The Week Ahead

It took one week of softer data and a few Fed officials saying they could wait. Then the September jobs report sealed it: 29,000 new jobs, against forecasts of roughly 84,000 to 90,000.

What I find interesting is which half of the story did the work. The hike got priced out on the labor side of the Fed's mandate. This week the inflation side gets its turn.

The CPI headline is expected to jump, but everyone knows that already. It is in the price. So the number that gets screenshotted at 8:30 is probably the least informative one in the report.

• If core stays quiet, a hot headline is just an energy shock passing through. December stays the expected hike and October stays closed.
• If core runs hot, the market has to reopen a meeting it closed less than two weeks ago. $BTC would be absorbing that from the mid 80s, where it has been stuck for weeks.

The unlock calendar is light, so token supply is not this week's story.

Markets rarely get hurt by the number everyone is watching. They get hurt by the conclusion they reached quickly and stopped questioning.

October came off the table in about a week.