By Sabrina Escobar

So Close. For a minute there, it looked like the S&P 500 would set its first record of the month. And then it didn't.

The market benchmark fell 0.3% on Tuesday, failing to break through its Jan. 27 closing high. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.6%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, however, did hit a new high. The Dow gained 0.1% on Tuesday, notching its third record close in a row and the seventh this year.

Just last week, the blue-chip index crossed the 50,000 mark for the first time ever. Solid returns for Dow components like Goldman Sachs, Caterpillar, Amgen, and Sherwin-Williams have propelled the index higher. Home Depot and Travelers led the index's gains today.

The broadening of the market rally since the end of 2025 has also benefited the index, writes my colleague, Paul La Monica. So far this year, non-tech sectors, such as energy, consumer staples, industrials, and materials, have outpaced the information technology sector and its Big Tech members.

On the whole, however, investors seemed to be taking a breather today ahead of the January jobs report, due Wednesday morning. Economists forecast a 75,000 increase in nonfarm payrolls, while the unemployment rate is expected to remain unchanged at 4.4%.

After today's retail sales report missed expectations (more on that later), markets could really use a strong jobs reading to calm jitters about the future of the economy. Andrew Hollenhorst, an economist at Citi, notes that a higher unemployment rate poses "more risk" to markets -- one that investors should be ready to grapple with.

White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett has seemingly been preparing investors for the possibility of weaker jobs growth ahead.

"I think that you should expect slightly smaller job numbers that are consistent with high GDP growth right now," Hassett said in a Monday CNBC interview.

"One shouldn't panic if you see a sequence of numbers that are lower than you're used to, because, again, population growth is going down and productivity growth is skyrocketing."

We'll have to see what the data show. Follow our live coverage of the jobs report here.

The Hot Stock: Datadog +13.7% The Biggest Loser: S&P Global -9.7%

Best Sector: Utilities +1.6% Worst Sector: Healthcare -0.9%

Pulling the Curtain Back on Consumers

The December 2025 retail sales report delivered a lackluster finish to what had otherwise been a better-than-feared holiday season. Sales were virtually unchanged in December from November, coming in well below the 0.4% rise economists were predicting.

The report suggests that the pullback in spending was widespread. Sales declined in eight of the 13 retail categories the Census Bureau tracks, with the biggest drops coming from tariff-sensitive categories, such as furniture, and gift-heavy sectors, such as clothing stores.

"Consumer spending has finally caught up with consumer sentiment, and not in a good way," said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Northlight Asset Management. "For months consumer confidence numbers have been disappointing and consumers have been complaining about the cost of everything -- and yet they kept spending -- however, this month's data show that consumers are no longer relentlessly increasing their level of spending."

And indeed, there are growing signs that household finances are becoming more strained. Many are contending with depleted savings, fewer job opportunities, and slower income growth -- all of which are "gradually eroding purchasing power," says Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon.

The New York Fed's latest quarterly report on household debt and credit gives us a little more insight on how consumer balance sheets are doing. Although total household debt increased by just 1%, or $191 billion, to $18.8 trillion during the fourth quarter, there are growing signs that Americans are struggling to pay off their loans.

The aggregate delinquency rate rose again in the fourth quarter, with 4.8% of outstanding debt in some stage of being overdue, up from a 4.5% overall delinquency rate in the third quarter.

Part of that increase is due to the resumption of reporting on student-loan repayments. But there's also been a worrisome uptick in mortgage delinquencies, especially among lower-income households.

My colleague Megan Leonhardt writes today that "mortgage delinquencies are an important trend to monitor because mortgage balances are the largest form of household debt. Home loans aren't easily paid off by short-term gains such as higher tax refunds."

The Calendar

Albemarle, Ameren, AppLovin, Cisco Systems, Equinix, Generac Holdings, Hilton Worldwide Holdings, Humana, Kraft Heinz, Martin Marietta Materials, McDonald's, Motorola Solutions, NiSource, Paycom Software, Rollins, Shopify, T-Mobile US, Vertiv Holdings, Waste Connections, and Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies report quarterly results tomorrow.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the jobs report for January. This release was originally scheduled for Feb. 6, but was delayed due to the brief government shutdown last week.

What We're Reading Today

   -- Paramount Ups Bid for Warner Discovery. It Won't Matter. 
 
   -- Microsoft and 18 More Software Stocks That Can Be AI Survivors 
 
   -- Target Shakes Up Its Top Ranks and Bets on a Storefront Revival. The 
      Stock Drops. 
 
   -- An Activist Investor Enters Wall Street Banks' Cozy Club 
 
   -- The Dow Transport Index Is Sizzling. Stick With Planes, Not Trucks and 
      Trains. 

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February 10, 2026 19:55 ET (00:55 GMT)

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