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 Good Friday. Here’s what we’re watching today: • Is Lloyd Blankfein, the chairman and chief executive of Goldman Sachs, planning on stepping down? • The list of those hoping Broadcom fails in its pursuit of Qualcomm keeps growing. • When will wage growth pick up? • Senator Elizabeth Warren has some questions for Apollo and Citi. • How much is Martin Shkreli’s Wu-Tang album worth? • The Trump tariffs have many exceptions. . Don’t already get this in your inbox each morning? Sign up here. The Wall Street Journal reported that Lloyd Blankfein, the chairman and chief executive of Goldman Sachs, will step down “as soon as the end of the year,” citing anonymous sources. But some important context is necessary: Neither Mr. Blankfein nor the board has set a timeline for him to step down, people briefed on the matter said. Mr. Blankfein has not discussed the possibility of leaving at the end of the year, these people said, though there is a general view that he likely would retire in the next couple of years. And it is very possible that this story may force Mr. Blankfein to move faster to explicitly lay out a timeline than he had originally planned. Is it possible that Mr. Blankfein would step down at the end of 2018? Sure. It is absolutely a possibility, these people said. But it is hardly a certainty. And it is also a possibility that he could step down as C.E.O. but remain chairman, the people said. Is it possible that he could still be at Goldman for part or all of 2019? Sure, these people said. But that’s not a certainty either. Is it possible he is at Goldman in 2020?  That’s less likely, these people agree. Goldman’s board has held discussions about who should succeed Mr. Blankfein ever since Gary Cohn left the firm at the end of 2016, these people said. The board has designated Harvey Schwartz and David Solomon as likely successors, but has not set a specific date for when they need to decide on who will take the reins, these people said. Both men have privately been making plans to take over, these people said. — Andrew Ross Sorkin Here’s Mr. Blankfein’s response to the WSJ story: The order President Trump signed on Thursday imposing tariffs on imported steel and aluminum provided him with wiggle room to exempt countries down the road. In fact, even before signing the order, he suggested the possibility of later excluding allies like Australia. Well, that seems like more of possibility now. Late Friday President Trump said he is working with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on an agreement so Australia will not be subject to the tariffs. The Wall Street Journal reports that Intel “is considering a range of acquisition alternatives in reaction to Broadcom’s hostile pursuit for Qualcomm.” Those options include a possible bid for Broadcom, the WSJ reports citing anonymous sources. Shares of Broadcom jumped 5 percent after hours. Details from the WSJ • Intel is worried about the competitive threat a combined Broadcom-Qualcomm would pose. • Intel has been weighing its options since late last year and has engaged advisers. • Intel might make a bid if Broadcom looks likely to succeed in its pursuit of Qualcomm. Caveats • Any move from Intel is far from certain and one of WSJ’s sources said it is unlikely. Context Washington isn’t so sure a merger of Broadcom and Qualcomm is a good idea. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the government panel that reviews transactions’ national security implications, moved to stall the potential takeover of Qualcomm The panel’s intervention put Broadcom’s bid in jeopardy. In practice, reviews by Cfius often lead to the demise of deals. The February jobs report is in. The number of jobs added was the strongest in two years, but wage growth remained lackluster. Here are the numbers: • 313,000 jobs were added last month, the most since October 2015. Economists had anticipated a gain of about 200,000. • With revisions to previous months, the three-month average job growth was 242,000 a month. • The unemployment rate was 4.1 percent, the same as in January. • The average hourly wage grew by 0.1 percent. It grew by 0.3 percent in January. The year-over-year increase fell to 2.6 percent from 2.9 percent. • The labor force grew by 806,000, pushing the labor force participation rate back up to the 63 percent mark. Context A leap in job gains in February clears the way for the Federal Reserve to raise the benchmark interest rate when it meets this month. The wage figures were disappointing. The jump in hourly earnings in January — which pushed the year-over-year figure to 2.9 percent, from 2.3 percent just three months earlier — was cited as a cause of a market sell-off. With February’s puny growth of 0.1 percent, the year-over-year increase dropped to 2.6 percent. Investors could not have asked for