I’ve got four charts crossing the desk today that paint a complicated picture for the Fed and the USD. We have a specific sector falling off a cliff, broader resilience, a sentiment reset, and the one thing Jay Powell doesn’t want to see: inflation ticking back up.

1. The Tech Sector is falling off a cliff

First up, take a look at Tech-Related Information Employment.

For the last two years, we’ve heard about “efficiency” and “AI integration,” but the headcount held up reasonably well through 2024 and most of 2025.

We are seeing a massive purging of payrolls in data processing and hosting right now in early 2026. This is high-income demand destruction happening in real-time.

2. …But the broader labor market is stabilizing?

While tech is getting battered, the team at Goldman Sachs sees the broader picture differently.

Their estimate for underlying trend job growth—which adjusts for all the immigration noise and catch-up effects—suggests the bottom is in. After a rough patch in late 2025 where the trend dipped into negative territory, the forecast (that red arrow) is pointing to a rebound back toward 50k-100k trend growth.

The caveat is that the birth-death model is tricky at the moment. Here is what Goldman Sachs wrote:

The BLS introduced a methodological change to how it estimates net business formation (the “birth-death” model) that we suspect increased the volatility of monthly job growth in January.

We estimate that the birth-death model boosted job growth in January by about 70k relative to December (SA by GS), of which about 50k came from the healthcare and education sector. Our estimate of the underlying pace of job growth based on the payroll and household surveys now stands at +55k, though we note that more volatile payrolls readings from the birth-death methodological change could argue for putting a little less weight on payroll growth or smoothing it over a longer horizon than we currently use in our estimates.

3. The “FOMO” is gone

The best news for the bulls might actually be this sentiment check.

We spent a lot of 2025 with the GS Equity Sentiment Indicator flashing “stretched” (above 1.0). When everyone is all-in, it’s hard to find a new buyer.

As of Friday (Feb 13), we are sitting at a Z-score of (0.2). We’ve washed out the euphoria. Positioning is now officially “light” to neutral. Historically, when sentiment resets to this level without a full-blown recession, it sets the stage for a bounce.

4. The Inflation headache isn’t over

Finally, here is the fly in the ointment.

The HBS Pricing Lab data shows that after a nice dip in late 2025, daily pricing indexes are curling back up to start 2026. Both the “Cheapest” and “Most expensive” baskets are bid, as the WSJ highlights today.

This confirms the narrative that the “last mile” of inflation is sticky. With the broader labor market stabilizing, companies might have pricing power again.

The Verdict:
The market wants cuts because Tech is hurting (Chart 1). But the real economy (Chart 2) and prices (Chart 4) suggest the Fed can’t be aggressive. With sentiment washed out (Chart 3), I’d be wary of getting too bearish on equities here, but the FX play looks like choppy waters for the USD until we get clarity on that pricing trend.