* House votes to raise the US borrowing limit through December
* IMF cuts US and global economic growth estimates for 2021
* Global supply chain bottlenecks could “get worse before they get better”
* US will open borders with Canada and Mexico to vaccinated travelers
* China’s export growth was surprisingly strong in September
* UK economy continued recovering in August
* Eurozone industrial output fell in August amid supply constraints, slower growth
* US small business sentiment ticked lower in Sep, well below recent peak
* US workers quit their jobs at record pace in August:

Alternative energy may be the future, but the past isn’t dead yet.

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* House set to vote on US debt-limit increase approved by Senate last week
* Global tax deal in doubt in US over obscure legal issue
* JPMorgan’s Dimon predicts supply-chain issues for economy will ease soon
* China’s financial sector under increased scrutiny from government
* India faces rising risk of an energy crisis
* Iran reportedly hacked US and Israeli defense tech companies, says Microsoft
* South Korea’s central bank holds rates steady but signals hike in November
* Three US economists share Nobel prize in economics
* US oil price benchmark tops $80/barrel for the first time since 2018:

Amid ongoing concerns over inflation, commodities continued to rise, posting the strongest gain for an otherwise mixed week for global markets through Oct. 8, based on a set of ETFs.

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* Global rebound at risk from supply bottlenecks, rising energy prices and inflation
* Congress faces a challenging autumn as crucial legislation awaits approval
* China property bonds tumble as default worries lurk over industry
* Inflation threat rises as energy prices increase
* Analysts predict that the recent surge in corporate earnings has peaked
* America’s port crisis, born of supply chain disruption, shows no sign of easing
* US payrolls didn’t surge in September as jobless benefits were cut
* US companies added fewer jobs than expected in Sep, close to Aug’s gain:

● Risk: A User’s Guide
Stanley McChrystal and Anna Butrico
Summary via publisher (Penguin Random House)
Retired four-star general Stan McChrystal has lived a life associated with the deadly risks of combat. From his first day at West Point, to his years in Afghanistan, to his efforts helping business leaders navigate a global pandemic, McChrystal has seen how individuals and organizations fail to mitigate risk. Why? Because they focus on the probability of something happening instead of the interface by which it can be managed. In this new book, General McChrystal offers a battle-tested system for detecting and responding to risk. Instead of defining risk as a force to predict, McChrystal and coauthor Anna Butrico show that there are in fact ten dimensions of control we can adjust at any given time. By closely monitoring these controls, we can maintain a healthy Risk Immune System that allows us to effectively anticipate, identify, analyze, and act upon the ever-present possibility that things will not go as planned.

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• Commodities deliver a winning weekly performance
• All but one of our portfolio benchmarks rose this week

Playing a hot hand in commodities: Broadly defined commodities rose for a third straight week through today’s close (Friday, Oct. 8), posting the strongest weekly within our 16-fund opportunity set that spans the globe and major asset classes. For details on all the strategies and metrics in the tables, see this summary.

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Time-Varying Factor Allocation
Stefan Vincenz and Tom Oskar Karl Zeissler (Vienna U. of Economics and Business)
September 15, 2021
In this empirical study, we provide evidence on how predictive information can be utilized to profitably allocate a cross-asset factor portfolio, covering various well-known factors over the asset classes equity, commodity, fixed income, and foreign exchange. We investigate the performance of a meaningful set of predictors, which we broadly divide into macro and market indicators. Our analysis shows that tilting a global factor portfolio according to signals derived from business cycle indicators, inflation, and short-term interest rates, among other predictors, significantly outperforms a static factor benchmark. The established results are based on practical considerations, survive conservative transaction cost assumptions, and are validated over an extensive out-of-sample period. In sum, we highlight the potential benefits of an asset-allocation framework conditioned on predictive variables, but caution to time factors on a standalone basis.

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* Senate approves short-term fix to lift US debt ceiling
* China’s energy crunch is reverberating throughout the global economy
* China orders ramp-up in coal production to ease energy crunch
* Natural gas industry scrambles to meet demand amid supply shortage
* Global minimum tax deal could be announced as early as today
* US consumer credit growth slowed to seven-month low in August
* China services sector activity rebounded in September
* US jobless claims fell more than expected last week–close to pandemic low:

Shares with the highest beta-risk continue to top the US factor race in 2021 by a wide margin, based on a set of exchange traded funds.

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