much more from Friday’s jobs report. The numbers for February show the United States economy was able to add a surprisingly large number of new jobs without creating the sort of surge in wages that can prompt investors to worry about inflation. The 10-year Treasury note, which might have sold off on inflation fears, barely budged when the report came out. Futures markets pointed to higher opens for stock markets. The economy created 313,000 jobs in February, the most since October 2015. Wages rose 2.6 percent from a year earlier, below the 2.9 percent rate for January that stoked inflation concerns. In theory, as employers add large numbers of new employees, the competition to hire workers should drive wages much higher. Why is that not happening right now? It seems a large number of people who previously weren’t looking for jobs are now entering the work force. That, in part, explains the 800,000 person increase in the labor force. But investors will no doubt find something to fret about. Some may decide that the growth in employment is so strong that it won’t be long before wage pressures build up. The amount of slack in the labor force is unknown, so investors shouldn’t rely on it to dampen wage growth indefinitely, according to this view. — Peter Eavis It’s the unknown that torments investors every time the jobs report comes out. Maybe we can shed some light. As Friday’s jobs report showed, the economy is adding large a numbers of jobs without stoking the sort of surge in wages that makes investors worried about inflation. Investors favor these economic conditions because it reduces the chances that the Federal Reserve will have to raise interest rates more quickly than they expect. But how long might wage growth remain moderate? Much depends on how much slack exists in the jobs market. The headline unemployment rate, at 4.1 percent, suggests there is very little. But the unemployment rate does not count the people who aren't in the workforce – and who may now enter it. No one knows for sure how many of these people are really looking for a job at any one time, or might do so in the near future. But if there are a lot of them, companies will not struggle to find workers — and wage growth might remain tame. Conversely, if the number of prospective workers on the sideline is small, wage pressures could soon build up. One way to get an idea of the size of this group of people is to look at the employment rate, which measures people with jobs as a percentage of the population (over 16 years old and excluding prisoners.) At 60.4 percent in February, that rate is still well below the level it was at before the 2008 financial crisis. That would imply that there are still a lot of people who could enter the jobs market. But our colleague Ben Casselman, who covers economics, has devised an adjusted employment rate that readers might find interesting. How did you adjust the measurement of the employment rate – and why did you make your tweaks? Let me start with the “why?” The employment rate is great in that it avoids all the issues that bedevil the unemployment rate in terms of deciding who should “count” as unemployed. But the problem is that it’s too broad. It includes a huge group of people who no one would expect to work, namely retirees. And that group is growing rapidly because baby boomers are aging. So if we want the employment rate to tell us anything meaningful about the state of the economy, we have to account for that big demographic trend in some way. One easy way to do this is to look at the employment rate among so-called “prime-age” workers, those ages 25 to 54. That excludes both retirees and most college students, which means it filters out a lot of the demographic noise in the employment rate. The problem is, it filters out a lot of valuable information, too. Lots of 55-year-olds work! And indeed, 55-year-olds are much more likely to work now than they were a generation ago. My calculation, which borrows from an approach used by economists (and occasional Upshot contributor) Ernie Tedeschi, adjusts for demographic shifts by controlling for age and sex. It essentially asks, “What would the employment rate look like today if the U.S. population still had the same demographic profile as it did before the recession?” What does your adjusted employment rate tell us about the jobs market right now? By my calculation, the demographics-adjusted employment rate was at 62.8 percent in February, which is almost exactly where it stood in December 2007, which was the first month of the recession. But it’s still significantly below where we were in 2000, the last time the unemployment rate got this low. Can we use your adjusted employment rate to get an idea of how much slack is left in the labor force? Yes, but it doesn’t give a definitive answer. What it tells us is that the employment rate has fully