The Rundown - Jobs Report Blow Past Forecasts, Ford Hit With $900M Tariff Shock

Episode Date: February 11, 2026

Market update for Wednesday February 11, 2026Check out the Public app for incredible investing tools and to support the show (LINK)Follow us on Instagram (@TheRundownDaily) for bonus content and instant reactions.In today’s episode:AI disruption fears spread from software to financial stocksU.S. adds 130,000 jobs in January, unemployment falls to 4.3%Ford reports an $11.1B quarterly loss after a surprise $900M tariff hitActivist investor takes $200M stake in WBD,  pushes board to reconsider $72B Netflix dealBeta Technologies jumps after Amazon stake disclosureLyft plunges on revenue miss, despite $1B buybackNew poll shows Americans bullish on stocks in 2026 even as inflation and unemployment concerns remain

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zaid Admani, and today is Wednesday, February 11th. In today's episode, we'll recap the latest jobs report and why the market is panicking about AI. We'll also recap earnings from Ford and Lyft. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out what Americans are saying about the economy. We got a great show for you today. Let's go. Markets took a bit of a breather on Tuesday. The S&P 500 slipped 0.3%, while the NASDAQ fell 0.6%. And this time the market was dragged down by the financial sector. You guys remember how last week investors got freaked out about AI disrupting software companies, which caused

the SaaSpocalypse with software stocks selling off? Well, now those fears have come to the finance industry. On Tuesday, a fintech company called Altruist announced a new AI tool that can create personalized tax strategies and interpret financial statements. Basically, it can do what an entire team of financial advisors currently do, but for much cheaper. And that caused stocks like Charles Robb and Raymond Jones to have their worst day in years dropping more than 7%. You know, the market seems to have this self-first, ask questions later mentality right now when it comes to AI. Anytime there's a new AI tool announced, investors are freaking out. Now, I think it's a bit of an overreaction, but things are changing so fast with AI,

and that's leading to uncertainty, and that's why we're having all this volatility. Personally, though, I don't mind the volatility. You know, it keeps things interesting, and it creates opportunities to buy the dip. Now, zooming out there, let's talk macroeconomics, because we got the January jobs report this morning, and it came in way stronger than expected. The U.S. economy added 130,000 jobs in January, which crushed the 55,000 that Wall Street was expecting. and unemployment actually fell to 4.3% from 4.4%, which was also a surprise. Now, this report did include some revisions to prior years. Turns out, 2024 only added 1.2 million jobs, and not the 2 million initially reported.

And 2025 was even worse. Only 181,000 jobs were added versus the 584,000 previously estimated. So the labor market was way weaker last year than we thought, but things seemed to be stabilizing heading into 2026. And I wonder what the Fed's going to do now. probably going to wait to cut interest rates because of the strong labor market data. We're also getting a CPI inflation report on Friday. I'm sure that's going to play a role in the Fed's decision as well.

So yeah, there is a lot going on right now with the anxiety and volatility around AI. We're still going through earnings season and we're getting macroeconomic data as well. So we're going to be staying on top of all of it. So make sure you guys are subscribed to the podcast and tuning in every day to stay in the loop. Let's run through some headlines. Starting with Ford. Ford reported earnings last night, and the numbers were not great. The company posted its worst quarterly earnings miss in four years.

In the fourth quarter, Ford earned just 13 cents per share, which was well below the 19th cents that analysts expected. Now, the reason for the miss was a surprise $900 million tariff hit that showed up at the very end of the year. See, the Trump administration announced a tariff relief program in October that would give automakers like Ford credits to offset tariffs on imported auto parts. Now Ford assumed this would retroactively apply to tariffs going all the way back to May. But then on December 23rd, the Trump administration told Ford the credits would only apply

starting in November. Ford was not expecting that and that added another $900 million to Ford's tariff bill last year. And overall, the company paid $2 billion in tariffs in 2025. But beyond just tariffs, Ford also took a 19.5. billion dollar restructuring charge related to pulling back on its EV business. So overall, Ford reported $8.2 billion in net losses for 2025. That's their worst since the Great Recession in 2008. And as for the EV business, Ford's CFO said the company will continue to lose money

on EVs until 2029. But you know, despite reporting those terrible Q4 numbers, Ford stock is actually up this morning because they gave a pretty optimistic guidance for 2026. They're expecting adjusted earnings to come in between $8 billion and $10 billion. And a big reason for that is that Ford expects us the high demand for trucks and SUVs, which have higher margins. You know, thanks to recent regulatory changes that have eased fuel economy penalties, Ford can now crank out as many pickup trucks and SUVs they want without getting fine. And that's why Ford stock is up like 2% this morning.

