Taking Care of Biz. Co’s are taking care of biz and focusing on profits. US job openings fell in Jul to their lowest levels since the start of 2021. Layoffs rose. So, labor is not happy, for sure. They don’t love to work at nothin’ all day. The 10-yr UST yield is now higher than

Summer Lovin'. Olivia NJ and Travolta sang it best. The post Labor Day sell-off of $NVDA led the overall tech sell-off with a record drop in market cap terms, per @BBG, Reuters, CNBC and every outlet on the planet. Tell me more, tell me more? OK, well things got worse as $NVDA

Upside Down. Jack Johnson may be onto something. There’s a surge in small biz applications with improved sentiment and amid falling inflation (Reuters ). But we caution they should proceed carefully… although one candidate is proposing a ten-fold increase in the small business

China. Stocks in China were lower Wed. Hang Seng (1.10%), Shanghai (0.67%), Shenzhen (0.51%), ChiNext (0.11%). The country may cut interest rates on as much as $5.3trn of mortgages in two steps to reduce their impact on banks, per @BBG. Plus, their central bank is expected to

Cool Charts. Sourced by BTIG from various noted sources.

Shaken, Not Stirred. It was Bond day. ~30 companies tapped corporate bond markets Tues—the busiest day on record, per @BBG.

Totally Gross. Gross exposure is near the upper band and net is headed up, so $GS would assume there could be some de-grossing if this volatility continues.

Crude Joke. Crude rose when OPEC+ delegates noted they may delay plans to increase supplies, after prices crashed to the lowest since last year. Earlier, WTI slid below $70.

Overloading. Firms are raising record sums for real estate secondary funds in hunt for property bargains. Anyone else sense overloading? Per the The New York Times . Know who else is overloading? Quant leverage.

Slow Down. ISM is slowing down but not yet in recession territory. $WFC thinks it will pick up post election.

WhatsApp Car Crash. SEC fined S&P and Moody's b/c they failed to keep proper electronic communications as part of a WhatsApp probe, per @BBG.

Japan. The core mgmt. and most board members of Nippon Steel will be wearing Satin Jackets in the afterparty if its purchase of US Steel goes through, as the co says they’ll become be US citizens, per Reuters . In Japan, equities fell hard overnight, with the Nikkei closing

25 or 50? Rate options traders increased bets that the Fed will start its easing show with a 50bps rate cut this mo, per Bloomberg. Bank of America News commented that there’s a lot of wood to chop before now and Nov, so traders aren’t totally focused on the US election…like

CTA Pause? UBS notes that after having bought ~$200mm of bond Dv01, sold ~$200bn of USD, and sold ~$90bn of stocks before buying back ~$60bn since mid-Jul, CTAs are likely to pause in Sep.

What Are You Implying? @JPmorgan notes the 14% implied EPS acceleration between Q1 and Q4 for S&P500 consensus projections is steep. Just sayin’

Bellow vs Growl. @JPmorgan outlined the bull case: soft landing macro data (NFP 150k with dovish CPI), consumers keep spending, positive fund flows offsetting typical negative seasonality flows, improved investor sentiment with improving earnings outlooks, Fed cuts leading to

Does Manufacturing Matter? We’ll release our just THINK about it podcast with a prominent macro leader Darius Dale this weekend, but he actually answers this question similar to the data shown here. (Not so much here in the US anymore after we shipped all our jobs overseas during

AI Scuttlebutt. Sounds like OpenAI co-founder Sutskever has a new safety-focused AI startup SSI that raised $1bn, per Reuters. On a completely unrelated AI note, here is an interesting chart.

Interesting Development. There’s some scrutiny on NAV loans across the pond, which is when p/e shops get additional leverage across their portfolio from banks, which is on top of the leverage they get for individual companies. Stay tuned, folks. The UK is asking banks for more

Such an EZ Tease. A former ECB chief (Draghi) teased an EZ competitiveness report and warned of nightmares without reform, per the FT. It has to be hard having a former colleague dishing dirt in the public and getting publicity, right? In somewhat related news, German factory