We introduce a new distributional invariance principle, called `partial spreadability', which emerges from the representation theory of the Thompson monoid $F^+$ in noncommutative probability spaces. We show that a partially spreadable sequence of noncommutative random variables is adapted to a local Markov filtration. Conversely we show that a large class of noncommutative stationary Markov sequences provides representations of the Thompson monoid $F^+$. In the particular case of a classical probability space, we arrive at a de Finetti theorem for stationary Markov sequences with values in a standard Borel space.