<p>Good morning all! Apologies for the one-day delay on the market recap. I unfortunately do have a 9-5 that was quite busy yesterday! We’re back with a recap that included a couple of bigger headlines in Middle East tensions and September payrolls, so let’s hop in!</p><p class="button-wrapper"><a class="button primary" href="https://beansandbucks.substack.com/subscribe"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p><strong>Tuesday - Middle East Tensions</strong></p><p>On Tuesday, there were reports of tensions in the Middle East escalating between Iran and Israel. A few indications states that Iran was preparing to launch a ballistic missile directly at Israel. Obviously, this sent fear across the markets as we dropped into a tailspin. The S&P500 dropped 1.4% at its lowest intraday but rebounded slightly to close the day with less than a 1% drop for -0.92%.</p><p><strong>Thursday - Jobless Claims</strong></p><p>A standard in these weekly write-ups since there is worry about the labor market is the weekly jobless claims. Jobless claims rose 6,000 for the previous week coming in at 225,000 vs the 221,000 expected. This caused the market to open a bit lower but wasn’t inherently bad news. Overall, it was a choppy day that saw the S&P500 close at only -0.16% for the day.</p><p><strong>Friday - September Non-Farm Payrolls</strong></p><p>The big story of the week was the non-farm payrolls for the month of September. Again, the labor market has been a big focus recently with the Fed beginning to cut interest rates. However, the US added 254,000 jobs in September, which obliterated estimates of 150,000. This proved once again that the labor market is incredibly resilient and still thriving. It also shows that the labor market should not be concerned with the rate cuts and allows the Fed to feel more comfortable in cutting further.</p><p><strong>Payrolls Reaction & Future Federal Policy</strong></p><p>Earlier in the week, Jerome Powell stated that the US economy was in “solid shape”. This was further proved by the September payroll report. The large beat in payrolls slashed the chances for a 50bps cut at the next federal meeting. The reasoning behind this drop is that the labor markets’ resilience does not warrant a need to drop interest rates as quickly to save it, a move that would increase the risk of re-igniting inflation. Risk of recession drops dramatically when the labor market is too hot. The market is pricing in a most likely 25bps cut at the next meeting because of these reports.</p><p><strong>Technical Analysis</strong></p><p>In what was quite a yo-yo week, the market actually ended higher by 0.22%. You’ll see on Tuesday after Middle East tensions, there was larger selling volume than the following 3 days of buying that was saved by the jobs report. Because I’m a bit late, we get to see a reaction on Monday that followed through with the selling due to energy prices moving higher.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F89083b5e-b66d-462e-ad6d-0982596f5bf3_1002x771.png" target="_blank"><div class="image2-inset"><source type="image/webp" /><img alt="" class="sizing-normal" height="771" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F89083b5e-b66d-462e-ad6d-0982596f5bf3_1002x771.png" title="" width="1002" /><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><div class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container restack-image"><svg class="lucide lucide-refresh-cw" fill="none" height="20" stroke="currentColor" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" stroke-width="2" viewBox="0 0 24 24" width="20" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><path d="M3 12a9 9 0 0 1 9-9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1 6.74 2.74L21 8"></path><path d="M21 3v5h-5"></path><path d="M21 12a9 9 0 0 1-9 9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1-6.74-2.74L3 16"></path><path d="M8 16H3v5"></path></svg></div><div class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"><svg class="lucide lucide-maximize2" fill="none" height="20" stroke="currentColor" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" stroke-width="2" viewBox="0 0 24 24" width="20" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></div></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Currently, on 10/8, we are bouncing with a decent green day. We would love to see some larger volume here for a chance to break higher. We have been consolidating in this range for too long and the selling volume looks to be increasing.</p><p><strong>Upcoming on Beans & Bucks</strong></p><p>This week I will have my first edition of Bonus Bucks! I’m excited about starting these additional articles on Wednesdays. They will feature anything from opinions on the market, some examples for savings / budgeting or retirement situations, learned tax loopholes, weekly topic expansion and in the future: answering comments and subscriber submitted budget analyses or questions! This week, I will expand upon the taxable brokerages we reviewed last week with a tax-free retirement example!</p><p>As always, thank you for reading, subscribing and supporting my Substack!</p><p class="button-wrapper"><a class="button primary" href="https://beansandbucks.substack.com/subscribe"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p>Prosperously,</p><p>Jim</p>