Daily Rundown

May 18, 2026

Chart of the Day

Number of the Day

-0.2 - The percentage decline in 18 occupations identified by the BLS as exposed to AI between May 2024 and May 2025. Excluding medical secretaries, the drop was 1.6 percent (overall employment grew by 0.8 percent during this period)

Quote of the Day

"To be blunt, work that we would usually do with people with master's and PhDs in finance over the course of weeks or months is being done by AI agents over the course of hours or days." - Citadel CEO Ken Griffin

Friday's Highlights

Industrial production (April) moved higher by 0.7 percent, the largest increase in 14 months, as tech, auto, and utilities output all grew strongly.

The Empire State manufacturing index (May) rose to 19.6 from a prior 11.0, as the new orders metric hit a 53-month high.

Quick Commentary

The industrial production report was yet another signpost of AI's outsized impact on the economy. Output of computers, semiconductors, and communications equipment continued to soar last month while most of the remainder of the industrial economy grew at a more middling pace (auto production has also been robust of late, but this is largely a recovery from last year's supply disruptions). This is also another echo of the late 1990s, when tech output was booming -semiconductor production was up by nearly 50 percent in 1999- to lead overall IP higher. A key difference in this case is the labor market, which, at least at the margin, is already beginning to show some strain due to AI substitution.

Today's Highlights

Home builder sentiment

New York Fed services survey

Daily Trivia

What country was in default for more than 50 years on the loans it took out to finance its war of independence from the Ottoman Empire in the 1820s?

(Friday's Question: Depicted as a teenager, who is the youngest person to have been honored as the primary subject of a regularly circulating U.S. coin or banknote? Answer: Sacagawea)