● US job growth ticks lower in Oct, ADP says | CNBC
● ISM: US services sector growth accelerates in Oct | USA Today
● PMI: US services sector growth moderates in Oct | Markit
● Global growth rebounds in Oct via Composite PMI data | Markit
● Eurozone retail sales fall in Sep: first drop in 6 months | Reuters
● German factory orders slide for 3rd straight month in Sep | Bloomberg

US companies added 182,000 jobs last month, according to this morning’s October update of the ADP Employment Report. The gain is in line with expectations and reflects a moderate increase that suggests that the US economy continued to expand at a stable if somewhat diminished rate compared with recent history. But while today’s release implies that US business cycle risk remained low in October, there’s a worrisome trend to consider for the near-term future: the ongoing deceleration in the year-over-year growth rate.
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Backtests have become the weapon of choice for rationalizing various forms of tactical asset allocation, which has become increasingly popular as a risk-management tool since the 2008 crash. The hazards of backtesting—studying how a strategy performed in the past–are well known, which leads some folks to shun the concept entirely. But that’s going too far.
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● Total light-vehicle sales in US rise in October | MarketWatch
● US factory orders fell again in September | Reuters
● Redbook: US chain store sales tick higher in October | DJ
● PMI: Modest growth for Eurozone in composite data for Oct | Reuters
● PMI: UK services sector growth rebounds in Oct | Markit
● PMI: China services sector growth picks up to 3-month high | RTT

Private nonfarm payrolls in the US are projected to increase by 184,000 (seasonally adjusted) in tomorrow’s October update of the ADP Employment Report vs. the previous month, based on The Capital Spectator’s average point forecast for several econometric estimates. The average projection reflects a moderately lower gain vs. the increase in September.
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The expected risk premium for the Global Market Index (GMI) ticked higher in October, posting the first rise in three months. GMI — an unmanaged, market-value weighted mix of the major asset classes — is projected to earn an annualized 3.4% return over the “risk-free” rate in the long term. (For details on the equilibrium-based methodology that’s used to generate the forecasts each month, see the summary below). Today’s revised estimate, which is based on data through last month, increased 20 basis points over the previous month’s update.
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● US ISM Mfg Index ticks lower, close to neutral level | MarketWatch
● PMI: US mfg output strengthens to 6-month high | Markit
● US construction spending rises in Sep to highest level in 6 years | AP
● PMI: Global mfg activity ticks up in Oct | Markit
● China’s new growth target: 6.5% | Nikkei

Global markets posted sharp gains in October, clawing back most of September’s hefty losses. The revival was headed by equities, with US stocks leading the charge higher with a strong 7.9% total return via the Russell 3000 Index last month. Despite the broad-based gains at the kick-off to the fourth quarter, losses still dominate the year-to-date comparisons, along with a few instances of mild gains.
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● US consumer spending growth slows to 8-mo low in Sep | USA Today
● US personal income in Sep rises at slowest pace since March | USN&WR
● Consumer sentiment in US ticks higher in Oct | CNBC
● US Employment Cost Index growth accelerates in Q3 | US Labor Dept
● Chicago PMI rises to positive reading in Oct | ISM Chicago
● PMI: A lesser pace of decline for China’s mfg sector in Oct | Markit
● China’s official PMI for mfg shows slight contraction in Oct | MarketWatch

● The Money Makers: How Roosevelt and Keynes Ended the Depression, Defeated Fascism, and Secured a Prosperous Peace
By Eric Rauchway
Review via The Economist
Old-fashioned historians recoil at the idea of learning from the past to inform the present. But in “The Money Makers”, Eric Rauchway, a historian at the University of California, Davis, tries to do just that. His book looks at the economic policy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a four-time American president from 1933 to 1945, and how he was influenced by John Maynard Keynes, a British economist. Mr Rauchway argues that policymakers today could learn “valuable lessons” from Roosevelt, who shook up the economic orthodoxy to rescue America from the Great Depression of the 1930s and to keep the Allies going during the second world war.
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