Block Cuts Half Its Workforce, Nvidia Rattles Wall Street & PPI

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Dear Money Master,

Jack Dorsey just cut nearly half of Block's workforce and the stock exploded. 💥 That sounds backward until you understand how Wall Street thinks about efficiency, AI, and the true cost of doing business in 2026.

Meanwhile, Nvidia posted another blowout quarter and the stock still fell. And Core PPI is out again! 📊 We break down what the latest inflation numbers mean for your wallet and what the Fed does next.

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📰 Your Daily Financial Digest - February 27th, 2026

🌍 Economics:

Inflation Just Refused to Cool Down. Here's What That Means for Your Wallet. 📊 — Read More

Wholesale prices rose faster than expected in January, throwing cold water on hopes that inflation was finally easing. Core PPI jumped 0.8%, more than double what economists predicted, and well above December's reading. Headline prices also came in above forecasts across the board.

Here's the concept to understand: PPI stands for Producer Price Index. Think of it as the inflation report that comes before the one you usually hear about. While CPI measures what consumers pay at the register, PPI measures what businesses pay to produce their goods, things like raw materials, manufacturing costs, and wholesale goods. It matters because what businesses pay today, consumers pay tomorrow. When producers face higher costs, those costs eventually get passed down the chain.

This is why Wall Street pays close attention to PPI even though most people have never heard of it. A hotter than expected reading gives the Federal Reserve less room to cut interest rates, because it signals that inflation pressures are still building upstream. Lower rates are what markets have been hoping for all year, and this report makes that timeline less certain. The fight against inflation isn't over yet.

💻 Technology:

Jack Dorsey Fired Half His Company. The Stock Jumped. Here's Why. 💼 — Read More

Block announced it's cutting over 4,000 employees, nearly half its entire workforce, dropping from 10,000 to just under 6,000 people. CEO Jack Dorsey was direct: AI can now handle much of the work humans used to do, and he'd rather act decisively now than drag it out over years of slow, painful cuts.

Here's the concept to understand: operating leverage. When a company cuts costs while keeping revenue steady or growing, every extra dollar that comes in drops more cleanly to the bottom line. Block's gross profit was already up 24% from a year ago. By slashing headcount, Dorsey is widening the gap between what comes in and what goes out. The company also raised its full-year earnings outlook well above what analysts expected, and it did that with thousands fewer people on the payroll. That is exactly the point.

Investors cheered because this isn't a distressed company cutting to survive. It's a company in growth mode cutting to accelerate. Dorsey even predicted most major companies will make similar moves within the year. The message is simple: AI isn't just changing products, it's changing how many people you need to build them.

💹Earnings:

Nvidia Beat Earnings and the Stock Still Dropped. Here's What That Tells You. 🤖 — Read More

Nvidia posted another massive quarter. Data center revenue hit $62.3 billion, hauling in 91% of the company's total sales, and forward guidance for next quarter came in at $78 billion, ahead of even the most optimistic forecasts on Wall Street. To put that in perspective, $78 billion in a single quarter is more than most companies generate in an entire year. On paper, it was a clean beat.

And yet the stock fell sharply. This is your lesson in the high expectations problem. When a stock has already priced in perfection, a strong quarter isn't enough. Investors needed a reason to believe the next two or three years look just as good, and they didn't fully get it. Nvidia's pending investment deal with OpenAI is still not finalized, and that single piece of uncertainty was enough to shift the mood when valuations are already stretched.

The concern isn't really about this quarter. It's about whether AI capex spending, the billions Microsoft, Amazon, and OpenAI pour into data centers and chips, stays at this level long enough to justify the stock price. The vast majority of analysts still rate Nvidia a buy with significant upside. The long-term thesis hasn't changed. But this week was a reminder that in markets, how you beat matters just as much as whether you beat.

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