prices can impact the home builders, especially in the U.S. Gold coming off its ninth record high of the year from yesterday, silver sitting just below its all-time high. Facebook parent meta shares were jumping 9% on strong results. Microsoft going the other way. It was lower on its quarter.

quarterly results. Service Now shares also struggling today. Royal Caribbean cruising up 7%. It's forecasting even better numbers for this current quarter than previously thought. IBM shares are higher. Its AI business is booming and it's out with strong quarterly results. Lockheed Martin's shares were up on its results as investors see the Trump administration beefing up U.S. defense. Low-cost airline Southwest, now like the big guys, not low-cost anymore. Shares are higher on a stronger outlook. Now that open seating is gone and the airline can charge for seat location and a lot more. The money's rolling in. Here's CNBC's Phil LeBoe and Southwest CEO Bob Jordan.

The move to assigned seating, it just sets up terrific momentum for 2026. People will pay up a little bit for that, but also for baggage fees. These are the kind of things that your competitors have been doing for some time. Because this is a change to the business model, all of this works together. So giving our customers choice, offering them extra legroom seating, offering them different products, and they can buy up. And obviously, you can buy a seat location. And we have fairs that have bag fees and no back fees.

So we're giving our customers choice. Netflix releasing the first half of season four of its popular Bridgerton series today. Jessica Eddinger, CNBC. Take the bull by the horns. Every morning with Jim's Top 10. Right to your inbox. Sign up now for free at cnbc.com slash top 10.