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Wall Street began the week with a shock.
A research note from Citrini Research sketched an unsettling future: mass unemployment among white-collar workers as AI agents replace human labor at scale. In Citrini’s scenario, the U.S. jobless rate surges past 10% by 2028, with weekly unemployment claims approaching half a million.
The report exploded across trading desks and social media. Economists quickly pushed back, arguing the assumptions stretch economic logic and underestimate the labor market’s ability to adapt to technological disruption.
But markets trade on fear before they trade on models. The Dow Jones just logged its worst week of 2026.
Even Nvidia — the poster child of the AI boom — couldn’t steady nerves.The company delivered a blowout earnings beat and upbeat guidance. It didn’t matter. The stock fell more than 5% the next day, a striking signal that investor psychology may be shifting from euphoria to skepticism.
Then came corporate confirmation.
On Thursday, Feb. 26, Block announced it will slash its workforce from more than 10,000 employees to under 6,000. CEO Jack Dorsey said AI tools and leaner teams are fundamentally redefining how companies are built and run. For some investors, that sounded less like innovation — and more like validation of the disruption Citrini warned about.
The tremors are not confined to tech.
Stress is surfacing in private credit. After Blue Owl restricted redemptions and tightened liquidity terms in one of its largest retail-focused funds, stress continued to mount in the private-equity sector.
On Friday, Feb. 27, MidCap Financial Investment Corp., overseen by Apollo Global Management, cut its dividend and marked down assets by roughly 3%, citing strain in parts of its loan book.
Apollo shares just endured their worst week since April 2025, extending a nine-week losing streak — the longest since 2022.
Something deeper may be unfolding in the market.
Sector and style rotation is accelerating as investors increasingly conclude the AI arms race will favor asset-heavy industries over asset-light business models — and companies less vulnerable to automation.
Energy stocks best tech again
Energy stocks have now outperformed technology for 10 consecutive weeks, an unprecedented stretch. In the first two months of 2026, value stocks have beaten growth by 12%, the strongest relative start to a year since 2001.
Markets may not be rejecting AI. They may simply be repositioning for who wins — and who gets replaced.
Benzinga is a financial news and data company headquartered in Detroit.