What’s News in Markets: Wegovy Pill, Salesforce AI Woes, BlackRock Record

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Hey, listeners, it's Saturday, January 17th. I'm Jack Pitcher for The Wall Street Journal, and this is What's News in Markets, our look at the biggest stock moves of the week and the news that drove them. Let's get to it. Calm in the face of chaos. That was the theme for Markets this week. On Sunday night, news broke that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is being investigated by US prosecutors over his testimony about the Central Bank's building renovation project. In a video statement, Powell, who is usually quite restrained, called the investigation a pretext as part of President Trump's campaign to pressure the Fed to lower interest rates and in the independence of the Central Bank. Investors concerned that a lack of Fed independence could lead to runaway inflation have been closely watching the Powell situation. Meanwhile, banks kicked off earnings season with a mixed bag of results. JPMorgan disappointed investors with lower than expected investment banking revenue, but Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley posted strong quarters. At the index level, stocks inched lower for the week. The S&P 500 ended down 0.4% just shy of a record high. The Dow fell 0.3% while the Nasdaq Composite was 0.7% lower. Novo Nordisk's shares jumped in the US on Friday after a string of positive news about its flagship weight loss drug, Wigovie. The UK's health regulator approved a significantly higher dose of the drug for patients with a body mass index of at least 30 The Danish drugmaker is awaiting regulatory approvals for the same size dose in the US and the EU. Meanwhile, sales of Novo's Wigovie pill just began in the US. Data released Friday showed the new pill generated more than 4,000 new prescriptions in the US last week. A strong start, analysts said. Novo's American depository receipts jumped 9% Friday and closed up 6% for the week.

AI is causing investor angst over the outlook for some major software companies. Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, Salesforce, a corporate software titan, and Adobe, which makes Photoshop and Acrobat, were all among the worst performers in the S&P 500 this week. None of the companies reported specific bad news, but analysts say rapid advancements in AI are creating a general sense of unease around software companies that were once thought to be invincible thanks to the widespread adoption of their products. AI is becoming very adept at coding software. Some investors now picture a future in which companies can use AI to handle tasks, once outsourced to enterprise software, or simply build their own. For the week, Intuit shares fell 16 percent. Salesforce was 13 percent lower, while Adobe dropped 11 percent. The world's biggest investment firm keeps getting bigger. BlackRock reported a record 14 trillion in assets under management on Thursday, and investors were pleased with fee growth that beat expectations. BlackRock primarily makes money through fees at charges to manage trillions of dollars for clients. Its assets grew to a record in 2025 on the back of market gains and $700 billion of new client money. BlackRock shares advanced almost 6 percent after it reported earnings Thursday and closed the week near a record high. And now you know What's News in Markets this week. You can read more about the week's market moves on wsj.com. Today's show is produced by Jess Fenton with supervising producer Melanie Roy. I'm Jack Pitcher. Have a great weekend.

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