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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Tropical storm Nate on track to hit central Gulf Coast: CNN
Hurricanes expected to weigh on today’s US payolls report: Reuters
US factory orders up a solid 1.2% in August: USA Today
Jobless claims in US fall as impact from hurricanes fades: Bloomberg
US job cuts down 26% in September vs. year-earlier level: CG&S
Consumer Comfort Index for US posts biggest decline in a year: Bloomberg
US boom in oil exports on track to continue: CNBC

The Federal Reserve’s narrowest gauge of money supply (measured in real or inflation-adjusted terms) posted a fractional gain in August vs. the year-earlier level – the first positive year-over-year reading since February 2016. The return of annual growth for the monetary base suggests that the central bank may be laying the groundwork to slow or even reverse its recent efforts to tighten policy.
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A new tropical depression/hurricane threatens US Gulf Coast: Miami Herald
Parsing Trump’s short list for the next Fed chair: Bloomberg
Hurricanes weigh on US job growth in ADP’s Sep report: CNBC
ISM Non-Mfg Index for US pops to highest level since 2005: CNBC
US Services PMI for September shows “strong” business activity: IHS Markit
Global economic growth is “broad-based and solid”: IHS Markit

US companies added a relatively soft 135,000 workers in September, a hefty slide from the 228,000 advance in the previous month, according to this morning’s release of the ADP Employment Report.   Looking at the last data point in a vacuum suggests there’s trouble brewing for the economy. But the year-over-year trend suggests otherwise, which is encouraging. All the more so when you consider that the temporary effects of two hurricanes probably played a role in last month’s slowdown in hiring.
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Bismark Bismarck may have been misquoted when he reportedly said “laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.” Whoever is the source, the observation applies to estimating expected returns. The end result is forever in high demand, but the details for generating the numbers can get messy.
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