Investors are ignoring all the tariff hits and the EV losses, and they're focused on the upside of more trucks and SUVs. Let's shift gears. pun intended, and talk about Netflix and Warner Brothers. Now, we haven't talked about the Netflix Warner Brothers acquisition in a while, and things are getting messier. We got activist investors involved now. According to the Wall Street Journal,

the activist investor and Cora Holdings has built a $200 million stake in Warner's and is pushing the company to walk away from the $72 billion deal with Netflix and merge with Paramount instead. Now, when I first read this headline, I was a little confused because $200 million is less than 1% of what Warner Brothers is worth. So Encore doesn't really have much influence yet, but the firm says they're going to keep buying more shares, and they've threatened a full-blown proxy fight if the Warner Board doesn't listen to them. And Cora thinks that the Paramount deal is better because it's more

money, it's for the entire company and not just the streaming business, and that it'll have less antitrust hurdles to close the deal compared to Netflix. You know, Netflix is already facing some regulatory pushback. In fact, Netflix executives were in Washington, D.C. last week testifying in front of the Senate regarding this deal. So that's why Enkora wants Warner's to go with the Paramount deal. Now, I also think that Paramount's going to face some regulatory resistance as well. What I found interesting was that Enkora thinks that Warner's CEO David Zazlov is pushing the Netflix deal so hard because he's trying to land an executive role at Netflix after

the transaction closes. You know, there's been reporting that David Zazlop will receive up to $500 million in compensation if the Netflix deal closes. So, yeah, we'll see what happens. Another episode in the Warner's Netflix Paramount saga. You know, Warner's shareholder vote is expected to go down sometime next month. But yeah, I don't see this deal closing any time this year, which means I'm going to keep having to pay for HBO.

I just want HBO to be bundled with Netflix so I can save 12 bucks a month. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Shares of an electric aircraft maker, beta technologies are soaring this morning after an SEC filing revealed that Amazon owns about 5% of the company. Now, what's funny is that this isn't even new news. Amazon originally invested in Beta back in 2021, but maybe the SEC filing reminded investors that Amazon is still a major shareholder.

Now, on top of that, the company also got a stock upgrade from Jeffries, which upgraded the stock to a buy rating with a $50 price target. Now, Beta makes these electric airplanes that can take off and land vertically. This was a hot space a few years ago. Other companies include Jobi and Archer. But things have cooled off a bit. No, beta recently went public back in November of 2025 at $34 a share. And by yesterday's close, the stock was down 41% from its IPO price.

But it's up more than 20% this morning at the time of this recording. Now, on the flip side, Lyft is getting absolutely crushed this morning after reporting terrible fourth quarter results. The revenues for the ride sharing company only grew 3% in Q4 year over year, which is pretty bad when compared to Uber's 20% growth. in the same quarter. The ride metrics were also weak. Lyft had 29.2 million active riders, and total riders came in at 243.5 million, both of those missing Wall Street estimates. And then to make matters worse, guidance for Q1 was also disappointing. Now, despite the slower growth, Lyft announced a $1 billion share buyback program, hoping that was going to help their stock price. It didn't. They also tried to spin 2026 as the year of the AV with their

anonymous vehicle partnerships. Investors just aren't buying it, though. Livestock is down more than 15% this morning at the time of this recording. Let's wrap the show with the fun fact. Americans are feeling pretty mixed about the economy. According to a new Gallup poll release this week, 50% of Americans think the stock market will go up over the next six months, while only 25% think that it will go down. On top of that, about 49% expect economic growth to improve compared to 36% who think that it'll get worse. So that sounds pretty bullish, right? Well, the poll also shows that 62% of Americans think that inflation is going to rise

and 50% expect unemployment to also increase. So yeah, the poll is sending mixed signals. People want to feel bullish, but they're also worried about inflation and labor market. Now, if you're digging a bit deeper into the numbers, the optimism is heavily split along party lines. Republicans are overwhelmingly bullish and Democrats are much more pessimistic. And you know, that's one reason why I don't put too much weight into these polls anymore. They're very divided and partisan at this point.

Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. I hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. If you did, and you have like five extra seconds, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you listen to your podcast. And if you are listening on Spotify, don't forget to vote in today's Spotify poll. Leave us a comment on Spotify. All that engagement really does help us out. and helps other people find the show. Thank you guys so much for listening,

watching and commenting. Shout out to Mike and Connor for all the work behind the scenes. And we'll see you guys back here tomorrow. Frozen lasagna, medium power, 15 minutes. Sounds like Ojo time. Let's play. Feel the fun with Play-Ojo.

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