recovered from the recession. It doesn’t necessarily mean that all the slack is gone. Let me expand on that slightly. Between the peak of the dot-com bubble in 2000 and the peak of the housing bubble in 2007, the age-adjusted employment rate fell by about a percentage point. There are two reads on that. One is that the job market just never got as good in the mid-2000s as it did in 1999 and 2000. The other interpretation is that there has been a fundamental shift in the economy, and for some set of reasons — technology, globalization, video games — the share of Americans who are willing or able to work has fallen. If you buy that second story, then the fact that the age-adjusted employment rate is back to prerecession levels should tell you that we’re basically at full-employment today. The slack is gone. This is as good as it gets. But I would argue the last couple years should lead to significant skepticism about this kind of structural-change thesis. The labor force has grown dramatically over the last few years. Job growth has continued unabated. Unemployment rates for marginalized groups such as black Americans have fallen sharply. And this has all happened in an environment where wage growth has been sluggish, which suggests that employers are able to attract workers without boosting pay, at least by much. All of that suggests that there are still people out there who are willing to work if opportunities become available. I don’t know if we can get back to that 2000 employment level, but today’s report suggests we can at least keep moving in that direction. • Joseph Song and Michelle Meyer, BofA Merrill Lynch: Today’s “Goldilocks” report suggests the business cycle still has another leg to go: the labor supply is increasing to meet the gain aggregate demand, preventing price pressures from building too aggressively. • Ellen Zentner, Morgan Stanley: Straight lines don’t exist in economics. Despite the move lower in the year-over-year pace of average hourly earnings (AHE), the underlying trend in wage growth continues to firm, in line with continued tightening in the labor market and rising productivity. • Joe Brusuelas, RSM US: “The job market continues to sizzle as the economy is in the early stages of absorbing a late cycle fiscal boost that will support a growth rate well above the long-term trend in 2018. The 313,000 job gain is more than triple that necessary to meet the demand of new entrants into the work force, which if it sustained will continue to put downward pressure on the unemployment rate. This will not be lost among an F.O.M.C. that leans hawkish in 2018 and points toward an increasing probability that the central bank will hike rates four times this year. How strong is this labor market? The increase of 806,000 in the labor force and 785,000 in the household employment estimate are robust and statistically significant, which is a rare two-for in the monthly labor report. This labor market is on fire and wage gains are in train.” • James Ingram, MB Capital: “February’s fall in average wage rise data takes some of the pressure off. But the creation of more than 300,000 jobs in February suggests it will return in the months to come. Throw in a potential trade war between the US and the EU and the US economy could be headed for a perfect inflationary storm later this year. An interest rate hike in March from the US Fed must now be all but nailed on.” • Capital Economics: “We suspected that the flu epidemic and the unseasonably cold weather in January had depressed payrolls, but even we were caught out by the strength. Illness and weather also affected the earnings and hours worked data in January, with those effects unwinding in February.” Specifically, Ms. Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, is interested in the loans Apollo and Citigroup extended to Jared Kushner’s family real estate firm, reports Politico’s Playbook. Ms. Warren, along with Representative Elijah Cummings, Democrat of Maryland, Senator Tom Carper, Democrat of Delaware, and Senator Gary Peters, Democrat of Michigan, sent letters to Apollo (the letter) and Citigroup (the letter) asking: Context The New York Times reported last week that:  • Josh Harris, a founder of Apollo Global Management, was advising Trump administration on infrastructure policy last year and met with Mr. Kushner several times. Among other things, the two men discussed a possible White House job for Mr. Harris, which never materialized. In November, Apollo lent $184 million to Kushner Companies. The loan was to refinance the mortgage on a Chicago skyscraper • Michael Corbat, Citigroup’s C.E.O., met with Mr. Kushner in the spring, and shortly afterward the bank lent Kushner Companies $325 million. Stephanie Clifford of the NYT reported: Last summer, a jury convicted Mr. Shkreli, nicknamed Pharma Bro, on three of eight counts , concluding