CNBC Business News Update - Market Open: Stocks Mixed, ADP Job Creation Numbers Fall Short For January, Gold Higher 2/4/26

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

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I'm Jessica Eddinger. CNBC, Wall Street, mixed out of the gate. The Dow popping 268 points. Amgen, the drug maker shares. Leading it higher, they're up more than 3% this morning. Merck shares are up 2%. The S&P 500 index in the red by 2 points. The NASDAQ falling 108 points.

That's about a half a percent. Shares of Invidia down 1.5% out of the gate. Markets are coming off yesterday's fall for stocks. investors started to realize that AI could replace a lot of the software made by a lot of the big names. Absolutely. Let's take a look at those software companies. And we've been seeing this, like, we've been seeing cracks already. This isn't new. Just the sell-off was very dramatic yesterday. That's Slate Stone's Aaron Gibbs on CNBC. Job creation in January came in very low for private businesses and the new numbers from payroll firm ADP at just 22,000. That was far short of expectations. Manufacturing has lost jobs every month since March of 2024. The service sector, well, without that, we wouldn't have much going on.

Small business has been extremely challenged since the Liberation Day. Tariffs at zero, a goose egg right there. It had a slight gain last month, and it's been negative before that. Medium-sized business doing a little better up 41,000 and large businesses, shedding workers this time around, down 18,000. CNBC's senior economics reporter Steve Leesman. Gold higher again today after its best day yesterday. Since 2009, it's back above $5,000 an ounce.

It's seen as a safe haven for money. Despite a lot of the rhetoric on the campaign about no more foreign wars, what you've seen is actually the president, I think, have a more realistic foreign policy, whether or not that's in Venezuela, wars we've seen strikes in Iran before. And I think you've seen our warships moving there. And I think there should be heightened expectation of potentially interaction.

and Iran some of the push in the commodities as well as I think you have administration that's also continuing despite maybe not admitting that rhetorically, but their record shows a continued devaluation of the dollar, which I think pushes capital into commodities. That's Vice President Mike Pence's former chief of staff, Mark Short, on CNBC. Bitcoin going the other way. It broke below 73,000 to its lowest since before Thanksgiving of 2024. Drugmaker Novo Nordisk shares are lower. It's got the blockbuster diabetes and weight loss drugs, OZempic and Wagovi. But the CEO warns that revenue is going to get worse before it gets better as the company's lowering some prices. But drug maker Eli Lilly shares are higher.

That's Novo's competitor. Lilly has also lowered prices for the diabetes and weight loss drugs, Majaro and Zepbound. There's some differences here. One, Lily's the market leader here in the U.S. and abroad in both diabetes and obesity now in revenue. And to Zepatide, the ingredient in Zepamonjarro, patients really experienced not only increased weight loss, but better tolerability and are preferring it across the whole system. While prices have come down, people jump into the market when they see more affordability. And too many people don't get insurance here. We'd like to expand that.

We will expand that this year with the government deal we struck. But when the prices come down, they're sensitive to that and have seen market growth. That's Eli Lilly's CEO, David Ricks. CNBC. Jessica Eddinger, CNBC. Support Black Heritage Month when you join the sharks and shop the tank. Level up your social game. Scan the code, shop the tag.

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