Last night, the U.S. October Challenger job cuts surged 175% year-on-year to 153,000, with layoffs this year up 65% compared to last year. Pretty curious how Powell can still be so hawkish: inflation seems to be a bigger concern than the labor market. At least Goolsbee's remarks were more influenced by the absence of inflation data. Of course, with the current government shutdown, key data hasn’t been released, leaving both the government and markets in the fog. As for employment: This week’s ADP private payrolls report came in higher than expected and previous values, showing moderate growth; The employment index in ISM’s PMI data was slightly above expectations and remained stable, without further weakening; Not sure if these two data points gave the Fed hawks more confidence, or if they’ve already seen the nonfarm payrolls data and are basing their stance on that. Of course, the biggest risk ahead is still inflation. As discussed earlier, whether it continues September’s below-expectation trend or comes in higher than expected will determine the stance of the Fed voters in December. In Wednesday’s ISM non-manufacturing PMI sub-index data: both the orders index and the prices index exceeded expectations, indicating that while demand is rebounding, inflationary pressures are also becoming more pronounced. The input prices index rose to 70, hitting a three-year high, showing that the service sector is bearing greater cost pressures from U.S. import tariffs. However, Monday’s ISM manufacturing report showed that price pressures for manufacturers continue to ease, and this trend may eventually pass through to the service sector. As for the final data, we’ll just have to wait and see. This post is sponsored by meme trading tool http://(xxyy.io) ｜ Fast trading, packed with features, monitor on-chain wallets with @useXXYYio