that he had lied to investors about, among other things, how the hedge funds were managed, what they invested in and how much money they had. The jury found that he had also secretly controlled a huge number of Retrophin shares. Prosecutors had sought a sentence of at least 15 years; the defense had pushed for 12 to 18 months. Ben Sisario of the NYT writes: The answer? It is complicated, though experts all doubt that the album could yield anywhere near the $2 million Mr. Shkreli apparently paid for the album at auction three years ago. President Trump authorized tariffs on imported steel and aluminum yesterday, defying allies and Republicans alike. But as Peter Eavis notes, the presence of exemptions for Canada and Mexico show more wiggle room than expected: And Neil Irwin of the Upshot reckons that while we’re seeing a trade skirmish, it won’t necessarily become a trade war. (He also thinks it’s partly a negotiating tactic in the Nafta talks.) That hasn’t stopped trade partners  protesting. And in its lead editorial, The Economist wrote, “Not since its inception at the end of the second world war has the global trading system faced such danger.” The other China trade story: Mr. Trump tweeted that he has asked Beijing to reduce its trade deficit with the U.S. by $1 billion, adding, “We must act soon!” Elon Musk subsequently beseeched him on Twitter to tackle China’s restrictions on auto imports. The trade flyaround • U.S. allies like Canada and Japan signed what was long known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, thumbing their noses at the White House. (NYT) • History belies Mr. Trump’s assertion that “trade wars are good, and easy to win,” Jim Stewart says. (NYT) • Maybe we should worry less about the tariffs and more about the White House’s inquiry into Chinese intellectual property policy. (Breakingviews) The policy adviser who pushed the tariffs wants to become the new national economic adviser — scarily for pro-free-trade business leaders and Mr. Cohn’s dwindling cohort in the Trump administration. More from Jonathan Swan of Axios: Mr. Navarro isn’t in the lead — other candidates include a top lieutenant to Mr. Cohn, Shahira Knight — but can’t be counted out. The politics flyaround • The president has threatened to veto a spending bill if it funds the Gateway tunnel between New York and New Jersey that he opposes, potentially leading to another government shutdown, unnamed sources say. (Politico) • The recent tax overhaul won’t pay for itself, according to Harvard economists. (WSJ) • The lawsuit against President Trump by the adult-film actress Stormy Daniels raises the possibility of the president needing to testify and could show evidence of campaign finance violations. (NYT) • Elizabeth Warren has written to Citigroup and Apollo asking for details about loans to Kushner Companies just after Jared Kushner joined the White House. (Politico) Behind Cigna’s $67 billion (with debt) acquisition of Express Scripts is the idea that health insurance on its own is a challenged business. The C.E.O.s of the two companies said the union would help lower costs. But it’s also meant to help Cigna counter both UnitedHealth, the giant of the industry, and a combined CVS and Aetna. There’s skepticism: Cigna’s shares fell 11 percent yesterday. Matthew Borsch of BMO Capital Markets said that investors had hoped the insurer would buy something other than a business “under pressure, under scrutiny and to some degree in decline.” About that pressure: The F.D.A. has shown interest in lack of competition among drug benefits managers. David Balto, an antitrust expert, told the NYT, “History has shown where there are multiple mergers going on in a single industry, the Justice Department goes on high alert.” Critics’ corner: Charley Grant of Heard on the Street writes, “Cigna has increased its vulnerability to industry changes rather than reduced it.” And Lex says of Express Scripts’ industry, “Like Seth Rogen comedies, they are a U.S. institution whose utility eludes other nations.” The deals flyaround • Toys “R” Us, yet to find a buyer, is preparing to liquidate its U.S. operations, unnamed sources say. (Bloomberg) • Shell and the Blackstone Group are in talks to make a $10 billion bid for BHP Billiton’s U.S. shale assets, according to unnamed sources. (Sky News) • Atlantia of Italy and ACS of Spain are in talks over a joint bid for Abertis, avoiding a potential bidding war. (FT) • FanDuel is in talks to go public by merging with a blank-check company, Platinum Eagle Acquisition, unnamed sources say. (Axios) • McAfee is buying TunnelBear, a VPN services provider. (TechCrunch) • Before joining the White House, Jared Kushner held talks to sell the New York Observer to two big Democratic supporters, David Brock and the media mogul Haim Saban, unnamed sources say. (BuzzFeed) That’s according to an M.I.T. study