Hi Folks.
Well, the Fed finally raised rates by a quarter of a point and the market most definitely reacted. It reacted up and it reacted down. The good news is there really isn't much left out there to get in the way of decent price action until the Christmas holidays. So as my Nana used to say, Make hay while the sun shines. For our purposes, that means no days off from trading until Thanksgiving gets here in late November. It's been a while since we had a clear road ahead of us for trading, so lets not squander it.
Now on with the show.
SUNDAY: A typical Sunday start. Japan has a bank holiday (Respect for the Aged Day, which sounds like a pretty good holiday to me since I'm pretty sure I qualify as "aged" these day...at least according to the girl at Taco Bell who keeps offering me the free Senior Drink when I visit). Great Britain has their Rightmove Housing Price Index at 7:01 p.m. my time (midnight :01 in GB) so the rule about don't bother with news that drops when the target country is in bed comes into play here, and lastly we have the New Zealand Credit Card Spending y/y number, which typically comes and goes without notice on all the NZ charts. So for the whatever week in a row (20? 30?) we have a Sunday Open you can ignore, news-wise.
MONDAY: Asian/London Session: Today we get something I don't recall ever seeing before. The German Buba report at "tentative", the second Japanese Bank Holiday (Citizen's Day, for anyone upset that the aged had their own holiday yesterday) and Bullock from the Royal Bank of Australia speaks at some event in Sydney at 11:10 p.m. my time. 3 entries and no numbers attached.
USA Session: Goolsbee from the Fed speaks at some rubber chicken luncheon in London at 6:30 a.m. my time. So the 4th and final entry on the calendar for the 24 hour period covering Monday and not a single number to come out of it. As I said in the A/L session, I do not recall ever seeing this happen before.
TUESDAY: Asian/London Session: So we finally get some numbers today, but they're all trash. Great Britain gets the Public Sector Net Borrowing number at 2:00 a.m., followed by the CBI Industrial Order Expectations number. Neither will move price more than 10 pips so they can be ignored. At 8:30 Canada drops their National Housing Price Index, and that is one of those lower tier numbers that never did much to begin with (8, 16, and 11 pip over the last 3 months). EUR Consumer Confidence at 10:00 a.m. my time, which is 4 p.m. locally (end of day) so you know that one is on the Pay No Mind list. Australia gets their own Flash Manufacturing and Services PMI numbers but we now know those are a huge bust worldwide and can be ignored. Finally, Japan weighs in with yet another holiday, this one in celebration of the Autumnal Equinox. All Passes, all the time.
USA Session: That ADP Weekly Employment Change number at 8:15, which no one trades, followed by the Richmond Manufacturing Index at 10:00, which no one trades, followed by Fed Speak at 10:05 (Williams) which no one can trade even if they wanted to, and finally the API Oil Report at 4:30 p.m., which drops after everyone has effectively gone home for the day. So 4 entries and no one cares, for the second day in a row.
WEDNESDAY: Asian/London Session: Germany leads us off with a warning that somewhere in the next 10 days they plan to drop both Import Prices and Retail Sales numbers. Thanks for the warning. Then we get all the Flash Manufacturing and Services numbers, which can be summed up as not worth more than 20 pips over 2-3 hours so simply not worth worrying about. Japan drops theirs at 8:30 pm but you still should not care. Finally Australia releases their Employment Change number, which has produced a whopping 12, 4, and 4 pips over the last 3 months. Safest Pass on the board.
USA Session: Flash Manufacturing and Services PMI at 9:45 (the fake one traders have been ignoring for as long as it's been dropping) followed by Crude Oil at 10:30. Oil traders rejoice! Everyone else, Pass.
THURSDAY: Asian/London Session: The Swiss lead off with their Interest Rate decision. Their current rate is 0.00% and the zeros have remained in place since June of 2025, which might explain why traders were only able to muster up 11, 10, and 17 pips from the last 3 decisions. The rate is expected to remain at the same 0.00% level, so there is no reason to think trader response will get any better. Pass. A lot of useless junk until you get to the 8:30 CAD Retail Sales number, which again, FF has deemed to be Beige Folder worthy, but the last three pip counts landing at 9, 10, and 13 tell a different story. And that story ends with Pass. Basically just Fed Speak after that, so in spite of both Red and Beige folder numbers dropping, it looks pretty dismal for number powered price action today.
USA Session: For you very early risers, Williams is still Fed Speaking in London, this time at 4:10 a.m. As for the real numbers, not wanting to be ignored, Unemployment Claims (also a Beige Folder number) drops at 8:30, along with Current Account ( a non-event type number). Over the last 3 weeks Unemployment dropped 21, 36, and 11 pips. 21 was paired with a bunch of numbers, most of which don't carry any weight, so the 21 looks like a legit reaction to an Unemployment number that only missed by 1k (206k actual v 205k expected) while the 36 was paired with the PPI, which I can pretty much guarantee was the impetus behind the 36 pip move. Amazingly enough, the 11 pip move happened today when the number came in at 193k against 207k expected. You'd think that kind of a miss would generate more activity than the 21 that rose from almost hitting the target in the bullseye, but no. I'm still not convinced this is a number worth trading, and today all we get as support is Current Account (usually good for 0-3 pips). So I say Pass but if you want to roll the dice, be my guest. The rest of the day is more Fed Speak at 8:50, New Home Sales at 10:00, even more Fed Speak at 10:10, with NatGas at 10:30. If you like trading the news, this is likely not the day you want to be engaged, but maybe Unemployment will come through for you.
FRIDAY: Asian/London Session: A handful of EUR numbers at 2:00 and 4:00 which can be safely ignored. And that's the end of the A/L session
USA Session: Not any better for the US Session. Bookended by Fed Speak at 5:15 a.m. (yes, Williams is still running his mouth in England) and 2:00 p.m. (Hammack at some rubber chicken event in Germany, where it is 8 or 9 pm local time). In between we get Durable Goods Orders (Core and Overall) at 8:30 a.m. (25, 10, and 19...but before you rush for the Buy or Sell button, the two decent numbers dropped when added into mornings where the Core PCE, GDP and some Beige Folder numbers also dropped simultaneously...that 10 was when it was all by its lonesome...so don't expect a great result today because it's all alone yet again) followed by the Revised UofM numbers at 10:00. The last 3 numbers from this group came in at 11, 18, and 65 pips. Again, don't get excited because the 65 came in at the same time Fed Head Warsh was speaking to the press at the Jackson Hole Spa Weekend they do every year and he casually mentioned a pair of rate moves were in the offing. Turns out one of those moves was the quarter point bump we saw last week. He's not speaking today, so figure we are back to the 11-18 pip range. On a Friday. With nothing else of any significance on calendar. If you need me to say it I will. Pass.
And with that we come to the end of another (hopefully profitable) week. See you back here next Sunday.
Jeff
