Weekly Chartstopper: February 13, 2026

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this week

There were two key pieces of economic data this week: jobs and inflation (and another artificial intelligence-related selloff on Thursday).

Let’s start with the negatives… Annual revisions erased over 400,000 jobs gain last year, meaning the economy added just 181,000 jobs for the full year (down from +1.5 million in 2024) – the fewest in any non-recession year since 2003!

However, recent data were better. The economy added 130,000 jobs in January – double Expectations – and the unemployment rate fell from 4.4% to 4.3%. Also, the private sector has started to stabilize and gained 172,000 in January compared to Garland 20,000 in August.

CPI report was also positive. Headline inflation fell to 2.4% from 2.7% and core inflation eased to 2.5% from 2.6%, as the contribution to inflation fell for all four major categories: core goods, core services, food and energy.

Amid a softening of inflation and an improving but still subdued job market, markets are now expecting about 65 basis points (bp) of Fed cuts this year, up from 55bp a week ago.

As for equities, it wasn’t enough to offset Thursday’s selloff, sending the Nasdaq-100® down 1% for the week, while 10-year Treasury yields dropped nearly 15bp to 4.05%!