0807 | Markets Rally on Jobs Data, Dollar Slips, SpaceX Nears IPO, Airbnb Soars

Mia: Welcome back to After Market, the Bri podcast where we make sense of the trading day. I'm Mia.

Milo: And I'm Milo. Big session today — stocks racing higher off a weaker jobs report, the dollar tumbling, SpaceX staging another monster rally, and Airbnb surging after its earnings. We've got all that and more coming up.

Mia: Let's start with the headline mover: U.S. stocks closed higher after a weak July jobs report, with Bloomberg's "Closing Bell" coverage framing it as a rally on the jobs data. Nonfarm payrolls unexpectedly declined by 23,000, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics also revised May and June figures down by a combined 103,000.

Milo: And yet the unemployment rate actually fell to 4.1% as labor-force participation kept sliding, and wage growth slowed too. So investors got a genuinely mixed picture — and they chose to rally on it. U.S. stocks rose after the data, wrapping up what was described as the second-best week of the year, while short-term Treasuries capped their biggest weekly rally since May.

Mia: The dollar tells a related story. It weakened on Friday and ended the week at its lowest level since May, after the soft U.S. labor data reduced expectations that the Federal Reserve will raise rates anytime soon. The report frames the decline as a fading of near-term rate-hike bets.

Milo: And in a separate currency move, hedge funds sharply cut their bearish bets against the Japanese yen after coordinated efforts by U.S. and Japanese officials helped stabilize it. Put it together and you've got a less hawkish U.S. rate outlook and a calmer yen backdrop. Worth noting this all rests on expectations — there's no confirmed Fed action or official currency move behind it yet.

Mia: Now to a stock that's been on an absolute tear. SpaceX shares jumped for a second straight day, bringing the stock close to breaking back above its $135 initial public offering price — for the first time since it fell below that key level last month. The two-day advance has been described as a $327 billion rally.

Milo: So the big question for investors is whether SpaceX can reclaim and hold that $135 line. As of the report, the shares were near — but not yet confirmed above — the IPO price, so that stretch below the level hadn't officially ended. A confirmed break above would mark the first time since last month's decline that it's been recovered.

Mia: Airbnb was the other big company story. Per our coverage, the stock surged 15% alongside an earnings beat, and CEO Brian Chesky says the company plans to spend "a lot more" on AI. He admitted he hadn't been sure a year earlier whether AI would even help the business — now, he says, AI is the reason growth is back.

Milo: Now, we should flag what we don't have here. The report doesn't tell us which earnings measures beat expectations, what period we're looking at, or how big that AI spending will actually be. And that growth attribution is Chesky's own characterization rather than a hard number. So the 15% pop is real, but the details underneath are still to come.

Mia: Switching to commodities: copper is tightening fast, according to two newly published market summaries. The dynamic is a two-way pull on supply — a surge in shipments to the U.S. and rising orders in China are competing for the same metal, and that pull is draining LME inventories.

Milo: That depletion raises the risk of another spike in futures contracts, and sets the stage for a rally that could take global benchmark prices to all-time highs. But the record-high outcome is only a possibility, not a conviction — there are no confirmed inventory figures or shipment volumes yet. What matters is whether those buffer stocks keep shrinking.

Mia: Finally, let's talk Persian Gulf geopolitics. The Trump administration dangled an Iran deal that didn't come — yet markets soared anyway, and analysts note markets keep pouncing on these deal teases. In parallel, Iran's chief negotiator accused the administration of "theater diplomacy," with traffic through the Strait of Hormuz reportedly near a standstill.

Milo: The exposure here is oil-related: the conflict is broadening across the region, with Gulf energy infrastructure and key shipping choke points under renewed threat, and oil reserves and munitions stockpiles reportedly dwindling. The open question is how much longer markets will respond to unconsummated deal signals — especially since no concrete agreement has actually emerged.

Mia: That's our look at the day — stocks rallying on a confusing jobs report, a softer dollar, SpaceX closing in on that IPO price, and copper tightening underneath it all. Thanks for listening to After Market with us here on Bri.

Milo: We'll catch you next time. Take care, everyone.