A bull market prevails across all the major US factor strategies led by momentum, based on one-year returns via a set of proxy ETFs.
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Catalonia declares independence from Spain… sort of: NY Times
IMF trims US economic forecast: Washington Post
IMF projects Eurozone economic recovery will strengthen: MNI
US Small Business Optimism Index falls in Sep to lowest level this year: NFIB
A bit more pessimism shows up for US consumer expectations in Sep: NY Fed
Krugman: Warsh, who may run the Fed, is “wrong about everything”: BBG
Global economic activity picked up in 2017’s first half: IMF

In the quest for clarity in portfolio analytics, Professor Bill Sharpe’s introduction of returns-based style analysis was a revelation. By applying statistical techniques to reverse engineer investment strategies using historical performance data, style analysis offers a powerful, practical tool for understanding the source of risk and return in portfolios. The same analytical framework can be used to replicate indexes with ETFs and other securities, providing an intriguing way to invest in strategies that may otherwise be unavailable.
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Raging wildfires destroy thousands of Northern California homes: USA Today
Richard Thaler wins Nobel for behavioral economics research: The Atlantic
EPA chief says wind and solar tax credits should be eliminated: The Hill
Turkey-US diplomatic crisis deepens: Bloomberg
Is Spain’s Catalonia crisis an investment opportunity? Bloomberg
German industrial output in Aug posts the strongest  rise in 6 years: RTT

Equities in emerging markets posted a solid gain in the first week of October, marking the strongest weekly advance among the major asset classes, based on a set of exchange-traded products.
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Brexit talks may collapse amid UK political turmoil: Reuters
US payrolls in September shrink for first time in seven years: Reuters
Should you worry about a bull market in everything? The Economist
The Sep slide in payrolls is due to a fall in restaurant workers: Bloomberg
US wholesale inventories in Aug rise the most since last Nov: Dow Jones
Eurozone investor confidence touches 10-year high in Oct: RTT
OPEC: “Extraordinary” action needed to stabilize oil market: Bloomberg
Congressional approval of parties near record low: Gallup

The Oct. 8 edition of The US Business Cycle Risk Report has been published and emailed to subscribers.

● Real Impact: The New Economics of Social Change
By Morgan Simon
Review via Publishers Weekly
Simon, founder and chair of the nonprofit Transform Finance, opens this fast-paced, provoking book with a crash course in impact investing, “the trillion-dollar trend most people have never heard of.” As she explains, impact investment (the Rockefeller Foundation’s term) means investing for social benefit as well as profit. Simon starkly concludes that the current, well-intentioned “free-market-plus-charity model” hasn’t effected substantive change. According to a study cited here, only 12% of foundational giving goes to social-justice causes; the rest supports education and arts organizations that largely service the already wealthy or at least economically secure.
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US companies shed 33,000 workers in September, marking the first monthly decline in seven years, the Labor Department reports. The prevailing wisdom is that hurricanes temporarily derailed hiring. A review of macro data from other corners supports the case for dismissing today’s unusually weak employment data as a temporary setback due to weather.
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To say that the US stock market is on a roll is an understatement. The S&P 500 Index yesterday posted its sixth straight daily gain for the first time in over two decades, according to the Financial Times.
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