NEWS
Soft Landing Causes Late-Week Surge

Better-than-expected employment data fortified the “soft landing” calls and helped the U.S. major indexes recover into slightly positive territory for the week. Below the surface, the speculative activity continues, with companies like AMTD Digital, Phoenix Motor, and others dominating the streams alongside mega-cap tech which marched onwards. 👀

Today's issue covers September’s employment improvements, the surging small-cap building supply stock, and two troubled transport stocks. 📰

Here’s the S&P 500 heatmap. 9 of 11 sectors closed green, with financials (+1.69%) leading and real estate (-0.66%) lagging.

And here are the closing prices: 

Most bullish/bearish symbols on Stocktwits at the close: 📈 $KNTK, $ALTM, $APOG, $BQ, $NCNC 📉 $CALM, $RKT, $BLDR, $SAVE, $TRVN*

*If you’re a business and want to access this data via our API, email us.

ECONOMY
Today’s Labor Market Realization 💡

U.S. job creation was much better than anticipated during September. It rose 254,000, besting an upwardly revised 159,000 from August and the consensus estimate of 150,000. Unemployment ticked down to 4.10%, quelling fears that it could accelerate quickly after this summer’s uptick. 📊

Average hourly earnings rose 0.4% MoM and 4% YoY, topping estimates, while the average workweek ticked lower by 0.1 hour to 34.2 hours. The tight, but not too tight labor market is keeping wage growth above inflation, but not high enough to send prices into an upward spiral.

Job creation shifted strongly to full-time positions, with the hospitality industry adding 69,000 positions during the month after averaging just 14,000 over the last year. 🍽️

Overall, this week’s mix of employment data showed that companies are not rushing to lay people off or fire them. But they’re also not hiring at breakneck paces like during the pandemic.

As a result, the labor market may be in a “just right” place, allowing the economy to hum along without inflation ticking back up. At least, that’s the hope… 🙏

In today’s Chart Art newsletter, Stocktwits user @chessNwine posed an important question for this environment, so we’ve included an excerpt below. 👇

CHART OF THE DAY
What If Bonds Haven’t Bottomed For The Cycle… 🤔

With today’s nonfarm payrolls report showing a stronger-than-expected labor market in the U.S., some market participants are beginning to wonder whether the risk in bonds remains to the downside. 😬

That’s the question Stocktwits user @chessNwine posed to the community today, showing the 20+ year Treasury ETF $TLT with a potential “bear flag” pattern that may suggest further downside ahead.

With the Fed thinking that inflation has been tamed, continued strength in the economy and an uptick in inflation could cause a rush out of bonds right when everyone seemed to agree that rates were finished rising. Time will tell, but it’s a possibility (or risk) worth keeping an open mind towards. 👀