that tracked the spread of both verifiably true and fake stories on Twitter, and found that “falsehood diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth in all categories of information.” The caveat, per Steve Lohr of the NYT: Elsewhere in social media: How Russian trolls slid into the private Facebook messages of Trump campaign aides. Rules to limit foreign meddling in U.S. elections may not take effect before this year’s midterms. Sri Lanka is trying to block Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram to stop anti-Muslim violence. And could Mr. Trump be obliged to mute critics on Twitter instead of blocking them? The tech flyaround • Uber is pitching potential investors today on a $1.25 billion loan, unnamed sources say. (Bloomberg) • Meet Missouri’s attorney general, Josh Hawley, who has subpoenaed Alphabet as part of an inquiry into potential violations of the state’s consumer protection law. (Bloomberg) • What happens when Bitcoin miners come to your town. (Politico) • Japan suspended trading on the exchanges FSHO and Bit Station amid concern about consumer protections. (WSJ) • Mr. Trump held a heated debate on whether violent video games can be connected to mass violence, but didn’t indicate where he stood. (NYT) The former president is in talks to create exclusive content for the streaming giant, though they haven’t figured out how many episodes to do, according to the NYT. He’s also drawn interest from Apple and Amazon. Our questions: • How much would Netflix pay? Remember that it gave the showrunner Ryan Murphy $300 million for a five-year content deal. The Obamas already signed book deals reportedly worth $60 million. • While Mr. Obama doesn’t intend to take on his successor directly, will his likely choice of topics — like health care, immigration, voting rights — be seen as a counter to President Trump anyway? Elsewhere in media: The actor and producer Michael B. Jordan will adopt the use of “inclusion riders” in his production company’s projects. Disney will add a live-action “Star Wars” series to its forthcoming streaming service, to be directed by Jon Favreau. And Disney shareholders voted down a nonbinding endorsement of Bob Iger’s pay package. While the now nine-year-old bull market may still have some legs — even if it isn’t likely to top last year’s performance — there’s more for investors be anxious of. Not so for traders. More from Landon Thomas of the NYT: A side note: Worried about the markets’ movements? You might need a hug. And Peter Eavis wonders: What happens when the bond market and the Fed disagree? It’s a bit like seeing the economy’s parents fight, he says. Bringing back the former White House adviser after her recent tour of duty in Washington, Lloyd Blankfein reckoned, would help the firm navigate the Trump presidency and win big clients worldwide. But her forthcoming position on the management committee has rankled some senior executives, according to Bloomberg: • Tesla’s chief accounting officer, Eric Branderiz, is the latest executive to leave. (Bloomberg) • Uber’s head of product, Daniel Graf, is leaving. He’ll be replaced by Assaf Ronen, who most recently led Amazon’s voice shopping (“Alexa, buy stuff”) team. (Recode) • Twitter named Parag Agrawal as its chief technology officer. (CNBC) • Cory Johnson has left Bloomberg TV to become Ripple’s chief market strategist. (CNBC) • The N.M.E., once Britain’s most important music newspaper and a taste maker on both sides of the Atlantic, has put out its last print edition after 66 years. (NYT) • Institutional Shareholders Services opposed Elon Musk’s $2.6 billion compensation package. (FT) • The E.C.B. held interest rates steady, but dropped its promise to ramp economic stimulus back up “if the outlook becomes less favorable.” (NYT) • Helmut Maucher, who worked his way up from a factory job to become the C.E.O. who made Nestlé the world’s largest food company, died on Monday. (NYT) • G.M. faces the prospect of a potential $1 billion stock payout to address claims stemming from its ignition switch crisis. (WSJ) • Lehman Brothers caused $2.4 billion in damages to investors holding securities backed by shaky home mortgages, a New York bankruptcy judge ruled in one of the last remaining disputes in the defunct bank’s nearly decade-long liquidation. (WSJ) • Merrill Lynch agreed Thursday to pay $1.4 million to settle S.E.C. allegations that it didn’t do enough to investigate red flags at a Chinese company whose unregistered securities it sold. (WSJ) • Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services, said that doctors and hospitals should tell patients how much their care before treating them. (NYT) • Congress is on track to order credit-reporting companies to let consumers freeze their data free of charge. (WSJ) We’d love your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to bizday@nytimes.com.