If higher tariff-related inflation is a risk, it’s not showing up in the bond market, at least not yet. Yields remain near the lowest levels of the year, suggesting that fixed-income investors aren’t convinced that pricing pressure is a bigger threat vs. slowing economic growth.
Macro Briefing: 15 October 2025
US small business sentiment in September weakened for the first time in three months, according to NFIB. “While most owners evaluate their own business as currently healthy, they are having to manage rising inflationary pressures, slower sales expectations, and ongoing labor market challenges,” said the group’s chief economist.
Geopolitical Risk Sends Rare Earth Stocks Soaring
Geopolitics has been a key risk factor in economic and financial trends this year, including companies engaged in mining and processing of rare earth elements. As tensions rise between the US and China on access to these critical commodities, creating fears of supply chain shocks, stocks in the industry are roaring higher, based on a set of ETFs through Monday’s’ close (Oct. 13).
Macro Briefing: 14 October 2025
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday the government shutdown is starting to affect the U.S. economy. “It’s starting to affect the real economy. It’s starting to affect people’s lives,” he said in a TV interview. The latest update of the Dallas Fed’s Weekly Economic Index continues to reflect moderate growth: “The WEI is currently 2.42 percent, scaled to four-quarter GDP growth, for the week ended Oct. 4 and 2.37 percent for Sept. 27.”
Financial Markets Are Sensitive To Risk After All
It was starting to look like market sentiment was immune to the news flow. But all it took was one social media comment by President Trump on Friday to remind the crowd that risk and uncertainty were still lurking below the surface, waiting for someone or something to revive fear and panic.
Macro Briefing: 13 October 2025
The US breakeven employment level — the number of jobs required each month to keep the labor market in balance — has declined after immigration changes, estimates a researcher at the Dallas Fed: “A new, high-frequency estimate of break-even employment shows a dramatic reversal in immigration flows, combined with cyclical shifts in labor force participation, has caused the monthly break-even requirement to collapse from a peak of approximately 250,000 in 2023 to about 30,000 in mid-2025.”
Book Bits: 11 October 2025
● The Art of Spending Money: Simple Choices for a Richer Life
Morgan Housel
Q&A with author via Kiplinger
Q: The title of your new book is The Art of Spending Money. How is spending money an art?
A: It’s an art because it’s not a science. I wish I could say, here’s how everybody should spend, but I don’t think a formula for how everyone should spend exists. The spending that works for me and makes me happy might be wrong for you, and vice versa. Some people might find that disappointing, that I’m basically giving an overview of the psychology of spending money. But you have to figure it out for yourself, because I don’t know you or your life experiences. I’m still trying to figure all this out for myself, too.
GDP Nowcasts Still Indicate Moderate US Growth For Q3
The government shutdown is delaying economic reports, but the latest numbers available continue to indicate a solid increase in the upcoming third-quarter GDP report, based on the median estimate for a set of nowcasts compiled by CapitalSpectator.com. The longer the shutdown lasts, however, the greater the uncertainty as the nowcast inputs age and fail to reflect the latest economic changes.
Macro Briefing: 10 October 2025
A third of US state economies are contracting and another 13 are “treading water,” according to analysis from Moody’s Analytics. Two of the states with the biggest influence on US GDP — California and New York — appear to be at the tipping point. “Those two states are treading water. They’re big states, and if they go into the red then that’ll probably take the national economy with them into recession,” predicts Moody’s chief economist, Mark Zandi.
Micro-Cap Stocks Are Outperforming This Year
Much of the attention on this year’s bull run in stocks has focused on AI-fueled Big Tech and its rising influence in benchmarks such as the S&P 500 Index. But while Wall Street remains obsessed with the largest companies, the smallest slice of the market-cap pie has quietly pulled ahead of the pack in recent weeks.