Bloomberg Daybreak: US Edition

US employers unexpectedly cut jobs in July and hiring in the prior two months was revised lower, suggesting the labor market is weaker than previously thought after surprising strength earlier this year.
Nonfarm payrolls decreased 23,000 last month following a combined 103,000 downward revision to the May and June figures, Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed Friday. The unemployment rate fell to 4.1% as labor force participation continued to slide, and wage growth slowed.
Bloomberg's Tom Keene and Damian Sassower break down the numbers with:
Claudia Sahm, Chief Economist at New Century Advisors
Constance Hunter, Chief Economist at EIU
Kristina Campmany, Senior Portfolio Manager at Invesco
Andrew Hollenhorst, Chief US Economist at Citi
Stephanie Roth, Wolfe Research Chief Economist
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Today's top stories, with context, in just 15 minutes.
On today's podcast:
1) Iran will seek to bar US and Israeli ships from the Strait of Hormuz and require compensation from hostile countries before they’re allowed to sail through it, according to local media reports on a proposed Iran-Oman deal to manage the crucial waterway. The agreement has become key to expectations for a reopening of Hormuz and a resumption of energy flows that have been throttled since the US and Israel attacked Iran in February.
2) The Trump administration is actively considering issuing an executive order on vaccines and autism as soon as next week, according to people familiar with the matter. The effort is prompted by President Donald Trump’s interest in seeing additional action, according to the people, who asked not to be named to discuss internal deliberations. Options officials are discussing include research initiatives, encompassing both forward-looking studies and backward-looking analyses, the people said.
3) The yen is heading into the end of the week having surrendered nearly half of its intervention-driven gains, fueling speculation among traders that authorities may step into the market again. The currency traded around 158.40 versus the dollar on Friday afternoon, well off the strong point of 155.23 reached on Monday. It had been near a four-decade nadir around 164 per dollar last week before the first joint yen-buying operation from Japan and the US since 1998.
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Today's top stories, with context, in just 15 minutes.
On today's podcast:
1) Iran said it had reached an agreement with Oman on a proposed route for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a potential step toward a reopening of the critical waterway for energy supplies. A joint statement from Tehran and Muscat is under review and in the final drafting stage, with Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei saying negotiations between the two countries are “forward-moving” and a deal would be struck “if certain third parties do not obstruct this process." Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said Iran and Oman are negotiating a “temporary route” that would remain active for two to four months, with a significant portion of traffic passing through the Islamic Republic’s territorial waters.
2) President Trump denied the US was running low on munitions, saying the country has “massive amounts” of them. Trump warned of punishment for those who say there’s a shortage, saying “leakers” of supposed “treasonous statements” are being pursued. The Pentagon’s request for emergency funding includes money to replace the US’s most advanced Patriot interceptors and other systems, amid concerns about weapons stockpiles.
3) President accused Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed of being a “communist” who “hates” Jews and Israel. El-Sayed has accused the Israeli government of carrying out a “genocide” during its war in Gaza, supports cutting off aid to Israel and has questioned its right to exist as a Jewish state. Trump said El-Sayed’s brand of politics would bring “filth, crime, death, destruction, embarrassment” and that El-Sayed is a “man of hate."
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Today's top stories, with context, in just 15 minutes.

On today's podcast:

1) Abdul El-Sayed is projected to win the Democratic US Senate primary in Michigan, according to NBC, defeating Representative Haley Stevens. El-Sayed will face off against Republican Mike Rogers in the general election. Polls had forecast El-Sayed with as much as a double-digit lead over Stevens. Even with the narrower-than-projected result, El-Sayed’s win portends both a reckoning within the Democratic Party as well as smouldering ideological fissures with the Nov. 3 election looming. The 2026 Democratic primary season has been marked by the intra-party squabble between centrists and progressives over the party’s direction.

2) Oil erased a decline as Yemen's Houthi militant group issued a fresh threat against Middle East shipping, tempering optimism over US-Iran talks. Houthi spokesperson Yahya Saree said the group would escalate attacks on Saudi vessels in the northern Red Sea — a key workaround route during disruption in the Strait of Hormuz. It comes as the prospect of an interim deal focused on the Strait of Hormuz gained traction after Qatar said a proposal had been drafted and both American and Iranian officials sounded hopeful about reopening the crucial waterway.

3) SpaceX stock fell after it disclosed higher-than-expected spending on its artificial intelligence business, dampening an inaugural quarterly report that broadly surpassed Wall Street forecasts. SpaceX reported revenue of $7.8 billion, greater than the $6.81 billion analysts estimated on average, and said it lost 9 cents a share for the quarter, less than the 24-cent loss analysts forecast. Musk told analysts that he expects the cadence of AI development to improve dramatically and that SpaceX would reach a $100 billion annual run-rate revenue by year’s end, which is higher than the $38.6 billion forecast by analysts.
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Today's top stories, with context, in just 15 minutes.
On today's podcast:
1) Oil rose after its biggest drop in a week, as President Trump said his latest offer of talks is Tehran’s “last chance” and that he expects a full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran denied it was talking with the US, but said discussions with Oman to get more ships moving through Hormuz are making progress, with an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader saying Washington must “take the first step and change its behavior." Commodity flows through the Strait of Hormuz have slowed to a trickle, with a cargo vessel northeast of Al Khasab, Oman, broadcasting that it had been hit by an unknown projectile on Monday.
2) Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche shared documents on social media that seemed to clear a major hurdle to the top job, but drew skeptical reactions from former Justice Department officials and administration critics. The documents addressed concerns about a $1.8 billion fund for alleged victims of government “weaponization” and immunity for President Trump, his family members and the Trump Organization from audits of past tax filings, but the original documents that sparked bipartisan outrage remain unchanged. Critics say the latest documents do not have much permanent legal effect and that the door is open for officials, Trump, or others in his orbit to try to enforce the terms in the future.
3) Michigan's Senate primary today will serve as a litmus test of whether the Democrats' progressive wing can win in a presidential battleground state. The primary pits Representative Haley Stevens, a moderate, against progressive Abdul El-Sayed, with Black voters being central to the case. A win by El-Sayed would vault him into national prominence, but a defeat would spark questions about whether progressives can win outside of deeply Democratic areas.
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