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Writer's pictureStephen H Akin

NASDAQ and Gold Hit New Highs

The Composite rose 0.8% to 18,712, a new record closing high


Gold prices rose to a record high on Wednesday as uncertainty over the U.S. presidential election boosted safe-haven demand, with traders also awaiting economic data for cues on the Federal Reserve's policy path.


Spot gold rose 0.5% to $2,788.87 per ounce by 9:55 a.m. ET (1355 GMT), after reaching an all-time high of $2,789.73 earlier in the session.


U.S. gold futures settled 0.7% higher at $2,800.8.


A rally in tech stocks lifted the Nasdaq Composite to a new high on Tuesday for the first time since July.


With the Fed now in the blackout period ahead of next Thursday’s meeting, the data will be doing the talking this week, with the marquee release being the October payrolls report on Friday.


Visa Plans to Lay Off Around 1,400 Employees and Contractors

The payments giant is restructuring its international business


Most economists foresee a sizeable slowing in headline (consensus expects +110k jobs vs. 254k previously) and private (+90k vs. 223k) payrolls. However, this envisages a nearly -70k drag due to striking workers (mostly Boeing) and the weather impact of Hurricane Milton. The weather effect will have less of an impact on average hourly earnings (+0.3% vs. +0.4%), while unemployment is expected to remain unchanged at 4.1% amid unchanged labor force participation.


Given the likely noise in the payrolls, the market may pay extra attention to Tuesday’s JOLTS report for September. Given the strong September payrolls, the hiring rate may pick up from the historically low 3.3% in August. The last JOLTS print also saw the quits rate, one of the best leading indicators of wage growth, fall to 2.1%, its weakest since 2015 if one excludes the first few months of Covid. Other labor market data will include the Q3 Employment Cost Index reading (DBe: +0.9% vs. +0.9%), which is the Fed's preferred measure of wage growth.


In other US data, traders will pay attention to the September personal income release on Thursday, which includes the Fed’s preferred core PCE inflation measure. Consensus expects core PCE inflation to rise by +0.3% (vs. +0.13% previously), its strongest since March. And Wednesday's advance Q3 real GDP is expected to show continued solid growth (+3.0% vs. +3.0% in Q2). On the fiscal side, we have the US Treasury refunding announcement, with borrowing estimates on Monday and the refunding policy statement on Wednesday.


The Bull Market Turns Two


Two years ago last Saturday, a broad, sustained rise in global stock markets, otherwise known as a bull market, was born.


The global bull market’s second birthday is mostly a trivial milestone with little actual meaning for long-term investors, but looking back at the past two years is beneficial.



 

There will be a lot of market movements and headlines in the upcoming days and weeks.


“Journalism is the first rough draft of history”

Philip L. Graham

 

The independent journalist is praised by Akin Investments!


Here is a picture of my grandfather, Chales F. Hearldston, showing an exchange student at the Houston Press in the early 1960s how to use an antique linotype machine:


HOUSTON PRESS.The Houston Press was founded on September 25, 1911, and until its demise on March 20, 1964, it was the most colorful of the three twentieth-century Houston daily newspapers. It was a Scripps-Howard newspaper and had a general reputation for exposing the seamier side of life in Houston and for keeping Houston politicians on their toes. The Press style of journalism was established by its first editor, Paul C. Edwards, and that style flourished under later editors Marcellus E. Foster, 1926–36, who had founded and edited the Houston Chronicle, and George Carmack, 1946–64. The Press began publication on the corner of Capital and Bagby streets; in 1927 it moved to Rusk and Chartres streets. In 1963 it averaged a daily circulation of 90,000 and employed over 300 persons; however, it operated at a loss during the early 1960s. On March 20, 1964, president and publisher Ray L. Powers and editor Carmack announced to the assembled newspaper staff that it was preparing the last issue of the Press. The newspaper had been sold by Scripps-Howard to the Houston Chronicle for a price estimated in excess of four million dollars.


Notable former staff members included Walter Cronkite who later became the CBS news anchor.


 

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