Episode summary
Daybreak Weekend: US Jobs, Winter Olympics, Japan Election | Bloomberg Daybreak: US Edition
Bloomberg Daybreak: US Edition
· · 38 min · Hosts: Nathan Hager · Guests: Michael McKee, Mandeep Singh, Tommaso Ebhart, Paul Jackson, James McIntyre
Summary
The episode previews a busy week for markets and policy, with the January U.S. jobs report framed as the key domestic data release and big-tech earnings set to test whether AI spending is still driving growth. Michael McKee says the labor market still looks like a “low higher low fire” environment, with economists expecting 70,000 payroll gains and the unemployment rate holding at 4.4%, while he also flags immigration, AI adoption, and weak manufacturing employment as important forces behind the numbers.
The tech discussion centers on Alphabet, Amazon, and AMD. A guest says Alphabet’s cloud business could beat expectations if Google Cloud grows at least 35%, while AWS is expected to grow in the low 20% range and needs sequential acceleration to reassure investors. The guest also argues that rising hyperscaler capital spending, including Meta’s capex plans, should flow through to AMD and other chip suppliers.
The rest of the program looks abroad: the Winter Olympics in Italy open amid geopolitical tension over U.S.-Europe relations and security controversy, Japan heads into a snap election where inflation, tax cuts, defense spending, and immigration are central issues, and Australia’s RBA faces a difficult rate decision after a hotter-than-expected CPI reading.
Key takeaways
- Michael McKee says January nonfarm payrolls should show a relatively clean read on the labor market, with economists looking for 70,000 jobs and 4.4% unemployment.
- A guest expects Alphabet’s Google Cloud to beat consensus on roughly 35% growth, helped by strong deal wins and TPU efficiency.
- The tech guest says AWS needs sequential acceleration; low 20% growth would be acceptable, but anything above that would be more impressive for Amazon stock.
- The Japan preview says Prime Minister Takahichi is gambling on a snap election to extend a razor-thin majority while pushing a temporary food-tax cut and higher defense spending.
- James McIntyre says Australia’s hotter CPI and sticky administered prices have raised the odds of an RBA hike, even though a stronger Aussie dollar could help curb inflation.
Notable quotes
“the theme we've keep hearing from the data leading up to this report is this is a low higher low fire labor market”
“and in the case of AWS, I would say expectations again are like for low 20% growth”
How the episode opens
This is Bloomberg Daybreak Weekend, our global look at the top stories in the coming week from our Daybreak anchors all around the world. Straight ahead on the program, we'll look to the January jobs report and how that could affect Fed policy. I'm Nathan Hager in Washington.
I'm Caroline Hepka in London where we're discussing snow, ice, and geopolitics of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. I'm Doug Krer looking ahead to the snap election in Japan and what the outcome means for the Japanese economy.
That's all straight ahead on Bloomberg Daybreak Weekend on Bloomberg 1130 New York, Bloomberg 991 Washington DC, Bloomberg 929 Boston, DAB Digital Radio London, SiriusXM121, and around the world on Bloombergradio.com and the Bloomberg Business App. Good day to you. I'm Nathan Hager.
Let's take a look now at some stocks making news in the week ahead. I'm Nathan Hager with Mandep Sang, global head of tech research at Bloomberg Intelligence. Great to have you on as we're going to be looking ahead to a lot more big tech stocks in the week ahead.
Uh what are we expecting when it comes to earnings from Google parent alphabet? Mandy,
Look, I mean what we saw with Meta was uh you know accelerating topline growth and in the case of Google both the search business as well as the YouTube business have I would say modest expectations going in the quarter you know low to mid- teens growth. So uh I mean we felt doubledigit growth uh for Alphabet over the last few quarters was very impressive given you know the threat from chat GPT but I think Meta has really raised the bar in terms of uh digital ad growth uh in the fourth quarter. So I would be looking for accelerating topline growth at least high teens growth for YouTube and uh you know low to mid- teens growth for uh the core search business of Alphabet.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- us jobs report
- u.s tech earnings
- 2026 winter olympics
- japan snap election
- rba monetary policy
Watch the episode
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
More from Bloomberg Daybreak: US Edition
-
Nvidia Faces Post-Huang Reckoning, Microsoft Races to Fix Outage | Bloomberg Daybreak: US Edition -
Daybreak Weekend: Nvidia Earnings, UK Labour Market, APEC Summit | Bloomberg Daybreak: US Edition -
Nvidia Weighs Succession Plans; Congress Preparing to Subpoena Jensen Huang | Bloomberg... -
GOP Thwarts Hegseth Impeachment; CoreWeave Quiets Doubts | Bloomberg Daybreak: US Edition -
FBI Investigates Nvidia CEO, Anthropic IPO Snafu | Bloomberg Daybreak: US Edition -
Nvidia CEO Affair Sparks Probe, Trump Admits Policy Mistake | Bloomberg Daybreak: US Edition
Bloomberg Daybreak: US Edition, this episode and its artwork belong to Bloomberg. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
