Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq futures slide as bond sell-off troubles markets, China’s Xi Jinping lands in US

At Meta’s (META) Connect conference on Wednesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out his plan for monetizing the company’s wildly popular Muse AI agent, Yahoo Finance’s Dan Howley reports.

Dan writes:

Muse debuted on Sept. 8 and has quickly become the top app on both Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store.

“We believe that Muse will make you money,” Zuckerberg told the room full of developers. “And we are standing behind this by making Muse free for a huge number of tokens with the expectation that over time we will profit by taking a small fee from transactions.”

Meta chief AI officer Alexandr Wang explained that the company has added support for PayPal and announced integrations with retailers including Walmart (WMT), Best Buy (BBY), The Gap (GAP), Sephora, Wayfair (W), American Eagle (AEO), and others.

On the travel side, Meta is adding the ability to connect with Expedia (EXPE). The company is also bringing grocery shopping to Muse via Instacart.

In addition to laying out the company’s plans to monetize Muse, Wang also said the company is rolling out computer control for the Mac, allowing the agent to take over your Mac on your behalf.

Read more.

Economic data: Current account balance, second quarter (-$226.8 billion previously); Initial jobless claims, week ended Sept. 19 (196,000 previously); Continuing claims, week ended Sept. 12 (1.73 million previously); New home sales, month-on-month, August (+1.3% expected, -10.5% previously); Building permits, month-on-month, August final reading (-2.7% previously); Kansas City Fed manufacturing activity, September (10 previously)

Earnings calendar: Costco Wholesale Corporation (COST), Darden Restaurants (DRI), Uranium Energy Corp. (UEC), BlackBerry (BB), Scholastic Corporation (SCHL)

Catch up on some top stories from overnight:

Dollar perched at two-month high as hot PMI fuels inflation fears, rate hike bets

Gold holds drop as higher oil and hot US data fan rate-hike bets

Mexico says fourth round of US trade talks postponed, October possible

Meta unveils $1,299 VR Glasses, camera-less smart glasses at Meta Connect

Meta’s Zuckerberg says Muse AI agent will take a small fee from transactions

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News on Wednesday that the US and China will extend their trade truce for two more months after meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng.

The announcement comes as Chinese President Xi Jinping touched down in the United States for a meeting with President Trump.

“We will extend what we call the ‘Busan Agreement,’ the economic detente between the two countries that was scheduled to end on November 10, that is going to be extended until January 10,” Bessent said.

The two countries originally signed the agreement in the fall of last year, following an escalating trade war that saw tariff rates rise to triple digits and China curb rare earths exports.

The Shanghai Composite (000888.SS) and Hang Seng (^HSI) indexes fell on Thursday, as did US stock futures.