"Born in the ashes of the financial crisis, Wall Street’s oldest-ever bull market turns 10 years old [today], with the S&P 500 tripling in value," Reuters reports.
Reality check: The index's post-crisis low close was 676.53 on March 9, 2009; yesterday it closed at 2,743.07.
A plunge in U.S. jobs growth suggests that the party is nearing its end for American workers, who have enjoyed their best employment conditions in a half-century.
What's happening: At 20,000 new jobs, reported Friday by the Labor Department, the economy produced far fewer positions last month than required to absorb 60,000–80,000 new entrants to the workforce, such as high school and college graduates.
Republican operative Sarah Isgur announced Friday she will no longer be joining CNN as a politics editor following criticism over the hiring news — however, she will still be joining CNN as a political analyst on-air and online next month.
Details: A CNN spokesperson said that Isgur came up with the idea to step away from the editor role. Isgur was the top spokesperson for the Trump administration’s Department of Justice under Jeff Sessions and had previously served as an advisor to Ted Cruz and Mitt Romney.
Sam Altman is stepping down as president of influential startup incubator Y Combinator, in order to spend more time on outside interests like the OpenAI research organization. He'll transition into a chairman role, with many of his day-to-day responsibilities assumed by YC's partners.
Why it matters: YC is known for breeding unicorns, having incubated such startups as Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe and Twitch.
The pace of jobs growth slowed significantly in February with the economy adding 20,000 jobs, less than the 180,000 expected, the Labor Department said on Friday. The unemployment rate ticked down to 3.8% and wages rose 3.4% from the prior year — the best pace in a decade.
Between the lines: After an average gain of 186,000 jobs per month in the last 3 months, a pullback from that breakneck pace has been widely expected. Economists, though, are questioning whether or not February's dismal job growth was a blip, or the beginning of trouble for the booming labor market.
The job market is defying expectations, but there's a glaring flaw, Axios' Courtenay Brown writes.
Why it matters: With weak productivity and the fading tax cut stimulus, the labor market is the standout to keep the economic boom going. It's largely done the job so far — unemployment is near a half-century low and the economy has added 285,000 jobs on average over the last 5 months. But wage growth throughout the second longest economic expansion isn't yet measuring up to what we've seen in the past.
Capping off Disney's signature "vault" program which limited the release of its films, Disney+ — a forthcoming streaming service — will feature Disney's full fleet of animated films, CEO Bob Iger in told investors on Thursday, according to The Verge.
Catch up quick: Disney originally instituted the practice to drive demand, often re-releasing its cartoon classics, despite fans longing for an on-demand experience.
