The Best Six Months Start in a Midterm Year. The Fed Is the Catch.
November to April after a midterm election has been positive 19 of 19 times since 1950. When the Fed was hiking going in, gains were smaller and the dips along the way were deeper.
Chip Stocks Fell 7.2% in a Day. The Low Usually Comes Later.
The chip index fell 7.2% on October 30, its third 7% drop of 2026. In 44 of 48 past cases since 1994, it traded lower within three months, even when it later recovered.
The S&P 500 Fell in October. The Average Stock Rose 5%.
RSP returned 4.95% in October while SPY lost 0.91%, the second-widest monthly margin for equal weight since 2003. The market's leadership got wider.
Workers Kept 53% of Business Output Last Quarter. That Is the Lowest Since 1947.
Productivity rose 3.6% and labor costs fell in the third quarter, while the labor share of output hit 53.0%, the lowest on record.
T-Bills Yield More Than the Fed's Ceiling. The Fed Usually Follows.
The 3-month bill yields 4.18%, above the Fed's 4.00% ceiling. In 37 of 45 similar episodes since 1990, the Fed hiked within about three months.
Oil Hit $138 This Year. The Bond Market's Long-Run Inflation Gauge Never Moved.
Brent hit $138.21 in April and fell 17.6% in three sessions this week. The 5-year, 5-year forward inflation gauge stayed between 2.05% and 2.36%.
Power Output Hit a Record. Electricity Prices Are Up 42% Since 2021.
Power output set a record in September, up 9.6% in a year, yet electricity prices rose 4.4%, still ahead of overall inflation.
The Board Turns Defensive, and a 3.7% Cushion Decides What It Means
Three of four signals read risk-off for the first time since March. Since 2008, a board this defensive with the trend intact rose a quarter later 25 of 30 times.
The Labor Force Did Not Shrink by a Million. A Census Update Did.
The published labor force fell 999,000 in a year. On BLS comparable data it grew about 279,000, and unemployment fell to 4.2%.
Mortgage Rates Topped 7%. Housing Starts Are the Slowest Since 2020.
The 30-year mortgage rate rose from 5.98% in February to 7.40% in October, and housing starts slowed to their weakest three-month pace since July 2020 while permits held up.
The Credit Signal: Week Two of Credit-Off as Utilities Jump 11.05% on the S&P 500
Weekly read on the JOJO.Index credit signal: still credit-off, utilities up 11.05% vs. the S&P 500 in four weeks, and high yield spreads 66 bps off their 12-month low.
Corporate Bonds Yield 5.82%. Only 0.88 of It Pays for Credit Risk.
Investment-grade bonds yield 5.82%, but only 0.88 points is credit spread. Bond buyers are paid mostly for rates, not corporate risk.